"Mngh… where am I?"
I opened my eyes, waking from my stupor. I found myself lying in a cave-like place. Rocky walls and ceiling were all I could see.
The circular space was quite spacious—about 10 meters in wide—Well… I take that back. This place was claustrophobic. There was a single light source on the ceiling in the form of some kind of shining crystal. The light was alright—not too dim, but not blinding either.
Once my vision became clear, I tried to prop myself up with my hands—only to find that I'm unable to. Not only that, an excruciating pain shot through my arms below the elbows.
"Aagh!" I grimaced. "Haaagh… How did I forget!? That bitch! She cut my hands off."
Enduring the intense pain, I propped myself up using my elbows.
HUD, activate. I commanded with my mind.
A HUD (head-up display) appeared in my field of vision, similar to something you'd see in a video game, mainly the RPG one. There was a circular map icon at the top left, an HP bar, Lv, EXP counter, and a brain icon at the bottom left, finally, there's a menu icon at the top right corner. My HP was currently sitting under 5% of its maximum value, thanks for all the beating I suffered, and the mana meter that was usually beneath the HP bar was now gone.
"I'm back at Lv1. I guess that stupid ritual really did take all my EXP points—ugh! My whole body freaking hurt!"
Now that I was fully awake, the pain from my missing arms and the wounds all over my body came crashing down on me. The pain from thorny vines that had pierced through my skin still lingered, and even my whole face was screaming in pain.
I opened the menu system and tried to access the shop to buy the most expensive item available. That was when a grueling fact struck me—I couldn't browse the shop without touching it.
"Aaagh… Dammit! The moment I see that bitch princess, I'm cutting off all her limbs!" I declared in fury.
I could open the menu itself just by commanding it in my mind, but the semi-transparent window that appeared afterward could only be navigated by a touch.
I tried to operate it using my nose, but it also didn't work very well. My nose was probably dislocated from all the beating that bastard Ruld gave me—heck, I didn't even know if it was still there.
The frustration of being unable to perform even the simplest task, exploded inside me. Their betrayal, the pain they caused me, the humiliation they put me through—it broke me.
"Aaaarrrghhh! Lis! Ruld! Krost! Vinarg! Lesnard!" I screamed, calling out the names of my former comrades. "You bastards! I'll blast you and your beloved elven kingdom to ruins! You hear me!? You'd better be prepared! I'll make all of you suffer again and again, even after you begged for mercy!"
I leaned back against the rocky floor in rage, then began navigating through the shop menu list with my toes, cursing my former comrades in my mind all the way until I finally found what I wanted.
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< Would you like to buy the (Elixir of Life) for 100000 Currencies? >
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I chose "Yes" and closed the menu. A vial containing a greenish liquid appeared and dropped onto my stomach. Normally, a purchased items would appeared in my palm, but since now both were gone, it appeared at the position of the menu screen instead.
I immediately sat up, causing the vial to fall and rolled across the floor until it stopped between my calves. I grabbed it with my feets, bit the lid open, then clamped the neck of the vial with my mouth and downed the contents in one breath.
The moment I emptied the vial, my wounds began to heal. My missing hands regenerated, returning to their former glory, and the pain throughout my body gradually subsided until it was vanished entirely.
"Haaaah…" I breathed out a long sigh of relief, continued to inhale and exhale to collect myself after that crazed, rage-filled ranting.
I bought a bottle of mineral water from the shop to quench my thirst and wash away the lingering bitterness of the Elixir of Life.
The shop menu sold me daily necessities such as instant food, spices, bottled and canned drinks, sweets, cooking utensils, and simple clothing. It also sold a category of unusual items in the form of potions—the Elixir of Life fell under that category.
"I'm glad that ritual didn't take away my 'Basic Gaming Features' skill," I muttered, opening the menu again to check my status.
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Name: Yanagi Yuu (Human)
Lv: 1/1
Vitality: 2
Strength: 2
Intelligence: 10
Mana: –
Agility: 3
Dexterity: 5
Brain Load: 32%
Currencies: 193226
Skills: Basic Gaming Features | Cryokinesis (Lv1)
Basic Gaming Features: Video game HUD | 3rd-person view | level-up full recovery
Cryokinesis (Lv1): Ability to manipulate cold and ice through the power of mind.
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"Hmm… all my magic skills were gone, along with my mana. My 'Hero stat-boost' skill is gone too, and I'm back to Lv1. At least my hard-earned Currencies are still there, though I just burned 100k for that elixir."
This 'Currencies' could be obtained by killing monsters—the higher the monster's level, the more Currencies I got. As long as I had some of them, I'd never die of starvation or dehydration, since I could just buy some food and drinks to survive. I didn't know how it worked, but who cared.
While staring at my status screen, I realized something.
"Ah… so the ritual only takes skills that were listed on the Soul Slate."
The Soul Slate was a magical item that displayed your level, stats, and skills when you poured your mana into it. It had never shown the skill that I still possessed. My guess was that the ritual worked similarly with the Soul Slate—it could only showed what it recognize, and therefore, the ritual too, would only take away what it could recognize.
"Alright… let's see where the hell am I?"
After pondering for a while, I decided to open my map, wondering where'd the elfs ended up thrashed me to.
The map showed a circular room with only one exit indicator on the western edge. What really caught my attention, though, was the name of the place.
< The Hellhole Dungeon: 1st Floor (Safe Zone) >
"So I'm in a dungeon, huh?"
