In the end, I figured out why that tizhurek was running away. It wasn’t scared of me or anything. That was simply its programming, leading me to a trap where I wouldn’t be able to see all the others hiding in wait for me to tear me apart.
[You have killed 1 Shadow Tizhurek]
[You have received 30,000 experience points]
I had just used [Lethal Black Claw] on one tizhurek. The others screamed at me, releasing black clouds at me. With [Torrent], I prevented the cloud from touching me.
My resistance wasn’t high enough to protect me from the effects of the cloud yet. It was best to avoid getting hit entirely. I spun at a high speed, firing off my quills and activating [Feather Ignition] to create explosions, hopefully killing them at random. One of them managed to avoid my explosives and get in close to me.
I on the other hand didn’t stop my momentum and secreted poison from my body. I gave it a good old [Poison Maelstrom], coming out through it.
[You have killed 1 Shadow Tizhurek]
[You have received 30,000 experience points]
Sadly, the poison wasn’t really the effective part. I only managed to kill it with [Stabbing Enhancement] and my raw strength stat. I didn’t talk about it much, but I really was strong now. I could definitely overwhelm a human now in terms of just raw strength. My problem was Minerva and Daxia. Sure, with [Mithril Body] and [Aura Control], I could make my strength stat imitate theirs easily, but that wasn’t effective. That was basically me putting my all in a fight of attrition against those two and I doubted I could win in that.
There were loud explosions all around me, suggesting to me that the others weren’t so fortunate.
[You have killed 10 Shadow Tizhureks]
[You have received 300,000 experience points]
[You have gone up 1 level]
‘Hmm, only one level, again?’
While thinking about this issue, I could feel myself being pulled towards the dungeon boss pair. The Malevolent King Bukavac was using [Gravity] to pull me in closer, like I was in a trap. The remaining tizhureks all swarmed me and sprayed me with their clouds of illusion gas or whatever.
‘Ugh, this is a pain in the ass.’
‘Let’s try [World Eater].’
‘Huh?’
‘We can eat up the clouds.’
‘Why eat them up when we can just keep them at bay?’
‘To get the skill obviously.’
‘Hmmm.’
After that, I begun to suck in my surroundings, all of its going into the bottomless pit that was my stomach. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw shock in the eyes of the mobs, but they didn’t feel fear so it was most likely me just imagining things.
‘I’ll analyse it and try to procreate the skill.’
‘Sure.’
I used my last bit of [Osveta’s Blood] to activate the [Sea Curtain Technique] and latch myself onto all the remaining Shadow Tizhureks. With [High Force Impact], [Crush] and [Destroy], I sent three powerful blows to their heads.
[You have killed 4 Shadow Tizhureks]
[You have received 120,000 experience points]
I was done with everyone and was now left with the floor bosses. They both looked at me, staring down intensely like I was some sort of shocking monstrosity. Well, no one did like my current form. Something about it being too ugly for this sea.
I conjured up two spears of water which were fired off quickly. They were hit by a barrier conjured up by the frog which was croaking loudly. He was using a weird magic called [Sound Magic]. It created varying effects depending on his song like the name suggested.
I decided to try another alternative then. I casted [Space Isolation] on the frog. The magic skill was one that separated the victim from their surroundings completely. No oxygen, no water, no method for breathing and no means to speak. It was the equivalent of dying a silent death. I had no idea what was going through Akkun’s mind when he came up with this specific spell, but it sure as hell was a scary idea.
The attack worked and the barrier disappeared. Two balls of light followed immediately, aiming for the queen tizhurek’s head. Surprisingly, she herself was pretty agile and managed to avoid the light speed projectiles. I was surprised since that meant she was faster than me.
Then again, looking at her stats, her strong suit lied in her speed and magic. Still though, she wasn’t nearly as fast as Minerva. In fact, she was only as fast as I was which I could easily change at any moment.
Just to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, I fired off some more light orbs, but she skilfully avoided them and came in close to me.
‘Hmm? Reason?’
‘Oh, look at that. She’s a master evader it seems.’
She too possessed the [Evasion] skill, much like me. So it wasn’t a matter of her being faster than light. She was simply able to dodge incoming attacks. But there needed to be a limit to that skill. For instance, an area of effect skill would render the [Evasion] skill useless.
The queen tizhurek had closed the gap between us in an instant and wacked me with her tail. It wasn’t strong enough to even make me budge, but its spikey tail did manage to pierce my body.
[You have been inflicted with [Nightmare Poison]]
‘Poison? [Poison Resistance] will handle that then.’
As if to make my statement completely redundant, I blinked and found myself in my classroom from earth. It was noisy with everyone going about their normal business chatting and having fun. There was something nostalgic about this as well as frightening. My hand was shaking unconsciously.
“Oi, Akira.”
