Chapter 16: The Frozen Viper

“…bring it on!”

I say that out loud at the snake of ice in front of me, provoking it. It hisses at me, and charge straight at me. It was approximately 10 meters away, but it was closing the distance between us fast. I fire the magnum in my hands, and the magic bullet flies straight at the viper. Suddenly, its speed spiked like crazy, and it evaded the shot that even I couldn’t see. It charges right at me, mouth opened, ready to swallow me whole. Fortunately, I was able to jump to the right in time and dodge its charge.

After sliding by me, it turns around and watches me. Looks like its speed is back to normal, but I can’t tell if that sudden burst was its innate speed or a temporary skill. I raise the gun again and fire immediately, this time before it started moving. Again, it dodges with its insane speed, and charges towards me again. It slowed down about halfway though, returning to its normal, slithering speed.

I fire again at it, and it tries to evade, but I was able to hit it this time. Sadly, though, my accuracy with guns is still terrible, so I was only able to harm the tail end of the snake. The force of the bullet causes the snake to fly back with its tail, stopping its charge. Considering that it didn’t tear off completely, that body of ice was considerably tough.

Suddenly, I feel a heavy presence to my side, and I turn to see a large block of ice coming right at me. Apparently the [Yeti] threw it at Thoth, and missed, therefore, it has conveniently coming right at me. Unable to dodge, I aim the gun at it and fire, thought firing at it m the situation worse.

The force of the bullet caused the block to burst into smaller pieces, and now several sharp shards of ice was flying right me. The [Frozen Viper] tries to take advantage of this situation and lunges at me with its burst of speed. Let’s see, what can I do in this situation? Oh, I got a flaming body right now, so let’s use that to our advantage.

I increase the temperature of my cloak by burning it with more flames, causing it to turn blue. After raising it, I aim the magnum at the snake again while ignore the fist sized shards coming at me. I hear the shards evaporate as they reach me, and I wait until the snake’s speed returns to normal to fire. 

7 meters.

5 meters.

Three meters in front of me, and I pull the trigger. The snake’s speed immediately took a fall, and the magic bullet hits it right in the head. Ice shatters and spreads everywhere, the body’s momentum stopped by the force of the bullet.  I lower my gun, and turn to watch Thoth’s battle.

Upon turning around, I hear a loud scraping sound behind me, but I assume that’s the snake’s final moments of movement. I watch Thoth, who is locked in heavy melee combat with the [Yeti]. I say heavy, because every time her spear hits the monster, the impact of the attack can be heard even from here, while every time she blocks the [Yeti]’s attacks, you can clearly see her being forced by the strength. 

I was careless to think that it would fall by a single bullet. As I watch them exchange hits at each other, I suddenly realize that the [System]’s voice didn’t state my victory. I turn around as fast as I can, but I was too late. The snake was already right above me, it’s mouth closing in. Even though the [Cloak of Immolation] still had blue flames emerging from it, the snake was able to bite me and lift me. It swallows me, and I’m forced into the frozen body of the viper. 

I try to increase the flame’s temperature even further, but the ice within the snake’s body counteracted the fire, only letting me maintain the current heat. Not wanting to waste mana, I stop burning the cloak, and the flames extinguish immediately.

With the hand holding the gun, I turn my wrist to the side, and I pull the trigger inside the snake. I was only using one arm, so the recoil was extreme, and my arm smashes against the inside of the snake. Considering that it was made of really strong ice, it really hurts to have it smash like that.

I ignore the pain though, and start pulling the trigger over and over. Shards of ice flies through the tight stomach of the snake, cutting me, and my right arm starts becoming numb. I can feel the bones shattering, but I still continue firing. Finally, the body shatters apart, and I’m able to force my way out of the body.

I crawl out of it’s stomach, and used my left hand to help bring myself to stand. My body hurt everywhere. I have a shattered right arm, several cuts on my body, and my mana was around 30%, which is about sixteen bullets if I use the gun. Even less if I need to light the cloak on fire. 

I look at the body of the snake that  I just crawled out of, separated into two pieces with gaping holes that lead to the inside of the snake. The [System] still didn’t state my victory, so that means it’s still alive. Wondering what was going to happen next, the body suddenly begins moving again, and I see the reason why it didn’t fall earlier.

The holes begin mending itself, and as if nothing happened, the front half of the snake that I crawled out from begins moving again. The other half mends its hole as well, except it creates a new head in the place where the hole was at. I completely underestimated the power of [Dungeon Masters], monsters whose strength relies not on stats, but on their unique abilities.

Albeit, , now I was battling two snakes, and they both have the exact same speed and durability. If I try were to destroy a part of its body, it will split and create more. In that case, all I have to do, is crush the entire thing into a pile of shards. The problem is, I can’t even use my right arm anymore, so I have to use the magnum with only one hand, making me unable to fire it consecutively.

I hear a loud yell from the [Yeti] that Thoth is fighting, and the entire cavern suddenly begins to shake. I turn to see that it pulled off one of the pillars of ice that was placed in the room, and used it as a weapon against Thoth. Apparently, removing or destroying the pillars of ice causes the entire dungeon to shake.

The [Frozen Vipers], unaffected by the shaking, makes their move and lunges at me, both of them coming  from the front. I decided to forget about the magic restriction I set upon myself, and gather mana within me. Let’s see, about 5,000 mana left, what spell can I cast before they kill me?

Honestly, I think using magic is a completely unfair ability that ruins the fun, so I don’t want to instantly kill them on the spot. Even if I’m on the verge of death, I will not do something like killing them right on the spot without warning. Therefore, instead of using offensive magic,  I decide to play around with my favorite spell; [Self Gravitation]. Obviously, it’s a skill that allows me to change my own gravity. There’s a lot of things I can do with this.

