The giant venomous snake had bitten down on the Heavy Mace. Perhaps it had realized that the hard, solid thing couldn't be poisoned, because it quickly let go and lunged at Lin Yun again. This time, at least, Lin Yun was ready. He raised his shield and blocked the snake's jaws.
Feeling the force against his shield, Lin Yun's expression hardened beneath his helmet. He raised the Heavy Mace in his hand and swung it at the snake.
"D20+2+2=15, hit."
The heavy blow struck the giant venomous snake right on the head, drawing a series of pained hisses from it.
"D8+2=10."
He'd dealt maximum damage. This giant venomous snake was having a truly tragic day.
Perhaps realizing Lin Yun was not to be trifled with, the giant venomous snake tried to flee. It turned around and hurried away, apparently willing to expose its back to Lin Yun if that was what it took to escape.
Seeing it run, Lin Yun knew that snakes were cold-blooded animals and rarely worked together under normal circumstances. They could even attack their own kind with great enthusiasm. But he didn't dare assume the snakes in this fantasy world were the same. If it called a whole bunch of them over, he'd really be screwed. So Lin Yun quickly swung another blow at it.
"D20+2+2=21, hit."
"D8+2=3"
The blow connected, but only with the tip of the giant venomous snake's tail. It hissed and shot Lin Yun a venomous glare, but the damage was clearly minor, and it kept slithering away.
He'd just rolled maximum damage. How had he gone limp in an instant and rolled the minimum?
The giant venomous snake looked a little battered, but it was still determinedly crawling away. Lin Yun wasn't about to let it go just like that.
You think this is a public restroom? You can come and go as you please?
Lin Yun broke into a run after it. Fortunately, the giant venomous snake wasn't very fast, and Lin Yun managed to catch up. He brought his mace down on it again.
"D20+2+2=20, hit."
"D8+2=6"
This time, the blow struck the giant venomous snake's body and finally dealt decent damage. The injury was so severe that it collapsed to the ground, paralyzed and motionless.
Then... to make sure the thing wasn't faking its death, Lin Yun didn't let his guard down at all. He aimed at the giant venomous snake's head and struck it again.
"D20+2+2+4=20, critical hit." When attacking a creature with 0 or fewer HP, any hit counts as a critical hit. In a way, you could call it an execution, since attacks against a downed creature also gained a +4 bonus to hit, making them almost certain to connect.
"2D8+2=10"
The blow landed on the giant venomous snake's head, but it didn't seem to have killed it completely. Was it just that tough? To kill a creature outright—to cut through its life, so to speak—you had to deal damage equal to its original HP. In theory, someone like Lin Yun, with 24 HP, wouldn't truly die until his HP reached -24.
When a dying creature took an attack like that, though, it also had to make a Death Saving Throw. The DC was equal to the damage taken, and it had to pass a Constitution Saving Throw. Fail, and it died instantly. Otherwise, there'd be no point in calling it a Death Saving Throw.
Someone might wonder: Why not just cut off its head? Well, under normal circumstances, decapitating something wasn't that easy. You could see as much when chopping ribs: cutting through things wasn't as neat as it looked, and usually took two or three chops. Those two or three chops represented the amount of damage the creature's body could ultimately endure.
Seeing that this giant venomous snake still hadn't yielded any experience points, Lin Yun swiftly swung his mace at it once more.
Then something incredible happened. Perhaps because he'd swung the Heavy Mace so many times in a row, Lin Yun's hand had gone numb, and the blow missed the giant venomous snake completely.
"D20+2+2+4=10, MISS."
...This was damn awkward. For a moment, Lin Yun even felt like the air had gone still.
He hurriedly raised his mace and brought it down again.
This time, he finally hit the giant venomous snake in the head. But as someone with a perfectionist streak worthy of a Libra, he couldn't help feeling that the blow had landed a little crooked.
"D20+2+2+4=13, critical hit."
"2D8+2=12"
At least this time he smashed the giant venomous snake to pieces. Lin Yun finally breathed a little easier. Then, quite happily, he tossed it into the pack on his back. The snakeskin, meat, and gallbladder were all valuable, after all. Ahem.
Somehow, it felt like he was turning into a miser.
