Chapter 21-

Day by day, I kept making my way down the dungeon.

Each floor was difficult. Whenever I thought I got the hang of it, the next floor almost killed me.

But since the fight with Q, I've learned not to go running into a fight and to come up with a plan.

Just like Q, each of the hunters on each floor were able to speak or I was just able to understand them.

And just like Q, each of them were interested and challenged me to a test.

[The Third Floor]

The third floor had a colony of giant blue ants. The queen challenged me to fight against seven of her royal guards.

Whenever I tried to swing my club at them, they would catch it with their superior ant strength and try to bit me with their jaws.

I managed to get through the fight against them by stabbing in the soft part between their exoskeleton plates with my knife. And just like with Q, a black mark appeared on them whenever I stabbed them.

Once I managed to beat the guards, the queen ant acted like a sore loser and sent her whole army after me.

This resulted in a three day long fight that ended with me covered in cuts and with the queen's heart in my hand.

After that, I slept for what felt like days.

[The Fourth Floor]

The fourth floor had a cornfield maze and a dozen scarecrows standing around.

Whenever I reached a dead end, the scarecrows would charge at me with farm tools.

But once I reached the center after two weeks, I had to fight a seven foot tall scarecrow with dual sickles.

I came close to dying a couple of times, but I managed to survive and rip the heart out of the scarecrow.

After resting for a week, I grew tired of eating corn.

[The Fifth Floor]

I had to deal with a massive electric eel in a lake, which I was able to beat by slowly poisoning the lake with something that I wasn’t proud of. After it died, I had to use a log to float across and reach the door on the other side.

[The Sixth-Tenth Floors]

I had to face a large stone golem for three days, a monster made of bones for four days, a creature made of pure smoke for a week, a crystal tiger with anger issues that took two weeks to beat, and a large bat monster that took a month to beat.

After managing to beat them, I came to the realization that each floor was taking longer than the last on how long it took to beat them. If it didn’t take long to beat them, the reason why it took long was because I had to spend most of the time recovering after fighting the hunter.

But once I fully recovered I kept making my way to the next floor.

[The Eleventh Floor]

On the eleventh floor, I had to deal with an army of wolves that were led by a massive black wolf with flaming red eyes.

He offered me power over the weak and the strength to destroy anyone who stood in my way.

He wasn't happy when I turned down his offer and challenged me to a battle to the death.

The fight was very difficult and he broke the mammoth tusk in half, making it into a shorter club. But after tossing dirt in his eyes and taking advantage of every male's weakness, I managed to turn the tables and win the fight. But I was left too injured and tired afterwards.

I almost expected the other wolves to attack me, but they didn't.

While I was resting and recovering, the other wolves didn't attack me out of respect. Some even brought me small animals from their hunts.

Soon after three weeks, I was fully recovered and ready to move to the next floor.

****

It was a couple hours past breakfast and I've been currently holding a deep squat while holding onto two large rocks in each hand for a while now. Sweat was slowly making its way down my face as I maintained this pose.

"Almost... done…"

Soon I was done with my workout and I dropped the two rocks on the ground.

I sat down on the dirt, massaging my sore legs and staring up at the cave ceiling.

"I wonder how much longer could I last doing this?" I asked myself as I got up and started stretching my legs.

"I don't know how, but I somehow feel like I reached a limit to my body? No matter how much I train, I don't feel any improvement or progress anymore?"

I started feeling this way awhile ago.

No matter how much I train, my body isn't getting any stronger. It was almost like I reached a limit on what I could do.

"I want to keep making my way down. But if my body really has reached its limit, it might be suicide to keep traveling down?"

I then picked up one of the rocks and tossed it up in the air. Once it started coming back down, I did a high kick and shattered the rock before it came back down.

"I might be strong now? But I know that the hunter on the next floor is stronger. I need more power."

I then looked down at my armor. It helped a little in the previous floors, but it's now past its prime and is now barely holding together.

