It is fine, I am ok now.

It's all good.

No problem.

I can just go and befriend Ungur again.

...

How did I do it again?

I let those damned monkeys escape and then they murdered all of his family.

And then I came in and saved him...

Wait...it was my fault all along?

Those monkeys went there because of me.

I made him suffer like this...

I tricked him into thinking I saved him, while it was me, who put him through that instead.

...

I can't willingly let all of his family get murdered just to befriend him...

...Ugh...

And his death was my fault as well, wasn't it?

Because of the blast caused by my and the spider's attacks clashing, he fell unconscious and then was killed by those small fuckers.

...Gh...

...

WHATEVER!

He was just another monster!

Just another monster!

Nobody important!

A monster, who needs to be defeated!

Not a friend...

Just a...

...

Tears are flowing down my eyes again.

Shit.

I need to stop thinking about it.

After wiping my tears, I finally get up and head to the table.

Scrambling through the books, I find the new one.

'Plant encyclopedia'

As I look at the pictures and the text, I suppress my dark thoughts.

Hmm...

I quickly just skim through the text, turn to another page and repeat.

There is an entry about the reeds, that grow in the fire area.

Hmm...flamewater hair?

Weird name...

Hmm...grind to dust...mix...huh, resistance to fire?

It seems like, those things can be used for things other than just being a javelin.

I flip over another page and I see a picture of a certain purple flower.

It's the flower, that made the monkeys go berserk last time.

...

Ah damnit!

I throw the book on the ground in anger.

Even this book is reminding me of it.

Shit...

How do I force myself to forget?

I drop on the ground while covering my eyes with my palm.

Lying on the ground I let out a deep sigh.

After a few seconds I get up, grab the dagger and shorten my robe to make it easier to move.

I'll just have to do some fighting I guess.

I walk out of the safe house and hear the familiar sound of incoming gargoyle wave.

It doesn't take long and they appear.

But I don't use the usual hell serenade.

Instead, I hold my dagger tight and charge at them.

"COME AT ME!"

And then, a fierce battle begins.

|= A lot of deaths later =|

I open my eyes.

I'm lying down on the ground staring at the rocky ceiling.

The cold breeze brings the...oh whatever.

I get up, head to the table and grab the book again.

I'm over it already...

No, really.

It's fine now.

I realized, that even if Ungur didn't die to that spider, he would certainly die at some point in the future.

By following me, his fate has been sealed.

In the first place, he should have died to the monkeys.

Who cares, I caused those monkeys to be there.

It's not like I did it on purpose.

From now on, I shall refrain from befriending monsters.

They are weak and even if they get stronger overtime, they still can't stand up to me or the big monsters.

And more importantly than that, if I try to save them when they are about to die, it makes me vulnerable.

Why cares about this companionship nonsense anyway.

I have always been alone...and always will.

Anyway, I have been reading the contents of this book.

When I get hungry or thirsty, I grab one of the green mushrooms and eat it.

That makes me start over without the hunger and thirst.

Then I get up and continue reading.

And repeat it like this.

I do this every time I get a new book.

But those mushrooms are really curious...

I mean, I restart as soon as I bite one.

There is no process of dying.

They just...instantly make me dead.

Or do they forcefully send me back?

I was searching for those mushrooms in the plant encyclopedia.

But they were nowhere to be found.

Instead, at the end of the book, there was one sentence.

'Mushrooms technically aren't plants, so for those, look into mushroom encyclopedia instead.'

It's almost like this book knows what I'm thinking.

How irritating.

Oh well, it's time to sort the information.

The purple flowers, which made those monkeys enraged, are called corrupt lilies.

Consuming them raw makes you go into fury, attacking anything and everything.

As for why they didn't attack each other, the book didn't say.

Other effects include possible color change of hair or skin of the body and muscle strengthenment.

That's why their fur changed from blue to purple.

But all of these effects only exist if you eat the lilies raw.

Apparently if you take the stamens, grind them and then mix with clean water, drinking it will merely strengthen your muscles.

No going berserk or having your fur and skin be purple.

It sounds useful and all, but I don't really have any containers or anything to make it in.

Next, the reeds in the fire area are called flamewater hair.

I always used them as javelins, but if I eat them, they will give my entire body temporary fire resistance.

Of course, they are too hard to eat normally, so I would need to grind them up to dust first.

This sounds useful, but I have yet to encounter a fire related threat past the fire area.

Then we have the silver grass in the pond room near the colossal purple slime.

It's called...silver grass.

And apparently it has mana restoring properties.

Placing it in clean water, the water slowly absorbs something out of the grass and dyes deep blue.

Again, I don't have any containers...

But this time, a pond is right next to the grass.

I guess I will try cleansing the entire pond and putting some of that grass into it later.

The book contained information about a lot of other plants I have never encountered, but few of them caught my attention.

The fake slime tulip.

It's a blue colored giant plant, which produces thick mucus between its petals.

