The sound of electricity echoed in the area as six frost trolls were shocked to death after getting their throats pierced by my arrows. I had aimed for their heads every single time to make them suffer less, but they were quick to protect their heads, but not so quick to protect their necks.
A lot of steam left their bodies while being shocked for three seconds… but then they eventually fell dead on the ice. Glacien stepped up and then chopped off their limbs with my short sword in her mouth. Her strength reached a point where she could do that. Still, while I tried to dismantle those parts as much as possible and as fast as possible, I was unable to clear that much space in my magic bags.
“It isn’t like I am wasting time doing that, but…”
It was rough. I wanted to stick around to my plan but I couldn’t help but think of some other possibilities to improve it. That was a good and a bad habit. Trying too much to improve a single plan or project would make me slow down on others that could show more benefits.
In any case, it couldn’t be helped, given the circumstances. Once Glacien finished her task, we moved on and my mind wandered to the war outside. I wondered if it was still going… the humans had invested a lot in this war, so they couldn’t return home empty-handed, even more so after I claimed the life of one of their commanders.
‘I hope those two are fine… they aren’t kids anymore, so I really shouldn’t worry about them. Considering what they are doing for the empire, they might deserve some nasty stuff happening to them. Still…’
I shook those thoughts out of my mind. I didn’t want to waste time dealing with that kind of thought. From my perspective, what they were doing for the empire was morally reprehensible, but if they didn’t do that, then their family would suffer as they would lose their standing in the empire. In the best-case scenario, they would lose a lot of influence, and in the worst, even the rest of the family would turn their backs on them.
That was why I didn’t want to serve the empire. From the very beginning, I knew that becoming a tool for others wasn’t an option. Killing others in the name of an emperor that I never saw or for an empire that seems as a mere pawn was nonsensical.
While I was thinking about that, we reached the next boss’ room. We turned around to confirm that the aura from the abyssal worm was still far and I couldn’t sense the trembling, either.
“I have been here for two days already… my condition will slowly get worse from the third day onward… I guess I’ll rest for a minute or two using my bike while I ride it. That should help a bit.”
Sleeping for several hours straight is better than sleeping in short bursts because it allows the body to complete full sleep cycles, which are crucial for physical restoration, mental health, and cognitive function.
Short bursts of sleep often do not let one reach the deeper, restorative stages of sleep, resulting in incomplete recovery and diminished cognitive performance. Additionally, uninterrupted sleep aligns with one’s circadian rhythm, the body’s natural clock.
Fragmented sleep disrupts these processes, leading to issues like increased stress, weakened immunity, and impaired metabolism due to hormonal imbalances. Without sufficient deep sleep, my body misses out on crucial cell repair and muscle regeneration, while inadequate sleep hampers my ability to learn, focus, and manage emotions. I already experienced similar things here.
Then again, I didn’t have a normal human body anymore. Even the human bodies of this world had the potential to become a lot stronger than the ones compared to Earth, as long as people put in enough effort, that is.
“Even though we have the meditation amulets, we still need to rest eventually… but I can tell that we are getting tired a lot later than before. At least I am, right?”
Glacien let out a yawn. She had already slept a few times in the labyrinth. That was one of the reasons why I was using shocking arrows instead of the explosive ones.
Regardless, it was time to face the next boss… this one should be tougher than the ordinary third boss of a labyrinth, given that the labyrinth spawned groups of at least two instead of one at a time.
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I tried to think of the explanations for that, but I didn’t have enough intel to come up with a decent theory, so I put it aside in order to focus on the issue at hand.
We reached the boss chamber. Weirdly enough, the place was filled with some small hills covered in ice. In the middle of the chamber, there was the tallest hill, and the boss was there as well. The creature was standing right above it and let out a roar when it found us.
The chamber trembled thanks to the powerful roar, but I didn’t let that intimidate me. What intimidated me was the appearance of the boss.
