Chapter 65 Hero, verbally abusing an unrelated great strategist. Part 1
Translator: Pink Tea Editor: JackOFallTrades
Kill, kill, kill.
「Gyarrah?!」「Boguh?!」「GueEE?!」
「tch, Manifest, Verdant Green 「Healing Green」」
While cutting through the flock of monsters with the spirit sword, I am healing wounds that are becoming too numerous to ignore with the 「Verdant Green Crystal Sword」 that is hanging on my hip.
This is too slow……not enough……need to be even faster.
*pant, pant, pant*
Tearing, piercing and decapitating monsters over and over again.
This is the same as the game, the simple repetitive process of killing enemies for experience.
This is no different from the games I played with my friends after school.
You just have to grind levels and this hero’s body will turn monstrously strong.
Therefore, even if it’s just one more point of experience, I have to acquire as many as possible.
Because my sword is too slow, because my strength is too weak, because my movements are too dull, I still cannot return to my wo…
「Garuu!」
「Ghaa?! Guh, RaAh!!!」
…I’m thinking about unnecessary things too much.
With the pain from the bitten left shoulder knocking unnecessary thoughts aside, I once again get myself into concentrating on the battle.
I swing my hand behind and tear off a beogarm clinging to me. After freeing my shoulder from its jaws, I send it flying with a kick.
「Garuuuuu!」「Gyaurah!」「Gargaah!!!」
「Ha~, not enough. If I don’t get stronger, I won’t be able to return. With the blessings of the forest, I summon thee, Verdant Green Light 「Healing Verdure」」
The group of monsters is glaring at me while trying to complete their encirclement.
While suppressing consumption of magical power with the long chant, I healed the wound from the bite to some extent with the 「Verdant Green Crystal Sword」
「Dad, Mom, Mai. I will definitely come back, just you wait.」
I drink up a MP potion that I took from my Storage Pouch and sprinkle some of my HP potion over smaller injuries, recovering them along with my stamina.
I throw away the empty bottle and dive into the horde of monsters in front of me once again.
☆
After annihilating a pack of beogarms and cleaning their blood off my robe with the 「Clean」 spell, I’m confirming my status.
「Still level 125, huh?」
After raising my level, attacks of a certain degree can no longer injure me.
On top of that, my maximum HP and the rate at which lost health is recovered has also increased. So, even though I am carrying out a monster hunt almost every night, my body can keep up.
Those HP numbers appear to be more complicated than I initially thought. Apart from decreasing from attacks or poison, it also decreases if you overextend yourself or fall ill.
Most likely, it is not a number that shows 「it’s okay to take around this much damage」 but a somewhat simplified representation of something like vitality or overall life force.
「The amount that recovers per rest has increased again, so guess I can raise my hunting pace a bit more.」
While drinking fuzzy grass tea, I check my status and notice that its recovery amount has increased a bit.
Recovery from potions is slow and gradual. Just because you drank a large amount of it, doesn’t mean that the recovery effect will get stronger. Therefore, from time to time, it becomes necessary to take a break and wait for natural recovery to do the work, but if things are like this then it might be okay to cut a bit on the breaks.
Recovery from potions will continue even during the battle.
After acquiring my storage pouch, I am also stockpiling potions in large amounts, though taking care not to affect the market too much.
(I’m a bit tired)
My level is top-class even for this world. However, in this world, there are other people at my level of strength but since it proved impossible to defeat the Demon Lord with just that much, they called for me.
I rose up and after sighing once, shook off those thoughts that seemed like they could go on forever.
I do not have time to think about meaningless things. Becoming stronger is the only thing that matters to me now.
「I have to hurry up and find another monster… Whoa?!」
At that moment…The earth opened its jaws.
Truly fitting for such a description, a huge hole suddenly opened on the ground underneath my feet.
I extend my hand to keep myself from falling but the hole is too wide, I can’t even scrape its edges with my fingertips.
「Whoa, AAAAAAAAA!!!」
It felt like time has stopped for a moment and then that moment stretched out indefinitely. I had no way to oppose the sensation of my stomach floating up as I was sucked into the pitch black abyss.
(DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!)
I hear a whistling sound in my ears.
With my confused brain, I realize that I have to fall feet first so I adjust my position in mid-air.
Far away in direction of my fall, I see the ground. However, my mind, running in circles, was unable to produce more beneficial ideas, so I ended up hitting the ground with incredible speed.
「GUAAAAAAAA」
BODOOM!!! As if such letters were about to appear, my whole body goes numb from the shock of the impact.
When I reflectively looked up at the hole that I fell from, I saw the entrance far, far away.
The distance was so far that it reminded me of the height of some skyscrapers from my world.
Moreover, the hole slowly gets smaller as if it were alive…Until it finally disappeared without a trace as if it never existed.
「Whoooa, what I’m going to do with this.」
The unexpected chain of events left me so dumbfounded that I wasn’t able to move but the situation did not allow such a thing.
「GyaRRR!!!」「Muoooo」
「What?!」
Roars of monsters reached my ears.
After cutting down monsters that had lunged at me right away, I put some distance between the scene and I, and confirmed my surroundings.
The place where I fell to was a cube surrounded by concrete-like walls.
It seemed like those walls were emitting light, so the whole place looked as bright as it would be under the sun’s shine.
In addition, monsters consisting of only Garms and Orcs crowded its perimeter. All of which were directing their hostility only towards me.
「No way, a dungeon?」
*gulp*
I receive an attack from an orc swinging his hatchet with nothing but brute force with my spirit sword, which sends a heavy force travelling from the point of contact to my arms.
