The Long Hunt

From the cracks in the wall, new stone began to grow. The cave wall instantly repaired itself because it was part of the dungeon.

[-30 HP]

Flain collided with the monster, crushing it under his body. He also lost some HP from the impact, but not much.

[+380 EXP]

Flain expected a rockslide to start, so he was ready to push off the dead monster's body and escape, but it wasn't necessary.

He stood up. If he had crashed into a different monster, he could have won without losing a single HP—maybe even against the humanoid one. But, of course, it had to be the insectoid monster, which was extremely fast and took longer than three seconds to hit. In the end, though, Flain didn't care. Did he kill the monster? Yes. Did he lose a lot of HP? No.

Flain stood up, remembering that he had a bonus point to allocate. He decided to put it into vitality. It might not seem like he needed extra HP in his current situation, but the truth was quite the opposite.

[Vitality increased by 1]

Flain regenerated for fifteen minutes and then continued through the cave. After another fifteen minutes, he encountered yet another new type of monster.

'How many different monsters does this dungeon even have? It would be better if the same ones kept repeating—I could learn their movements, and fights would be much easier,' Flain thought. To be clear, he didn't mind difficult fights. In fact, he loved them. The only issue was that every tough battle left him with low HP, forcing him to sit on the ground doing nothing for two hours.

This monster was truly strange and small. Once again, it looked somewhat insect-like. It had a purple body with multiple protrusions close to the ground, surrounded by ten curled-up purple insect legs. Its large, elongated purple head had many pink, menacing growths shaped like spheres. It had two large green eyes, and in the center of its head was an upside-down mouth with two small tentacles near it.

The monster didn't attack first. Instead, it slowly moved in a circle around Flain, its insect legs shifting with surprising silence.

Then, in an instant, the creature lunged forward at an unbelievable speed. Flain had expected this and dodged to the side, yet one of its sharp insect protrusions still managed to graze his side.

[-25 HP]

'Why does every single insect monster have to be so fast?' Flain thought.

He barely kept his footing but immediately counterattacked. His swords struck the creature's body, yet the blades seemed to slide off its surface before finally sinking in. This monster had an extremely strange body texture.

Flain had managed to land a hit on his first attempt, meaning that while it might be as fast as the other insectoid monster, its reflexes were definitely inferior.

The creature quickly scurried under Flain and stabbed him in the back with its legs, using them like blades.

[-65 HP]

Flain turned around, but the monster had already moved away.

Then, something happened—the pink spheres on its head began to glow.

Flain assumed the monster would fire something or do something similar when one of the glowing spheres shot a bright beam of energy straight at him.

Flain expected it. He jumped to the side, but the beam still grazed his thigh.

[-50 HP]

In an instant, Flain was right next to the monster. He leaped into the air, swords ready, and swung downward. But the creature opened its mouth and extended a long, purple tentacle, catching him mid-air.

Flain smirked. With a single sword slash, he severed the tentacle. He landed on the ground, but the monster reacted immediately, attacking with one of its insect legs.

Flain unleashed his aggression. He started landing an incredible number of rapid attacks. The monster blocked many with its legs, but plenty still struck their mark.

He managed to hit one of the large green eyes. Purple fluid sprayed from the wound, and the monster let out a shriek.

PPPIIIIIIRRR

Suddenly, its body tensed, and all ten limbs stabbed into the ground. Its entire form began to tremble.

Flain jumped back, but the explosion came first.

BOOOMM

A massive shockwave slammed into Flain, throwing him against the cave wall.

[-70 HP]

Flain stood up. 'Great, an exploding bug. Who would've guessed?' he thought.

The monster barely remained standing. Flain dashed forward and effortlessly decapitated it.

[+390 EXP]

Flain was left with only 25 HP. He didn't consider the monster particularly strong; the main reason he lost so much HP was that he wasn't used to fighting it, and it was extremely unpredictable. If he had fought it a second time, he would have lost at most half of what he had now.

Flain began regenerating. Three days passed, during which he continuously hunted monsters in the cave. The same three types of insect monsters appeared repeatedly, along with an animal-like monster, a purple monster, and occasionally a skeleton. He never once encountered a humanoid or crystalline monster during those days. Flain mastered the monsters' movements to perfection, and many times, he finished battles without losing a single HP.

Flain kept exploring, but after about five hours, he hadn't encountered a single monster in this part of the cave. The dungeon had likely had enough. He took out his magic map and set off for the base to visit Itai.

Flain had accumulated a total of 13,500 EXP and 12 evolution dusks, which had converted into an evolution shard. Now, he had 4 evolution shards and 7 evolution dusks. That meant he only needed 3 more evolution dusks to evolve.

He also hadn't leveled up at all, as he was saving EXP for the Box with EN skill in the shop, which cost 7,000 EXP. Once he reached 7,000 EXP, he decided he would buy it at the base and wouldn't level up until the end of the hunt. He had set this challenge for himself to make the hunt more exciting. He was seriously tempted to level up, but he endured.

When Flain arrived at the base, Itai looked at him and blinked a few times. "Damn, where the hell have you been for so long? I thought you were dead," he muttered.

Flain's eyes shone with immense excitement. It was finally time to spend his hard-earned EXP...