The four-armed troll ahead had grotesque form impossible to ignore. Its thick, leathery skin, mottled in shades of light blue and white, reminded me of an ancient stone covered in ice. Every movement of its massive body revealed rippling muscles beneath the hide, each of its four powerful arms looking capable of crushing boulders or tearing through armor. Those hands, gnarled and tipped with claws, flexed menacingly, as if eager to grab, rip, or destroy anything in their path.
Its face was quite scary, broad and savage, with tusk-like teeth jutting out from a heavy jaw and a flattened nose that gave it an almost animalistic appearance. Its small, glowing eyes burned like embers, staring at me with cruel intelligence. Greasy, tangled hair hung around its shoulders.
The monster jumped in the air and then began to fall, ready to smash me with its four arms. I used Mystic Barrage and fired a quick sequence of arrows that exploded and delayed the fall of the monster a bit, but soon I kicked the ground and moved away from the spot.
In the next moment, the beast hammered down its four arms and then hit the ground with them. A large crater appeared thanks to the impact, and cracks began to move in all directions like spider webs on the ground.
“I guess draconic labyrinths have different difficulty levels as well.”
The creature turned around to face me and then raised a chunk of ice from the ground when I fired an explosive arrow toward it. The other arrows wounded the legs of the monster a bit, so it didn’t want to suffer that much again.
The ice chunk shook thanks to the explosive arrow, but it endured the attack. Still, the explosion heated up the area in a six meters radius, so even the monster got annoyed at the heat. Increasing my magic and fire affinity helped me that much.
The monster charged while using the chunk of ice as a shield and soon threw it at me. A single shadow step in the last moment let me escape the attack and the beast hit nothing. When it got confused, I fired an explosive arrow at its head and then the explosion made the monster roar in anger again.
Despite the direct impact, the monster still could fight… its thick fur and muscular build certainly was something else. Against this kind of opponent, blunt damage was a better option, but as an archer, I was lacking in that aspect.
The enemy surprised me when I took a moment to think… it punched the ground and then a bunch of small ice chunks were raised in the air. The beast fired them at me by punching them with all its might.
A collection of high pitching sounds echoed in the area, but they hit nothing since I used Shadow Step again on the other side. I probably could take a hit or two of those, but I couldn’t take chances while Glacien was on my shoulders. While one might consider that she was slowing me down, I would rather think that she made my perfectionist mentality reach another level. The situation also forced me to focus more since my life wasn’t the only one on the line here.
The beast kept using the same attack method to reach me, but I avoided them all. Eventually, I got tired of that and then used my shock arrows on the monster. A single one didn’t make much effect. But a barrage of them that shocked the enemy for several seconds eventually paralyzed the beast on the spot.
Eventually, I was forced to stop when my attacks no longer were restoring my mana… it looked like I drained most of the boss mana at this point. So, it was time to end this… I used Shadow Mark, Precision Mark, Deadeye Focus and Power Shot before unleashing a decay arrow.
The creature had enough time to raise its four arms and then create a large meat shield to block the arrow, but my attack, just as it did with the commander, pierced the four arms leaving a wide circle in them before reaching the creature’s head. That combination was truly fearsome. It never failed until now… I guess I was jinxing myself by thinking of this.
You received 5500 experience points.
You completed a trial. Please choose between the classes: Barbarian (Pugilist), Ninja (Shadow Assassin), and Ranger (Sentinel).
I wondered if the system was messing with me… in the previous choice, I could only pick classes that would awaken further my vampiric powers, but now none of the types came. Perhaps that made my karma become positive again since I had all those classes and improving them again would make them grant me an improved version.
‘All the options aren’t half bad… but I don’t think that any of them will increase my magic power. If I remember right, the Barbarian class increases my strength, the Ranger class increases my stamina pool, and the Ninja class grants me attack speed, their evolutions should do the same…’
It was a really hard choice to make, so I couldn’t help but hesitate.