Around a couple of meters away, one of them shouted at me to stop, but I ignored that and continued running.

Boras sent 5 of them to catch me, which I find odd. Why didn’t he send everyone, since I counted around 15 of my family’s black knights when they revealed themselves?

He’s playing with me, isn’t he? After seeing his true side, it’s most likely.

Boras was my family's knight captain before I was born. My father told me that Boras was one of his servants he brought back from a slum, but that is, in all likelihood, a lie.

I would guess, if it was a story or something in my past life, that Boras was from an evil organization or different family, and he was sent to assassinate my father, but my father tempted Boras into working with him with his psychopathic tendencies.

My father is a power-hungry person but is also cold and calculating; someone of Boras’s talents and capability cannot be thrown away.

“My lady, I must ask you to lay down your weapon and surrender. We do not want to harm you.”

Hearing one of them say to surrender again, I remained silent and bided my time to think about my next course of action because I am never going back to my family.

They didn’t seem too keen on harming me, which I could use to my advantage.

Seeing me not stopping, they hardened their faces, looking like they were getting serious. They increased their running speed into a sprint, and one of them swung his sword at me.

It looks like he is trying to knock my sword out of my hand with that swing. Seeing the sword being swung at me, I immediately stopped running and spun my body around to counter.

However, that leaves me open to the next black knight running up to us. I knew this was going to happen, which is why I pulled my sword back from the first guy, using a feint to go after the second black knight coming toward me.

The first of my family’s Black Knights took a step back from my faint while another ran up to try to pin me down to the ground.

I thrust my sword at him, but he knocked it away with his own sword. We proceeded to exchange some swings, but our difference in stature forced me back.

I am certainly more skilled than them, but that is not enough because of the fact that they are adults and I am a child, which made up for their skills that are marginally below my own.

On our last exchange, he thrust his sword at me, but I moved in front of his sword to force him to awkwardly adjust his thrust to not kill me, which I then swung at his legs.

Feeling a searing pain in my right arm as I moved back, I saw that I slashed his right thigh in our exchange, but I had a shallow cut on my right arm.

This is not advantageous at all; I need to start running again because I thought that I could take on more than one at once, but I was proven wrong.

Before the rest of them caught up, I made myself look like I was attacking the first guy, which caused the second guy to try to stop me. However, I took out my last three spikes and threw them at the rest who were catching up to me.

Then I made a run for it because there was no way for me to get back to Clare by fighting them directly.

Running again, I need to make a plan to lose them. I looked up at the sky at the fake sun that never moved and how long I was running to gauge where I was on the 18th floor.

I am about to reach the edge of the floor and close to a particular place I would like to hide in.

Since the 2nd stratum is forest-themed, there are a couple of small caves scattered about through the stratum. If I remember correctly, from the book, the small caves used to be secret loot spots.

It was a good place to hide because they are well hidden, and I doubt they know anything about it since they are the type of loot spots that never actually respawn, so the knowledge of the small caves is not widely known.

However, I need a distraction, maybe a pack of orcs or something to make them take their eyes off me.

If I continue to run, eventually, I will encounter a monster. My engraved knives emit a large amount of lightning when they hit a monster, which makes a decent flash and loud distraction.

As I was thinking that, a pack of orcs really did appear.

Running straight toward the orcs to aggro them, I dodged out of the way of the orcs' attacks as I ran straight through them.

It seemed to make them angry, and they started chasing me, while my family's black knights seemed to go around them, slowing them down.

It took me some time to go to the cave since my family’s black knights had to be careful not to aggro the orcs as they were having a bit of trouble moving through the forest foliage and terrain.

Eventually, after a minute of sprinting, I spotted a small ledge of some kind from the uneven terrain of the forest.

I think that is the cave; better now than never. Turning my body around, I threw two of my engraved knives at the group of orcs.

Timing this correctly, I moved my body to look like I was going in a direction other than the cave, but when the flash came from my engraved knives emitting a large amount of electricity, I ran and jumped down the moderately tall ledge.

Then I immediately went into the cave by going into the bushes and thick foliage that hid it.

Luckily I was right, and I entered into a dark cave.

Controlling my panting from sprinting to make as little noise as possible to not let them hear me, I heard the pack of orcs roaring in anger as I disappeared, then they noticed my family back knight, who was also surprised to see me disappear and attack them.

“Where did Lady Rita go?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think I saw her go that way. We should go—.”

