Chapter 23

Dan walked around the empty rooms of the blacksmith shop. It was practically someone's home if you don't include the blacksmith. He reached a door and tried opening it but it was locked.

BAAAAM!

Dan kicked down the door with minimum effort.

"Nice try," he said as the door fell down with loud crash. The room was just like the others, dirty, dusty and full of cobwebs. There were several broken swords laying on the floor. On the wall there were shields and spears but just like the all the other objects in the house it was dusty. Iron rods were inside several barrels around the room.

'A weapon storage room, I guess,' Dan walked up to the wall with the spears on it. "Interesting, it's like you want me to take these weapons so much that you placed them in front of me without any protection."

Dan reached out to grab the spear and as soon as he pulled the spear of the wall, the floor beneath him gave way.Dan did not have any time to react as gravity immediately took control of his body and pulled him down.

"AAAAARGHHHHH!" Dan shouted at the top of his lungs as he fell down the pitch black hole while the floor above him returned to normal immediately.

Dan summoned the wind to slow down his fall and as he slowly levitated downwards he summoned a giant fire in his left hand that illuminated everything in the pitch dark room.

Dan looked down and saw shiny metal spikes in the ground. There were several bodies on the spikes with their bodies pierced through. Next to the spikes was an empty small path that seemed to lead somewhere.

Dan used the air to guide himself to the path and when he was finally hovering slightly over the ground he let go of his control on the wind. He looked around to see his surroundings which was just pure darkness outside of the bright light the flames gave of.

He looked at the dead bodies on top of the spikes and without hesitation he burned them all to ash. "You died in a place like this where you could not receive a proper burial of any kind, I hope you gain peace in your next life in case you get one." Dan said.

This was his way of paying respect to the fallen. Unless Dan carried some kind of hatred for a person he would do anything to give them a proper send of. Although this wasn't a proper send of it was better than no send of at all.

Dan walked for a while until he reached a dead end.

It was a simple brick wall that blocked his path.

He started touching the wall looking for some kind of hidden mechanism like in the room above.

"CHAAAK!"

As soon as Dan's hand touched a brick in the far right corner of the wall, it made a weird noise and slowly rotated on it's axis. Before the wall completely closed he walked past it.

With the light Dan could see weird engravings on the floor that he had never seen. As Dan carefully looked at the engravings on the floor, something hit in the kidney.

➡️ Fatal wound detected

➡️Health: (869/869) ➡️ (643/869)

"FUUUCK!" Dan let out a loud shout as he quickly focused on the direction he was hit from. As soon as his head turned he was immediately hit on the other side, this led to him letting go control of his fire and it disappeared

➡️Fatal wound detected

➡️ Health: (643/869) ➡️ (231/869)

"FUUUUUCK!"

In the darkness Dan looked at his sides to see what him with his night vision and was quite surprised to see two arrows on both sides of his body. Dan rekindled the fire.

"FWIIIISH!"

He heard the whistle of several arrow's coming towards him. With his intermediate level of magic knowledge Dan quickly turned himself into a shadow. The fire for some reason hovered over the shadow and the arrows were lying on the ground. Arrow's flew by in the air but Dan was safe in his shadow form. Even if his shadow was attacked, he would still be safe since he did not have a physical form. However as cool as this ability was Dan did not like to use it a lot.

This was due to the fact that it made the fight to easy for him. Dan always thought that was a good thing until he got bored of winning one sidedly, with no challenge. Ever since then he stopped using his shadow form unless he was in dire need of it.

"Huh? I thought it was someone who foolish enough to attack me but it just turns out to be a trap. I'll just continue forward in my shadow form."

Dan moved forward with the fire on his shadow burning brightly. After finally reaching a wooden door he deactivated his shadow form.

"Gaaah!" Dan let out a loud grunt as his sides ached and bled. He sat down on the floor and opened the shop in his status. He quickly bought a single bottle of healing potion and used it. He poured half of it on one side and the other half on the other side.

Now all that was left was to wait. After a minute his heavy bleeding stopped and Dan slowly saw his skin extending over the wound and patching itself up. His kidney was no different. He could feel the changes even though he could not see it. It was like stretching in the morning after sleeping for several days.

➡️Healing (231) ➡️ (267) ➡️ (345) ➡️ (367)

Dan watched as the numbers on the screen increased. He waited until finally it reached it's limit.

➡️ Body fully healed (869/869)

➡️ Health capacity has increased By 12

"Just 12? eh, better than nothing." Dan said.

He was fully healed now. "I'll have to be careful from now on, the entire place is booby trapped which means their is something important here."

