Chapter 46

Let's go back a little.

Estelle party finally woke up after a long slumber. Being in a dark cave, none of them could exactly tell how much time had passed. Maybe they had slept five hours, maybe ten.

"Everyone, it's time to wake up!"

Artemisia urged everybody to set in motion.

"Mmmh… five more minutes."

And their party leader was the last one to get up.

Eventually, they managed to start walking once again.

"By the way, yesterday in bed, I had a great idea. If we only have to reach the end of floor one for it to be considered a clear, why don't we just avoid kobolds and rush there without fighting?"

Elene Bauer proposed her idea to the party. But Andre Von Rais seemed to wish to say something more.

"No fighting? Are you crazy? That's the thing we're best at anyway."

"I wouldn't be so sure. The party with the perfect score guy had no scout. They're five full-fledged fighters."

"But I can probably take on two of them at once!"

"But do you have the same stamina as two people?"

"Huh? Of course!"

Everybody looked at him with one of their eyebrows raised. The day before, he was the first to fall asleep. He had been the most exhausted out of everybody.

'I saw them train. I wouldn't be so sure about the first statement either by now…'

Thinking about that, she reached one conclusion.

'If I want to beat him, I can't be picky about what method I use!'

"Let's try what Elene proposed."

"Are you kidding me? Who would want to win that way?"

"But wouldn't be losing to someone using such a strategy feel worse?"

Elene immediately cut in once again. Now that she had found a foothold, she wasn't going to let go of it. She was tired of fighting kobolds. And let's not talk about all of that gross blood that came out of them…

Eventually, they decided to do as Elene proposed.

***

A few hours later, they found themselves way ahead of where they were when they first started out. They had managed to go unnoticed all the way here.

The only unfortunate thing was that they had reached too far ahead. They were now in front of a settlement that entirely occupied the whole width of the tunnel.

There was no way around it, but it was also impossible to circle around.

The whole lot of them started whispering among each other. The one to start was Artemisia.

"What should we do now?"

"I-I think we should go back…"

As he was speaking, Timeo was interrupted by Andre.

"Go back, now? After how far we've reached? I propose we try to sneak through this one as well."

"We have to decide quickly, though. I fear the kobolds that we avoided a little ago might find us as they were walking in this direction…"

Artemisia urged them to be a bit quicker. Everyone then turned towards Estelle.

"We've reached this far… I think we should try to sneak through as well. I doubt we are far off from the end of the dungeon."

They thus decided to try and sneak through the settlement.

The settlement had two pairs of wooden walls on the front and the back. On the sides, they weren't needed as the settlement extended all the way to the walls of the tunnel.

The five of them started looking through the slits between the wooden planks making up the walls.

They were looking for an excellent spot to cross where no kobolds could be seen.

Eventually, they found a good spot.

One by one, they climbed on Andre's shoulders to cross the wall. Estelle and Artemisia stayed on top of the wall to help Andre cross.

The three of them then jumped back onto the ground.

The five nodded and started to walk through the small alleys left between the various huts built there.

Estelle curiously took a peek in one of them, just to see a family of kobolds sleeping. Then she noticed something.

All five of them wore a necklace with a wooden token attached. There were pink butterflies painted on top of it.

'Don't tell me…'

A little tear came down Estelle's eye.

Up until now, she had seen them as mere enemies. She hadn't thought of monsters as living creatures at all. They simply were humanity's opponent.

But kobolds also had families. Their sense of family was maybe even more robust than that of humans.

Noticing Estelle stopped, Artemisia also took a peek to see what was happening. And she immediately realised as well.

That was probably the family of the first kobold they had killed. Her reaction was more contained compared to Estelle's.

"Elle, don't cry. They're probably just from the same clan. That is probably the symbol of the clan they are part of."

She lied. She knew kobolds weren't attached to any family members outside parents and siblings. The concept of family stopped there. They had a primordial society, but the concept of clan was never mentioned.

"Let's move on."

"Y-yes."

The others didn't seem to notice what happened as they were slightly further behind.

As they were passing near another hut, Estelle saw a kobold eating. Then the kobold turned.

'Did it see me? I swear we saw eye to eye…'

The kobold stood up.

Estelle froze on the spot. She stayed as still as she could.

Creak.

The kobold had sat once again on a sort of wooden chair if three planks nailed together could be called one.

It had stood up just to pick more food.

It resumed eating without a care in the world.

'I seriously broke a sweat there.'

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Estelle kept on walking. She could finally see the wall on the opposite side of the settlement.

'Just one more alley, and we're there!'

This last alley was incredibly narrow. Estelle could barely squeeze through if she walked sideways.

Estelle gazed left and right for an alternative.

Too bad, in either direction, they would find themselves in a big street where getting spotted would be easy.

Judging that squeezing was the least likely to fail, Estelle decided to attempt it.

"Mmgh"

She could barely squeeze through.

Then came Artemisia. She passed without a hitch.

Elene and Timeo could squeeze through just fine as well, though with some minor complications.

The real problem came with Andre Von Rais. No matter how he tried, he couldn't.

He decided to remove his armour and pass it to the others.

Though he had some trouble, he could squeeze through.

Creak.

The wood didn't seem happy that he was squeezing through.

"Mmmmh. I made it!"

As he said that, one of the two huts partially collapsed.

Inside was a Kobold about to bite onto a deer steak.

Andre and the Kobold stared at each other.

Elene immediately started extracting her bow to limit the damage.

Unfortunately, the kobold howled as strong as it could.

