Cost of Surviving

I felt a bit lost as to how to conquer this floor. I was relatively safe up here on the cliff. Other than water, shoreline, and these cliffs all other parts of the floor were blocked off by an invisible barrier.

So that meant my objective was clear. I needed to kill the boss of the floor in order to either proceed to the next floor or leave the dungeon.

There was no vegetation on the cliffs, just rocky surfaces. So there was no way to scavenge for food. So no famous training montage was going to happen. 

The beaver seemed to leave me alone as long as I didn't come in contact with the water on the shoreline. So I assumed that is where its territory started. The evidence for this clearly being the fact that I walked a long stretch of sand without coming in contact with the thing.

So how was I going to defeat it? It barely left the water. Fighting it in the water was a definite no go. It wasn't aggressive until I touched the water, so there was probably no chance of me leading it near the cliffs.

So I would have to somehow create a trap near the water's surface or take it out in some other way. I searched the area directly around me and sighed. I had no materials in which to make a trap here. This was clearly a floor you would want to bring some sort of material in to accomplish your goals.

I had stored a tremendous amount of materials into my bag. Maybe I had something that could help me. Otherwise, I would have to start contemplating how I wanted to die this time around.

When I grasped my bag, I could see what was inside. The more full the bag was, the more difficult it was to concentrate on anything. That was the downside of having an infinite amount of storage.

I sifted through the materials and remembered that I had recently received a large amount of potions from Clay. I prayed I would find something useful. I had been bringing a lot of different herbs and plants to Clay for awhile now. Hopefully, he had developed more than just health potions and mana potions by now.

When I directed my thoughts towards the potions, a flood of information burned into my mind. Trying to find specific information always gave me a headache. I really wanted to complain to the one who made such an item.

What was the point of so much storage if it had ill effects? I rubbed my temples and tried to focus once more. It was probably worse than usual because I was still recovering from the beaver's attack.

Wait, there was more than just the usual healing and mana potions in here. I pulled out the crate of potions in question and examined them. Dyno and Clay had sent an inventory list to me on my association app before I left, but I had not taken the time to look through it.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and clicked on the app in question. Since time was stopped in the bag it had not received any water damage or lost any battery power. This was probably the most useful function of my bag.

I opened the crate of potions and pulled out a dark purple one. My app said that this was a poison potion. Under the description it just said that it was of unknown potency. Despite the fact that Clay had not known the potency, what could have possibly possessed him to craft 100 of them?

I stared back at the large body of water. Releasing the poison in the water may not be effective since there is so much water here. Could I try simply throwing it in the beaver's mouth? How would I even get close enough?

"This is too much."

I sighed and began putting the potions in my bag one by one instead of leaving them packed in the crate. I had no choice. This is how it always was when I entered the towers. I thought things had changed because I chose to be a hunter this time around, but really nothing had changed.

No matter how much I prepared and trained I was always going to be risking my life. I took a deep breath and flinched at the pain in my ribs. I probably shouldn't run around too much. My recovery time had been improving recently, but yet again I went into a dungeon without a healer.

I had made so many dumb decisions today. I needed to do better. My survival required me to take better care of myself. I gritted my teeth and started the long trek back down to the beach. I put my bag where I could grab things out of it easily.

In my hands were the parts of the disassembled crate that the potions had been in. I walked until I was about halfway in between the cliff and the water's edge. I threw one of the pieces of the crate into the water.

Just like I thought the beaver's head poked out of the water like it had been watching me the whole time. I threw another piece of wood into the water. The beaver swam closer to the shore. It sniffed the few pieces of wood that had drifted out further in the water.

With a giant paw it threw the pieces out of the water and back on to the shore. Since it seemed pretty intelligent, I figured it wouldn't be as easy as throwing wood into the water to get it to come out of its advantageous spot.

I picked up the bits of wood that were thrown back and threw them back at the beaver. This action seemed to anger the beaver as it came closer to the shoreline. I gulped back the fear in the back of my throat. It would probably attack me at any moment now.