Apparently it's for catching bugs and whatnot, but what I'm more interested in, is that while the mucus attracts a lot of living things, all kinds of slimes are repelled instead.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The book said, slimes would rather walk into fire than touch that stuff.

If this works on the colossal purple slime, I might be able to save an enormous amount of mana here.

Of course, I have searched through almost all if not all small caves before the slime, and found none of these things.

I will try to search for them again, but I won't get my hopes up.

There's also a small yellow flower called holy dandelion.

It produces thin layer of paste on its leaves.

If I rub this paste on my skin, it will increase effectiveness of healing spells and decrease effectiveness of dark attacks against me.

This one, I think remember seeing in one of the random caves, but I have no idea, where exactly it was.

There were some other things, but only these two seemed useful enough to care.

Now then, with learning and planning phase over, it's time to test these things.

I walk up to one of the mushrooms and pluck it out.

And for that, I need to start fresh.

|= A few more deaths later =|

Here we go.

With griffon dead, I once again reach the dreaded crossroad.

Silently looking left at the passage, where the monster den is, I sigh.

Then I continue straight to the pond room.

The monkeys are exterminated again, but this time, I make extra sure nobody escapes.

I look at the small lizard things with eight legs and long necks.

Maybe I should get rid of those too for the experiment.

[Inferno]

After killing everything that moves in this cave, I moved all the corpses to a corner.

Then I approach the dirty pond and start to gather mana.

[Cleanse impurities]

The water around my hands starts getting cleaner.

I keep pouring more and more mana into it.

...

Finally, after like an hour, the entire pond is clean.

This cost me quite a bit of mana.

I have a feeling, this might not be worth it in the end.

Well, it's an experiment for now.

I'll see if it's worth doing or not.

With the pond clean, I drink a bit of water and then I pluck out some of the silver grass and toss it in.

And then I wait.

The book didn't specify, just how long this process takes, so I really don't know.

As I wait, I pull out one of the monkey corpses, grill it and eat it.

...

Still waiting.

The water looks as clean as ever, no sign of it going blue.

...

Still waiting.

Does this actually take multiple days?

Or is it because, there is too much water?

Or the opposite, too little grass?

Ugh, I don't know.

Let's just throw some more grass into the water and then go search for the other plants I wanted.

Hmm...but if I leave, monsters will come here and dirty the water again.

...

Damnit, what do I do now?

Ugh, I guess I'll have to wait here the entire time?

Great.

[Phantom presence]

I lay down on the ground and go to sleep.

|= One nice sleep later =|

I open my eyes.

Looking to the side, I see a pond of deep blue color.

I get up and approach it.

Is it done?

I scoop up some of the water in my hands and drink it.

...

It's bitter, just like the grass.

And I don't really feel myself gaining any mana.

Was it a failure?

Hmm...

I'll try to empty out my mana pool a bit and then drink again.

But wait, what should I use?

Most of the stuff I can use will just wreck everything in this room.

Hmm...

With my hand on my chin, I ponder for a bit.

Phantom annihilation seemed to use a lot of mana.

And since its area of effect is just a line, I can just aim it at the wall.

Because the walls are indestructible...

Wait a second...

When I used it against the spider, didn't it leave a dent in the walls?

How is that possible?

I thought they are indestructible.

Not even armageddon can do anything to those damn walls.

Could it be, that phantom annihilation is even stronger than armageddon?

...

Well let's try it.

I gather mana into my weapon.

More and more is pouring in.

How much is needed for this, I wonder?

Closing my eyes, I focus on the image.

This wall will be split.

It cannot stop me.

I will make a dent in it.

Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes and swing my sword horizontally.

[Phantom annihilation]

My vision is split in two halves as a screeching noise echoes in the small room.

Ouch, my ears.

...

There is a line carved on the wall.

The dent seems much smaller, than when I used it against the spider.

But it's still there.

A dent.

In the impenetrable wall.

It's actually possible.

What's more, phantom annihilation only uses about a third of mana that armageddon requires.

...which is still a lot, but I can manage two to three of these, before I run dry.

Anyhow, let's get back to the initial experiment.

I walk up to the blue pond again, get more water and drink.

...

I feel no change.

...

I got ripped off again.

----------------------------------------

Bonus:

Who exactly is the main protagonist?

First of all, the main protagonist is a girl.

Appearance wise, you would guess her to be about 12 years old.

Of course, mentally, she is much, much older, because of the constant resets.

Also, her race isn't a human, she is a demihuman.

With wolf ears and tail, she belongs to a certain wolf beastkin tribe.

Her hair and fur on her ears and tail are pitch black and she has blood colored pupils.

"It makes her look quite ferocious, doesn't it?

Haha, just kidding!

She's so cute!

I wanna hug her so tight, she will suffocate and respawn back at the start!"

...no comment.

"Anyway, thanks for reading!

See you in the next chapter!"