Chapter 29-

I ran up to Krisyn, who's currently face down on the floor. I don't know why she fell on the ground and if she's ok or not, but I couldn't exactly leave a powerful being out here in the forest. It would be the same as leaving a nuke in the sandbox of a park. But before I did anything, I heard a groan from Krisyn and saw her tails twitch slightly.

"Hey are you ok?" I asked, debating if picking her up would be a good idea or not.

"It would seem that I haven't regained my full strength?" She said as she slowly got to her feet. "That rushed plane shift cost way more mana than I thought."

"I gotta ask. Now that you're out, what are you going to do? Are you gonna keep your end of the deal?" I asked while getting ready just in case she tried anything.

"Yeah, Yeah! I already said that I gave you my word!" She shouted. "Not like I could do anything at the moment."

She then walked over to Lux and knelt down near him. He gave a slight growl at her, but immediately lied down after she glared daggers at him. She then mumbled something and waved a hand over him. Then Lux sat up and licked the leg that was previously injured, but now looks good as new.

"There. Now I have done my part here." She said as she got up to dust herself off. "So what do you wanna know?"

"What?" I asked.

"That was part of the agreement. In exchange for you freeing me, I'll heal both of your injuries and answer any questions that you have." She replied.

"Oh right. I'm just surprised that you're actually going through with our deal?" I said. "The fact that you're compliant makes me uneasy."

"Well you were the one that made me agree to the terms of the agreement. If I didn't agree, then you would've died and I'd have to wait until I found another mortal to brand with my mark." She said while pointing at the mountain. "And out of all the people that I've branded, you're the only one that made it to the inside of the dungeon."

"Really? How many people have you branded and how did you do that?" I asked.

But before Krisyn answered, he stumbled a little and fell down to one knee.

"Before I start answering your questions, I insist that you find a place for me to rest. This vessel of mine has grown weak from my slumber and using that high-level spell has increased the effect." She said, then looked at her messy clothes and hair. "I also demand that you bring me a new set of fine clothes and a hairbrush."

"Hey!" I shouted. "I could set up camp and maybe cook something, but you have no right giving me orders!"

"As your master, you must do everything I say! That's what my Chosen must do!" She shouted.

"What the hell is a Chosen and why are you calling me that?!" I asked. "I'm not from this world, so that makes me a Traveler."

"Well not anymore." She replied. "But before I go explaining anything, I demand that you find me a place to rest!"

"Alright, fine!" I shouted

Despite not wanting to become anyone's servant, I knew that I shouldn't tempt fate and pick a fight with someone that could easily smack me around.

'This is my chance to get some answers and walk out of here alive. So might as well do what she wants and maybe go back to living a normal life?' I thought to myself as I walked over to my old tent.

As I arrived at the tent, I was surprised at how it was still in good condition, despite being left here for so long. One of the support poles was damaged, but I knew that some rope would help tie it together. But as I reached behind me, I then realized that I didn't have my backpack.

'Wait, where's my bag?' I asked myself as I looked around.

I then remembered that I'm no longer inside the dungeon and that I could use my ability. Then as I thought about opening up my menu, a notification popped up before I even said anything.

[Starting up…Updating…]

[Update Complete]

Then my menu opened up in front of me and it brought back memories of when I first obtained it. It almost felt like I just got the ability for the first time.

'You have no idea how I missed you.' I said to the menu.

As I was scrolling through my inventory, I saw that everything I had on me was now in my inventory. I had everything from my broken sickle and dagger, to the stuff I had in my bags. Everything was now inside my inventory. But that wasn't what surprised me. What surprised me was when I looked over at my stats.

"There's no way that this could be possible?" I mumbled to myself.

My jaw dropped as I saw my stats and how much bigger they were from before.

[Toshio Crozzo, Level: 10]

[HP: 8,350/8,350]

[MP: 1,350/1,350]

[Strength: 648, Intelligence: 102, Vitality: 415, Dexterity: 857, Agility: 466, Luck: 13, Wisdom: 24]

Martial Arts:

[Medis’s Terra-Breaker Style Lvl.8]

[Spear arts Lvl.13]

Magic:

[Runic Lvl.5]

Skills:

[Summon Skeleton Lvl.1]

[Craftsman Lvl.8]

[Scale Hands Lvl.1]

Title:

[Survivalist Lvl.Max]

[Chosen Lvl.1]

'I know that I was inside that dungeon for a while, but I'm surprised that they grew this much.' I thought as I pulled out some rope and glanced at my skills.