Even my clothes are left torn and dirty.

"I also need new clothes or armor. Should've gotten more clothes back at Tusk?"

After washing myself in a nearby stream, I started the process of packing my stuff.

As I was making my way through the floor, I could see a bunch of wolves staring at me from behind trees.

While I was walking, they kept following me.

They kept their distance, but there was something about how they stared at me.

"Are they… seeing me off?"

As I reached the door to the next floor, I turned around and saw that the wolves were still following me.

"Uh, thanks for the escort. I could manage to rest on my own, so you could go back home now?" I said as I gave a dry chuckle.

All of the wolves then tilted their heads slightly.

They didn't show any signs of leaving and glanced at each other.

"Why aren't you leaving?" I asked.

Then the realization came to me.

"Wait. You all see me as the new alpha?" I asked as I pointed at myself.

There was a long silence and the wolves didn't leave yet. So I guess they actually did see me as their new pack leader, since I did kill the last one.

"I don't know if it's a good idea to bring you guys with me? The next floor might not be the best place for you?"

There was another long silence.

"Right, you all probably can't understand me?"

I then start waving my arms at them.

"Go! Shoo!"

The wolves then lowered their heads and started walking away.

“Sorry, I just don’t want to bring you into a dangerous place!” I called out to them.

After they left, I then made my way down the stairs.

****

During the walk down the stairs, my left arm started to itch and a familiar voice returned.

“You’ve been making decent progress lately.” Krisyn spoke within my head.

“Uh... thanks, I guess?” I said as I shrugged my shoulders.

“You have questions, don’t you?”

“A dozen at first. But knowing how long you could talk, I got it down to three questions.”

“Ask away.”

“What did you do to me?” I asked as I looked at my left arm.

I could hear that she took a deep breath and sighed.

“I slightly altered things in your body. This’ll help with the hunters on each floor.”

I wanted to find out what she altered, but I wanted to ask my other two questions first.

“Ok? So what are you?” I asked.

“... Trapped. Next question.”

I was tempted to use the last question to learn more about her, but I wanted to know the answer to the last question.

“Would you give me your word that you’ll fix my arm. Also that you won’t betray me and kill me when I get to you?”

“...”

“Krisyn?”

“I’m not sure that I could guarantee your safety?” She replied.

“What do you mean by that?!” I asked out loud.

“Sorry, you’re out of questions.” She replied before fading away.

After her voice left, I was left to walk the rest of the way down the stairs in silence.

Once I reached the bottom of the stairs, I noticed something on the floor and walls.

“Ice?”

The floor and walls of the tunnel were covered in a thin layer of ice.

Other than that, there was a cold breeze in the air.

I then brought out a large heavy fur cloak that's made from a bunch of animal pelts sewn together and wrapped it around me.

I then continued walking through the tunnel and entered the next floor.

The moment I saw it, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"No way?" I said as I looked up.

For the first time in what felt like months, I was looking at a bright blue sky.

There were clouds in the sky and a sun shining down on a winter forest.

"Is this sky real?" I asked as I was blocking the sunlight with my hands.

I took a step in the snow and my foot immediately sunked inside.

The snow reached up to my knees and I could feel that some snow went up my pants.

"Ah, cold!" I shouted as I started hopping around.

I started rubbing my leg to warm it up.

While I was doing that, I was looking around and observing the winter forest.

"Didn't expect this dungeon to have an ice level? I wonder what creatures live on this floor?"

As I was trying to walk through the snow, I spotted a family of some type of green foxes hopping through the snow.

“Hey, not all of us could walk through the snow easily.” I said as they hopped by.

As I was making my way through the forest, I noticed that there weren't as many animals on this floor.

There were those green foxes, winter owls in trees, deers, and some squirrels running around.

“I could just tell that the hunter on this floor is going to be a pain.”

I kept walking through the snow and looking around for a place to turn into a base. But something else was on my mind.

“Could I even fish on this floor?” I asked as I looked at a frozen river.