“Gahhh!!!”

“God damn it. You go in the direction you think Lady Rita has run in, and we’ll fan out after we deal with the orcs.”

Hearing what they said, I sighed in relief that it worked.

Should I stay here and wait till they finish fighting the orcs or wait it out?

Looking into the dark cave, maybe I should go a bit deeper just in case since there is very little light down there.

Placing my hand on the cave walls, I walked deeper into the cave, making sure I didn’t trip on anything.

Alone with my thoughts, I debated whether to wait it out or go when my family’s black knights left after fighting the orcs.

If I leave after they’re done fighting the orcs, I will be on Boras's tail and will make it to Clare since Alex and everyone will hold out enough for me to reach them in time.

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However, if I wait it out, it will be a lot safer but give time for Boras to go to the surface and more than enough time to get Clare even with Alex and everyone there.

Anger began to swell inside me, thinking that, Clare was one of the only people I had a relationship with in my life. I was born a noble, so I always have to put up a front around everyone.

Compared to my past life, in which I did not have a lot of people with whom I was close, except for Norn and Scot, who were always with me. In this life, I didn’t have anyone when I was back at my family’s manor.

My father is a cold-hearted and power-hungry person; my mother only cares about money and flaunting it, while servants only listen to me because of my title and name.

This leaves my older brother, who I only have an amicable relationship with because he never really bothers to talk with me unless we have to since he was too focused on being the next head of the family to make our father proud or something, not realizing that father only sees us as pieces on a chessboard.

Trying to calm my emotions, I continued deciding whether to wait it out or not, and I decided to do the latter because I was not going to let Boras lay a hand on Clare.

After reaching a decision, I began plans to get out of the city and find a new place to lay low for a bit.

As I was doing that, I reached the end of the cave, which had an open chest that was shown by what little sunlight was poking in the cave, with nothing in it.

I touched the chest, which made me think that it’s honestly weird that a game mechanic in a game would be in this world, especially because you can’t even move the thing.

Immediately, as I touched the chest, seeing it, the lid would move, and the wall behind the chest suddenly began rumbling and falling apart.

What the?

Seeing the wall about to collapse, I internally cursed myself for touching the chest because that definitely made a lot of noise, enough for my family’s black knights, who were fighting orcs above me, to hear.

“What was that?”

Hearing them slaying the last orc in the pack, I needed to make a decision quickly, whether to leave the cave or go through the unknown passageway.

I didn’t have a choice, however, because I heard one of my family knights jump down the ledge I had jumped down, and one of them said.

“Hey, there’s a trail of blood here.”

Hearing what he said, I looked at my right arm, which was bleeding, as the rest of my family’s black knights jumped down to look.

Seeing blood dripping from my arm, I completely did not notice my clothes that were absorbing the blood coming out of the wound in my right arm dripping onto the ground.

I internally cursed myself because I was used to fighting things in a giant robot, and I didn’t realize something as obvious as that.

Of all days, this is not a good one.

I didn’t have time to decide anything anymore because they were at the entrance of the cave right now. The only way I saw out of this was to go into the passageway and hope there was a way out because I couldn’t take on 4 of them at the same time without having to kill them, which I am not about to do in this life since it hasn’t been that desperate yet.

Grimacing, I ran to the end of the cave and into the newly opened passageway, which was for some reason lit with torches.

From the knowledge of games in my past life, I can certainly say that this leads somewhere; maybe it’s a shortcut to somewhere if I’m lucky. If it’s not like a secret treasure room, I could use the narrow passageway to my advantage, or if it’s a secret boss room, maybe I could make the secret boss fight my family’s black knights.

From reading books about dungeons in Farsbarow, secret bosses are like floor bosses but are generally weaker or equal in power. From briefly exchanging swings with them, I could confidently say that one of my family's black knights can’t fight the owlbear on the 20th floor on their own, but two might.

I am betting on it being a shortcut of some kind, but if that is not the case, I need to prepare.

Putting my hand into my potion pouch, which has 6 high-grade health potions, one antidote potion, one regeneration potion, and a strengthening potion, I took out the regeneration potion and strengthening potion Maria gifted me.

Gulping down the two potions without choking on them as I ran, I threw them away and saw a light at the end of the passageway.

I ran to it and was in a circular cave-like room with a rusted, almost worn-down metal door at the end.

It was empty, and I was on guard because this seemed like a boss room.

