Author’s Note:

All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy. All work no Overwatch makes Jack a dull boy.

Chapter 57- Analysis

***July 5th, 965 A.F. (Night)***

***Mechanna***

***Ajax McGuire***

*grunt*

          I reached my hand over the ledge. Blindly feeling around, I finally managed to find a notch in the ground. Using that as leverage, I pulled my body up. I finally reached the top of the dungeon. I laid down on the floor in a heavy, labored breath. My body refused to move without taking a rest. I am so happy that I trained myself when I was still in the village. If I didn’t, I am sure that I wouldn’t have been able to climb all the way to the top.

           As I laid down on the ground, I stared into the sky. There was nothing to look at there was just pure darkness. The ball of light on my shoulder that I cast doesn’t even pierce a bit of the void. It was as if I was staring at a black hole, greedily swallowing everything and refusing to reflect a speck of light.

         The surrounding was eerily quiet, and the air was stale. Not a single breeze could be felt. There was not a single sound beside my own breathing sound and the beat of my heart. In the complete silence, they were deafeningly loud. It was as if my breathing and heartbeat drowned out all the other noise in the world. I remember reading an article back when I was human that if you stay in a room in complete silence for too long, you will go mad eventually. Even though I am a bit curious about it, I don’t want to test that out myself.

        Finally catching my breath, I stood up at the edge. After finishing the climb to the top, I can look down without a worry.

“Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate!”

       I conjured multiple balls of light and sent them down along the sides of the huge cube to scout. The balls of light spread out like a fan and floated down like bubbles.  I am looking to see if there is any point of connection or an exit. I also tried to shoot a light ball straight in front of me as far as I could. I was expecting the ball to hit the inner walls of the floating mountain, but the ball fades into the darkness before hitting anything. There was nothing connected to this side of the cube. Of course, I didn’t expect to be lucky enough to get something on the first try. I ran to the next side and repeated my actions.

“Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate!”

“Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate!”

“Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate! Illuminate!”

        I did the same thing on all four sides of the dungeon. Unfortunately, I got no result. There doesn’t seem to be anything attached to the dungeon. I am missing something here. Since this is a fantasy world, I can’t rely entirely on rational logic. The answer might be magical in nature.

          After a bit of thought, there are only two other points of interest that I have yet to explore: the center of the cube and the bottom of the cube. In order to deterime the location of the centre, I ran from one side of the cube to the other along the edge of the cube, counting the number of hatches I see.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine.”

         There are twenty-nine rooms in total on each side, so the center should be located in the fifteenth room. After finding the center, all I have to do is drop straight down through the dungeon. Since all I need to do is lower myself to the hatch on the floor, it shouldn’t be that dangerous even if the room is trapped since the time I stay in each room would be minimal. Having a solid plan, I started to run towards the center while keeping track of the numbers of hatches so that I would enter the right hatch.

“Ten, eleven, twelve, there…”

*Clank*

        A chill went down my spine after hearing that sound. It was the noise of a hatch opening behind me. There were two possibilities. I silently prayed in my heart as I turned around slowly.

“Please be Fin, please be Fin, please be Fin. Shit.”

         If it was Fin, there is a chance that she didn’t go crazy and tries to attack me. Of course, I wasn’t that lucky. It was Wyn, pulling herself up from the hatch. She closed the hatch with a swift kick after she got up and readies her bow. Seeing that she is reading her weapon, I activated my ring to pull out my own weapon. Nothing happened. Damn, I forgot that I dropped my dagger while trying to run away from Wyn the first time. The sharpest thing that I have on me is my wit. I need to try to avoid this fight even if the chances are slim. I tried to talk to her again.

“Wyn, why are you doing this to me?”

“You know damn well why.”

       She responded to my question? She hasn’t gone mad? I tried to probe the situation with another question. I need to find out why she is attacking me. If I can locate the reason for the attack, I can get a solution to all the problems.

“Is it because I went into this dungeon? Look I am sorry that I didn’t listen to you, but…”

“Shut up! You are still pretending to be innocent?”

      She let an arrow fly straight at me. The arrow whistled through the air at an incredible speed. I barely managed to react, tilting my head a bit to dodge the arrow. The arrow didn’t hit its mark. However, I wasn’t completely unscathed. It barely scraped my cheek. I felt a trickle of blood starting to flow down my face. That shot marked the start of the fight between Wyn and me. It was inevitable.

        I did a quick analyzation of the dire situation. My “weapon” is everything that I stored inside my ring and the magic with no attributes that I have learned. The area is large open space with hatches sticking out of the ground. I was extremely disadvantaged against a bow user as there is nothing to hide from her attack. Wyn has a clear shot of me no matter where I ran. On top of that, the only attack I have is my fist. It would be next to impossible for me to get close to getting shot. Even if I manage to get close, all she have to do is move backward to get away. There is nothing to stop her from retreating. On top of that, she is multi-classed. There is no reason to assume that she doesn’t have a close range attack.

         I can’t run away as well. The minute I turn around to run, she can attack my back. If the situation is dire enough, I could take a risk and drop into a hatch just like what I did before. But if that room is trapped, I am doomed for sure. 

        Even though this battle is utterly hopeless, it doesn’t mean that I will go down without a fight.