My Perfect Isekai: Pragmatic Protagonist, Progression Fantasy and Strategy

The descent to the third floor changed absolutely everything. The granite catacombs gave way to vast caves flooded with stinking water. Thick moss covered the walls and ceiling, casting a green light onto the uneven floor. The stench of rot replaced the smell of old dust from the previous level. Boots sank into the dense mud with a wet squelch at every step. I adjusted the collar of my coat, shooing away a glowing insect that buzzed right by my ear. The air here was stifling. The mana density in this zone jumped drastically. An unprepared civilian from the surface would get a nosebleed here after just a few deep breaths.

I looked over my shoulder. Shnee walked right behind me, taking steps with feline grace and ignoring the muddy ground under her soles. Her diamond eyes vigilantly scanned the gloom between the hanging roots. She held her hand firmly on the hilt of her rapier, fully focused and ready for slaughter. I yawned quietly, scratching my neck. Suddenly, sharp echoes of a desperate fight came from the depths of the wide corridor ahead of us. I frowned. This was not the typical sound of monsters clashing over territory. My sharpened hearing instantly caught the characteristic crack of breaking steel and the grate of dull blades ricocheting off hard meat. Right after that, I heard the inhuman screams of beasts and panic-filled curses thrown in a clear human language.

I exchanged a quick look with the elf. We didn’t have to exchange a single word. At my silent command, we both masked our auras absolutely to zero. We moved forward soundlessly, like two shadows slipping into the thick gloom. We approached the edge of the swampy cave, hiding behind a massive rock formation. A ruthless slaughter was taking place right in the middle of the underground arena. Three human mercenaries, dressed in torn armors, were stuck right in the center of the murderous nest, desperately forming a makeshift defensive triangle. They were completely cornered. Eleven monsters tightened the circle around them. Eight of them were Ghouls we already knew – predatory beings with long claws, in whose chests glowed rusty cores.

But they were not the main problem. Three Mutated Elites circled among them, hitting the mud with heavy boots. Three-meter mountains of stitched meat wielding giant cleavers in their paws. A strong orange glow of concentrated mana emanated from their distorted insides. The seekers were panicking. Their formation was breaking. Their movements were chaotic, swords trembled in their hands, and they left their center of gravity too far back, slipping in the mud. My pure logic instantly issued a brutal verdict – they were the walking dead.

One of the Ghouls slipped under the weak block of the human shield-bearer, and its claws tore his thigh with a hiss. The man screamed, falling to his knees straight into the dirty water. A giant Butcher instantly emerged from the gloom, raising a heavy cleaver for a brutal decapitation. I leaned loosely against the cold rock, slipping my hands into my pockets with Brazen chill. I was not guided by pity or cheap heroism. I simply saw a massive collection of free resources that practically begged for utilization.

I took my hands out of the coat pockets. There was no time for unnecessary thoughts, because the situation on the swampy arena was approaching a critical point for this pathetic trio of mercenaries.

”We cut off their traction,” I threw in a whisper to Shnee. ”Take care of the trash. Freeze this swamp, take away their point of support. I’ll take the Butchers.”

The elf nodded, and her diamond eyes narrowed predatorily. She shot from behind our cover with a speed that completely blurred her silhouette in the gloom. The mud, which drastically slowed down the heavy-armored men, was no obstacle for her.

Shnee did not waste a fraction of a second. Her crystalline rapier danced in the dark like silver lightning. Instead of hacking clumsily, she surgically drove the blade straight into their exposed cores. The Ghouls crumbled into dust before they could even make a sound. It was perfect slaughter management on pure logic. Meanwhile, I took care of the main dish. I opened the valve in my weaves. Sapphire Slime shot from the pores of my right hand with a hiss. I brutally condensed it into a hard blade. Orcrist vibrated in my hand.

”Too much weight on the front leg,” I assessed coldly, pointing out technical errors straight into the mutant’s distorted snout. I redirected his momentum outward, dropping the cleaver from my blade. I executed a fast half-turn from the hip, and Orcrist cut the air with a whistle. The sapphire sword entered the Butcher’s mutated torso without resistance, slicing him into equal halves. Sapphire energy immediately disintegrated his rotten tissues on a molecular level. It incinerated him into a cloud of dust.

The remaining Elites froze for a fraction of a second in consternation. That was their final mistake. I jumped forward. Two cuts tore their chests, flawlessly destroying the hidden cores. The giants collapsed with a crash onto the ice generated by Shnee, completely crumbling into nothingness and leaving behind pulsating loot.

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I relaxed my right hand. The vibrating Orcrist lost its hardness, immediately turning back into thick Sapphire Slime. The blue mercury obediently absorbed through the pores in my skin straight into the weaves. Pure resource management on pure logic. I did not waste mana on sustaining the weapon after the fight. I yawned quietly, stretching my shoulders. I stepped off the frozen surface and walked slowly among the smoking remains. With predatory satisfaction, I gathered the pulsating cores from the floor. I threw them all into the bottomless pouch at my belt. The sound of hitting loot was the most beautiful music in these dungeons. This was solid capital.

