Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I woke up like shit. When I woke up I was actually confused and expected a warm, soft bed with a beautiful naked elf in it. Instead I woke up to this shit.

"Why did I even agree to this, Piid?"

I saw something pop up in my mission screen.

1st round:

Get stronger

2nd round:

Kill the floor boss to return (that scary black lion you ran away from)

Well, thanks for being vague on the first step. I assumed he meant kill more monsters to level up. And maybe gain a new skill while leveling up.

And so, I packed my stuff and headed out of the cave. I spent 15 minutes sneaking and making sure the black lion wasn't there. Then I walked in the exact opposite direction of where I saw it. Just to be safe, I even covered myself in mud to mask my scent.

After an hour or so of walking, I came across a group of big silver beetles battling each other on a huge tree, and one big beetle on top of that tree staring at them all.

"Ehm… cool?"

Wasn't soon before I got attacked and was forced into the battle.

I swung my sword at one of the silver beetles.

CLING!

"What?!"

My sword couldn't penetrate. Its shell was metal.

"Oh shit man!"

It hovered in the air back and forth attacking me. Its wings were like helicopters. I kept dodging its spear on its nose.

"Huh?"

I jumped and grabbed the beetle, using my superior strength to hold it to the ground.

Then I ripped open its silver wings and was now inside it. I stared stabbing a lot with my dagger until it was defeated.

Luckily, the beetles didn't work together, so they would keep attacking me one on one and I kept using this strategy to defeat about 10 of them.

At last was only the female beetle on top of the tree. She flew down to me. She didn't attack me, so I didn't slay her. I just walked away, but for some reason she kept following.

Another hour passed and I encountered another small group of wolves and defeated them, using pretty much the exact same strategy. The only difference was that now for some reason a big silver beetle was hovering in the air following me and also attacking the wolves with me, though she wasn't so good at combat.

I climbed to the top of a big tree to get a guiding view, but it seemed like this dungeon was endless. And made it seem like me meeting the dungeon boss within the first day was very unlikely and I was just unlucky.

After venturing more, the next enemy I met was a sole rolling beetle.

As soon as it saw me, it rolled into a ball and headed towards me.

I managed to jump to the side and evade it, but behind me I could just hear it tearing through the forest. I would have probably died if it had hit me. I looked closer at it while it was standing still and saw its skin was made of metal and on the ends of each 'sheet' were small spikes.

The beetle didn't even try to help me on this one, and just flew high up.

I decided to join her and found a tall tree to rest at.

"How do I defeat this one? maybe I can do a battle of attrition. When it loses energy to roll around, finish it off."

I decided to do that. I had Increased Stamina Capacity C, and a bunch of low quality stamina potions.

I dropped down to the ground. And the rolling metal beetle immediately went for me. I evaded again.

We kept this routine up for about two hours. When I looked around the entire area around us had been levelled and smashed. It was at this point the beetle stopped spinning after and stopped to rest, but still kept its hard shape.

I tried prying it open with my sword.

KRKKK

"ah damn!"

I broke my sword. It had seen through its fair share of battles, but this sucked. Now I only had a dagger. I then tried to pry open the beetle with my bare hands, and that led me to cutting myself.

"Okay, focus."

I put my hands on the beetle and got closer to it.

I tried using my magical sense to see if I could reveal something from it.

"Do I even need to kill it, really? is it worth it? no, it tried to kill me. End of discussion."

I then started feeling. I couldn't sense any mana cores. I could sense some mana pathways at the edges of the shell, right where the metal connected to the tissue, but that was it.

"Okay, bye!"

I ran away as fast as I could before it was done resting. But I almost forgot the beetle following me, so I slowed down for her. She landed on my shoulder and I started sprinting.

"I should name you something… okay, you're Queen Beetle. But know that this isn't a permanent relationship, I'll be going back soon. And when I do I wish you the best of luck. Also, sorry for killing your suitors. You may think of me as the one who one, but I cannot impregnate you, sadly."

After it got dark, I started to worry. I couldn't see any caves or safe places to sleep. Eventually I just found a really big tree and spent a couple of hours creating a nest up there and I and Queen Beetle slept there. I closed my eyes and prayed I didn't fall down sleeping.

