Becoming an adventurer by copying monster abilities

The abandoned quarry in front of us is quite large.

This is a huge basin carved out by human hands, covered with crisscrossing excavation marks.

Although it has been abandoned for who knows how many years, the bottom is overgrown with waist-high weeds and thorny vines.

But the rusty, massive pulley systems, the rails half-buried in the soil, and the broken mine cars scattered everywhere still silently tell the story of the prosperity this place once enjoyed.

Following the markings on the association's map, Luke headed straight for a complex of buildings constructed from massive gray stones, located in the center of the quarry basin.

This area used to be a large stone house area where miners rested or stored their mining tools.

Luke slowed his pace and curiously strolled around the half-collapsed stone houses.

The entire abandoned quarry was deserted, with only the hollow sound of the wind passing through the cracks in the rocks, sounding like a sob.

It seems he arrived early.

But soon, Luca sensed an extremely discordant and eerie feeling.

It's unusually quiet here.

Although this place is nominally located on the inner edge of Sunset Forest, according to other people's descriptions...

This is an extremely prominent haven and landmark on the map; there shouldn't be a complete absence of people.

The first possibility is that, coincidentally, no adventurers have stopped here to rest in the past two days.

The goblins who liked to nest in the ruins all moved away.

The second possibility is that something has probably changed here.

Luke unhesitatingly favored the second possibility.

He gripped the sword tightly and began searching the dilapidated stone corridor, house by house.

When he arrived at what appeared to be the largest stone house deep within the complex, something unexpected happened.

The moment Luke pushed open the heavy, half-closed wooden door, he could clearly feel it.

An extremely faint, invisible magical barrier gently passed through his body.

A faint cracking sound came from beside my ear.

Immediately afterwards, my nasal cavity, which had not smelled anything unusual before, was filled with a strong, nauseating stench.

Having experienced so many battles, Luke quickly recognized the smell as a mixture of blood and excrement.

That invisible magical membrane seemed to have completely isolated the smells and sounds in the stone house.

Luke gripped the hilt of his sword and entered the stone corridor, the aroma growing stronger.

Soon, he saw the location of the smells.

Several armored adventurers were lying haphazardly on the cold stone ground.

The ground was covered in filth, and they huddled painfully in their own blood and excrement.

These people were not dead; they were clutching their heads tightly with their hands, their eyes rolled back, and their facial muscles contorted in agony.

His body would occasionally twitch and tremble violently, as if he were experiencing some terrible nightmare.

Beneath a load-bearing stone pillar at the deepest part of the stone chamber, a man dressed in a gray mage's robe was breathing heavily.

Several empty medicine bottles were scattered on the ground around him.

Hearing footsteps approaching, the man in the mage's robe suddenly opened his eyes.

He tried to raise his cane with a wary expression, but his arm fell limply to the ground as soon as he lifted it.

He looked like he was at his last gasp.

With a violent cough, several pieces of dark red flesh, streaked with blood, were coughed up from his throat.

It is clear that the lungs and internal organs have suffered severe damage.

Luke did not approach rashly, but kept his distance with his half-sword in hand.

Look at the other person with a calm gaze to indicate that you have no ill intentions at the moment.

"What's going on?" Luke asked.

The gray-robed man leaned against the stone pillar, his chest heaving violently. After a full half minute, he spoke in a weak voice:

"A terrifying banshee was hiding here, and we accidentally stumbled upon it..."

Through the man's fragmented account, Luke quickly pieced together what had happened.

After completing their mission, their adventure team planned to rest for the night at this quarry on their way back.

I also came to check if there were any low-level monsters like goblins that I could scavenge for some loot.

Unexpectedly, deep within the quarry lurked a terrifying banshee from the bottomless abyss.

The piercing scream, powerful enough to tear apart the soul, instantly rendered all the adventurers present, who had no magical resistance, incapable of fighting.

He was the only mage in the team.

With the slight immunity granted by his profession, he barely managed to break free from that mental shock.

However, facing a powerful abyssal creature alone, his fragile body clearly left him with no chance of fighting back.

