GRRRR.... GRRR.... GRRRT!!!

"Huh?!" Shuku wonders as he slowly gets up.

He looks around into the surrounding darkness and is immediately terrified by what he sees.

One, two, three,... multiple, dozens of pairs of eyes glowing in the darkness, each staring directly at him.

"Ohh... I guess he's not the only huh..."

Then, slowly, out of the darkness, those glowing eyes become clearer, and the growling becomes louder and scarier as they start to approach him. When the animals emerged from the darkness, within the range of the torchlight, he could see each and every single one of them clearly.

"A kangaroo?"

And the first one to walk out of the darkness is a big kangaroo with red eyes. However, unlike any kangaroos he had seen in his old world, this one had long, sharp teeth with blood mixed with saliva still dripping from its mouth. The kangaroo stared and growled at him, showing the intent to devour him to fill its empty stomach, just like the grey bear.

Then, slowly, other monsters started showing up too. There were crocodiles, snakes, spiders, and even more kangaroos... and there were dozens of them, too many for him to count. All were wild, aggressive animals, and all of them were looking at him with the eyes of hungry predators, ready to tear his entire body apart for a meal. Immediately, Shuku grabs and holds the broken sword tightly in his hand, in an act of defense.

Until now, he has just realized why his trip before meeting the bear was so peaceful. Since the grey bear was the one that kept other animals in their place, in the shadows. Now, with one of the apex predators gone, the monsters in this area have no reason to continue hiding. As they aggressively stare at him, he stares back at them with the same aggressive eyes, showing that he won't back down no matter how many of them are there.

"You guys wanted this too huh?! You also want to die like this son of a bitch?!"

He yells while pointing the broken sword towards the body of the dead grey bear, the almost undefeatable monster that was killed in the most brutal way with his own hands. His words and voice, despite being threatening, are useless because the animals don't understand his language. They continue to growl and approach him, thinking they have outnumbered and out-strengthened him.

And Shuku immediately gets ready to once again fight for his life.

"FINE! IF YOU ALL WANT TO DIE! I'LL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT! COME AND FIGHT ME YOU PATHETIC ANIMALS!!"

GROWLL!!!

ROARR!!!!

"BRING IT IN!!!!"

...

What comes after that, as he vividly remembers, were endless days of hell.

He expected the battle with the monsters would last only minutes, but then minutes became hours, hours became days. But no matter how many of them he killed, no matter how much he massacred, butchered, or slaughtered, it wouldn't be enough to kill all of them. He kills one, and two others take its place. He kills two, then four take their place, then five, then six, then... they just keep coming.

So this is what happens when you kill the apex predator, the one that had been stealing food from other predators that were weaker. Now, the monsters have nothing else stopping their way to hunt all the prey they can find. The animals also started fighting each other more aggressively, but mostly, they focused on the tiny, stubborn human resisting with the tiny sword, whose blood smelled unusually delicious.

They attack and attack, and he kills and kills. The bloodbath lasts for almost a week, and Shuku manages to survive wave after wave of bloodthirsty predators by feeding on the corpses of dead animals and drinking droplets of fresh water leaking down from the stalagmites. For almost six days, the dungeon became a place filled with the smell of blood, flesh, organs, and corpses.

Despite the regeneration power being the main reason he is still surviving up until now, the pain he receives from the attacks is agonizing. Each bite and scratch inflicted on him is enough to make a normal person go insane. And Shuku would have to constantly fend off attacks from the hungry animals non-stop, so much so that he hasn't slept at all because he doesn't have the chance to, and hasn't rested at all because he doesn't have the time to.

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However, compared to the time before getting teleported into this world when he was still heavily bullied by his classmates, this was better. Now, he has the ability to fight back. He has the courage and the will to kill and destroy anyone or anything standing in his way.