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“…fuu…” I exhale out loud, and just as they’re about to hit me, their speed drops back to normal. I decrease the force of gravity on me, and leap up. When I’m high enough to nearly touch the ceiling, I increase the force of gravity on me heavily, and make a dive kick towards one of the two vipers below me. As I fall, I use the earth spell; [Stone Body]. The snake charges at me with it’s mouth wide open, trying to eat me as I land. Diving straight into the snake’s mouth, my leg makes contact with the inside of the snake and I pierce right through the front half of its body, shattering it into pieces.

Just before I land, I revert my gravity back to normal so I don’t kill myself by the force. I roll forward upon landing, and turn around, raising the magnum with my left arm. As the other half of its body falls, I fire at it and shatter it even further, bringing the snake’s size to approximately 2 meters. The second snake rushes at me from the side and I’m unable to dodge this time. It crashes into me from my right side hitting my broken arm, and smashes me through the wall, leading us into a different area. 

I nearly faint from the pain, but I was able to keep myself awake. The snake was right on top of me, and opens its mouth to try and swallow me. Immediately, I shove the barrel of the magnum into the viper’s mouth before firing it. The head shatters apart, and I shove my hand through the gaping hole leading into its body, firing it again. The recoil smashes my left arm against the inside, but I still continue pulling the trigger, until the rest of the body is destroyed this way. Fortunately this time, my arm didn’t break from the continuous force though it still hurts.

“Regional Announcement: [Yeti] has been slain. Rewards have been granted to the slayer.”

Surprisingly, Thoth was able to defeat the [Hidden Boss] faster than I can defeat this [Dungeon Master]. Even though she had stats far lower than what her level should have, she was able to do such a thing. Her [Demon Magic] must be extremely powerful, if it makes up for her pathetic stats. And here I am, having the hardest time of my current life, still fighting a monster that’s supposedly weaker than the one she killed. Sometimes, I wonder about how I was able to kill her in our previous lives.

As I stand on top of the pile of ice shards from the [Frozen Viper], completely deprived of my mana.  I didn’t have any more left for firing the magnum. I hear a hissing sound from behind, and see the viper I wasn’t able to finish off earlier. It lunges at me, mouth wide open, but when it reaches me, I grab the top part of its mouth while stepping on the lower part, and tear it apart with raw strength, destroying the head completely. I throw the rest of the body onto the ground and stomp on it over, and over, and over, and over. Until it was completely destroyed.

“Regional Announcement: [Frozen Viper] has been slain. Rewards have been granted to the slayer.”

“Frozen Viper has been defeated. 140,000 experience has been received.

Received [Skillbook: Viper of Kazaric].

3,017,963,500 needed until level 32.

New title has been received: [Ice-Cold Predator].”

I fall to my knees, gripping my right arm tightly. It really hurts, moving a shattered arm that much. I could feel the bone shards tearing the muscles apart, but I can’t do anything about it. I don’t have the mana to use healing magic right now, but as long as it’s still attached, I can mend it later. It will take a lot of time, but I’ll be able to fix it completely if I use the highest tier of light magic.

“Wow, you look completely messed up!” Thoth appears through the hole the snakey created earlier, and runs up to me. “I’m surprised you haven’t died yet! Just look at you! There’s blood all over your body, and your right arm isn’t even bending the right way! Are you okay!?”

I sit down with my back against the wall, and lay my arms down to rest. I’m probably going to die at this rate, so I ask Thoth to do something I didn’t plan on doing for a while.

“…Thoth.” I say out loud.

“Yeah? What do you need me to do!? You’re going to die if we don’t get you help!” She begins to panic, afraid of seeing me die. How nice.

“…bandages.” Her expression freezes upon hearing this. She turns to face me, and a serious look appears on her face.

“There aren’t any bandages to seal you again, so you’ll have to return home like that, you know?” She explains. I nod to her words, indicating that I know what will happen. When I return home without these bandages, my parents will most likely overreact. That, I don’t care about.

What I care about, is the chance that someone may appraise me at any time. I don’t know for what reason, but it’s always a possibility. Some random person I don’t know may want to appraise my strength from watching me, like that martial artist kid in my [Homeroom], who surprisingly still continued to challenge me after that day. Also, I’ll need my stats shown when I complete a school term for the school to record. Something about seeing our rate of growths and determining where we belong.

I’ll reveal it when necessary, but doing so now will only make people either scared of me, or revere me as some sort of god, and that’s definitely not a life I want to take. But right now, I’m going to die otherwise, so I need these removed.

“…I can still do it myself, you know? Curse you, that is.” I stare at her for a second, before nodding again. This will definitely create some several complications in my future, but I’ll risk it for not exposing myself for now. I want to see how far I can get with my abilities hidden, and gradually remove my restrictions such as this previous battle, where I just lifted the magic restriction.

When it reaches to the point where I can no longer rely on simply these stats and defensive magic, I will uncurse myself slowly, a single percent every time. And I want to see how much power I have left over at the end of this life span. This is a personal challenge set for myself, and I want to see if I can live my new life without having to rely too much on these stats.

“…remove them.” I say to Thoth one last time. Finally, after two whole years, these bandages will now become undone.

–––––––

Author’s Note:

Sorry to those who voted not to take her bandages off, but based on my random improvising, this is how it went. I literally don’t have a set plot or story, I just improvise based on what’s happening. So far it’s working, but I’m gonna screw up at one point and completely set everything off. XP

I’m gonna hafta rely on you readers to help me then. :)