Shnee stood behind my shoulder, flicking the gore off her rapier with one motion. She breathed slightly faster, and her chest rose steadily, but her diamond eyes showed absolute fulfillment from a perfectly executed job. At the same time, the surviving mercenaries were still stuck in the center of the arena. They were covered in stinking mud, their own blood, and fear. They looked at us in complete shock. They were rushing towards certain death, and a fraction of a second later, all the monsters around them simply evaporated.

This shock did not last long. Human greed is the worst instinct, capable of turning off the simplest survival instinct. The group leader – a heavily built man in a torn armor, from whose thigh blood was still slowly oozing – stood up with difficulty. When he saw me gathering the cores into my pouch, the fear in his eyes gave way to desperate arrogance. Instead of falling to his knees and thanking me for his life, the peasant decided we let ourselves be used. He leaned on his chipped sword and clenched his teeth.

”Hey... what the fuck was that?!” he growled, spitting dirty saliva straight onto the frozen mud. ”You got in our way, you fop! That was our camp and our loot! We tortured these beasts for an hour! Give those cores back, you punk, before...” He did not manage to finish that pathetic sentence. I did not even take my hands out of my coat pockets. My Brazen chill did not flinch even a millimeter. I simply looked at him and focused a microscopic fraction of my volitional telekinesis. An invisible force wrapped around his throat like a titanium rope.

I jerked sharply down with just a thought. The mercenary was brutally torn from the ground. A fraction of a second later, with a deafening crack, he was smashed face-first directly into the hard floor, breaking the ice layer along the way. I heard the nasty crunch of a breaking nose. The man let out only a muffled squeak, and his sword flew aside with a clink. His two companions, seeing their commander literally crushed by an invisible force without a single gesture, turned pale as chalk. Out of pure terror, they backed away under the wet wall, dropping their useless weapons onto the stones.

I walked slowly to the choking leader pinned to the ground. I crouched right above him, boring my cold gaze into his terrified eyes. ”Listen to me carefully, you useless piece of trash,” I said quietly, with an icy tone. ”If we had not come down here, those monsters would be dragging your hot guts all over this swamp right now. Only an old boot would be left of your pathetic existence.”

I tilted my head slightly, looking at him with pure disgust. ”Look at your aura. Your Vessel is ordinary mud. You are at the very bottom of this ecosystem. I saved your lives from being absorbed into these rotting walls. And this loot...” I patted the stuffed pouch at my belt. ”This is my handling fee for the service.” I released the telekinetic grip with Brazen chill. The invisible vise snapped. The mercenary gasped for air with a loud rattle. He rolled onto his side. He spat blood mixed with broken teeth onto the generated ice. He shook, grabbing his crushed nose. His surviving companions were still stuck under the wet wall. They did not even flinch. Out of terror, they stared at their muddy boots.

”Pure logic suggests simple math,” I said calmly, turning towards them. I kept my voice low. In the dead silence of the cave, it sounded like hammer strikes. ”You entered a dungeon you have no predisposition for. Your Vessels are bottom-tier. Your fighting technique is makeshift. You were free meat for those beasts. I came down here and utilized the problem. The payment was collected from the ground. We are even for the rescue, but your lives belong to me from now on.” The leader tried to babble something through his broken nose. I silenced him with a cold look.

”You have two options resulting from hard logic,” I continued steadily. I slipped my hands deep into my pockets. ”Option one: I leave you here with this scrap iron. In a quarter of an hour, another pack of Ghouls will crawl out of the corridors and devour you alive. Option two is pure business.” I pointed with my chin deep into the dark tunnel. Towards the pulsating light. ”Behind that corner is a return portal. I allow you to get up and drag yourselves to it. You will go down to the surface. In the Lower City of Oakhaven, you will find the office of a man named Silas. You will tell him that Dave sent you. From today, you are his garbage collectors in the zones I cleared. You will work off your debt down to the last copper coin.”

Shnee stood behind my shoulder. Her murderous aura was still pulsating in the air. She made it clear to them that any attempt at negotiation would end in swift decapitation. ”But if you try to escape...” I lowered my voice to a dangerous whisper. ”I will find you. And I promise that you will break your own legs voluntarily just to be able to run away from us. Understood?” The two mercenaries began to nod fanatically. They grabbed the roaring leader under his arms. With difficulty, they lifted him from the frozen mud. They did not dare to look our way. Hunched over, mentally broken, they began to shuffle their feet towards the blue portal.

I watched them disappear into the darkness. The third floor was officially cleared. ”Trash thrown into the proper bin,” I summarized coldly. I turned to Shnee with a brazen smile. I grabbed the stuffed pouch. It jingled satisfyingly with the gathered cores. ”Time for us. We are returning to the surface. We need to visit Silas and tell him that his corporation just gained free staff. We have capital that will ultimately turn the economy of this city upside down.”