Episode 27: It Wasn’t Such a Sweet Deal
When I awoke, I was pinned beneath the Golem.
I tried to recall what had happened.
I was sure I had shattered the Golem’s Magic Stone back then.
I have no memory of what happened after that.
But, looking at this state, it was obvious.
The Golem, flying at incredible speed, must have crashed into me.
I couldn’t feel my left arm.
I glanced at the Golem, which had collapsed amidst the rubble of the destroyed wall, and tried to get up, but a sharp pain shot through me, and I cried out.
My left arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and my chest was swollen and discolored.
Tears welling in my eyes, I cast healing magic and continued to treat myself, and slowly, my bent arm returned to normal.
Once it was completely healed and the pain was gone, I finally regained a little composure.
Magic really is amazing.
Yuri… thanks to you, I survived again.
Wiping away tears and sweat, I looked around to find that the Cart and Gun had vanished.
My belongings were scattered about haphazardly.
They must have dissipated because I had completely lost consciousness.
“Seriously…?”
This was a heavy price to pay.
Everything I had created with Maso was gone.
The armor, the Cart, the Extra-Large Gun – all lost.
That alone had wasted more than two days’ worth of Magical Power.
“This wasn’t Bonus Time, it was Russian Roulette.”
I absorbed a Giant Magic Stone, recreated the Gun and Cart, and reloaded my belongings, all the while contemplating the terror of this Floor.
My only mistake was that, despite having Magical Power, I was only wearing normal Maso.
The joints were unavoidable, but if I had made the rest thicker, I probably wouldn’t have lost consciousness, and the damage wouldn’t have been this severe.
If I had lost consciousness even with that, I’d probably be dead.
That aside, what should I do?
Go forward or turn back?
If there are two of them in a blind spot, I’m definitely dead.
No, I was just lucky this time; even one is enough to kill me.
Their movements were that intense.
This was the second time I’d been attacked by something approaching me after being dropped here, but when the dinosaur appeared, it just peeked its head out from the stairs and breathed fire, so it wasn’t moving.
That Golem… it seemed impossible to deal with even at full enhancement.
And that was just from it stepping forward and colliding with me.
If I hadn’t shattered its Magic Stone and it had swung its fist, it would have been an instant kill, no doubt.
I knew it, but realizing the terror anew sent shivers down my spine.
I shot it зустріч головою and it should have lost its balance, but by the time I pulled the trigger again, it was already attacking.
With that kind of physical ability, even if I made a foothold above, it would reach me in an instant.
Until now, there had been about three to six of them in a room.
Two in a blind spot was entirely possible.
Even before that, a single one was more than dangerous enough…
But even if I turned back, new ones would spawn in another two or three days.
Either way, the thought of being surrounded by such vicious Monsters sent a shiver down my spine and made my body tremble.
Is moving forward my only option?
Hah… I can’t even muster up false bravado anymore.
I’m getting sick of all this self-questioning.
Fighting back tears, I created thicker Maso armor and started walking again.
And as I advanced, not a single one was waiting in a blind spot within my perception range.
Though mentally exhausted, I was relieved to find the stairs and sat down for a moment.
This Floor is safe as long as I don’t move. This is the best place to rest.
Having reached that conclusion, I cooked some meat, filled my stomach, and went to sleep.
I woke up and stared at the ascending staircase.
“Is this the third day? Normally, I’d definitely be dead.
Heck, even if I proceed, it’s a place where I’d normally die. Ah… I think I’m getting depressed.”
I got up and stretched my body.
Thanks to the bed, I didn’t feel physically ill. Only my mood was bad.
On the first day, when adrenaline was pumping, I didn’t have time to think, but on the second and third days, my thoughts had increasingly turned negative.
Wanting to see Yuri-san and feel better, I started moving again and was about to climb the stairs, but I stopped.
“There’s something upstairs.”
A distinct clicking sound, different from anything I’d heard before, reached my ears.
It sounded quite close. The distance suggested it was in the room or a nearby passage.
Considering it was a moving Monster, it wasn’t a comforting distance.
Fortunately, it seemed to be just one. Since I could pinpoint its location, I should be able to get the first strike.
I aimed my Gun towards the sound and, with caution evident, slowly climbed the stairs.
With five steps left to reach the Floor above, I saw the Monster.
“A Spider…? This is the worst. This is seriously the worst.”
Threads were strung everywhere, and what I thought was one turned out to be two.