A familiar voice called me. Ken was sitting next to me playing games on his phone as usual. His legs were on his desk and both he and Manyuda were looking at me.
“Ken? Manyuda?”
“Don’t look at us. Look at your desk.”
“What?”
But he disappeared before my very eyes. The classroom was eerily silent and empty. Deciding to do as Ken said, I looked down.
There was a notebook on my desk. On it, there was an English word written boldly in red.
‘E-N-I-G-M-A?’
I reached out to open it, but a hand slammed down on the desk, forcing me to look up. I saw my mother’s face and she was holding a piece of paper. It had an F on it, but a score of 98.
“What’s with this terrible grade?”
“S-Sorry.”
“Sorry? That isn’t going to make up for the missing 2 marks, is it?”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Come on, Akkun. What are you shaking your head for?”
Akane’s voice came in my ears. With her red dyed hair. She walked past me with both hands behind her back, but strangely enough, I couldn’t see her eyes. There was a wry smile on her face.
“What are you sitting down in class for? Let’s go outside and play for a bit, hmm?”
“No. Stay here and talk to me some more, Kuromiya-kun.”
Arms wrapped around shoulders and the soft breath of a high school hit my cheeks.
“M-Maya?”
“What? Akkun wouldn’t choose you over me, would you?”
Akane slammed my desk, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. My childhood friend or my crush. Who was I going to choose in such a situation? Of course, I couldn’t respond to her question, but she should have understood as well. She knew I was crushing on Maya.
Ok, I hadn’t explicitly told her that, but it was obvious. Everyone knew this. Even Maya knew this, so of course she aware of this, right?
“Didn’t you hear me? Kuromiya-kun will be playing with me today.”
“What was that? Let go of him, you bitch. You aren’t even on a first name basis with him.”
Akane pointed out and grabbed Maya’s arms which were grabbing me tightly.
“I am on a first name basis with him. Isn’t that right, Akira-kun?”
“Uuh.”
“Honestly, speak up for once Akkun. You won’t get the girl of your dreams that way, you know?”
Akane folded her arms and stared down on me.
“Go on. Decide now.”
Oddly, I heard hissing sounds. Probing around, I could feel weird slender things moving around my chest. They were snakes wrapping themselves around my neck. One red, one brown.
“Choose, Akira.”
They both said to me, choking me. It was getting harder to breathe as they repeated their order at me. I tried to remove the snakes, but they kept tightening their grip on me and started fighting each other.
“He’ll choose me.”
“No. He’ll choose me.”
Was what they kept arguing over. I thought if I broke up their fight, they’d stop, but instead I got sprayed in the eye by their poison and soon screamed off the top of my lungs in pain. It was like Acid in my eyes.
I could feel my eyes melting in my sockets and all I could do was scream and try to claw them out.
“Tori-kun?”
Just then, in the madness, I heard Minerva’s curiously soothing voice. The pain in my eyes was non-existent then. I opened them and in front of the classroom, sitting on one of the desks in my school’s girl uniform, she called out to me with her usual wide grin. For that moment, everything else didn’t exist and I felt at peace.
That didn’t last long.
Blood started to fall out of her eyes. Surprised, my body just sat frozen in shock. Her white hair was tainted with red before I realised and her blood flooded the classroom.
“No!”
I screamed in fear and shut my eyes. This wasn’t real. There was no way it was real. This was all just a nightmare.
“Oh, look. I got a bird.”
Again, I opened my eyes after hearing a familiar voice. I was standing in the palms of the red eyed Shiro. I fell back on her palms. Was this… was all of it a dream? Was I about to start all over again? Go through everything?
But… if I could change things, then why shouldn’t I? I could fix everything and stop Minerva from going missing.
“Kieeeeeeeeeekkkkkkk!”
I heard a wailing sound. Everything puffed up and I was in the dark, cold, corpse-filled cave. The kizhurek had been severed in half, probably Akira doing something.
[You have killed Level 1 Dungeon bosses <<Malevolent King Bukavac>> and <<Nightmare Queen Tizheruk>>]
[You have received 400,000 experience points]
[You have gone up 1 level]
[You are now level 80]
[Congratulations! You have cleared the 1st Level]
[You may proceed to the 2nd Level]
The wall cracked open, revealing a path. I quietly swam through it, trying to get my mind over what just happened.
‘That… that never happened.’
‘O-of course.’
‘What never happened?’
‘…’
<A/N: Sorry for the late update. The semester's begun again and I had to settle down today. For the next few days, chapter updates might be completely random, but I will try my best to post continuously to the end of the month.
An alternative title for this chapter that I came up with is Nightmare. Just trying to get into Tori's psyche a bit.
Please give me your power stones, reviews, comments and golden tickets! 50 reviews this month!
300 power stones = 1 extra chapter
400 power stones = 2 extra chapters
600 power stones = 5 extra chapters!
Let's try to get this goal. Have a nice day!>>
