Cries could be heard from the lower compartments of the dungeon.A man, broken and alone, could not take it anymore.
He had been taken against his will by someone he didn't know, to a place that he didn't know, forced to suffer alone in the dark.
'Why did I deserve this?' his mind wondered.
Despite enjoying the journey after he had acquired the Shock skill, the pain in his body was too much to bare.
He just couldn't get up. Every bone in his body was crushed from a fall that survival wasn't even possible from, in his experience.Every breath he took gave up blood, and every blink took effort.
Blood dripped from his body onto the rocks he had crushed, his gaze falling upon a sight of mangled goblins and wolves, their bodies twisted and broken. With tears and blood mixed in his eyes, he couldn't muster the strength to go on.
Until—
screech
Half the goblins, including the huge wolf, had fallen into a different compartment, separated from him by a wall of rubble he had laid up against.The remaining ones were all but a pile of corpses that lay on rocks of different sizes.
A single goblin that fell into his compartment screeched, then stood up from the corpses of its brethren. It was too weak to walk, its bone could be seen as it tore its skin. It crawled forward, using a dagger to try and stab him.
He was up on the rubble while the goblin was on the pavement below. He didn't have to stand up or show any effort. A mere flicker of his fingers was enough to unleash a bolt of electricity that rolled some of the rubble down, crushing the goblin's head.
"Power," he muttered."A whole day ago, you lot were making me cry. See how easily I can kill you now?" he spat, a hoarse, pained sound.
Shit.
He stood, his body screaming in protest. He took a single leap to a rock not even a foot away, but he slipped, rolling down the rubble and crashing with a loud thud.
The pain of the fall was much more than expected—more than anything he had ever experienced. He took a single glance at the dead bodies next to him while holding his lower back.
They weren't dead yet, but give it an hour, they would be, as even their bones tore past their skin. He grabbed one of their rusty daggers lying on the ground and started scraping, digging it into their flesh, twisting and stabbing them again and again. He laid them together and slit their throats.
One of the wolves gave him puppy eyes, but he felt no pity.You're the one who made my legs like this, he thought, stabbing it.You're the one who is making me suffer, he thought, stabbing a goblin.
A mountain of corpses began to pile up, creating a vast pool of blood that dripped from their stabbed bodies and the mess he made. It expanded six meters in every direction.In all, there were twenty-six goblins and ten wolves lying in the growing pool of blood.
"I will kill whoever brought me to this place, I swear!" he muttered.
He crawled, then walked, his bloodied footsteps marking every painful step toward what seemed to be the entrance to another dungeon compartment.
He had just picked up his sword and shield as well as a single piece of cloth from the goblins. It smelled foul, but he used it to clean his face regardless.He stopped and stood there, doubting if he could still go on.
Then, he heard the rubble shift from the other side.Sounds of stones eroding, as well as the clank that appears when hitting metal with stone, could be heard.
The big wolf was still alive, and he knew he had to make a decision. At this rate, it wouldn't take them more than ten minutes to enter.
"I am not going to die today," he said, his voice firm.
He swung open the double doors, his sword and shield raised.
"There was no one."
It was a big compartment with drawings of unknown symbols on the walls. There were no statues, no windows, but a single door at the front.
Just when he was about to step forward—
Flames.
A torrent of fire, so intense it could have been mistaken for an out-of-control flamethrower, erupted and sprayed directly at his face.
He used his shield to block the flames, but the heat was too powerful, forcing him to back off.
It was a fire lizard, and its blazing breath rendered his shield useless. He threw it at the lizard as a distraction and sprinted toward the other door, but with a loud bam, it wouldn't open.
Another flame attack shot out at him, and he rolled, dodging the blast, his body still scorched by the intense heat. He rolled and rolled.
Unable to close the gap between them, he hurled the sword. It glanced off the creature's hide with a sharp clang, as if striking steel.
He continued his sprint, taking refuge behind a massive stone slab.
All he could do was evade. The lizard's searing breath ripped through the air, superheating the space where his head had been and singeing his hair. At this rate, he would be incinerated.
"What can I do? Think, think!" he desperately thought.
His sword couldn't penetrate the beast's thick scales, and his Shock was useless unless he could make contact.The sounds of the lizard's relentless advance echoed loudly.
Then, a final option came to mind.
Since neither his sword nor his Shock could reach the lizard, there was only one thing left to do — run.
He turned toward the exit leading back to the rubble, the place where the dead goblins and wolves still lay. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he sprinted, the ground trembling under each blast of flame behind him.
The creature pursued him, spewing flames every few seconds. He leaped over the pool of blood and threw himself behind a mound of corpses.
The lizard scrambled forward, plunging its body into the pool of blood and immediately beginning to paddle toward him.
"You know, this world and Earth might not be so different," he said, lowering his hand until his palm rested on the viscous liquid.
"Shock!" he shouted.
Death became a conduit. A powerful current, facilitated by the iron in the corpses' blood , instantly raced through the liquid and into the creature's body, frying the lizard where it swam.
'Thank God,' he said, walking past the mountain of corpses and the roasted lizard."If monsters didn't have iron, I don't know what I would have done without it, to be honest. Well, blood also has water inside it, so that could be the case as well."
He began returning to the room, holding a smug smile on his face despite the pain he was feeling in his soul.
Haven't you forgotten something, Mr. Hiroki?
He reached the room and began inspecting it.
What caught his attention was the massive stone table he had hidden behind. The surface wasn't a single slab but a lid that could be pushed open. He grunted, straining as he shoved the heavy stone aside, revealing a small compartment underneath.
Inside, he found five small, corked glass bottles. They held a crimson-red liquid that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light.
'Is that what I think it is?' he wondered. 'A potion?'
It was a possibility. But what could he test it on?
He suddenly remembered that he hadn't received his reward for killing the lizard yet, which meant it must still be alive!This meant he could effectively experiment with the potion.
Returning to the blood pool, he dropped about half of the crimson liquid from the bottle onto the creature.
Despite being half-dead, the lizard reacted frantically, screaming before falling still after a minute. He was shocked; the marks from the Shock skill had completely disappeared!
He still hadn't received a reward, confirming that the potion didn't kill the lizard—it had healed it.
Armed with this knowledge, he sliced the unconscious creature in half with a dagger from one of the goblins, its warm blood mixing with the blood pool.
Suddenly, a heat equivalent to a stove radiated from his left hand, and scales appeared, resembling the lizard's as they covered his entire arm.
But no system message in sight.
Night Vision — Level 3Shock — Level 2
He went back to the room where he had fought the lizard and laid down on the floor.
'Since I'm going to die anyway,' he thought, 'I might as well try, right?'
He opened the half-empty bottle and drank its contents. His veins instantly felt as if they were on fire, and he was in excruciating pain for fifteen seconds before losing consciousness.
'Haah... haah... ahhha,' he gasped for air as he stood up. He couldn't believe what had happened.
'I'm all healed up?!'