3. Woods

[But, how do I even go deeper?]

I asked myself and got stuck on this question. Well, going by the typical RPG setting somewhere here is a stairway or I have to kill all of the monsters on this floor.

[Oh! I'll go search for the stairway and during the search I will kill all the monsters I'll come across]

I got fired up, kicked a nearby stone into the monster that was approaching me while trying to hide his presence and I started walking to the end of the cave I was in. As it turns out it's not a single corridor but this floor is a maze.

While going around, killing monsters and looking for the exit I found out that on this floor lives 4 types of monsters:

Lonely Lion

Werf

Earth Salamander

Shadow Rabbit

Werf is a dog-like monster that's 2 to 3 times bigger than big dogs and attacks using it's fangs and claws, if cornered will try to flee or go berserk trying to take you down with itself. Earth Salamander is a salamander-like (who would've guessed?) monster that's 5 meters long and maybe 0,5 meter high, attacks using its tail or will try to bite, it sometimes uses earth magic, creating and throwing at you boulders. Shadow Rabbit is a rabbit-like (wow) monster that seems to be specialized in hiding his presence and ambushing its prey using numbers, as it is basically rabbit on steroids it mates quickly and there are a lot of them here.

Basically Lion is the strongest, then it's Salamander, later Werf and last and the weakest are Rabbits, but all they don't stand any chance against me, so I can casually go around the dungeon and nothing will bother me.

After searching for the staircase for about 10 to 12 hours I came upon something quite irregular. It was a crystal, a glowing blue crystal that was inside the wall. When I was thinking about what to do about this thing, should I just leave it here and go or should I try to remove it from the wall and take it with me. After thinking for a while I grabbed it and pulled it towards me, just as it was sliding out a light engulfed me and when I opened my eyes I was still in the dungeon, but it definitely was another floor.

[So this is floor 51 or something higher?]

I was puzzled, because there wasn't any message telling me I got into the 51 floor. I just shrugged it off and proceeded to venture deeper.

When our MC was going deeper into the dungeon and straying further away from being human, the world on the other side was in chaos.

In the middle of a city a full class of students got engulfed in some kind of light and when the light disappeared the class was empty, there wasn't anything inside it, just blank walls. Students, tables, chairs and board, it all disappeared. The students were said to be missing, but most of the people thought that they died, but no one could think of what happened. Media got interested in this subject and the government issued an official response to the problem.

There were quite a few detectives working on this and no one could even take a hint towards what happened, everyone was in a pinch. In the end, students were announced to be dead and the funerals were held.

[I don't think that's possible]

Said an old man to himself.

[Dave isn't so weak to get killed so easily, I don't know what happened, but Dave surely isn't dead]

It's Dave's old man, the one who taught him the martial arts that he exceeds at. The old man got caught in a deep thought and was looking at the setting sun.

[Father, when are we going to hold the funeral?]

Another person came to the room the old man was in, she was Dave's mother, even if she didn't look to be depressed deep in her mind she was lost, her son vanished, said to be dead or either kidnapped, yet her father says that he's alive.

[You can hold the funeral whenever you want, but I won't accept the fact that he's dead]

[Father…]

In the end Dave's family held his funeral a month after the class disappearance, yet his grandfather didn't accept it, if anyone would ask him he would respond that his grandson is still alive, just missing.

[Just where are you?]

[Holy moly, that's spacious]

I said to myself as I looked around the 51 floor. It was a large and spacious field. I couldn't see any walls and ceiling.

[Maybe, it's outside?]

As I spoke those words some kind of beast jumped on me. I couldn't even respond to it as it ripped my fingers off.

[F*ck!]

I kicked it off and assumed a fighting stance ignoring pain coming from my hand. It jumped at me again and this time it was even faster, I tried dodging it and counter attacking, but this beast just read my intention and was prepared for it. Shit! How do I even fight this, and how come beasts from the previous floor were so easy! Guess I'll use my knife. I got some distance from this beast and got out my knife.

[Aight, time for round number two!]

I assumed a different stance, stance to fight with a knife. Normal stance focuses on using your fists to fight and sometimes using your feet to kick, also utilizes footwork to move swiftly, while stance for knife fight focuses and footwork and delivering fatal blows to the enemy, both have pros and cons. Normal is used for prolonged fight but cannot be used with a weapon, while the knife one is for quick fights and long fights put you at disadvantage, also you need a blade for it.

I jumped lightly and assumed knife stance, while keeping my eyes on monster, focused on the blade of my knife and legs of this monster. I dashed forwards while lowering my body and aiming at the heart of this wolf like beast, but something was different. The world was slowing, everything was slowing, me, this beast, wind. I was dumbfounded, because while my movements were getting slower my mind was getting faster, I don't know what happened, but I know that thanks to this the fight ended earlier than I thought it would be. While dashing forward I saw every movement of the wolf and predicted it's attack, it was going to attack my left leg, so I kicked him using my right leg from his blind spot, after that I stucked my knife in it's neck.

