Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

The others nodded to Eddy, and Breyn disappeared from the spot, only to reappear a few seconds later behind the two goblins. By the time the group reached the entrance the two were dead, and Breyn entered the formation, sticking close to Adam.

Even though he had been shaken by Adam, he acknowledged his strength and instead of bearing a grudge he realized that the safest place would be next to him.

Breyn actually wasn't that bad of an assassin, he could be considered quite good, but the assassins sent after Adam were the best of the best, all of them had a good shot at becoming A Class. It could be said that with every assassin Adam killed, he was eliminating one more potential powerhouse.

Once the group entered the fortress, they almost couldn't see anything, it was way too dark in there. There were a few torches but they didn't help much.

It was because goblins, as night monsters, had a better night vision than the adventurers, and so for them the barely lit fortress was as bright as daylight.

Adam wasn't bothered though, although vision was important, for someone of his level in martial arts he could rely on his other senses, especially on hearing and touch.

The group expected this though and Louisa's staff glowed with a bright light, lightening the path ahead. Adam looked at her and asked "Isn't it too expensive to keep such a spell on?"

Louisa replied "It's not like we really have much of a choice, and I have MP Potions. If you are worried about my mana running out then don't get hit and give me your potions."

Adam smiled and said "Hay ma'am."

The others snickered and Louisa rolled her eyes as they continued deeper in the fortress. They finally met their first goblins after some walking, it was a team of warrior goblins, the most basic ones.

[Warrior Goblin] (Common, Level 20)

HP: 2000/2000

They screeched and rushed madly at the group. Adam saw his teammates turn abnormally tense, but he didn't understand why, this was only a small group of goblins…

As if he jinxed it, the next moment another group appeared from the darkness, and rushed toward the group, followed by another one, and another one.

A group of around 50 goblins now appeared in front of Adam and his group, with only loincloth hiding their genitals and blemished weapons.

The tide of goblins crashed into the dwarven twins, who were about as tall as the goblins, but they didn't move and instead were able to push the goblins back, allowing Eddy and Adam to attack the goblins ahead.

This was one of the advantages of fighting with Dwarven Monks, one can attack from above the dwarves instead of going around them.

Once the initial wave was pushed back, and the ones in front were injured, the goblins became one big crowd of goblins sticking to each other. The odor was honestly terrible, goblins weren't known for their hygiene.

However, because of how close they were to each other, the dwarven brothers couldn't block them all and thus had to push the goblins to their sides. Adam and Baugh were prepared for this, and stood in their way.

Five goblins came at Adam, and he activated [Mighty Strike]

-1321 HP! Cripple!

-500 HP!

-495 HP!

-510 HP!

Critical Hit! -1000 HP! Cripple!

The entire group of Goblins was sent flying back from where they came, crashing into their fellow goblins and lifting some stress from the brothers.

The rest wasn't long though as the goblins came back, angered, and hacked with everything they had at the group. The Dwarven Brothers, Baugh and Adam were able to hold the entire horde of goblins, and even if a few were able to go past them Eddy's sword was there to welcome them.

Whenever anyone's HP would get below 40%, Louisa was there to provide some healing, and as he fought Adam felt himself invigorated. It came from one of Louisa's supporting spells.

Ten minutes later only the group of adventurers was left, all the goblins laying on the ground, dead. The team had now left the formation and were looting the corpses. Another thing Adam discovered, the loot was shared with the NPCs, meaning that even if a lucky player were to find two powerful NPCs fighting, they wouldn't be able to get the loot of the loser as the winner would take it.

As he took the various ores and equipments Adam looked at his XP bar which had made good progress. By the look of it, he should level up to level 15 by the end of the fortress.

Adam did find a nice surprise though, and that was the goblins had a good drop rate for equipment destined to Berserkers, Knights and Monks.

They were all Level 20 Common Equipments though, so they weren't really interesting for him. However deeper in the fortress he might find enough equipments to replace the ones he had once he hits Level 20.

Unfortunately, it looked like he wouldn't get his helmet anytime soon. He was actually quite unlucky for not having found any helmet for himself yet. When he spawned earlier this morning there were already a few players in the city, and all of them had helmets.

After a moment Adam shrugged, he looked cooler without a helmet anyway, and the defense he would get from a Common Helmet wouldn't really change much.

Until now Adam noticed that Common Equipments only gave either Defense or Attack, Uncommon added AP to that, and Rare equipment came with skills. Only a special Uncommon accessory like the Geppo Ring added a skill and broke the rule.

Now that they had finished looting the corpses, they got back in formation. As they advanced deeper in the fortress Vastrik said "Adam, I am glad you are here to fight with us, or I fear this fortress would have proved itself impossible to be conquered!"

Adam smiled, he liked the dwarves. He replied "My pleasure, I would feel bad sitting there and doing nothing."

Vastrik laughed unnaturally quietly for a Dwarf, but he didn't want to aggro too many goblins because of his gruff voice. No matter their age, all dwarves seemed to have deep voices, probably something in their genes. For example, the Dwarven Brothers were barely older than 18 and still had deeper voices than most male adults on Earth.

"The Sands always said Northmen were fool headed barbarians, but you proved them otherwise Adam." Baugh suddenly talked. If Dwarves had deep voices then Orcs had raucous ones, even one as young as Baugh.

Actually everyone in the team was young, this was another thing Adam noticed, and that was that every Iron NPC was barely older than 18, except from the ones at the village. The only old ones he saw were at least Bronze Rank. This was because the Bronze Promotion couldn't be failed, and that one needed to do it at the lowest level possible. The more levels passed, and the weaker one would get.

Back to reality, the group continued walking in the fortress and fought against groups of goblins after groups of goblins. There were many more goblins than they initially thought, and it took them two entire hours to get to the end of the first layer and reach the stairs leading to the second layer.

They had left the corpses of many goblins behind them, and got a lot of loot. Adam had even leveled up to Level 15 already, and got plenty of Level 20 Common Equipments. Fortunately for him the inventory was really big and kept getting bigger with his level.

Apart from his level his skills had also all leveled up by one level except for Charge which he didn't use. He also got a Gold Coin from all the monsters he killed, but the nicest surprise was the multiple heath potions he got along the way, as well as the mana potions which they gave to Louisa.

Once they reached the stairs Eddy asked "We will stop here for now and repair our equipment with the sharpstones we bought. Adam, do you have any?"

Adam shook his head and Eddy took out a stone and gave it to Adam saying "Use this to repair your equipment, next time you are in the city don't forget to buy a bunch, they only cost 10 Coppers the piece and can be lifesavers."

Adam nodded and began sharpening his blade which had taken the most damage as he used it the most. He wished he had it back when he fought the Evil Abomination, he wouldn't have had to finish it with his fists.