I was surprised that my menu looked different and showed the skills that I had. But the three that caught my eyes were the Summon Skeleton, Scale Hands, and the Chosen title.

'I understand that the Survivalist title was most likely achieved during my time in the dungeon, but what's the Chosen title?' I asked myself as I started setting up the tent.

I was about to click the description of the title, but it immediately opened up as soon as I thought about it.

[Chosen: No description at the moment.]

[Bonus: ???]

'Ok? Well I guess that I could just ask Krisyn later. But what are these skills?' I thought as I looked at the two strange skills.

[Summon Skeleton: A lost soul that wandered endlessly, has now bound itself to you. You could summon it daily and it remains by your side until death returns it to your Soul Realm. Costs: 1 Corpse and 50MP]

[Scale Hands: Thanks to becoming a Chosen, your patron has given you the ability to cover part of your body in thin black scales. These scales are immune to non-magical weapons and require MP to keep it activated. Costs: 1MP]

I just finished setting up the tent as I finished reading through both of the descriptions and I was confused. I could only assume that ‘patron’ is referring to Krisyniellankal, but I didn’t understand what the description on the other skill meant by a lost soul binding itself to me?

‘I could understand that I got the Scale Hand skill from Krisyn, but why do I have a Summon Skeleton skill? I don’t remember meeting any lost souls?’

Then another notification popped up.

[You’ve now reached Level 10. You won’t be able to level up or increase your stats until you increase your Adventurer Rank.]

[Quest: Move up from Copper-Rank and reach Iron-Rank.]

“Wait, what? There’s a level cap in this world?” I asked.

Now that I was free from the dungeon, my head was immediately filled with dozens of questions after seeing my skills and the quest that popped up. But instead of wondering about it, I’d just ask Krisyn once she’s done resting. So after setting up and cleaning the inside of the tent, Krisyn went inside to take a nap and I took Lux with me into the forest to hunt something for dinner. It was late in the day, so there weren't many animals out in the forest. But Lux wanted to explore this new environment and ran off into the woods. So while he did that, I decided to continue looking around for something worth cooking for dinner.

After searching through the forest, Lux and I managed to hunt a few animals. Lux hunted a few rabbits and squirrels, while I managed to capture a decently sized dear. I haven't killed it yet, since I planned to kill it just before cooking it.

“Alright, I think these should be enough for a light dinner?” I said as I tossed the tied up deer over my shoulder.

As Lux and I started making our way back to camp, the sounds of loud and heavy footsteps could be heard heading towards us. I just gave out a long sigh.

“I just came back from a deadly dungeon and thought that the worst was behind me. But as soon as I left the dungeon full of things that wanted to kill me, now something else wants to kill me.” I said as I looked at where the sound was coming from.

Heading our way, a large beast came charging out from the forest and stopped as soon as it spotted me. My eyes widened as I saw the beast and I saw that it was a large boar.

"Wow. This world has one hell of a sense of humor?" I said as I placed the deer on the ground.

The boar gave a quick snort, then gave a loud squeal as it shook its head. I chose to ignore this as I untied the rope from the deer's legs and gave it a quick kick in the rear.

"Get out of here. I just found something better." I said as it got up and ran away.

The boar looked like it was getting ready to charge as it lowered its head. Lux looked like he was about to fight it, but I stood in front of him and pointed at the boar.

"I know that you're not the same one, but I have a little bit of a grudge and this is just the thing I need to do in order to get over it." I said as I started stretching my arms.

The boar then let out a louder squeal and started charging at me. Seeing it charge at me gave me flashbacks of how that one boar almost killed me and the others in the past. This boar was the same size and ran at the same speed. Back when I first came to this world this thing gave me nightmares for a few nights, so seeing it brought back a few bad memories.

“Compared to the other sh*t that I’ve been through... you’re not that scary.” I said as I readied a punch. “Now you’re just a ugly pig.”

As soon as the boar got close to me, I threw my fist as hard as I could right at the center of its face. When my fist collided with the boar, a loud bang echoed throughout the forest and it was followed by a nasty crunching sound throughout the boar's body. Then the boar’s body flew back and crashed through a tree, then stopped when it hit the side of a large boulder. The boar’s body twitched for a few seconds, then it stopped moving. I then breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Now that’s something I wanted to do for so long!” I shouted, then looked back at Lux. “So how do you feel about pork?”