Apparently, one had been walking on the threads, making no sound.
The other one had noticed me.
I had no choice but to shoot. I fired the first bullet at the one showing hostility, and the bullet easily pierced it, lodging into the wall of the room.
Simultaneously, the Spider fell to the floor with a thud.
Relieved that its head had exploded, I turned my attention to the next one, only to find the second one right in front of me.
Damn it, it was so far away just a moment ago…
I aimed the Gun, and just as I lined up the shot, it spat thread at me.
I couldn’t dodge, but if it was just thread, I figured I’d be fine if I could shoot it, so I ignored the thread and fired the Gun.
A direct hit from point-blank range caused its disgusting face to explode.
Frozen, I muttered, “I-I’m saved,” but the part wrapped in thread was stuck to the ground, and I couldn’t move.
Even with maximum enhancement, the adhesion was too strong to break free.
My joints were immobilized, preventing me from exerting force properly, and I was completely fixed in place.
“How am I supposed to get this off?”
Oh, it’s not on my bare skin, so I can just take it off.
Careful not to touch the Maso covered in thread, I removed it, returned it to Magical Power, and then re-equipped it.
“The classic solution for this kind of thing is fire, right?”
I tried burning the fallen Spider’s thread with a Fire Wall, and it burned away surprisingly easily.
I see. With this, I can explore while burning away the threads.
However, Monsters that can be anywhere from the walls to the ceiling are quite troublesome.
And apparently, the sound of them walking on threads is too faint to hear.
Also, there are so many Spider threads that burning them all away will likely consume a lot of Magical Power.
Besides, I really don’t like bugs…
Well, there’s no point in getting dejected.
Fortunately, their speed is considerably slower compared to the Golem.
That thing, once it started moving, was impossible to follow with my eyes.
That said, it’s only barely traceable by eye, and it’s ridiculously faster than me even when I’m fully enhanced.
Still, it’s easier than a Golem in a blind spot.
Right, it’s easier, so I’ll surely be fine, I told myself, trying to calm my increasingly unstable mind.
First, I need to collect the bullets and Magic Stones, I thought, as I ascended to the Floor and burned away the webs with fire magic to finish the collection.
It seems like this place also doesn’t attract them by sound.
I can hear sounds here and there, but they don’t seem to be heading towards me.
In that case, I have no choice but to go to them. Cautiously, I advanced, and the next room was so entangled in Spider webs that I couldn’t see inside.
With no other choice, I stopped and, from as far away as possible, launched a Fireball packed with plenty of Magical Power.
Upon impact, it burst into flames, and as the threads burned away in a spectacular blaze, a single Spider came running towards me.
It was still quite far away.
It seemed like the previous shot had been overkill.
Since there was still distance, I created a downsized Gun and aimed for its head.
“Ah, looks like it’s okay.”
I panicked a little when more than ten followed immediately after, but after confirming the first one had flipped over and stopped moving, I fired rhythmically – bang, bang, bang.
When I finished shooting, all of them had stopped moving, but just in case, I checked for survivors by slashing them with my sword.
I was slashing with all my might, but cutting them in half seemed impossible.
Resigned, I created large scissors and started decapitating them.
Even that required enhancement to cut through.
Does that mean the Gun’s power is that strong…?
Having reached that conclusion, I moved on.
From there, it was quick.
If I launched a preemptive attack with fire, they would angrily rush out, and I would just shoot them dead.
The Magical Power consumption wasn’t low, but it was much better than with the dinosaurs.
Repeating this process, I soon found the stairs.
“And with that, the fourth Floor is cleared. Alright! Now I can see some hope!”
I used three Giant Magic Stones here.
I still have forty-five left.
Considering the consumption will likely decrease the higher I go, it seems like I’ll have enough.
I can survive.
The significant increase in that possibility instantly cleared my gloomy mood.
There were no footsteps from above nearby.
“Alright! Let’s keep going!”
I climbed the stairs and pressed onward.
And by the time I had slept and woken up twice, I had climbed another five Floors.
In the meantime, the number of Magic Stones I used had decreased to nine, and my consumption rate was also down.
I was making steady progress, but I ran into a troublesome problem.
“There’s nowhere to sleep…”
Until now, I’d turn back after a certain point and sleep safely on the Golem Floor, but the next wave is about to spawn.
If they spawned within their activation range while I was there, it would be game over, so I could no longer carelessly use it as a sleeping spot.