I took one grating breath and threw the rest of the wood into the water. The beaver's tail rose up and a large wave of water came barreling towards me. The wave knocked me back, but I had placed heavy weights on my feet so I did not go crashing into the cliffs again.

The beaver was now half out of the water now. It tilted its head in confusion at my current position. I was glad that the white sand under me was soft. My hand went into the bag and I pulled out a potion and poised my arm as if I was going to throw it into the water like the wood.

The beaver used its front paw to throw sand into my face. So it uses sand when water doesn't work? What a dirty trick.

I slid my feet from my boots and unburied myself from the mound of sand. The potion had gotten caught up in the sand attack and dyed part of the sand purple. I got a bad feeling from the sand and moved away from the contaminated sand.

My hand found its way back into my bag and I grasped two potions this time. I tossed them in rapid succession. This time I tossed the first one high, while keeping the second one lower to the ground.

The beaver attacked with another swipe of its paw, but as expected it didn't realize that the two potions were coming at it from different directions. Since I threw the first one in a higher arch it was slower and arrived at about the same time as the one I threw lower to the ground.

The sand attack swept up the second potion, but the first one hit its mark, the beaver's face. It cringed back as the glass broke on its forehead. The potion darkened the wet, brown fur of its face and dripped into its eyes.

It blinked several times and began pawing at its face. I took this time to get closer to the beaver slowly so as to not draw attention to myself. I wasn't a threat to the beaver so it wasn't watching me too closely.

The beaver splashed water onto its face and continued to scratch at its eyes. I could only imagine how much a poison potion would burn if it got into your eyes. A groan of pain escaped the beaver's lips and I felt bad.

If I was to discount its size, this beaver was rather cute. I was the one invading its territory, after all. I'm sorry, the tower requires your death for my survival. After I finished my prayer I threw another two potions into the mouth of the beaver.

Since I had thrown the potions in rather forcefully, the beaver ended up swallowing the potions whole. I hoped that the glass broke on the way in. The beaver's tail smacked the water behind it and I felt myself being swept up in the water wave once again.

Fortunately, I was far enough away from the cliffs this time that I was just washed up on the shore. My lungs felt like they were burning due to the impact of the water and being forced to breathe some of it in.

I heard loud choking sounds from the shore and focused on the beaver who was laying on its side now at the water's edge. It was trying to heave up the potions, but my guess is that the glass had wedged itself in its throat.

Red blood was dripping from its mouth. It looked like it was suffering greatly. I pulled my short sword out of my bag and calmly approached the beaver. It's eyes were glazed as it coughed up more blood. It did not put up a fight, only eyed me in its suffering.

I raised up my arms and finished the job. The life that sparked in its eyes faded and, like its eyes, I felt dead inside. I think that was the first time I ever thought about where the monsters that lurked in the dungeon came from and why we had to fight them.

A metallic taste filled my mouth and I coughed up blood into my hand. My side had been burning fiercely for some time now. I looked over the dark sky and the moon that reflected off the water and thought, 'This might be a good place to die.'

Then I remembered Callie, Kei, and Mat. I sucked the drops from the beaver into my bag, collected my shoes and made my way to the white door that appeared by the cliffside. I had cleared the floor, but it didn't feel like I accomplished anything.

The white room was the same as always, except for sand and blood that I had tracked in. On the screen was blue text, so I knew that he was still watching.

"I fulfilled your request."

[I see your hurried preparations did not leave you short handed. Since you finished my request splendidly I shall grant you the skill of Advanced Recovery. It will be something you need if you wish to challenge that tower…]

The pain in my lungs felt lighter after the text changed from blue to white. My relief was short lived as another breath caused me to go into a fit of coughing, spraying blood all over the crisp white floor.

I picked myself up and practically fell on the return teleport circle. The bright light faded and I managed to pull myself into the lobby of the tower where hunters were waiting to queue into the tower.

"Help…"

I reached up to the nearest person before my vision faded. The doctor was definitely going to scold me again.