Chapter 288 – Bones breaking.

‘Me and my bright ideas should have just gone to the city and waited for those damn platinum adventurers instead…’

Roland was in a world of pain as he scoured down into his underground workshop. His right hand was broken in several places while his left had multiple cracked bones. When he tried to protect Agni from a certain death he had almost been the one to kick the can. He did not expect the beam attack from an injured Lich to be this devastating. If his class was not a prestige one with an advanced multiplier he might have just lost both of his arms in the process.

Normally what he would need to do now was to either have a priest heal his wounds or douse his hands with healing potions. While wearing this heavy armor this wasn’t that easy, at most he could open his visor and try taking a sip which he was doing now. In his haste, he started splashing some of the potions he could get his hands between the joints of his armor in hopes of some of it reaching his hurting hands. Doing everything with a half-working left hand that hurt like hell was not making it easier either.

This event brought one thing to light at least. If he suffered any internal damage it was quite detrimental to have heavy armor that he couldn’t just toss to the side on him. In a sense, it became a prison of his own making, if it were his legs that were broken he would probably not have been able to get out of there in time to get some healing potions. Even though they were some of the costlier ones they would not work in an instant. He needed to make some space between the monster and himself.

“Shit…”

He cursed out at his own powerlessness, taking care of one tier 3 monster should have been something that he should have been capable of. His armor made him a lot stronger than a regular tier 2 class holder and he was over level hundred sixty, this coupled with an advanced stat multiplier should have leveled the playing fields but in the end, it didn’t. Even after the monster was weakened he still couldn’t take even one magical attack without being critically injured. The only things he could rely on were his traps and the divine crystals, one of which he was already running towards.

His steps were erratic and he was out of breath. Overloading the trap the skeleton was in and then saving Agni had taken a toll on his mind. His mana had dropped tremendously and the only reason that he didn’t pass out was thanks to his Resilience skill and pain resistance. This was only a bandaid as those skills would only allow him to power through the uncomfortable pain but wouldn’t actually heal him.

If he decided to punch the Lich with his broken hand it could turn into a stump. Even though this world had things like healing magic and potions they weren’t omnipotent. If his fingers were broken, muscles and ligaments torn, then even high-level potions would have trouble restoring the injuries to the previous state.

A craftsman’s hands were his lifeblood, if he couldn’t move his fingers in a dexterous way then creating high-quality products would be impossible. Directing mana to form runic traces was also done through the hands. Mana flowed out of a person’s fingers in a specific way and if this was disrupted it could be disastrous.

Perhaps implementing some type of self-healing protocol into his armor was in order. Roland had pondered on including small packets of healing potion in various locations within the armor. By triggering small spells through the runes these could be opened to douse the affected areas.

However, this was easier said than done, during combat such a packet would usually come undone by itself due to outside shocks and be wasted in the process. Attaching them was also a problem and would produce weak spots in the armoring.

“Fuck… it hurts, are these potions really the best I could afford?”

His mind was snapped back to reality as he pressed a button to close down the metal door to the workshop. Even pressing it with his somewhat good hand was a problem. The healing concoctions were slowly working but it would take at least fifteen minutes for him to regain feeling in his injured hands. Powering through the pain was his only option if he wanted to get out of here alive.

‘Will that thing even continue chasing?’

Roland was backing off and for a moment he stopped in his tracks. The previous explosion coupled with the Lich going berserk sent his monitoring system ballistic. Whenever a lot of mana particles from spells were in the air it produced some interference. In this case, however, he didn’t need to rely on the signal magnifiers and could use himself as the radar basis. There he could see a lone monster dot moving towards his home without being held back by the golems all too much.

‘I guess it’s really mad now, probably moved on from an enraged state to being totally berserk… but this could be what I needed.’

There was some time before the monster reached him but it seemed that it was dead set on following after him. This hate that the monster felt for him could still be used against it just like it did during the first trap. His escape tunnel was still there, this one wasn’t as long or sturdy as the one that he made leading to the dungeon but he did make some preparations there.

‘I have one chance…’

The yellow crystal in his hand was the only one that he had left. The monster already proved itself to be too much to handle for regular runic spells but holy ones were extremely effective. It was like poison to the undead and even though the Lich made it out of the entrapment it would still continue to receive some damage over time. This coupled with the berserk state could be just the thing that he needed to end all of this.

But there was also another option, just leaving everything be and getting out of here as fast as he could. What he was hoping to protect was already partially destroyed, the monster was running rampart above ground. After tearing through his defenses it would probably find the entrance here. The inside of his workshop wasn’t as well protected as well as the path leading to it.

He could just not have potential explosive hazards underground where he could be buried alive. There was an option of blowing the place up which would make following him a lot harder. Overloading some of the magical items that were here could produce a potentially deadly reaction. This could be enough to kill the already injured Lich or at least keep it from finding the escape route. This plan was probably the safest bet and while the monster was confused about his location he could make his escape.

The only thing that could thwart his escape were the unwelcome guests that started gathering above ground. While the mana particles in the air were jamming some of the mapping feed not everything had been lost. During his use of the Parallel Thinking trait, he was able to go through multiple problems at once and also watch the map like a hawk. On it he saw many small dots approaching the forest and going toward his home.

‘It must have called for backup…’

During the Lich’s near-death experience it wouldn’t be strange for it to call for help. Perhaps there was some inbuilt assistance switch into the monster when it suffered critical damage that would call back all of its minions. The black one that saved him was just closely following behind it as a backup plan but now all the rest had been called back.

This put Roland in a dangerous situation, if he went with the self-destruct option for his workshop, he would find himself exposed to the monster army. The explosion would probably give him a big enough smoke screen to sneak away from the Lich but it would certainly find him quite fast with so many eyes out there.

While the monster was not in a state to probably produce that tracking spell it used before, it didn’t need to. As long as it was close to its many minions it would be able to feel what they were feeling. Roland already had a unique mana pattern that the monster was attuned to so if he was spotted then the Lich would give chase.

For the time being, he had two exit routes. One was a shorter pathway in which he left his last surprise for the monster and then there was the tunnel to the dungeon. Heading toward the dungeon wasn’t such a great idea. It wasn’t much different than using the other exit and he would still need to blast a hole through it to escape.

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Either he would blast a hole with his magic and get out of there which would still put him somewhere where the monsters could spot him. Going inside the dungeon would require him to dig a hole through the wall there. Perhaps he could hide out in one of the hidden rooms he discovered but the Lich might find him at some point with that mana sense that it possessed.

One way or the other he needed to expose himself to the skeletal army, the question was which exit put him in a better position of survival. This might have actually been the dungeon tunnel as it was a lot longer and the skeletons would first group around his home before going towards the explosion he produced. However, there was a different way for him to get out of this and it was by killing the Lich. The shorter tunnel had been prepared beforehand for this possibility but for this to work he would need to put himself in danger.

‘I’ll need that thing to come to me…’