Infinite Mana - Chapter 218: The Price of Winning (Patreon)

Sieghart had no idea how many goblins he had killed by the time the city finally became quiet. He only knew that bodies filled several streets, ruined weapons covered the ground, and the nearest districts had completely emptied.

A couple of hours had passed since the point-blank Giant Fireball, though Sieghart could only estimate the time by exhaustion and the slow changes in the cavern’s distant lights. First Aid had remained active almost constantly. His left arm was still a mess. The spell had restored circulation, closed open tissue, and repaired enough damaged muscle that he could move his fingers again, but the skin remained horribly discolored across several sections.

The worst burns had been deep enough that ordinary healing became frustratingly slow. Some areas were raw red, others pale and newly formed, while several patches still looked darker than everything around them despite repeated applications. Sieghart knew exactly what would make the process easier. A dedicated healing spell for burns could target damaged skin, ruined nerves, fluid loss, and heat-damaged tissue without forcing him to rebuild everything through First Aid.

Unfortunately, the System had not allowed him to create one. He had already tried separating the concept several times while healing, but no new branch or spell appeared regardless of how clearly he understood the problem.

That did not mean Sieghart was helpless. Healing Magic still responded to intent even without a recognized spell, and he had enough experience manipulating mana through damaged tissue to manually guide the restoration process. The difference was efficiency. First Aid possessed a proper magical structure and could improve through levels, while the improvised burn treatment remained something Sieghart had to perform consciously every time without receiving systematic advancement.

He slowly ran Healing Mana along the worst section of his forearm. Instead of commanding the spell to repair everything at once, he focused on restoring healthy tissue layer by layer while keeping the newly formed skin flexible. The process worked. It also demanded far more concentration than First Aid, and nothing appeared before him afterward. No experience, no spell level, no permanent parameter gain, and no confirmation beyond his arm looking slightly less horrifying.

Sieghart flexed his fingers carefully and immediately felt several sections pull unpleasantly. The arm functioned, which was already an enormous improvement, but using it normally in another serious fight would be a spectacularly bad idea.

“I need better preparation for surprises like this. Protection is useful, healing is useful, and unlimited mana is useful, but none of those things replace having equipment designed to stop me from cooking my own arm.”

He looked around the destroyed street while saying it. The Champion’s corpse remained where it had fallen, though the smaller goblins that survived the later bombardment had either fled deeper into the city or stopped approaching entirely. Sieghart had continued hunting the nearby hostile groups after the immediate fight, though “hunting” eventually became generous terminology. Most confrontations ended with Lava Spheres striking before the goblins could organize another formation.

He had stopped caring about stealth by then. Once half the district had heard explosions, watched their Champion die, and seen molten rock covering multiple streets, pretending he could return to quiet infiltration became pointless.

The resulting cores accumulated quickly. Sieghart absorbed every usable one Magic Vision identified, gaining enough Personal Experience that another level notification finally appeared sometime during the cleanup, shortly after another small group collapsed beneath a Lava Sphere barrage.

[ Level Increased: 17 → 18.]

Sieghart had barely reacted when it happened. Normally another level would have earned at least several minutes of calculation about free points and future builds, but his arm hurt too much for celebratory mathematics.

Lava Sphere advanced even faster. Repeated bombardment against living targets, shields, armor, walls, and clustered goblins gave the spell far more practical experience than roadside practice ever could, especially once Sieghart stopped worrying about conserving the surrounding buildings.

Additional notifications followed throughout the fighting until Sieghart eventually stopped reading every one immediately and concentrated instead on making sure nothing with a weapon reached his injured side while First Aid continued repairing him.

[Lava Sphere has reached Level 12.][Dexterity permanently increased by 3 per level.]

That meant another fifteen Dexterity beyond what he had possessed at Level Seven. The improvement was noticeable, especially whenever he manipulated several Lava Spheres in slightly different trajectories at once. Under normal circumstances, Sieghart would have been delighted. A new Personal Level, five Lava Sphere levels, dozens of cores, combat experience, and a dead Champion represented excellent progression for one dungeon visit.

He was not particularly happy. Every time he glanced at his left arm, the thrill of those gains disappeared beneath the reminder that one desperate decision had nearly cost him the entire limb. Progress felt less impressive when parts of his skin still looked as though someone had held them inside a furnace. Healing would fix the damage eventually, but the lesson had already been unpleasantly permanent.