Meanwhile, the Female Fighter had only just reached Lin Yun. Everything had happened so quickly that by the time she arrived, Lin Yun had already been preparing to beat the corpse. So she hadn't been too worried. She'd followed Lin Yun's earlier instructions and kept an eye on their surroundings, and seeing that he'd taken care of the snake, she finally relaxed.
Honestly, when she'd seen that giant venomous snake lunge at Lin Yun, her heart had nearly leapt out of her chest. But come to think of it, "Mr. Silent, did you just scream?"
The Female Fighter thought she'd vaguely heard someone yelling, and the voice had sounded a lot like Lin Yun's.
"Ahem, no. I was just shouting to get ready for battle." Lin Yun relied on his helmet to hide his expression and tried to bluff with a straight face. But as a shut-in, he was clearly... pretty terrible at lying.
"D20+2+5=8, critical failure."
"Hmm." The Female Fighter looked at Lin Yun, puzzled. His helmet completely covered his face, making it hard for her to read his expression, but the problem was... his voice had sounded unsteady. It didn't fit his usual composed demeanor at all.
Realizing Lin Yun wasn't quite as serious as he seemed, the Female Fighter couldn't help smiling. "Yes, yes. I'll just pretend that's true." With that, she bounded back toward the others, her ponytail swinging behind her as if it were excitedly wagging.
"This is awful." Lin Yun's mouth curled into a wry smile beneath his helmet. He composed himself, then continued forward cautiously.
Incidentally, that brave and fearless giant venomous snake had generously given Lin Yun 400 experience points. Lin Yun guessed that the snake's real difficulty lay in its poison. In his judgment as a DM, the giant venomous snake probably didn't deal much damage.
But its poison either had a very high saving throw DC or dealt a lot of damage. Given how vivid its colors were, it wouldn't have been strange if one bite had sent Lin Yun to his grave. He just didn't know if he could make use of its venom. Come to think of it, he'd missed the venom gland, so it should be fine, right?
Well, the venom gland was in the head, but more precisely, it was usually at the back of a snake's head. This giant venomous snake was over a meter long. Though it looked slender, that was only in comparison; its head was nearly as wide as four fingers.
So Lin Yun's blow had smashed its head, but hadn't damaged the area behind it. He should even be grateful that his aim had been a little embarrassing.
After dealing with the snake, Lin Yun led the group of women onward. This time, nothing got in their way, and once they reached the main road, Lin Yun finally felt a little relieved. As they'd agreed earlier, the young warrior went to contact the village.
He was supposed to have them bring a wagon to take the girls away, and give them proof of the rescue. Then Lin Yun and the others could return to the Adventurer's Guild to claim their reward, saving them from having to go back and forth all over the place.
After about an hour, by which time Lin Yun's HP had fully recovered, the young warrior finally returned with a wagon.
Dungeons & Dragons had long rests and short rests. A long rest was basically a normal eight-hour sleep, while a short rest took at least an hour of rest and recovery. During that time, a character could roll one of their Hit Dice to recover HP. They gained one Hit Die per level, so Lin Yun should theoretically have had two at level two. In practice, though, he only had one Hit Die, and he could only spend one per hour to recover HP. In a way, it was like gradually recovering after being injured in a game, except that the recovery depended on your, well... physical condition.
A Priest's Hit Die was a D8, and Lin Yun's roll was a 6. Adding his Constitution modifier of 4 restored him to full HP.
Hit Dice recovery also followed certain rules. After a long rest, you could recover Hit Dice equal to half your level, depending on the circumstances. For an odd level, you rounded down. For example, at level 13, Lin Yun would roll a D6 and recover that many Hit Dice.
Once the girls had all been put in the wagon, the driver counted them, took out a piece of paper—probably some kind of proof—and thanked Lin Yun and the others repeatedly. He signed his name on it, pressed a fingerprint onto the paper, then drove off.
Lin Yun and the others followed the main road back to the Adventurer's Guild in Border Town.
But as they walked, Lin Yun wondered where Goblin Slayer had gone. Had the receptionist not stopped him because he'd come to help these newbies? Or had Goblin Slayer gone to some other goblin nest?
Before you continue