Chapter 20-

I couldn’t move my body and I couldn’t see anything. On top of that, my mind was dizzy and it was hard to remember anything.

‘Where am I? Wait! Please don’t tell me that I died?!’

I then heard the sounds of footsteps coming towards me.

I tried to speak, but no words came out.

'What's wrong with me? Why can't I speak?' I thought as I was struggling to move.

I then felt the footsteps stop close to me.

I was desperate to move. I tried moving an arm, but I could only wiggle my fingers. I tried moving my legs, but I could only wiggle my toes.

I knew that I was in the swamps. So whatever this thing was, it might be one of the dangerous beasts here.

As I was struggling to move more of my body, I felt the breath of something close to my face.

I could feel sweat build up as whatever dangerous creature was close to eating me.

I felt myself tense up as I felt something poke my nose.

I then managed to open one of my eyes.

My vision was blurry and I could only see a large white blur in front of me.

Then as if a jolt of electricity hit me, I immediately crawled back and screamed.

Then the creature ran away.

Once I rubbed my eyes, my vision focused and I saw that it was a rabbit.

I then massaged both of my temples and was glad that nobody saw that embarrassing moment.

"It was just a rabbit. I got spooked by a rabbit." I said as I looked around.

I was still in the swamp, but it looked different now.

Instead of the strange neon glow that the plant life had, they now looked like normal trees.

"What happened?"

I then saw Q's corpse near me.

The moment I saw that I quickly got to my feet and took a few steps back.

But the moment I did that, a sharp pain shot up my body and I had to lean on a tree.

"Wait, shouldn't I be dead now?"

I then looked down and saw that the root was gone. There wasn't even a sign that I got impaled, other than the hole in my sweater.

Other than the aching pain and that I was covered in blood, my body looked fine.

Then I noticed the pool of blood in the water and that it was coming from Q's dead body.

Her body was laying there, but it's now covered in sprouting flowers.

"How am I still alive?" I asked as I was looking at the blood on my clothes.

I then saw that there was something odd with my left arm, so I started unwrapping the Divine Cloth.

I was shocked to see what I saw.

The skin on my left arm was now a charcoal black color and the nails on my left hand looked like they were made of obsidian.

"Ahhh! What's going on with my arm?!"

After taking off my jacket, leather armor, and sweater, I saw that Krisyn's Mark had traveled up to my shoulder.

I poked at my arm and moved it around. Clenching and opening my hand, checking to see if anything else was different about it.

Whatever happened to my arm, it looked like it was permanent.

I then closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"Alright Toshio. You managed to survive getting impaled, got spooked by a rabbit, Alice isn't here, you're still inside a deadly dungeon where every floor has a guardian that wants to kill you, and now Krisyn's Mark has taken over your left arm. What else could go wrong today?"

I then tried to stand up again, trying my best to ignore the aching pain in my body.

"I just need to focus on what's important now." I said as I wrapped the Divine Cloth back over my left arm.

I then gathered my stuff, threw my clothes back on, and tossed my backpacks over my back.

I then started limping through the swamp, searching around every tree and keeping an eye out for any of the dangerous creatures that I've encountered.

But to my surprise, there wasn't a single one in sight.

There were only bunnies, squirrels, and those glowing birds.

After half an hour of limping, I soon arrived at my base.

I tossed my bag aside and rested my back against the tree.

I then sighed as I looked at my clothes.

Other than the hole in my sweater and the blood on my clothes, my equipment wasn't looking too good.

My leather armor was torn to shreds, the strength boosting items were shattered, and I lost most of my weapons in the fight with Q.

My body also wasn't in good shape too. Since it felt like I tried to wrestle a gorilla and got pelted by stones afterwards.

"If this was like one of those Isekai stories, I'll have a cute healer girl to treat my wounds. But all I have is this disgusting medicine and an enchanted cloth." I said as I pulled a jar of the medicine from my bag.

I then took a swing, but immediately spat it out.

"Gross, it's expired!"

Without any other type of healing, I just sat there and waited for the Divine Cloth to treat some of my wounds.

I munched on some of the dried meat that I made awhile ago and took swigs of my water pouch.

Soon after hours of resting and reading books, I got bored and rested on the grass.

Soon a family of rabbits started hopping around my camp.

Being too tired, I didn't want to tell them to leave. So I just let them hop around and eat whatever plants they wanted.

I eventually reached the point of boredom, where I started having a conversation with one of them.

"Then she just gave me this weird pink mark on my arm and just left. After that, I never saw her again."

The bunny just kept nibbling on some flowers.

"I don't know if she's busy with something important, or that this place keeps her from entering?"

The bunny still kept nibbling on the flowers.

"... Yeah, this is taking too long." I said as I got up and started stretching.

"You could continue eating. I need to figure out what I have to do now?"

While the rabbit kept eating, I started searching through my bags and keeping track of what’s left.

While most of my tools and utensils were good, I wasn’t looking good on supplies.

I was out of medicine, low on rations, and I was down to my last pair of nice clothes.

Seeing how I was doing, I gave out a long sigh.

“Well this is just great. Just… great.” I said as I closed the bags.

I then walked up to a tree and snapped off a long branch.

I brought out my knife and started sharpening the end of the branch. After that, I made my way to a nearby river to hunt fish.

Once I reached the river, I took off my boots, rolled up my pants, and walked into the river.