After being locked in place by pushing our swords against each other, I slide mine and by changing its angle to redirect the incoming force, it gave me an opportunity to cut his neck with that motion.
「Brrraaa…!!!」
With a heavy thud, the orc, most likely an orc soldier went down. While confirming that, I quickly glance over to my surroundings.
As expected, the orcs’ and garms’ hostility towards me is still there, keeping them from breaking into discord amongst themselves.
Although higher specimens were present for each respective species, it didn’t seem like they had absolute control over them.
Looks like it really is a dungeon.
When we entered the empire, the emperor told me about every dungeon suitable for training in the vicinity. However, there should be no dungeon around here. The closest one should be in the Labyrinth City and we were only on our way there.
In other words, this is an undiscovered dungeon.
「GARRRAAA!!!」「GRRR!!!」
「…! There is too many…」
Each attacking monster was not that strong. Though they were somewhat stronger than the monsters that I have been fighting in the forest a while ago, they weren’t that different from the monsters that inhabited dungeons that we captured previously.
However, it is hard to fight such a number of enemies in an open space while being surrounded on all sides.
While fighting off monsters springing at me, I try to find an escape route. The room had three entrances: one behind me, one in front of me and another one to the right of me.
(When you are lost, just go right!)
Following words that my little sister often repeated, I decided on breaking through the monsters on the right side.
「Brraaa?!」「Gyar!!」「Grrra!!!」
「Damn, you are in the way, scram!」
Using the giant body of a defeated orc, I was able to break through the encirclement and jump into the passageway on the right side while sustaining occasional injuries.
At this point, there is nothing for me to be particularly afraid of anymore.
「With the blessings of the forest I summon thee, Verdant Green Light 「Healing Verdure」」
While conserving magic power by using a chant, I’m turning the attacking monsters into a pile of corpses.
I have to do it, because…if I try to run away and end up being attacked from both sides as a result of encountering another pack of monsters, it really won’t be funny anymore.
Then, I continued fighting for a while and around the time I completely lost my sense of smell thanks to the stench of blood in the air, I was able to finish the monsters’ extermination.
*Heavy breathing* 「I’m really unlucky…」
After checking that there are no signs of living monsters around, I sheathed the spirit sword and took a small break before continuing further down the passageway.
I also thought of collecting materials from them, but disassembling this number of monsters was tiring and troublesome.
「But this body is starting to get really monstrous.」
I keep walking while turning my wrists around and confirming that there are no problems with my body.
After all, I did a bungee jump without the bungee… By the common sense of my previous world, it would not be surprising for me to instantly turn into a bloody splat after that fall.
However, it would seem that I have neither a single fracture nor even a sprain.
「Well, it was obvious during my fight with the monsters. However, I haven’t felt the feeling that I might actually die since my very first battles with dungeon bosses.」
But before fighting with the dungeon boss, there is still some time left to prepare yourself and calm your heart.
This time, on top of being completely unexpected, the danger of falling from an extreme height felt much more real than some fantasy monster.
Recently, even weak, low-leveled monsters cannot injure me, and I have enough power to uproot large trees if I wanted to, yet the common sense of my previous world could still stir a strong sense of fear in my heart.
「By the time I get to my original world, I will most likely have turned into an even bigger monster… I will have to be careful.」
If upon return, I still have this power and were to expose even a fraction of it, there is no doubt, it will cause a huge uproar. Please spare me that.
「Ha?! WHA?!」
With a click, the floor split in two and swung open like a double door, turning into one huge hole.
However, since I was on guard due to being in an unfamiliar dungeon, I was able to jump away in time.
「Wrong way, huh.」
After a look at the pitfall that closed as soon as I jumped backward, I turned around and started walking.
I return to where I began and go into the passage to my right again.
「Tch, not this one as well, huh.」
A pitfall was in that passage as well. This time again, I was able to jump back at the very last moment, so I didn’t come to any real harm. And again, the pitfall closed itself as soon as I got away from it.
Since I had no choice, I backtracked again and went into the last passage. As I was walking down the corridor, I could not shake off this really bad premonition…
「What the fuck is this?」
Turns out my premonition was spot on.
As I jump away, a huge hole emerged at where I stood less than a second ago.
After a sudden invitation to a monster house, every passageway I take has a giant pitfall trap….This game has a truly shitty design.
「Oh well, the current me should be able to get over it with a long jump. 」
The pitfall covers a distance of around 10 meters. Making such a jump would mean beating the world record by a huge margin, but that’s not a problem for me at the moment.
「Who do you think will fall in a pitfall? Heave-ho!!」
Duh!!! With good acceleration, I jumped right at the edge of the pitfall and when it would seem like I was about to get over it, I hit something in mid-air.
「Gah?!」
(Wall?! Don’t tell me this is a painting?!)
Once again, an unexpected situation robs me of my composure.
(Doesn’t matter, I have to kick the wall and escape!..)
「W…What?!」
But almost as if reading my mind, something similar to a fly swatter appears right in front of me and hits me.
「Ko…」
No matter how you look at it, the timing of said swatting wouldn’t allow me to avoid it. Out of anger and frustration, I had no choice but to let out a cry.
「KOUMEI!!!」
With a disrespectful yell towards a completely unrelated great man, I once again plunge into another pitfall.
- TL Note: “Kōmei no wana” – Japanese equivalent of Kaizo Trap. (“Kōmei’s trap”, Kōmei being the Japanese reading of Kongming, the courtesy name for Zhuge Liang, a famous strategist from Romance of the Three Kingdoms). ). His strategies were so ingenious that he drove his enemies to almost paranoid state in which they would suspect his traps on every turn. As example, invisible block in Mario would often be called Koumei no wana.