REQUIEM

My body was still in a miserable condition, but I couldn't afford to waste time. I got up, picked up Amaranth and walked towards the broken golems. The shield golem was too broken to be salvaged, so I walked towards the sword golem. It hadn't even started properly during the fight. And that was a very good thing. If the sword golem had started, even if it was heavily damaged, I wouldn't have stood a chance in hell against the both of them.

The golem was kneeled down, so it was easier to climb it. Although, I did have to wait for 10 minutes to recover my mana a little before climbing.

I reduced my weight and jumped on top of its head which was tilted slightly front.

I looked at its skull and found a conspicuous-looking panel, that could be removed. I meticulously started unscrewing the screws with the screwdriver that I brought.

After about 10 more minutes, the panel was completely off, revealing some damaged wires, some molten circuits and a cube, embedded into some kind of motherboard.

This cube was the Golem's Core, or in other words, its CPU. It can process an unholy amount of data very quickly. Even though its centuries old, its condition is still quite pristine. It could be repaired with current human technology and be used in data processing centres.

'I'll give this to Jhon... he'll be able to repair it well...'

What am I going to do with the CPU? Well, the answer is quite simple: Practice Dungeons. I will create a VR environment and design monsters in it to fight against. Current VR technology already allows hunters to practice hunting monsters in VR, but it's not very realistic. The physics isn't 100% realistic and it can't give 100% immersion. But with this CPU, I could create an environment with near-real-life-like realism, boosting my practice to another level.

The plan is to ask William to make this CPU into a Hunter practice centre, where students of the Nexus Academy could pay money to practice any dungeon they want. It would definitely be an amazing business, both for me and William.

After collecting the CPU, I jumped off the Golem's head and headed towards the door through which I entered this arena.

Going through it, I was greeted with the same old living room.

The TV once again suddenly turned on-

"HOHOHO@#&@*$ YOU ACTUALLY COM@#@# THE TRIAL OF @*&^#!"

"You have a lot of poten$&%... If you were above a cer&%$ threshold of str&#, the trial wouldn't h@$& been actiVAT#&!"

"Meaning, you are both #*$^@ and @$%*! You are worthy of getting the @$$* (#^$ @*$)%!"

'thanks for the compliments old man... unfortunately I can't hear most of it...', I thought.

"HERE! YOUR RE*#&@)!", the old man on the TV shouted and the old fireplace suddenly opened up a secret compartment in it.

Inside the compartment, I could see an old, dusty-looking ring. I could tell that it was originally golden and had 3 red rubies, 2 smaller than the third, embedded in its body.

I picked up the ring and cleaned it using energy magic.

A beautiful, golden ring with hundreds of intricate patterns all over it, and runes written on its insides. Three majestic, diamond-shaped, crimson-coloured rubies were embedded side by side on it.

[The Ring of Requiem]

[Type: Artifact]

[Grade: S]

'It looks kinda creepy. In a good way, though... wait, that makes no sense.', I shoved aside the unimportant thoughts and equipped the ring on my left hand's ring finger.

I now had 3 rings, the Meteor Ring on the index, the Ring of Pestilence in the middle and lastly, the Ring of Requiem on the ring finger.

My left hand looked like it belonged to some gangster, haha!

Anyways, I had spent around 4 and a half hours in that hellhole. I still had around 3 and a half hours to return, recover my mana and rest up.

To return back to the surface, there is an elevator, that thankfully still functions properly.

...

When I got back to the surface, the sharkmen were all gone. I sighed a sigh of relief and started slowly walking towards the hotel.

...

I managed to quietly slip into my room and immediately took a shower. All of the dirt and dust had made every single nook and cranny of my being dirty.

As I was taking the shower, I started to recall what the fight against the shield golem was actually like.

All sorts of emotions started to boil up from within me. Scepticism, helplessness, anger...

'Sigh... That's gonna give me nightmares now...', I sighed with annoyance.

'Evangeline said she also has troubles with nightmares... should I ask her for advice? She probably has more experience than me in that field, despite me being 3 years older than her. Mentally.'

That idea didn't seem too bad. 'Friends are meant to help each other out, right? I'm sure she'll tell me something useful if I ask her nicely...'

After the shower was over and I gathered my thoughts and feelings, I went to bed. I only had around 2 hours to sleep and rest up.

I put an alarm for 8:30 in the morning and crashed into bed

-----

*RIIIINNNGGG* *RIIIIINNNGGG*

The next morning I woke up to the deafening sound of the alarm from my phone.

Most of the pain from the previous day had subsided and my body didn't feel like complete shit anymore. It should be fine to continue like this.

I got up, got dressed in my usual black shirt and trousers, and left my room to go meet Evangeline.

'Today is supposed to be the day when Curtis provokes Julian and they fight 5 duels...', I sighed as I recalled the detailed explanations of each duel, painstakingly written in amazing detail by the author.

'That author's storytelling and worldbuilding sucked, but his writing quality was surely top-notch. Well, thanks to that I know what and how exactly things and events happen in the novel. Thank you author for the thousands of lines worth of info dumps!'

'Speaking of the author... I wonder who he actually is... is he some kind of god? Or was the original author a human, just like me, and some god became invested in his novel, so he made a world identical to it? There are indeed many theories and possibilities...'

Once again, a shivering thought came to my mind, 'What if I can't go back home?'

I stopped dead in my tracks and my face became pale. Small beads of sweat popped up on my temples.

I started hyperventilating. 'No way... if that's the case... I'll-', my thoughts got interrupted by a feminine voice calling out to me.

"Samuel! There you are! You're late, you moron! I have been standing here like an idiot for 15 minutes!"

I looked up and saw Evangeline walking towards me with a pout on her face. She looked furious, but her eyes said otherwise. Her eyes said that she was glad. I don't exactly know why, but it felt like that to me.

'She's so beautiful...'

"You look amazing.", I suddenly blurted out while still in a daze.

Evangeline stopped walking and almost lost her balance.

'Oh shit... what the hell did I just say out loud?!'

"Th-thank you... you... look good too...", instead of getting angry, she answered sincerely, which was a surprise to me.

"Let's get going.", I smiled and decided to change the topic and move on.

'How did she do that?', I wondered.

'She changed my mood from bad to good in an instant just by existing... is this some kind of magic? But I'm sure she didn't have any mind-altering magic in the novel...'

'Bah! I'm sure it's nothing like that. The human brain naturally likes beautiful and exotic things. Evangeline is both beautiful and exotic. So much so that it directly affects my mind. Yeah! That's a suitable explanation for this odd behaviour my brain is showing!'