He was already seriously injured in just one encounter.

"We should have been completely wiped out, thankfully..."

It's unclear whether the treatment is starting to take effect or if the patient has entered a period of temporary respite.

The spellcaster's complexion regained some color.

"A group of high-level adventurers suddenly appeared and rescued us. The banshee, seeing that things were not going well, fled. The adventurers left us here and chased after the banshee."

The high-level adventurer team the mage mentioned should be the team of "Murphy Lorian" that Luca wants to meet this time.

The fact that the other party chose the abandoned quarry as the location suggests that they learned through intelligence that the Banshee was operating in the nearby forest.

Unexpectedly, this fearsome banshee actually made the quarry her lair.

As it turned out, these unlucky guys just happened to walk right in, prematurely igniting the battle.

Luke had no idea where Murphy's group had gone after their prey, or when they would return with the carcass.

The only option at the moment is to continue waiting in this quarry.

Throughout the conversation, the mage leaning against the stone pillar kept his gaze fixed on Luke.

His eyes revealed an undisguised vigilance and defensiveness.

After all, they were in the middle of nowhere, facing a group of elderly, weak, sick and disabled people who were powerless to even kill a chicken.

As a strange adventurer who suddenly intrudes, would you ruthlessly kill them and rob them of all their belongings?

It all depends on the adventurer's sense of good and evil.

And coincidentally, adventurers at the bottom of society often don't have a clear sense of good and evil.

Therefore, in the eyes of most adventurers, this group of people is nothing more than a pile of glittering gold coins that can be safely harvested.

The mage just specifically mentioned that a high-level adventurer team rescued them.

It's actually a very subtle form of deterrence, hoping that the person in front of you will be wary and restrained after hearing it.

His subtext was:

If those high-level adventurers who dare to hunt down even the Banshee find out that you killed the person they just casually saved, you might face their wrath.

However, this shrewd spellcaster was clearly overthinking things.

Although Luke liked money, he still retained some of the kind and simple values ​​he had as a modern person in his previous life.

He really couldn't do something so shameless and degrading.

Seeing the other party's wariness, Luke didn't intend to linger and immediately turned to leave.

After all, the smell here is just too awful.

"etc!"

After discovering that Luke had no interest in them and was even preparing to leave with disdain, they realized that Luke was not interested in them at all.

The monk was relieved and, despite the excruciating pain in his lungs, hurriedly called out to Luke's retreating figure.

"Your intrusion into this room has broken my protective magic, and I am currently unable to activate it again."

Luke turned around and looked at him curiously.

What does that mean? Does it mean I have to take responsibility?

"I hope that while I regain my ability to use magic, you can help me protect this place temporarily. After all, although the Banshee of Dread is gone, there are still a group of Fearful Demons remaining in the quarry. If they discover the presence of this place, I hope you can help me to hold them off."

Having spoken such a long passage in one breath, the monk was panting heavily, seemingly exhausted.

"Of course, I will give you a generous reward afterward that will definitely satisfy you. You know, as a spellcaster, I... am not short of money."

"Fear of demons?"

Upon hearing this word, Luke's mind first conjured up the group of ugly monsters he had encountered in the forest earlier, monsters whose courage seemed even smaller than goblins.

Then I remembered Marilyn, the owner of the Moss Hut in Twilight.

I wonder how much more enthusiastic that halfling boss is about these guys.

If I could bring back a few cowardly corpses and give them to her, it would definitely be more profitable than killing several nests of goblins.

Anyway, he had originally planned to wait for Murphy's team to return in this quarry.

Luke certainly wouldn't refuse the chance to earn an extra sum of money.

"Okay, but I must state in advance that I will leave immediately if I encounter any particularly dangerous situations."

With the help of [Flirting and Evasion] and the enhanced leg muscles of a dire wolf, Luke was confident that he could easily escape from here.

There was no reason for those monsters to ignore these defenseless wounded and chase after them.

"I completely understand. It's only natural. Even if we hadn't encountered any danger, I would have paid you afterwards."

Luke's ability to say such things actually increased the mage's goodwill and trust.