****

After dragging the boar back to camp, I had to make preparations to cook it. Even without any tools, I had to do most of the tasks by hand. But while I was getting everything ready, I noticed the changes that my newly acquired strength had on my body. It helped me rip branches off the trees and small trees out of the ground easily. Carrying them back to camp felt like I was carrying a dozen pillows instead of a dozen tree trunks. But it really felt impressive when I was able to snap the trunks in half and tear them into smaller logs for the fire. So once the wood for the campfire was ready, I started getting the meat ready. I had to use a sharp rock to carve the meat away from the body and hang them above on some tree branches to drain the blood from them.

“Alright, done. So while that’s draining, I should really do something about this mess.” I said to myself as I looked at the state of my clothes and the boar’s remains.

My clothes were already covered in dried blood when I left the dungeon, but I just got more blood on myself after dragging the boar’s dead body on my back. I knew that I'd already gotten used to the sight of blood and animal guts, but it still felt gross being covered in it.

Since Lux couldn’t get the meat that was hanging in the trees, he started eating some of the boar’s intestines. So once I started dragging the boar’s remains, Lux followed after me and kept trying to snatch another chunk of meat. I kept walking through the woods for a while and dropped off the remains far away from the camp. Luckily there was a small pond nearby and I took the opportunity to take off my shirt and wash my upper body.

When I took off the robe that I used as a shirt, I could see that the blood was covering my entire torso. But once I wet a rag and used it to wipe the blood off of my body, I saw that all of the scars on my torso were gone. I was glad that all of my injuries were gone now, but part of me was sad that they were gone. Some of the scars belonged to simple things like animal bites, cutting myself on a rock, and falling off a tree. But most of the scars came from my fights with the hunters and surviving near death experiences, so some of those were personal to me.

"Well guess I'm not gonna be one of those adventurers with cool battle scars?" I said as I started wiping my face.

Not knowing if I got all the blood off my face, I looked down at my reflection in the pond. The sun was setting and the light helped show my reflection in the pond. If I hadn't gotten enough surprises today, this one came more as a surprise to me than meeting Krisyn. I saw that other than looking like a homeless man with my beard and long messy hair, I looked the same as when I first arrived at this mountain.

"No way! This can't be right?!" I asked as I rubbed my eyes.

I then immediately got closer to my reflection and inspected my face. Back at the dungeon I was sure that I was older and somewhere past my late twenties when I was traveling through the dungeon. Now it looked as if I never entered the dungeon, but only grew out my hair and beard. My muscles almost looked the same as when I fought the mannequin, but they were more toned and my body looked like it hadn't eaten anything all day.

I then noticed something strange about my eyes. They were now a light amber color and had a faint glow to them. The light from the sunset made the glow from my eyes unnoticeable. But once the sunlight went away and the moon was starting to come out, I noticed two glowing dots in the water and saw that they were coming from my eyes.

'Why are they like this?' I thought to myself.

I wondered if they had anything to do with what Krisyn did to me, but immediately remembered something that I heard in the past. I then remembered that both Sona and that one tribal girl also had glowing eyes.

‘What was her name again?’ I asked myself while scratching my head. ‘Nowenipe? Norepine? Noekanape? I remember calling her Noe or something since her name was hard to remember? I remember that she said something about being chosen. So did she mean a Chosen?’

With both my glowing eyes and the title, I knew that I’m now something that’s called a Chosen. But the more I thought about my situation, the more I wondered what any of this meant. I no longer had my older body, I now have glowing amber eyes, and I have someone that was imprisoned in the dungeon that I came out of. So the only person that could answer my questions is someone that was referred to as The Banished One and might be an evil god that might be a huge threat.

“Nice one, Toshio. You really know how to pick the people that you surround yourself with, huh.” I said to myself.

I did my best to wash the blood off my robe in the pond, but I couldn’t remove the red stains on the robe and was forced to wear it like that. Then once I returned back at the camp, I started the campfire and cooked the chunks of boar over the flames. Then after a while, the smell of the roasted boar made Krisyn come out of the tent and made her way over to the campfire. When she arrived at the campfire, she knelt down on the grass and stared at the meat that’s still roasting over the flames.

She stared at the flames as if she never saw fire in a long time. Then she reached her hand out towards the flames and I was about to say something or stop her, but I stopped myself as I saw what happened next. The flames weren’t hurting her, but almost danced around her hand. Then the flames went back to the campfire as she took her hand away from the flames.

“So what do you wanna know?” She asked, not even looking away from the flames.

“Everything.” I said as I looked at her. “I wanna know the answers to all of my questions and you’re the only one that could answer them.”