It wasn't easy, but Ryan had to adapt to the situation. The goblins divided themselves into groups of eight to ten, and they took residence in the dead ends of the dungeon. Since it was difficult just to stop moving and shoot, Ryan was forced to learn how to shoot while running backward. His aim wasn’t steady, so his accuracy decreased quite a bit. Rapid Shot could help him with that, but since that would increase mana's cost, he wouldn’t be able to slay all the goblins before running out of mana.

“In the end, it looks like my only option is to become a magic archer or something,” Ryan frowned. “I doubt that this will be the last time I will face a similar situation, and I’m pretty sure to create more powerful arrows, I will have to spend more mana.”

  Little by little, Ryan was beginning to understand that he wouldn’t be able to increase only his dexterity. Raw power was important, but not to waste time producing arrows and bolts, he would need more mana, and he can’t recover mana faster without recovery. Also, he wouldn’t be able to aim faster without speed… for the time being, he was neglecting his health, but that was dangerous. It wouldn’t be weird if Ryan ends up finding a monster that can one-shot kill him with ease.

“If I want to keep fighting alone, I will need more spells like Flame Arrow, and that means… that I will need more mana,” Ryan said and then sighed. “A splendid vicious cycle indeed.”

  Fortunately, his skills were leveling up quite fast, so that was one of the things that were helping Ryan to stay focused. In order to be able to use Rapid Shot, Ryan used those points he obtained and increased his mana. It was annoying to run and use a long-ranged weapon simultaneously; besides, it was much better to use a skill since it could level up, become more useful, and even grant Ryan status points.

  After that, the battles got much easier. Even though the enemies were less than ten meters away from him when he found them, Ryan managed to kill the goblins before they could get too close. He had to spend all his mana during these battles, but that was only obvious. However, after killing the one hundred fifty-five goblins that escaped to the dungeon, he began to find some empty dead-ends around midnight.

“I don’t like this…” Ryan said.

  At the same time that happened, Ryan didn’t find any more footsteps on the ground. That only meant one thing, he had killed all the goblins that escaped, but the ones who had been spawning for the last seven hours didn’t leave the end of the dungeon. Maybe the number of goblins that were spawning there was lower, but Ryan wouldn’t bet on that.

  Aside from the boss, Ryan imagined that he would have to face the boss and more than two hundred and fifty goblins at the end of the dungeon to clear it. However, that was impossible. Even though he got stronger and he was exhausted, Ryan was sane enough to understand that he wouldn’t be able to do it. In fact, approaching the end of the dungeon at that moment would be a death sentence for Ryan.

“Now then… what should I do?” Ryan asked while rubbing his chin.

Ryan had a few ideas about how to solve that problem. It would be hard to succeed with his level of power. Ryan’s first idea was to rely on Rapid Shot, but since he couldn’t level up the skill without fighting, he discarded the idea. He could duplicate his firing power by buying another crossbow since that weapon didn’t have a powerful kick, but even so, he didn’t have enough mana to use it even a single crossbow non-stop for more than a few seconds.

  The better option would be to solve the situation with magic, but Ryan only had nine hundred coins, and the cheapest tome was three thousand coins… In the end, Ryan was forced to discard that idea as well. In the end, he decided to use the same strategy he used early. He aligned his arrows in a straight line and put them on the ground five meters away from each other.

“I don’t know when the goblins will leave the end of the dungeon, but in a confined space like this and with my arrows aligned, I will be able to kill them without letting them get too close,” Ryan muttered. “… probably.”

  Two hours later, Ryan had created four hundred arrows, and they were ready to be used. He was so exhausted that he decided to sleep while he waits for the goblins to appear. However, the image of four hundred goblins running toward him didn’t let him fall asleep. Still, Ryan had no idea what he could do to scare or at the very least slow down an army of goblins. Still, after thinking for a while, he had an idea… he would use the corpses of the goblins he killed.