Chapter 44: Dungeon - Eight Floor
In the final room leading to the 8th floor, a boy with amber eyes was in sight, cutting off the head of a rabbit with a horn on it, called Needle Rabbit while sighing.
'I never expected the fight would be so tough towards the end.'
Haru didn't have much trouble proceeding to that room. In front of him, Killer Ants died without the slightest hesitation. Using his speed to close the distance, locate the weak point and shatter it before they could perform a single reaction to his movements. The trauma weighing on Haru's mind was this deep. After crossing the first few rooms, however, he was faced with Needle Rabbits, who alone were not a problem at all, what he did not expect, was to find a monster so rare in the road to proceed on the eighth floor.
'Blue Papilio... Its drops are considered rare and sell at a high price.'
He had encountered a monster that could hardly be met on this floor, just as it wasn't even a monster that engages fights with adventurers in the first place. It's a butterfly monster that possessed light blue wings so thin light can pass through them. Tiny scales fall off of it as it flies, leaving a beautiful sparkling trail in its wake.
Because of its beauty and the fact that it was not aggressive, many adventurers when they were in front of it could only stop to admire its beauty. However, Haru did not have too much interest in dropping his guard just because something gorgeous was in front of him. Instead, he wanted to slay the butterfly that was considered by the adventurers one of the 'rare monsters' roaming the Dungeon, it, although beautiful, could heal monsters in the area, which was pretty annoying in combat.
But after getting the rare drops with an expression of happiness on his face, Haru did not hesitate to proceed further. Now in the last room of the 7th floor leading up to 8th, Haru found himself facing not only a group of Needle Rabbit but combined with Purple Moths. Unlike the other monsters, both were more favoured when in a group, as Purple Moths could poison the air much faster, while the Needle Rabbits moving in the group had more chance of hurting adventurers than alone since all they could do was use their horn to attack.
It was tiring for Haru to use all his concentration dodging attacks and concentrating on getting rid of the purple moths to avoid being poisoned. However, in one way and another, Now Haru was just decapitating the last monster left while he caught his breath.
Haru wasn't particularly exhausted. He faced numerous monsters. His stamina was increasing each time he ventured in the Dungeon due to the furious rise in his parameters, albeit at a slower pace. It meant Haru would find himself less and less in danger situations, and probably his growth would slow down in due time.
But avoiding these thoughts since now was not the time to worry about it, Haru went down to the 8th floor, and as soon as he entered he remembered all the information he learnt in the lessons. The amount and size of rooms increased, and the length of the hallways between them became shorter. Also, the ceiling changed height from three to four meters from the floors above to nearly ten meters above. Moss covers the brown-coloured walls, and the ground below became a short grass plain. The throbbing light from the phosphorescence above is similar to the light from the sun.
It was not the first time Haru was on a floor that changed compared to the above ones, yet finding himself facing change instead of learning it in the Guild was much more impressive. But he didn't have much time to think about it, as once he entered the first room, Haru could see how monsters he knew very well appeared from the floor.
He had labelled them as weak in his mind. However, Haru was aware that the goblins and kobolds present in this floor were much more powerful, thus able to rival an adventurer with F-grade parameters with ease.
'It's been a while since I used the war of attrition, it seems that I will face them in the same way.'
Convinced this was enough to face the monsters of this floor, Haru unsheathed his sword, observing the two monsters, a goblin and a kobold.
Unlike all the other monsters, which had remained quiet when they fought against him, Haru saw them emitting war cries, with the air of madness that seemed even more accentuated.
Not being able to ask too many questions, Haru chose to think about it later while his sword was already on guard to carry out his tactics, but there were differences compared to what he expected. In the first floor, the momentum of goblins and kobold was weak and avoidable. Now instead, Haru saw the two monsters hurling at him with almost as much speed as his own. It meant they, at the beginning of the 8th floor, were already a challenge to him.
At the time this was not a big problem as Haru still held the speed to overpower them, but he would be in trouble a couple of rooms later because the difference in the parameters was thin.
