With the rifle in hand, I carefully aimed at the draugr commander. Our distance was fairly close; very unlikely for me to miss my shot.

When that one right moment came as the draugr relaxed its posture a bit, I pulled the trigger without an ounce of hesitation.

Bang!

The bullet left the barrel and cut through the air at an extreme speed, reaching for the draugr’s head. Unfortunately, the bullet stuck after penetrating a few centimeters into its head, and as an undead, such injury was nothing.

“So hard?!” I freaked out.

Then again, the blood mosquito, another Second-Order mutated monster, was somewhat resistant to bullets. The crimson draugr knight, that stats-wise stronger than it, would be even more so. What a miscalculation.

Either way, it was time for Plan B.

If bullets didn’t work, then I just have to use magic!

I cast {Lightning Arrow} at it to test the water since that was the fastest magic I knew, and then an arrow that was entirely made of purple lightning appeared and shot forward. The crimson draugr that had barely turned around got hit by the arrow between its eyes, but it barely jolted it a little.

“Tch. Then, how about this! {Fireball}!” I chanted. A fireball the size of a fist appeared and shot at the draugr commander.

But because the velocity of {Fireball} was lacking compared to {Lightning Arrow}, it was easily parried by the draugr commander with its sword, dispersing it into nothing. This meant that slow magic was virtually ineffective against it!

Fuck! What should I do now?! I racked my brain to find a way to get out of this situation and found that the most effective weapon of all was my gun.

I switched back to my rifle in haste, but when I was about to shoot, the draugr commander had gone from its original spot. Where had it gone to?

“Maxim! Behind you!”

The usually monotone Lunaria gave me a warning in a slightly panicked voice.

Looking behind, there was a scary undead in plate armor with a decaying body staring at me from above as if mocking me; it was of course the draugr commander. By now, it had its sword raised high in the air and ready to chop me in half.

“Shit!”

Since it was too sudden, I was unable to dodge, nor was I able to take out my catalyst daggers in time. All I could do was use my rifle to block its incoming attack.

…Yet I didn’t feel any pressure as its sword never landed on the rifle. In its place, Luna-1 took the blow and had part of it stuck to the blade.

“Oof. Why did you take that hit?”

I bothered not to question the reason and took this chance to fire at the crimson draugr with total indignation.

“Die! You bastard!” I kept shooting again and again. To the point that I was still pulling the trigger even when the magazine was empty.

The draugr commander was pushed back several meters, and its body was riddled with holes. Not even the plate armor could protect it from a large caliber gun like my semi-automatic rifle. While it couldn’t feel pain, it wasn’t utterly impervious to bullets — the damage accumulating over time.

Even with such deadly injuries, the draugr commander let out a loud growl. It was so loud to the point that my eardrums were ringing, and I had to close my ears with both hands. Agh…! It feels like my head is splitting!

“It’s calling for reinforcement,” Lunaria reported, controlling Luna-1 to remove itself from the draugr’s blade.

After all, he was the one that created the other crimson draugrs. Calling its brethren would be a natural ability — it’d be weird if it couldn’t do that.

Knowing that didn’t change the fact that I’d to cover my ears, but then Luna-1 slipped into the draugr’s mouth and released an intense electric current, blocking it from making a louder noise. Nice move.

Unable to stay silent upon the sudden opportunity, I chanted, “{Fireball}! {Fireball}! {Fireball}!”

And so, I kept shooting numerous {Fireballs} at it until my source heart was totally exhausted and caused me lightheadedness. My lungs and head burned like I was out of oxygen; this was all to cast the draugr commander into a blazing corpse.

I could have cast other spells like {Flame Arrow}, but {Fireball} was better when trying to set something on fire. You could see that the tough draugr commander’s armor melted from the heat.

Seizing the momentum, I brandished my catalyst daggers, imbued them with source elements, and decapacitated the head of the draugr commander. Its head bounced on the ground along with the metallic helmet, making a clanking sound.

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“Huff… Hah…!” My legs had turned into jelly and collapsed — I was exhausted.

“Don’t think that it’s time to rest—”

“Sorry…” I interrupted, “I should have been more careful.”

I overestimated my strength a bit and got a bit carried away by my overconfidence. Although, the draugr commander’s power and speed were beyond what I’d previously imagined. If it wasn’t for Lunaria, things would have gone south.

Perhaps if I had told her about the stats, she would have advised me otherwise. Also, I could just use my grenade to make a surprise attack, even though it might alert other crimson draugrs to this place, which was why I avoided using it in the first place. I couldn’t be sure what consequences that might entail if I insisted on doing that.

Above all, the important thing was to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them again.

“Well, this is just a drone… Tuilë can repair it with ease. Besides, I don’t know that it’s such a strong Second-Order creature.”

“No. It’s my fault that…”

“Enough. As I already said, it’s not the time to rest; more draugrs are coming this way.”