I walked toward the sole exit from the room and found a staircase embedded in the floor, just wide enough for two people to pass through.
"These stairs're going down. From my past experiences of exploring a dungeon, it'll lead me to the next floor… which means, there's no way out of this 'Hellhole'—No pun intended. Man, just my luck."
*Grooowl…*
My stomach growled. I checked the time at the menu screen—7 PM, It's dinner time already. I didn't ate anything since this morning, I'm just too excited from the thought of finally being able to go back to my own world.
"I got scammed, though."
I bought an instant cup ramen… and instantly regretted it.
I don't have a way to boil water.
In the end, I brewed(?) it with room-temperature bottled water, which took forever before it was ready. I could've just bought an energy bar instead, but I'm already bought the ramen, and I'm always hated wasting food, my Currencies were very limited, too. I had to be frugal with my spending.
Luckily, this floor was a safe zone, so I didn't have to worry about monsters attacking me. Dungeons always had some 'safe zones', but it was usually located after a boss floor, this was the first time I'd seen an entire first floor designated as one.
Still, it was way too small for a first floor. I thought.
After finishing dinner, I decided to sleep. My body—and my mind—were completely exhausted. Too much had happened in one day, I just can't wrapped it all up around my head.
Sleeping on a rocky floor was tough.
~~~~~
The next day, after breakfast consisting of a few energy bars, I decided to test my combat capabilities with my remaining skills and my drastically lowered stats modifier. Aside from my 'Intelligence', all my stats were originally three times higher—thanks to my former 'Hero stat-boost' skill.
Activating my '3rd-person view' consumed 40% of my Brain load—plus the default 32% of mandatory requirement, with this skill activated, I only had 28% brain load remaining to work with, resulting in my head started to feel strange.
Back when I was a Hero, I raised my Lv so much that my Intelligence stats becoming really high, I never had to worry about overloading my brain load at all.
In contrast with the high costs, 3rd-person view was extremely useful. It let me observe my surroundings freely from a third-person perspective, rotating it just like I was actually in a video game. Even better, I could still see normally with my own eyes, giving me nearly 360-degree field of vision. Still, I'd need some level up before I could fully utilizing it, the Brain load requirement was just too much for my current level.
As for Cryokinesis, I could lower temperatures to the freezing point and manipulate ice at will, though with drawbacks. I had to be in contact with the matter I intended to manipulate, and I couldn't create ice from nothingness like magic could. Back when I was still a Hero, I never truly explored this skill—it was quite rough to control, and my magic had been far too overpowered, it's not really worth it in my past-self opinion.
My body also felt much heavier due to all the nerfs I suffered. Hence, I needed some time of getting used to my current low stats before I could go back into action.
"Suddenly getting so weak after being very strong for a long time is tough— well… it's only been 6 month, so I guess it's not that long. Haah…" I sighed. "Being a Hero was truly a cheat code."
*Slap*
I slapped my cheeks.
"Alright" I declared "Let's get some practice done."
I bought a hundred ml mineral water in a plastic cup—the cheapest liquid product available in the shop—and froze it with Cryokinesis.
Shaping the ice was harder than I expected. I needed a clear image in my mind, and with how low my Dexterity stats were now, it wasn't easy.
Worse, the use of Brain load was heavy. Just by freezing and manipulating 100 ml of water for under a minute, pushed my brain load up to 75%, giving me a light headache. Thankfully, the ice didn't instantly melt once I dismissed the skill—it behaved just like any normal ice would.
One upside of Cryokinesis over using magic was that it required no incantation, and its resource cost could recovered quickly. Less than ten seconds after dismissed the skill, my brain load returned to its normal value. I think this skill has the potential to become really powerful once it's leveled up and my Intelligence stats grow higher.
For the next two days, I continued practicing Cryokinesis and adjusting my senses to my weakened body.
On my third day inside the Hellhole Dungeon, I was ready to fight some monsters.
At this rate, I could survive for over five months before running out of Currencies—assuming that nothing went wrong, that is. Still, a diet of instant ramen and energy bars was basically a cancer-inducing lifestyle. I needed real food soon. Sure, the Elixir of Life could probably cure cancer, but at 100k Currencies? I wasn't eager to rely on that.
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< Elixir of Life >
Cures all illness, restores stamina, heals all wounds, and regenerates severed body parts if consumed. (Must drink the entire contents to take effect.)
—————————
Unlike monsters on the surface, dungeon monsters would dropped items like magic stones and some other useful—or no so much useful stuff after their defeat. Some beast-type monsters could drop meat, so I could put my hopes on that, but the reality was… I couldn't cook it, even if I get my hands on them. In the first place, I didn't even know if such monsters were existed in this dungeon.
I could actually buy cooking utensils like pots and knives from the shop, but there was no stove, firewood or anything similar available in there. A lighter technically available, but who roasts meat with a lighter? Ten of them, maybe—oh, and I forget to mention that a lighter would cost me 5k Currencies. With my current lifestyle, I could probably survived for five days with that much—so yeah. no thanks.
Before descending to the second floor, I once again checked my equipment. A kitchen knife as my sub weapon, and two 200 ml bottles of water, frozen solid and tucked into my pockets as my main ones.
I stared down the staircase, took a deep breath, and exhaled, invigorate my resolves.
"Alright! Let's farm some EXP and find a way out of this Hellhole—then, I'll blast the elven royal castle to ruins and mess with Her Bitchness, Princess Lis real bad, until she regrets ever being born!"