Chapter 75 Two Months

"Huff, huff, huff."

In a place full of monster carcasses lying on the ground, there is a lone boy standing on the ground.

That's right. It is me.

Now, to explain where I am, it is pretty simple.

I am in a place where there are a lot of monsters spawning. In other words, I am in a dungeon.

It has been two months since I started traveling with the convoy.

To understand the details, let me tell you what happened in those two months briefly.

****

When we left the Fortress of Iron Mountains, the scene welcoming us was a snowy mountain range consisting of endless hills and rocks all around.

Now, some of you might be thinking, why did I apply for a convoy?

There are two reasons for that.

Firstly, the dangers lurking out there.

Although I am getting stronger with each passing day, I am still at the lower segment of the strength array, meaning I am still vulnerable to threats.

Therefore, I need protection for that. Since the route, I will take have many obstructions. Plundering the treasures is not an easy thing.

You need to travel to a lot of different places, and that being not enough; you also need to overcome the trials that will take a lot of time and resources.

And, of course, the trials will have each their own strength requirements. I can't basically fight with a 4-star peak monster as a 2-star knight, at least for now.

This is the first reason.

The second is the lack of communication with people.

Although I don't have any problem with living my life alone, in the end, I am still a human. I am not some sort of machine that operates with his brain only.

Not interacting with other humans and the lack of social life are bound to take a toll on my mind.

It will also weaken my social skills.

And that is the second reason.

Because of those, I started traveling with the convoy.

And to be honest, I am very glad I made that choice.

Firstly, although the convoy members are adventurers, almost all of them have good personalities.

The captain of the group is chosen to be the heavy swordsman.

Wayne Hubbard.... A four-star knight and C-rank adventurer.

Leaving the guild, we started moving.

The first three days, nothing important happened.

Just traveling while watching around, changing the people responsible for the guard mission since not everyone was traveling on the horses.

Most of the time, to keep everyone's energy up, almost all the personnel stayed with the carriages.

Two adventurers acting as the guard for three hours straight, then change the work with turns.

That was pretty much the composition of our convoy.

After three days of traveling, we got attacked by a group of bandits.

But, they were easily subdued by the two 4-stars, not leaving any space for us to intervene.

I didn't even have the need to unsheathe my sword, seeing everyone was handling their own way.

After reaching a village, I checked the quests and made those I could with my strength, making money.

And this was basically my routine.

If we reached a city, we would be staying for four days straight, meaning I would have the space to explore dungeons and take quests.

If we reached a village, we would only be staying there for only one or two days, and at that time, I would be taking my time with quests or training.

I have never once slacked off with my training and diligently trained my aura, and I am very close to reaching the third knight rank.

Waking early in the morning, before everyone woke up, I trained with my sword and body, then started to travel.

With such a routine, two months have passed.

And, right now, here I am.

The first dungeon with a treasure I came close to.

A dungeon of legacy.

The Dungeon of Frost.

This is the place I am in right now.

This dungeon is a place that contains a lot of wolves.

Frost-wolves, to be exact.

And the reason I am here is pretty simple.

Because I want to obtain the passive skill [Frost Breath] and the item 'Mask of the Lone Swordsman' from there.

With those intentions, I entered this dungeon.

I had only two days at most I could spend in this place because three days later we would start moving again.

Frost-Wolves.

They are a type of 2-star monsters related to the frost attribute.

And they are pretty tricky to deal with because they can use frost magic up to the second tier.

On top of that, they are pretty agile themselves.

But it doesn't matter if they are agile or not. In the first place, if it comes to speed, I am pretty proud of mine.

And as a result, here we are in front of the boss's room and the end of the dungeon itself.

Around me were a bunch of carcasses of white wolves lying on the ground, with blood flowing through them.

As for me, I am slowly digging into their bodies, grabbing their cores out.

"Here, Nihil, eat this as well."

Slowly making the core approach to my sword, the engravings on it started shining. And the moment the core touched the sword, it disappeared into space.