“What?!”

At this point, crowded footsteps were gradually becoming audible from all corners of the cave. Even though I was stronger now, getting encircled by dozens of draugrs would put me in a tough spot.

“You should’ve told me faster…” I complained.

“What do you mean? You interrupted me.”

I apologized to her upon realizing that it was my fault and scrambled to my feet. “Guess we better make a quick escape.”

Subsequently, I grabbed Luna-1 and put it in my backpack, and promptly absconded before the draugrs reached this place. Of course, not before pocketing the source crystal — it was my primary intention of coming here — but the draugr commander’s sword was a bit too heavy to be carried along right now, so I left it behind.

There were some draugrs blocking my way, but they were slaughtered with ease under the might of the catalyst daggers.

At long last, I reached the tunnel leading to the upper floor. I didn’t stay in the lower floor for long, so there were still clanking of pickaxes and the smell of sweat lingering in the air.

What a day. I wanna hit the sack straight away… I silently whined, heading for Tuilë’s workshop.

***

The moment I reached Tuilë’s house, I didn’t linger at her workshop for long after dropping off the damaged Luna-1.

Tuilë was quite taken aback when I told her about what happened in the mine and how I obtained a Second-Order source crystal, but she didn’t make a fuss about it. Well, a single source crystal of such level was nothing when she could hunt a Third-Order mutated monster almost single-handedly.

Lying on the cotton bed after taking a long, warm bath, I recalculated the total amount of source crystals we needed. Other than the Second-Order source crystal, I gathered another six First-Order ones on my way in and out. It wasn’t much, but this reduced the total source crystals required to 979 once I handed in the six source crystals (while keeping the Second-Order one) — not exactly much of a difference from the original one thousand.

“This whole plan of gathering a thousand source crystals is a non-starter, isn’t it?!” I clawed my head at the prospects that didn't seem to be progressing at all, all the while checking on the mission timer which kept ticking down.

Mission: One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure

Your airship has become a hunk of junk. You better find someone capable to repair it soon, or else… No one can say what other inhabitants around this area will do once they find this.

Difficulty: C-

Time Limit: 30 days

Remaining Time: 24 days 10 hours 06 minutes

Reward: Repaired airship, a new companion

Failure: Losing the airship, possibly an information leak that will lead to death

Even if I hunted at a speed twice my current’s, it’d take me more than a month. Furthermore, elite draugrs at First Order would have dwindled by now. Let alone a thousand, even I doubted there were more than twenty to thirty remaining in the cave, which meant I wouldn’t accomplish my task even if I hunted them to extinction.

“What’s with the fuss? Don’t you already have another target in mind?” Lunaria chortled, her projection appeared while folding her arms and emotionlessly looking at me.

It seemed that Tuilë had finished repairing the drone. That was so quick!

“Ohh! You’re right…! There’s the mutant ant colony deeper inside the cave.”

But still, facing them with my current power would prove to be hard; they were much more organized compared to the crimson draugrs and their total number exceeded them by orders of magnitude. It would be a pipe dream to have them willingly stay put to get killed by me.

Hmm… making them stay put and get killed… Wait, how did I solve that problem with ants swarming into my monitor again? …It was by placing ant poison, wasn’t it?

At first, I tried to use bug spray to kill them, but no matter how much they died, more would come back, so I tried to be clever and purchased ant poison, or ant killer, online to end it all… The important thing was, this ant poison would be carried back to the nest by the worker ants and would later be eaten by all the ants, eradicating them by the source.

“Aha! That’s it! I’m so brilliant!” I did the eureka pose.

“Have you gone senile, Maxim? I’ve been observing you for a long time and have known you to be one eccentric guy; to think that it finally progressed to a terminal state,” she remarked with a flat tone, which made it seem as if it was a fact.

“Gah! That’s not it!” I groaned at her cynical appraisal.

To clear me from her negative evaluation, I told Lunaria about my “brilliant” idea. Upon hearing that, although flat, her expression told me a thousand words about her thoughts regarding this matter. She was more likely than not dishing me out with “Does this fool even know how to make an ant poison?” sarcasm. Yeah, no doubt about that.

I tried to brainstorm an idea to make ant poison… but nothing came to mind. I knew they were made with a mixture of chemicals like borax or boric acid, fipronil, and things like sugar and honey to lure them, though I wasn’t aware of the specifics.

“Lunaria, you gotta help me! After all, this is for your own good too,” I asserted.

She sighed. “Well, that’s true. But look, even if I know the ingredients to make it, do you really think you can make it with the limited materials available in Aquarine?”

“Aw… exactly what I fear about. Hmm, then we should consult Tuilë on this matter, maybe she knows someone that can help us prepare the ant poison.”

“Mm. Finally you said what I’ve been waiting for you to say — being humble.”

After a few more minutes of respite, we headed for Tuilë’s workshop next door.