On the Golem Floor, I could just annihilate that one room after they spawned. However, since I’m also defeating the Spiders with a one-day delay, if I waited for the Golems to spawn properly before sleeping, the Spiders would likely spawn too.
Therefore, I needed to create another place to sleep.
In short, it meant annihilating all the Monsters on a Floor.
If I was going to do it, I wanted to do it on a Floor above this one, in a place where I could shoot them down from above and recover my bullets, just like with the Apes.
I don’t know how many more Floors I’ll have to climb.
Thinking about it that way, I couldn’t help but want to push further and further ahead.
With that in mind, when I ascended to the next Floor, it was just the kind of Floor I had wished for.
Reptile-like Monsters, each less than three meters in total length.
Passages with ceilings that weren’t too high.
They gathered from a wide area in response to sound.
It was a Floor that seemed to grant all my wishes.
Just as I was about to climb to a high spot, thinking this would work, I inexplicably remembered the Spider Monsters.
The way the Spiders scurried around on the walls.
Spiders freely walking on walls…
Huh… could it be…
Then, I extended about ten spider-leg-like appendages from the back of my Maso armor, stretching them from one end of the room to the other, and lifted my body by piercing them into the walls.
My body lifted up normally.
By doing it repeatedly, my body kept rising higher and higher.
“Uwoooooooooh!! I can totally climb like this!!!”
As I shouted to my heart’s content, I could hear the sound of Monsters gathering from all over.
Thinking this was bad, I stuck to the ceiling, extended several sharp rods, and secured my body.
And then, I readied a Gun with roughly double the standard power.
I had already confirmed I could defeat them with this level of power. All that was left was not to miss.
That’s all it would take. I focused, but judging by the sound alone, there seemed to be a considerable number of them.
I relentlessly shot down the giant lizards rushing in noisily, but I couldn’t keep up with annihilating them, and a few managed to enter the room.
I switched my aim to those that had entered the room and annihilated them, but more kept pouring in, so I couldn’t keep up.
Having no choice, I prioritized shooting the ones that crouched down to jump, but eventually, they leaped.
And several of them at once, too.
Crap.
Thinking that, I made spears sprout from the ceiling, and they hit them, causing them to fall.
After that, they kept jumping, but they only ended up hitting the spears themselves and getting injured.
Relieved, I aimed calmly, and the annihilation was over quickly.
And when I landed on the ground, I wanted to cry at my own stupidity.
Why the hell did I shout at the top of my lungs in a place where they’re drawn by sound, me!!!
I despaired at my utter lack of crisis management skills and sank to my knees, but I also had to think about what to do next.
If I head back, I can make my way out, but it’s not that simple anymore.
It’s about time for the next wave to spawn.
Which way should I go?
Emotionally, I leaned towards going down.
Because even if I aimed for the higher (deeper) Floors, I was still at a strength level where danger would constantly accompany me, and I didn’t know how far I’d have to go.
If I went back down towards the shallower Floors, I knew the way, so the number of battles could be minimized, and moreover, I could get back faster.
Well, the difficulty would be high, though… especially with the Golems.
If my count of sleeping and waking six times since falling down here corresponds to actual days, then today would be the seventh day since the tournament announcement.
I don’t know the exact date and time at all, but I probably wouldn’t make it to the tournament.
But if there’s no time discrepancy, I might at least be able to meet Yuri before heading to the Royal Capital. That’s why I want to get out of here as soon as possible.
With that in mind, I decided to go down. After absorbing the Magic Stones, I immediately headed back the way I came.
Familiar paths, familiar enemies—progressing through such Floors was incredibly easy.
Since I had defeated all the Monsters on the paths I’d already taken, I barely encountered any.
It was a great relief that even the Golems hadn’t spawned yet, perhaps because their respawn timer was long.
After this, as long as those dinosaurs weren’t around, there would be almost no danger.
Thinking that, I descended to the next Floor, but things didn’t go as conveniently as I’d hoped.
They had definitely spawned.
Oh well. There was no need to conserve Magical Power anymore.
If I just kept blasting away, it wouldn’t be that dangerous.
And so, by blasting them like crazy the moment I spotted them, it was a total breeze.
It had only been a close call because I’d been carefully firing each shot, trying not to waste any.
When I fired with the intensity of unleashing a barrage from long range, they stopped moving right away.
In exchange, quite a few of them were drawn to me, but I was certain I’d have Giant Magic Stones to spare.
I decided not to worry about it and pressed on.