I ran to the metal door with my guard up as high as I could, ready to react at the slightest thing because I didn’t know why, but the air in this room was very familiar for some reason.

At the end of the room and at the door, my family’s black knights show up at the entrance.

Immediately as they entered, we heard a loud roar on the ceiling and looked up.

I saw a pair of bright red eyes in the dark ceiling that jumped down to reveal itself to be a drake.

It had ruby-colored scales and feathers on its front legs but, most surprisingly, had glowing marks around its body that made it look like a mini kaiju in my past life.

Seeing the thing, the strengthening potion I had just drank gave me the urge to fight it, but I immediately stopped those feelings and focused on my objective, which was to get out of the dungeon and leave the city with Clare.

A Drake is in the middle ranks of B-rank monsters, but from its appearance, I guess it’s special. At best it’s as dangerous and strong as the owlbear boss on the 20th floor.

However, my eyes shot wide open as it attacked one of my family’s black knights and ripped his whole body in two in a blur.

I barely saw what happened, and my instincts immediately warned me that thing was dangerous, more dangerous than the owlbear on the 20th floor.

“Heh heh, Ahaa ahaa hahahahaha!”

I began to laugh, and I could feel the muscles in my mouth form into a smile.

…

Why am I laughing, and why am I smiling? Confusion filled my mind because my body and mind were not acting in sync.

Is it the strengthening potion? No, that is not it because I am suppressing my urge to fight anything and was thinking logically right now.

Just why am I laughing and smiling?

I didn’t get to think about it for long because the drake just tore apart another of my family’s black knights with its claws.

I saw organs and blood fly through the air and continued to laugh and smile. I needed to stop my family’s black knight from dying because seeing that thing, I needed all the help I could get to kill it.

Before the drake could target another of my family’s black knights, I threw an engraved knife at it as it was tearing apart the dead body of one of my family's black knights.

The knife flew through the air and entered its mouth as it was chomping down on one of the dead bodies of one of my family’s black knights it just killed.

As the lightning dies down, it gets the drake's attention because it turns to me, annoyed, like eating that amount of electricity was nothing.

Guessing it was going to go after me, time seemed to slow down like my mind was in a state where my thoughts were accelerated.

This feeling that was flowing through my body seemed so familiar, and I don’t know why.

I thought that as I moved out of the Drake, using its powerful arms and legs to lunge at me.

It wasn’t a blur anymore, and I could see it coming toward me. Moving my body out of the way was like getting out of the way of a speeding car.

It landed on the wall instead of crashing into it and swiped at me with its claw. I block the swipe with my sword while using my other hand, which was not holding my sword, and place it on the flat side of my sword to absorb the momentum of the swipe of its claws.

I could not dodge out of the way of its swipe, and even if I did, it would leave me open to another attack, so I decided to use the momentum of its attack to be thrown back since I needed to get some distance between us.

Hearing myself laugh as I was being thrown back, some part of me was enjoying this, and for some reason, I couldn’t stop it.

I made sure I was thrown back in the direction of my family's black knights. I positioned my body in mid-air to land on my feet next to the last two of my family’s black knights.

“Hey, why don’t we work together for a bit, or else, you know, we all are going to die.”

They looked stunned seeing me land next to them, even more so when I said it in a happy tone, which also surprised me.

The two of them looked at each other and said at the same time.

“Yes, my lady.”

They would have been reluctant at first, but after seeing me fight the drake, it changed their mind.

“Good.”

As we were talking, the drake began climbing up the walls and into the ceiling, staring at us again, ready to leap at us at any time.

Seeing this gave me some time to tell them where to target their weak spots. Normally a thing like that doesn’t have a lot of weak spots since it’s a dragon. The only way to damage it is to use a blunt weapon and hit it as hard as you can, hoping it is hard enough.

However, we are carrying bladed weaponry, so that method is useless, which leads us to the other method, which is to thrust our sword under its scales.

It would be a problem since that thing is incredibly fast, which means I would have to be bait for them to hurt it.

I planned to hurt it enough to make it resort to using its dragon breath, which would reveal its dragon heart. If I could stab it while it’s preparing a dragon breath, I could kill it.

I told them to just thrust their sword under its scale while I acted as bait.

As I said that, blood started to come out from my nose, and that small familiar sensation I was feeling started to grow to a point where I recognized it.

I turned to look at my family’s black knight, and they were turning pale. They also had nosebleeds, and then they were suddenly vomiting out blood.

Don’t tell me…