A couple hours of poor, interrupted sleep passed, and I woke up to a lot of buzzing and pulling. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was at the edge of the nest and almost about to drop down 20 meters and Queen Beetle was doing her utmost to wake me up and keep me from falling.

"Don't worry! Don't worry! I'm awake."

I sat at the edge of the nest looking down and pet her.

"Now, what the hell am I supposd to do? Piid, got any answers?"

No response.

"Keep defeating monsters and get stronger, right? I'm thinking I should have done more training before coming here. Wait, aren't you worried I'll do? Is this one of those 'pain is needed for growth' situations of yours, and if I'm about to die you'll just pull me out?"

No response.

"Ughhh! Piid! This is a partnership if I die you die! Give me answers."

A text screen popped up.

Though we are technically inside me, we are also technically in a part of hell. So it would take immense energy and about 7 days to teleport you out. If you defeat Tigersson, which will make you the master of this domain, you can come and go as you please.

"What the hell! Couldn't you have told me this before. What if I die from trying to defeat him? This would kill you too, right?!"

Correct. However, the average devil who will be attacking you is as strong as Tigersson. If you can't defeat it, I'll be dead anyway

"Piid, what the hell? couldn't we have just done non-lethal specialized training instead?"

Your soul energy is too low for further growth. And Tigersson is full of soul energy, hehe.

Just then, I finally got a glimpse into his personality. And I had a feeling he would love casinos.

Before I left the tree, I took a stamina potion.

"Ahhh…"

It didn't feel as good as Piid's potions, but it did the job. I felt a little more energized, though of course it couldn't replace sleep.

I spent the rest of the day defeating monsters.

Just before the 'sun' set, I came across a huge brown bear.

"Holy shit!"

It did a load roar, and immediately charged me. For its size, it sure was fast.

I barely jumped out of the way of its huge claw, but it immediately pursued me again.

"This won't work!"

Athletically and in terms of speed and strength, we were about equals. But I saw one advantage he didn't have: I was smaller.

I feigned running away, then I turned back and leaped over him and got on his back.

Just like with the troll, I started strangling him.

He rolled around and around and kept banging me against the ground and trees. And his neck was bigger than the troll's so harder to snap.

I let go of one hand to grab my dagger, but in that moment he threw me off.

"Shit!"

Queen Beetle was hovering above in the air just bussing and I guess cheering for me.

While I was on the ground it charged me and I didn't have time for evading.BOOM!

I straight up just punched him in the face and he fell back.

In his moment of shock, I chugged the dagger at him and hit his left front leg.

It started roaring again.

Then blood started covering my eyes and I had to use my hands to get it away. In all of the excitement, I couldn't feel the pain and notice my injuries.

It charged me again, but this time there was a stagger in its left leg and I exploited that.

I got to its left side, then back on its back and started choking it again.

Last time I only used my arms, but this time I even got my legs around his neck. I used all the force I could muster.

POP!

His neck snapped.

"Ahhh fuck…"

I collapsed on the ground. Queen Beetle landed on my chest and started buzzing.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm fine."

During the beginning of the battle, I had dropped my backpack nearby so I went to get it and drank two low quality healing potions. I still felt like shit inside and that a bunch of bones were broken, but it at least stopped the bleeding on my face.

After that I fell onto the ground and passed out.

When I woke up and was laying on the ground, I had luckily not been attacked and Queen Beetle was on my chest protecting me.

I took some time to just think.

Three things came across my mind. Firsly, I wished that I hadn't sold that bow and that I had some kind of projectile spell attack.

Secondly, I come up with a strategy for defeating Tigersson: Since my Flash didn't affect me, I would emit it at its highest intensity constantly when fighting Tigersson. I also wished I did this when fighting the bear.

Thirdly, I tried healing myself. I managed to channel mana through to the places I was wounded, but once the mana was there, I had no idea how to control it to heal. As if some 'mechanism' was missing. I think this is the spell part of magic. Only reason I could do Flash was because I had that missing mechanism.

I got up again and started looking for a cave to sleep this time. In the distance I could see some big hills so I tried my luck there.

I didn't find any stone caves, but I did find an unusued underground cave, dug by some animals and abandoned. It was night now and I was super tired, so I made a nest again with some branches and leaves and put my tent and sleeping bag there, then I sealed off the entrance and slept with the Queen Beetle resting next to me.