There was a moment of silence before Dan let out a small chuckle. "Booby trap."

Dan brought a cigarette from his inventory along with the lighter he received the goblin. He took a long hard puff and blowed the smoke out of his nostrils. "That hit the fucking spot!"

Dan kicked the door open and he was surprised at what he saw. The room was completely different from upstairs, the spike filled room and the previous one.

There was a small fireplace in which a fire roared. A couch lay the middle of the room on top of a rug. There were several animal heads such as deer, lion and gorrila heads mounted on the wall. There was a real life lion that was staring at Dan. Dan let down his gaurd after seeing that it was a stuffed animal.

The room had somewhat of a second floor. The second floor was just a small part of the room in which there was a small table, chair and a massive bed. There was also a cupboard with a window which was packed with books and several platter and silverware.

Dan could hearing humming noises and the sound of running water. "Does a stream pass through this place?" He wondered.

He quietly tiptoed to where the sound was coming from and when he looked through the door in which he was expecting someone to be there he didn't see anyone.

The tap water was running and there was a metal pot on the stove. It was just a normal kitchen.

"Do not turn around if you do not want your head cut of!" A voice snarled. Dan felt a cold object on his throat and when he looked he saw a dagger.

"Your gonna cut my head of with a dagger? You would have a better chance if you just slit it instead of cutting it completely of." Dan said without turning around.

"Turn around and you'll find out for yourself!"

"I have no intentions of turning around, I can smell your terrible breath from here, it will only get worse if I tu- okay okay I WAS JUST JOKING DON'T DO THAT!" Dan shouted as the person pressed the dagger against his throat. Blood trickled down from a small cut on his throat.

"You smell of demon!"

"Is that bad?"

"Of course it is, you will answer my questions and your answers may be lead to your survival."

Dan could feel the person behind him breathing heavily down his neck.

"And don't you dare lie to me, one lie and your head will be on the floor. Question number one how far the investigation did you guys get with the investigation?"

Dan blew more smoke from nostrils before answering, "What investigation?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you discovered my hiding place which means that you were investigating me."

Dan took a long puff from the cigarette in his mouth, this entire time he could not remove it from his lips. "I genuinely have no idea what you are talking about."

There was silence in the room and the only thing that could be heard was the crackling fireplace and the running water.

"Your telling the truth," the person said, "Next question, how did you find this place? Who told you about this?"

"I just stumbled upon this place while I was searching for something."

"What were you searching for?"

"I was looking for a hole to stick my meat inside, what do you think I was looking for genius?" Dan said with an irritated voice.

"Oh a smart guy? You should have just answered my questions, you trespasser." Dan felt the dagger digging in to his throat and before it reached one inch in he turned into a shadow. His cigarette lay on the ground almost finished.

The person jumped back scanning the area before noticing the shadow beneath the cigarette.

'A darkness user, seems like those city guards are getting serious.' Dan's shadow moved up a wall until it was on the ceiling. His head came out of the shadows as if stuck to the wall.

Dan looked down to see the person who was attacking him and it turned out to be a woman.

Short brown hair, thick eyebrows, muscular back and thighs and scars along her arms. The woman jumped at Dan's head as soon as he popped his head out aiming for his face. He barely dodged it by deactivating the spell.

THUNKKK!

His body fell down to the ground as he landed on his side. The woman was still in the air and as soon as Dan fell out from the ceiling she turned her mid air and used the ceiling as a launching pad. Her hand was outstretched forward with the dagger.

The moment the woman's blade nearly hit Dan a kick landed on her jaw. She lost her momentum and fell to the floor. Dan managed to save himself by standing on his two hands and kicking.

He could tell the woman was an experienced fighter as she quickly recovered to the point where she looked like she hadn't been sprawled across the ground two seconds ago.

She stood still not attacking, her hands covering her face like a boxer. The dagger was held in reverse grip so that she could easily counter.

"IF YOU WON'T ATTACK THEN I WILL!" Dan shouted. He charged at the woman like a mad bull and stopped just in time as she sliced through the air. Had he been a millisecond to late then it would have been a different story.

Dan saw his chance, the moment she tried cutting him she left herself wide open.

He threw a quick jab which landed on her jaw. Without giving her any time to recover this time he delivered a kick to her face to confuse and a punch to the throat to cut of her oxygen.

He ended it by generously giving her a knee to the face. The woman fell down on her back which made the average sized breasts on her chest shake.

Dan waited for them to stop jiggling before sitting down on the couch. The blood flow in his lower body increased by multiple fold.

"I'm horny as fuck."