[Whew, that was tiring. Argh! My hand!]

Because of the adrenaline I couldn't feel pain, but I had my 2 fingers, ring finger and my little finger torn off.

[I was careless, I need to be on my guard]

Dave didn't know, but he wasn't in the dungeon anymore, the crystal that he stumbled across was something called "Teleportation trap". It's a trap that utilizes its target's mana to teleport him out of the dungeon, and the distance depends on the amount of mana you have, for Dave he was teleported to another continent. The place he was in right now is demon's continent, as its name implies, this place is home for all sorts of demons and monsters, the difference being that demons have intelligence, while monsters are mindless and bloodthirsty creatures. Also demons are extremely strong and few in numbers, originally they never worked together, so humans had a chance, because of the advantage in numbers, but with the appearance of Demon King or Demon Lord, who united Demons they rose in power and pose a great threat to humans.

Humans who were in great danger used "Hero Summoning", and summoned Dave's class. They are going to train those teens to warriors, priests and mages to fight for them, because it's a known fact that humans from another world are stronger by ten folds. Dave's summed up stats are 6685, but in demons continent, he isn't strong, but he isn't either weak, he is in between. There exist demons with total stats of 10000 or even 100000, that means that humanity is extremely weak, but demons didn't care about them and just lived in their continent. Until, one of the kingdoms decided to colonize their continent, oh foolish they were, as this country had perished from maps in mere 20 days, what they faced was one of the lower demons, in numbers of 10. The kingdom was rather small and weak, so it was their fault, but when demons discovered that humans could attack them, under the Demon King they are now marching towards humans continent.

So, what does this have to do with Dave? Because Dave still thinks that he is in the dungeon, he obviously will go around killing every Demon or beast in his sight, that's how he is. If he has to do anything he will pour 150% of himself into doing it and do it as good as he can.

[Damn, this floor sure is spacious. It seems like a continent]

After I stopped the bleeding and made a simple cloth bandage I was looking around for monsters to kill, as I am extremely bored right now. I don't have anything to do, but hunt those beasts.

This forest is beautiful, I can even hear birds and the breeze is pleasant. The trees are high and green, the shadows make it comfortable.

[Oh, I think I had something like a skill slot, what was this?]

When I checked status it was there as I have remembered. If I focused on it, list of skills that I could learn and their prices in SP showed.

[That's quite a big amount of skills]

From cooking to even wyvern riding, all sorts of skills were displayed before me, along with the prices in SP. As I don't have any weapon right now I think something that lets me summon a weapon would be good. Hmmm, Soul Sword? What is this?

Soul Sword

Active skill, summons a sword that represents your soul, your willpower and determination will strengthen it. Better version of Spirit Sword. 100 SP

Interesting. I'll have it!

Soul Sword - acquired

[So, now I have a weapon and quite the amount of SP left.]

Spirit Sword, Lighting Sword Martial Arts, Body Strengthening. Last one is interesting, I'll take it. It cost 20 SP and now I have left two skill slots. Is there something like spatial magic or an item box? There is… but why is this thing so pricey! 500 SP!? Ah, I guess it's a very useful skill and it's also overpowered. So now, one left. I'll leave it be for now, as It may be useful later on.

[So, let's see this Soul Sword! But, how do I even use skills, do I have to focus on the skill and it will manifest?]

When I focused on the Soul Sword, I suddenly felt something in my hand. It was a sword! It looked like a typical two handed sword, but it was very sturdy and you could feel that it was also extremely sharp. To my surprise it was weirdly light, but then I remembered that I got stronger and it probably weighs a lot and it's just me who can't feel its weight in my hands. When I tried some training slashes it was perfect, the blade is long, but if you have enough strength you can maneuver it pretty fast. It was over 2 meters in height if it was standing upright. Also it seems like I can activate my skill as quickly as I can think about doing it, and also I can change the place that the sword will materialize.

Body strengthening is a passive skill that obviously strengthens your body. It also has an active effect that lasts 5 minutes on first level, and it gives you strengthened skin that can is durable as metal and gives bonus to strengthen. Passive gives you 30+4% of your stenght and agility stat, I think it will get better the higher level it has.

Item box is quite omnipotent, but it can't store living beings, the time freezes inside it and you have unlimited space. You can freely manipulate the place that items are materialising in. I understand why this skill is so expensive.

As Dave was looking at his skills a pack of high level Dark Wolves were surrounding him, but even though his attention was shifted towards the skills that he acquired he still was vary of his surroundings. In the moment of wolves jumping on him, Dave quickly materialised his sword and in a swift slash one head was rolling on the ground. Immediately all of the wolves tensed up. He is probably the strongest being they have encountered, they were almost petrified by the fear, but their bloodthirsty instincts told them to fight. As Dave got a weapon, the fight was destined to not be a long one. One swing of his sword made one head of the wolves drop on the ground. One, by one, he reduced their numbers and when only 3 were left Dave jumped and using most of his strength killed them off.

[Weaklings, that only know how to gang up on someone]