The five of them immediately started running towards the wall.

But, before anybody could even try to climb it, they saw armoured kobolds running towards them.

"I think we should give up and hope for a teacher to help us."

"Don't be ridiculous, Elene! We are not giving up! Let's fight as we should have from the beginning!"

"We won't be able to make it. There are at least a few hundred kobolds in this camp."

Estelle had an idea after hearing Artemisia's judgment.

"All four of you, go. Here, have the Owl's eye and the Bounded Stone. Run back from where we came from!"

"But Elle, what about you?"

"I'll distract them all! Now, go!"

Saying that, Estelle threw the two items at Artemisia.

"Do I look like someone who would run? I. Want. To. FIGHT!"

"You'll fight all the kobolds on your way back, Andre. And in any case, I'll avoid fighting as much as possible. NOW, GO!"

The pack of Kobolds that had spotted them had now reached them. Estelle immediately lunged at the first one that got inside her fighting range.

Even though Andre had more to say, Elene pinched Andre on his arm and dragged him away.

'Well, now I've done it for real.'

Clang. Clank. Ching

Within ten moves, she had already cut down two Kobolds.

But she knew she couldn't hold on for much longer. She had to get out of there quickly before every Kobold in the dungeon came.

After cutting down a third one, she made a run for it. Squeezing through the alley she had come from, she managed to rack up some distance from the pursuers.

She ran, ran and ran. Every three alleys, some unforeseen Kobolds would pop up, and Estelle had to change path.

After a good ten minutes of chasing, Estelle found herself on the settlement's main street.

She then began to run towards the gate. Kobolds tried to bar her path over and over again.

'Leave me alone!'

Every time she would pull some stunt, even the agile Kobolds were envious of. Sometimes she faked them, and once, she even slid beneath a Kobold's thin legs.

But, as she was about to reach the gate, a Kobold bigger than all of the others she had seen yet barred her path.

'Out of my way!'

Not thinking too deeply, Estelle lunged at this Kobold with her sword.

But this Kobold wasn't a normal one. It caught her sword with its fingers easily. That showed the clear difference in power between the two.

'This Kobold can't be a mortal! I don't believe that. The headmaster lied!'

Refusing to give up, she gave up on the sword and initiated hand-to-hand combat with the Kobold.

Kick, punch, another kick. No matter how hard she tried, the Kobold wouldn't budge.

'I even gave away the Bounded Stone and can't ask for help! What do I do? What should I do!?'

Estelle panicked as time went on. And that wasn't all. She was gradually becoming exhausted as well.

Then, at some point, she fell to her knees. She couldn't hold on any longer. She was done for.

She was now surrounded by Kobolds and didn't have any more tricks up her sleeve.

The Kobold she had been fighting raised her very own sword, which it had caught.

'This emotion, again! Then…'

She began experiencing fear. It was an emotion she had felt only one other time.

'I won't die! I don't want to die yet. There are still so many things I have to do! It can't end here, right? Right?'

Tears began flowing once again from her eyes. As time seemed to stop in her head, she noticed on the Kobold a wooden necklace.

It had a green leaf on it. The hunter had become the prey.

As she was about to accept her fate, she felt a surge of energy within her.

'The seal has been lifted!'

She could now show her true power as a cultivator with an Orange Core.

Even though she wasn't that high in Stage, the Achievement in a Realm was way more important.

As the sword came slashing down, she easily caught it with two fingers. She pulled the blade towards her, making the astounded Kobold lose its balance.

As it fell, Estelle threw a punch at its chest. It was so strong it pierced through the Kobold's rib cage and came out on the other side.

'Now I can really do it!'

The prey had become the hunter once again.

***

Once he heard what had happened from Elene Bauer's mouth, Vince immediately dashed forward.

He ignored Estelle's other party members that he found as he ran.

'No matter what, I can't let her die!'

He ran and killed the Kobolds he found on the way using his real power.

He couldn't care about hiding his cultivation anymore. If someone saw him, that was a problem to solve later.

Luckily he had given the Owl's Eye and the Bounded Stone to Gero, so the school staff couldn't see what he was doing.

If they did, they'd probably have shivers.

He ran into dozens of Kobolds on his way, yet all of them couldn't even hinder him a bit. They were all killed in one move.

Eventually, Kobolds became so scared of him they began running away just as they saw him.

If a Kobold felt the stench of blood of a fellow Kobold on something, it would get enraged and seek revenge. If it were the blood of a family member, it would be a fight to the death.

But if it was the stench of hundreds of different bloods, things were much different.

Eventually, Vince found the settlement Estelle was in.

But what he saw stunned him. The whole main road was covered in corpses. And there was so much blood flowing that a small river had formed.

As he walked, he gradually found more and more corpses, but one, in particular, caught his eye.

'A Kobold Chief! It wasn't supposed to be here! In the first place, this settlement wasn't even marked on the map! What's going on here?'

Eventually, he found himself before an incredible scene.

Estelle was still fighting the last remnants of the Kobolds. She was covered in sweat and blood, and she could hardly move.

Yet, the few Kobolds that still surrounded her were so scared they didn't even try to attack this exhausted Estelle.

'Her cultivation is back! As I thought, they had sealed it, huh. Well, now it's not time for this.'

Vince dashed towards Estelle. As the Kobolds felt the stench coming from Vince, they trembled.

They were already afraid of the blonde monster in front of them, but now there was one more.

As the Kobolds began to run away, Estelle and Vince met their gaze.