“Or maybe…”

I glanced at a nearby deer.

When it noticed me staring at it, the deer spirited away.

As I continued making my way through the snow, I felt that my foot got stuck on something.

“Huh?”

I tried pulling my foot out of the snow, but it wouldn’t come out.

So I dug away at the snow and saw that my foot was stuck in some strange sticky thread.

Then the next thing I knew, I heard something coming towards me and it sounded huge.

"This can't be good?!"

Knowing this, I pulled my knife out and started cutting my foot free from the tread.

Once I got it free, I immediately jumped into a pile of snow and I started burying myself with the surrounding snow.

Just as I finished covering myself in snow, something arrived in my area.

I could hear that the creature was searching around the area for a while.

While it was searching the area, I was nervous. But soon felt relieved when I heard that it had left.

After waiting a few minutes after it left, I climbed out of the snow.

"That was close? I don't want to meet the hunter on this floor just yet." I said to myself as I dusted the snow off of myself.

I then lifted my foot up and looked at what was stuck under it.

It was a huge chunk of a white thread that was stuck to my foot.

I poked my knife at it and tried prying it off, but it wouldn't come off. So I had to cut it off from my boot.

"Guess the hunter on this floor is some type of giant spider monster?"

I then looked at the area where my foot was stuck in.

"It looks like it uses its web to trap and locate any creature that steps on them? That also means it has a cave where it waits inside."

Knowing this, I decided to play it safe and travel around from the trees.

Luckily the Toad Hook survived, which it helped with traveling from tree to tree.

I traveled and searched around the area for someplace to set up camp. Since it wasn't safe to live on the ground, I had to search for a decent tree, cave, or something that wasn't out in the open.

I soon came across a small cave near a frozen lake.

The entrance to the cave was small, so I had to crawl inside sideways.

Once inside, I saw that there was a tunnel that went further inside.

'This could either be a good thing, or a bad thing? I should investigate, since knowing how my luck has been and where I currently am.' I thought to myself.

I reached behind me and pulled out my small mammoth tusk club. I then slowly made my way into the tunnel.

****

I've been walking inside the tunnel for what felt like ten minutes. But just as I was about to head back, I noticed something.

Up ahead at the end of the tunnel, there was a strange altar.

But what caught my attention was the strange small white gem floating above the altar.

It was radiating a pure white aura and as I walked closer, I noticed that the gem had a unique shape of a tiny skull.

“Ok, what am I looking at?”

I glanced up and down at the altar.

“Creepy gem, strange energy radiating off of it, floating above an altar, and it’s in a dark tunnel. This might be a trap?”

Just as I was about to leave, a thought came to my mind.

“It could be a trap… but it could also be something that I need?”

I then quickly snatched the skull gem and quickly looked around the room.

I expected some type of trap to go off, but I soon relaxed after a minute of nothing happening.

“Guess this wasn’t a trap after all?” I said as I inspected the gem in my hand.

Despite it’s smooth look, the stone felt rough in my hand. The gem’s surface felt almost like sandpaper and I could feel warmth from the aura emanating from it.

I then looked around the tunnel.

"I think this place would be a decent base, for now?"

I then left the cave and went out to get firewood.

When I came back, I made a small campfire inside the cave near the exit.

I was boiling some pine needles in water to make a warm tea to warm myself with.

While it was boiling, I was munching on a slice of the dried magical peach and taking another look at the gem.

I started rolling the gem in my hand, but I dropped it after I felt that it cut me.

"Ow!"

The gem fell to the ground and shattered against the stone floor, where it then turned into a white mist.

I was pressing my thumb on the cut and watching the mist vanish in the air.

"Well so much for keeping it?"

I then got a strong headache that felt like someone stuck a razor in my forehead.

“Don’t tell me that this thing was cursed?”

Then the headache started to fade away and got replaced with a cold feeling.

“I swear, I gotta stop doing this to myself.” I said as I started rubbing my temples.