Sieghart dismissed the last System notification and looked toward the deeper city. He had learned enough here for one visit, attracted far too much attention, and injured himself badly enough that continuing would cross from stubbornness into stupidity. It was time to leave. Before doing that, however, abandoning every useful piece of equipment scattered around the battlefield would offend both his practical instincts and the increasingly strong merchant habits he had developed.

Sieghart began gathering anything worth carrying. Most ordinary goblin weapons were crude, but several spearheads used decent metal, and a few swords had enough structural integrity to survive being reforged or covered in runic modifications.

He ignored badly damaged bows and collected only the ones with reinforced limbs or unusually strong strings. Several shields also survived, though their weight made them less attractive unless he stripped the useful metal bands later. Telekinesis handled most of the work while Sieghart kept his injured arm close to his body. Weapons floated behind him in bundles as he searched through the Champion’s immediate surroundings.

The smaller goblins had carried serviceable equipment. The Champion had carried something else entirely. Even after being exposed to Giant Fireballs, lightning, impacts, and the final point-blank explosion, its cleaver remained largely intact.

Sieghart approached the weapon first. The enormous blade lay partly embedded in broken stone, its jagged edge darkened by heat while traces of blood and burned material still clung near the lower half. He wrapped Telekinesis around the handle and pulled. The cleaver rose slowly, revealing just how absurdly heavy it was. Even with Muscle Reinforcement, using the thing normally would have been ridiculous for someone Sieghart’s size.

The metal itself interested him more than the weight. Magic Vision revealed dense mana residue spread through the blade, though he could not immediately identify any traditional runic inscription along the visible surface.

That was strange. The weapon looked too durable to be ordinary iron, especially after surviving attacks powerful enough to damage buildings and partially melt the Champion’s armor without snapping, cracking, or losing most of its edge. The shield was even more impressive. It had warped under repeated Giant Fireballs, but the central structure remained solid, and several sections still carried enough thickness to stop attacks that would have shattered normal equipment.

Sieghart lifted it beside the cleaver and compared the materials. Both appeared related, though the shield contained layered sections and internal reinforcement that suggested someone with far more skill than an average goblin had designed it.

“These are actually good. Annoyingly good. Which raises the obvious question of where the hell an underground goblin Champion got equipment better than half the weapons I’ve seen carried by ordinary human adventurers.”

He inspected the dead Champion afterward, searching for clues without finding much beyond damaged armor, several belts, and small pouches containing items that had mostly been destroyed during the fighting.

The armor matched the weapons in quality. Its plates were battered and repeatedly repaired, but the original craftsmanship looked too precise compared with the crude spears and swords used by ordinary patrols. Maybe stronger goblins possessed better smiths deeper inside the city. That explanation was entirely possible, especially after seeing workshops, organized patrols, and what looked like a functioning underground society capable of maintaining specialized fighters.

Another possibility was less comfortable. The Champion might have taken the equipment from adventurers, soldiers, or something else that had entered the dungeon long before Sieghart arrived and never managed to leave again. The size complicated that idea. Human equipment would not naturally fit an eight-foot goblin without extensive modification, and the shield had been built around proportions much larger than those of an ordinary person.

Sieghart stared toward the deeper districts again. The ancient city already raised enough questions about who had built it, and now the Champion’s equipment added another irritating mystery he did not have time to investigate properly. He secured the cleaver, shield, and the best collected weapons using Telekinesis before starting toward the upper passages. Carrying everything back to the carriage would be annoying, but leaving valuable equipment behind sounded worse.

His left arm continued glowing faintly beneath Healing Magic as he walked. The pain had decreased from unbearable to vicious, which Sieghart decided counted as progress even if his standards had clearly deteriorated.

He looked once more over the ruined district before leaving it behind. What began as a plan to test Fatigue Dart against goblins had somehow ended with an underground city partially destroyed, a Champion dead, and Sieghart carrying its weapons home.

That outcome felt increasingly normal, which bothered Sieghart almost as much as the burns covering his arm. He was not entirely sure whether becoming accustomed to disasters like this counted as experience or a very bad sign.