Chapter 19: the last day of the novice period

After full nights rest, I woke up calm on the 7th day of the novice period. Today could also be my last cup of coffee for a while so I decided to enjoy the same without thinking about many many things I needed to do. I seemed to have entered a Zen state and probably required an added dose of urgency to not waste this day entirely. Before heading to the dungeon, I went for a run/ jog, practiced slash and the second round of hunting around the shops for new nuggets I might find lying around. I came back with 4 cans of tuna, 1 pair of scissors and 1 pack of compression bandage (pack of 4). I could do with a first aid box, but I will take what I can get at this point.

I enjoyed a breakfast of eggs and sausage with mint tea before heading to the dungeon, thinking about what third floor would have in store for me.

The walk to the dungeon was peaceful and I decided to not step towards the second floor but take the stairs directly to the third floor. The darkness on the stairs was expected and the torch from the dungeon (which still hadn’t replenished) helped me climb down without getting injured. My defense boosting armor and extra gear gave me a boost of confidence.

I landed on the edge of the ruins, ancient ruins that had been left to rot with the passage of time, forgotten, neglected, and buried. The ground looked like desert sand mixed with sandstone with occasional wisp of grass thrown around. The ruins themselves were towards the center of the massive ground forming a rough circular structure with broken rocks and half pillars as if creating a formation of a town square in the bygone era. I wondered if these ruins were a background set up by the dungeon or were they part of the history of this planet? Was it alive and inhabited before it was discovered? Does this mean there might be aboriginals hiding in shadows, watching their planet getting invaded?

I brought my thoughts back to focus and decided these mysteries will have to wait to be unfolded gradually or resolved by people stronger than me. If I end up meeting any of the aboriginals, I would be happy to offer my support in helping them reclaim their land from all us invaders, paltry as it might be.

While I was meandering around with these philosophical thoughts going around in my head, a loud roar brought me to the reality of my situation – I was on the third floor of the dungeon and predators out there were as keen to kill as I was. Roar told me that my encounter this time is wolves, fast, cunning, and dangerous wolves – a whole pack of them from the sound of it.

Fire is the weakness of wolves, so I decided to keep the burning torch in my hand and held my katana in the other – my basic + slash skill gave me a boost to face the enemy, at least for now. I might still run away later.

As I moved forward, I saw two large wolves closing in on me at top speed – they were faster than me, so I won’t be able to retreat even if I wanted to. They were already on top me before I could use appraisal skill. I shoved the torch towards the face of the wolf on my left and activated skill while slashing towards the one on my right. I injured one and annoyed one, but none were decapacitated. I turned around as they growled and used the same trick in reverse order injured with fire and annoyed with slash. Well, the good news is that the fur on the injured one caught fire, but the bad news is the other one was growling and opening its mouth, ready to jump and take a bite off my head.

Ignoring the one on fire for now, I used the slash of my katana to try and cut across the mouth of the jumping wolf, I could feel the cut as the blade scraped through the teeth and cut across the corners of its cheek my katana was now stuck in its mouth. It fell down roaring in pain when I finally gathered the courage to avoid its mouth and claws and quickly stab the iron spear into its heart silencing it. I still got thwacked on my back as the wolf tried defending itself till the very end.

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By this time, the other one had put out the fire by rolling in the mud and was already jumping towards me. I retrieved my katana and moved sideways slashing with my katana towards its belly causing a serration and pulling out the guts from its body. I stabbed this one to death as well before panting loudly trying to catch my breath. This was one of the most dangerous fights I had been in, and I might not have been injured but I had used a lot of my strength and stamina already.

Notification

“Killed Desert wolf (level 4) exp 1500”

Loot – 1 wolf pelt, 1 wolf claw, 5kg wolf meat, 25 copper coins (skill loot – 2 onions)

I had been using the wolf fur and the eating the wolf meat, so I realized that the one I killed on the first day must have been similar.

This fight had scared me silly and taken a lot out of me. These wolves were large and when they jumped towards me, I could feel a sense of crisis so strong that I just wanted to lie down and let them kill me. I was restless and thinking about running away. I was quite a margin of Exp away from the level 5 I wanted. I decided to use the breathing technique in a shallow way without going into full meditation (that would have been a suicide) to calm myself.

I took cautious steps forward but ran into two more wolves within a short distance. I tried fighting in the similar way with fire and Katana but in this fight, I got clawed before killing the wolves. My armor had claw holes and my shirt was soon bloody, I could feel the pain with every breath I took. I had some water and kept using the breathing technique while tying a bandage torniquet around my chest to slow down the bleeding and provide some cushion. My leather armor provided defense against the hits, but the claws of the wolf had been able to tear through it. If I had no armor on, I would have been dead by now. I reequipped the armor over the torniquet and felt my breathing getting a bit more stable with the compression.

I had a feeling that if I walk towards the center of the ruins I would be surrounded by wolves. I couldn’t see where they were coming from, but I could tell that center would be a face-off with the pack. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with all of them at once, so I started walking the circle while remaining on the edge. Instead of the torch, I decided to use the spear I had got from the loot, which would allow me to keep a certain distance and a better chance of causing injury – which was the right call.

The next two wolves both jumped together so spear played a crucial part in saving my life, as I slashed and stabbed at the same time. As I thought, I didn’t manage to kill but the injuries were severe enough to give me a chance. Their gaping mouth and razor-sharp teeth going for my neck caused me to shudder each time. Injured or not, a moment of slip would be fatal. After killing this set of wolves, I felt a bit more confident in my action.

By the time I had covered half the perimeter, I had killed 18 more wolves and my combat skill slash had leveled up again to intermediate. I was also bruised and battered with only a quarter of my water left.

Combat Skill Slash – Intermediate (increase in damage by 12%, increase in accuracy by 12%)

I needed one more kill to level up and I so badly wanted to prove that I wasn’t weak that I stepped forward promising myself that I would run away immediately after getting my one kill and level up. In the early days, my footnotes had been keeping me company making me feel like someone cared, but recently the only thing that could lift my spirit were the small things I found around the novice area. Sometimes I really questioned the sanity of this endeavor – what was I doing this for and why am I going through this torture. So, this one kill and reaching level 5 had become a much larger goal in my head than it might have been.

I did find my 2 wolves and kills went as I predicted when I heard the sweet sound of level up.

Notification

“Killed Desert wolf (level 4) exp 1500”

Level up