To be honest, I still can't quite understand this process. How is the core related to the soul, and where are those materials going physically?

I have no answer to these questions, so I am just ignoring them.

Feeding half of the cores of the Frost Wolves into Nihil, I grabbed a potion from my spatial pouch and gulped it.

"Ufff.... This one tastes so bad."

Mumbling like that, I approached the door at the end of the cave and started pushing it, making me remember the game.

/CREAK/ /SWOOSH/ /SWOOSH/ /RUMBLE/

With a loud sound, the cave started shaking, and the current of wind appeared, blowing my face.

"Huffff.... It is cold."

Imbuing my aura to my body, I started heating up.

'And here comes the entering CG.'

/TOK/

Just to confirm that statement, the moment I entered there, a piece of rock fell to the ground.

/TOK/ /TOK/ /TOK/

"Grrrr..... Grrrrr..."

/CREAK/ /CREAK/

A sound of a wolf howling.

A sound of ice spreading.

And a sound of cave shaking.

"!"

In front of me, suddenly, two blue eyes opened, looking at me with the gaze of a predator.

"AUUUUUUU!"

With a loud howl, the huge body of the wolf stood up from the place it was lying.

'Boss monster of this dungeon. Mother Frost Wolf. A peak two-star monster. Let's finish this fast.'

/SCHLINK/

Thinking that, I grabbed my sword and unsheathed it.

A long black thin sword with a fairly long length.

"Come."

Saying that I raised my other hand, signaling the wolf.

"AUUUU!"

However, not every monster would attack immediately in close combat.

With a loud howl, the wolf started a conjuring bunch of Ice Lances above its head, each pointing to my face.

'We are starting with magic, huh?'

With my aura imbued to my body, I started moving.

/SWOOSH/

Dodging the first lane.

/SWOOSH/

And the other.

/CLANK/

Blocking the third one.

/SWOOSH/

Dodging the fourth.

/CRACKLE/ /CRACKLE/

With lightning particles started being imbued to my sword, I increased my speed.

"AUUUU!"

The wolf started howling again.

/CRACKLE/ /CRACKLE/

With blue-colored mana started appearing in the midst of its mouth, it started condensing the mana.

'Now, a beam of frost is coming.'

'Sword of Lightning. Thunder Steps.'

/BOOM/ /SWOOSH/

Immediately disappearing from the place I was staying, I first dashed to the side, and then twisting my body, I changed my body movement with a sharp turn.

/BLITZ/

Throwing a lightning bolt toward the wolf from the tip of my fingers, I bolted toward it.

/STAB/ /STAB/

Reaching in front of it with a fast movement, I stabbed it two times, making it bleed.

/SWOOSH/

And then retreated, remembering the move that was going to come.

"ROARRRRR!"

And it came.

Different from the other Frost Wolves, Mother Frost Wolve has an area effect attack that can stagger enemies.

A roar-type attack.

'Now, an opening!'

Seeing the wide-open navel of the wolf after it finished howling, I attacked it again, closing the distance.

And this went on like that.

"Auuuu...."

Until the point where the Mother Frost Wolf could no longer stand up again, with all the wounds it had accumulated.

"Now, let's finish. I want a warm bath."

Saying that I raised my sword.

/STAB/

And stabbed the wolf in its chest, marking the end of the fight.

Following that, a blue light started flowing through my head.

<Ding! Passive Skill [Frost Breath] acquired.>

After that, digging into the body of the wolf, I grabbed its core.

And started walking toward the end of the cave.

Reaching there, I saw a slight hole the size of the core in my hand.

Slowly inserting the core, a sudden passage opened up.

And inside, there was a white mask being exhibited on top of a rock.

"With this, we are finally finished."

Grabbing the mask, I put that on top of my face.

<Mysterious mask resonates with the divinity.>

<New trait [Lone Swordsman] will be activated when the mask is equipped.>

Just like that, I started returning to the city.