He had never used the function of the system to update the parameters during the fight to surprise his opponents, but he thought it could do the trick if the situation took an unpleasant turn. He had encountered some resistance in the 7th floor, his forces were slowly depleting along with his stamina, and the monsters were stronger. Haru believed this combination of conditions could exponentially increase his parameters, reversing a situation of excessive danger.
He wanted to target the monsters' weak points so that he could easily defeat them, but Haru was aware if he wasted precious time to focus on a precise point of their body, Haru would find himself in trouble. Since their speed led them the ability to dodge his blows like he was dodging theirs, he was facing a problem as if they continued in this way, his war of attrition would backfire. So, Haru had added to the attrition war a new tactic, disabling the monsters.
His sword was sharp enough thanks to [Sharpness] of grade D, to cut through the flesh of all the monsters encountered so far with ease. And even if he could not slash in two the monster, Haru needed to concentrate all his power on taking off one of its legs or even a single foot, to shatter their speed so that they could no longer rely on it as he was doing.
---
After numerous attempts, as their speed that was almost equal as his, Haru was catching his breath once again. He finished the monsters off as both of them had lost a leg from his [Almacia]
'...I need to find a technique to deal with monsters faster than me. In a dangerous situation, I can reverse the situation, but it's not enough.'
He realized his fighting style was slowly passing from direct attack to one where he took the monsters by surprise. He had no idea if something like smoke bombs of his old world also existed here, but if there were, then Haru could equip himself with them which were very comfortable both to attack and to flee with his tail between his legs in case of danger.
However, Haru chose to clear these thoughts as he had to venture deeper. He did not have access to the 9th floor. However, he could try reaching the middle of the 8th floor, precisely because he wanted to maximize the effects of his growth as much as possible.
---
It was here, however, that something strange occurred. Haru could feel the room he had entered now seemed empty and silent, with the sound of his footsteps heard in his ears. As his parameters increased, this occurred much more often than before as his five senses grew increasingly sharp. Haru didn't think about it for more than a second since his gaze focused on his surroundings.
When the room in the Dungeon was so empty, there were two alternatives. Either the monsters were stealthy, so they preferred to attract prey and then attack them by surprise, or...
Taking a few steps further to proceed directly to the next area as there seemed to be nothing here, Haru stopped at the noise of what seemed to be a goblin ahead. Thinking it was just one or that others were appearing at this time, Haru was puzzled as to why the room he was in seemed to be empty. However, he felt as if his body petrified when that sound increased in intensity and quantity exponentially. If first, all he could hear was a goblin, in a few seconds noises were loud enough to annoy his ears.
'...What?'
For a moment, Haru had no idea what was going on, but then he understood. The empty room, the presence of an incredible number of monsters, their cries of war reaching him even if he could not see them, there was no doubt...
Seeing the wall to his right destroyed, Haru realized this was what all evidence pointed to.
'...A Monster Party..against someone alone!?'
Of all the things the Dungeon could throw at him, Haru could never have imagined that a monster party would meet him to take his life.
The presence of the monsters was overwhelming. They encountered Haru's eyes with an expression of insanity on their ugly faces as Haru realized the Dungeon was not trying to test him. There was no doubt someone else would have died in one of the worst ways in this situation, maybe even a level 2 would not have come out intact, yet the Dungeon seemed to have felt it appropriate to release upon him a horde of monsters stronger than him as to decide to block his path at this point.
He found himself in a situation of danger far too high even for the average adventurer once again, but Haru's expression did not change in the slightest this time. He unsheathed his sword to fight for his life once again.
'I made the right decision to venture in the Dungeon alone.'
But he had no time to think any more than that. The monsters threw themselves at him with a fury that he had never seen before as if they couldn't wait anymore. They had to erase Haru's existence as soon as possible.
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(Just saying there's an explanation for what's happening in the Dungeon, you'll have to wait after the fight though, probably next chapter. Join my server discord: y8VBZAp)
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