For the next two hours I hunted fish. But due to my injuries, it was difficult to catch any with my makeshift spear.

During my time at the river, no animal ever jumped out at me. There wasn't any trace of panthers in the area. It was almost like they vanished.

After managing to only catch two fishes, I decided to head back to my base and cook them.

****

After eating, I rested on the pile of animal pelts and stared up at the ceiling.

"How long have I been down here? It feels like I've been here for months? Doubt that one girl would still be waiting for me? She probably thinks I ditched her?" I asked myself.

But when I started thinking about that girl, I remembered how she was able to parry my attacks and knocked me down.

I was trained by Sona for two years. But somehow she was a bit stronger than me.

"Now that I think about it, she was an Iron-Rank just like Lura? While I was having difficulty fighting that one Roc and won by luck, she managed to take the other one down by herself. Is there that much of a gap between Copper-Rank and Iron-Rank?"

While I was thinking to myself, my stomach growled again.

"Really? You're still hungry?"

I then sighed.

"I'm not in the mood to fish right now."

But then I remembered something and immediately sat upward.

"Oh yeah!"

I then climbed down the tree and gathered my stuff.

"I'm heading out. Take care of the place when I'm gone." I said to the rabbit while I passed by it.

I had to use the makeshift spear as a walking stick while I made my way through the swamp.

Just like before, I didn't see any signs of the large mosquitoes, six legged alligators, or mammoths. As if they too just vanished.

"Strange?"

I soon arrived back to Q's lifeless body.

"Hello again, Q." I said while giving a small wave.

I pulled out my knife and started carving out her heart, which still had the mark where I stabbed it.

Just like with Marv, the heart shrank down after I removed it from the body.

I then returned back to Q's garden and arrived at the area where I needed to go.

"Almost forgot about you."

I then reached out and plucked one of the large peaches from the tree.

"Come to papa." I said as I bit into the fruit.

Some of Q's blood was on my hands, but I didn't care. I just wanted to eat the peach.

When I finished eating it, I felt full and my body felt warm again.

I then went to the water fountain to wash my hands.

"That hit the spot." I said as I dried my hands on my sweater.

I then walked around the fountain and made my way to the cave at the end of the garden.

Looking inside I saw a bunch of bones, blood stains on the floor, and the door to the next floor.

It was on the floor and it looked like Q used it as her bed, since it had shedded hair and animal pelts on it.

After removing the animal pelts and brushing the hairs out of the way with my hand, I saw the slot on the door.

I then held Q’s heart over it and the slot opened up with a spike ready to accept the heart.

Once I placed the heart on the spike, it retracted back inside and the slot closed.

The door started making clicking sounds and started opening slowly.

When the door opened up, I saw a staircase leading down. But I didn’t want to head down it yet, since I still needed time to recover.

“It wouldn’t be wise to head down? Since I had trouble fighting Q, think what the next floor would be like?” I asked myself.

I then looked down the stairs.

“Even after I fully recover, I need a proper weapon in order to deal with whatever’s down there.”

I then walked back and made my way out of the cave. I then decided to explore the garden for a while.

Other than the flowers and peach trees, there were other things growing here.

There were a couple of fruit trees, radishes, and potatoes.

"Huh? Didn't expect Q to be into fruits and vegetables?" I said as I plucked a radish the size of a shoe from the ground.

After a while of searching around the garden, I made a decision to live in the garden until I fully recovered.

“If I’m going to head down to the next floor, I’m going to need to prepare.”

****

For a whole week I started working on the garden and gathering supplies.

I also kept attempting to make clay pots, since I had an idea on how to deal with the food shortage.

It took about a dozen failed attempts in order to get the hang of making them. After drying them with a campfire, I used them to dry peach slices in the rays of the Solace Crystal above.

Since I couldn’t hunt animals or fishes at the moment, I decided to dry the peaches. This way I could make them last longer and so I could have a supply of magical dried fruit that satisfies hunger.

I also searched through the bones in the cave, to see if I could make any weapons out of them.

I could’ve used Q’s bones and claws, since they might make useful weapons. But it wouldn’t feel right, since I saw her less like a creature and more like a friend before the whole ‘need to kill me’.

I managed to find a mammoth tusk and I decided to use it as a club. But for the lack of armor, I decided to use the animal pelts and bones to make them into a type of bone plated leather armor.

It probably wouldn't do much in the lower floors, but I felt comfortable bringing something to protect myself. I'll have to do something about it later.

Soon after the week was over, I had a set of bone plated leather armor, a mammoth tusk club, a supply of food and dried magical peaches, and I fully recovered from my injuries.

I even came up with battle strategies for possible encounters that I'll face.

This was because of my fight with Q, that I'll need to prepare against any magical creatures. Thanks to the book that Tashin gave me, it helps give me some ideas on how to defend myself against magic.

Once I had everything ready and packed up, I headed towards the cave entrance.

When I arrived in front of the door to the next floor, I glanced back at the garden and at Q's home.

Since Q was gone and I was leaving, this floor wouldn't have anyone inside it. The only living things here would be the animals.

“Since there isn’t any sign of the predators, I’m sure that they should be fine?” I said as I packed the last thing into my bag.

I then started making my way down the stairs, but stopped after taking a few steps.

I then went back up, picked up a large shoulder blade, placed it on the steps, and I sat down on it.

“Let’s try this again?”

I then used the large shoulder blade to slide down the stairs.