The monk was seriously injured, and even though he had been given healing medicine, his recovery was still very slow.

This is probably also related to the fact that the other party, as a mage, has relatively weak physical attributes.

After all, not everyone can be like Luke, with all attributes increasing in a balanced way.

It's like the "bucket" in those Soulslike games.

The two chatted idly from a distance in the dimly lit stone chamber.

The mage's name was Archie, and two of the adventurers on the ground who were still trapped in a state of fear were his teammates.

"How long will this situation last?"

"It's hard to say. Although my teammates are also professionals, they have almost no training in magic defense."

The Banshee of Terror is a level 6 challenge monster with a mastery of mental magic far exceeding that of ordinary spellcasters. Without healing magic, it might take several hours to recover.

What Archie didn't explicitly say was that the other adventurers lying on the ground without any class ranking would probably not regain their senses for a day or two.

Moreover, if there is no healer or church to help with the healing.

It may even leave behind some severe psychological trauma that can never be recovered, and one's life is completely ruined.

Just as the two were talking.

Perhaps it was because Luke did not deliberately conceal his presence when he first entered the quarry.

Or, as Archie said, the smell here is too strong after the barrier of the warning magic is removed.

Outside, on the abandoned plaza, the sounds of hurried footsteps and low growls, like those of wild beasts, gradually rose up.

That familiar smell of sulfur began to faintly appear in the air.

The group of cowardly demons, driven by the banshee of fear, are slowly approaching this side.

"Are those guys here?"

Archie, who had been on high alert, keenly noticed the instantaneous change in Luke's eyes.

Archie understood that the other party had sensed an enemy approaching.

"They should have arrived, and there are quite a few of them."

Luke slung his half-sword behind his back and picked up a long-handled warhammer from beside the fallen adventurer.

Made of stainless steel, it is surprisingly heavy.

Even with his current strength, he needs to use both hands to swing it more easily.

"Then... I'll leave everything to you. Please be very careful."

Archie watched as Luke weighed his teammate's weapon in his hand.

The ease with which he swung his weapon was something even his warrior friend, who had become a professional, couldn't achieve.

I felt a little more at ease.

Luke gripped his mace, pushed open the door, and went out.

The quarry basin outside is much more spacious, with no narrow walls to obstruct the view.

This would undoubtedly allow Luca, who needs to wield heavy weapons with wide, sweeping movements, to perform even more freely.

After passing through the dark stone corridor, we arrived at the open space in front of the stone house.

At this moment, the midday sun was obscured by thick dark clouds, making the quarry appear somewhat gloomy.

In front of us was a depression that had previously been empty and filled with rubble.

There are already more than a dozen short monsters with a sickly bluish-gray body and extremely twisted and thick limbs.

Drooling with disgust, they crookedly and rapidly approached the stone house.

Luke was quite adept at dealing with these cowardly demons.

When a sharp weapon cuts open their bodies, it releases a large amount of toxic fumes.

Therefore, upon hearing that demons had appeared there, Luke chose to use a blunt weapon like a warhammer to fight.

Just in case, he put a bottle of antidote in a pocket closer to his chest.

At the same time, they took the lead and went to meet them.

Deal with these despicable and cowardly creatures who have lost their high-ranking demon leadership.

As long as they display unparalleled ferocity and terrifying fighting power, they will understand that numerical superiority cannot determine the outcome of the battle.

Then, these demons will soon disperse like the tide.

Therefore, Luke directly activated [Imaginary Manifestation], empowering the ogre.

Using this heavy blunt weapon, the increased strength and physique will allow him to fight more easily and for longer periods.

With both hands gripping the long handle, the heavy hammerhead whistled past.

A cowardly demon that had just run up to Luke took the blow head-on with its face.

The rather large skull was instantly smashed to pieces.

His blue head deflated like a punctured balloon.

Immediately following, under tremendous force.

This short, cowardly demon, already lifeless, was knocked away like a golf ball with a single blow.

Luke's eyes lit up.

The feeling of killing monsters with a blunt weapon seems pretty good?