And as long as they keep coming, he will keep fighting. He will kill them with his sword. If it breaks, he will rip them apart with his bare hands. Because he has decided, no matter what they do to him, no matter how much pain they inflict on him, he will not stay silent and suffer anymore.

...

"How many days was it? I can't remember."

But everything has its limits.

"Goddamn it. I want to sleep so badly."

Days of constantly fighting non-stop have finally drained all his strength, and now, he's so exhausted that he couldn't even raise his hand up straight anymore, let alone fight. However, even if he wanted to sleep so badly that he felt he could die if he could not rest, the monsters wouldn't allow that. As they cornered him against the wall and kept their distance while waiting for an opportunity, Shuku would have to keep raising the broken sword, which is now in an even worse state, and point it at them so that the animals wouldn't dare come close to him.

However, he cannot keep this up any longer because he is about to reach the limit of the limit. His exhaustion has become so extreme that his hands shake intensely just from holding the weapon. As they continue to approach, he moves backward until his back finally touches the wall.

"Shit." With this, he realized that he had finally reached the dead end of the dungeon.

"I guess there's nowhere left to run."

As he was on the verge of dropping the weapon, surrendering to death, and letting go of everything, the animals suddenly began behaving strangely.

"What...?!"

The monsters abruptly halted their advance, and stranger, they began retreating back into the darkness while keeping their eyes fixed on him. The crocodiles, the spiders, the bloody kangaroo... all slowly moved backward away from him as if they were terrified of something. Then, he turned around, and it turned out that the wall on which his back had leaned against was not a wall, but rather... "A Gate?"

It seems that the moment he made contact with the closed gate, something inside the gate, or perhaps the gate itself, silently threatened the monsters, telling them to back off. Whatever it is, it is just a hypothesis. Right now, all he wanted was to lie down and take a nap. With the monsters retreated into darkness, his back felt comfortable as it no longer needed to hold up his body, his hands felt at ease as they no longer had to hold the weapon, and his eyes felt relieved as they no longer needed to stay open.

So, with no distractions or threats lingering, Shuku lays down on the hard and cold ground, closes his eyes, and falls into a deep sleep.

...

...

...

"Ahhhh-hhaaaaaa..."

Shuku, after replenishing his depleted energy with a long sleep, yawns as he finally wakes up. Feeling refreshed, rested, and clear-headed, he gets up on his back and sits on the ground while still feeling slightly sleepy.

In this dark dungeon with no light, he can't figure out how many hours he's been asleep. His guess is somewhere between 10 to 12 hours, but regardless of the duration, what matters is that he's now fully awake and his energy has been recharged enough for him to continue his journey.

He stretches his arm, leg, and neck, then slowly stands up while grabbing the "durable" broken sword that has been accompanying him for a whole week. Then, as he stands before the stone Gate, the one that seems to be scaring all the monsters away, and the one that has been protecting his sleep for hours, he feels worried.

The Gate appears incredibly huge, as wide as a bus and as tall as a small building. The fact that all the monsters were terrified to approach it makes him feel uneasy. Suddenly, as he looks up at the gate and notices something, he takes a few steps back to get a clearer look in the darkness.

Strangely enough, the Gate seems to be emitting its own light, though it's only enough to see without torches. However, what immediately captures his attention is the giant symbol sculpted on the Gate.

"An... upside down... star?"

The Gate is engraved with the symbol of an upside-down star, or a pentagram with a circle surrounding it. This symbol makes Shuku even more scared than before because, as he remembers, an upside-down star is the symbol of Satan. A symbol that signifies evil, representing devils and monsters in his old world. He doesn't know if the symbol holds the same meaning in this world or not, but considering the existence of a church in this world and putting it into context with the area where this symbol is sculpted, it's likely that it carries the same meaning.

Only now does Shuku realize that whatever is inside this Gate at the end of the dungeon could be something worse than all the monsters he has fought before. It could be an undefeatable monster, the final boss of the dungeon, or it could also be the legendary Blood Blade that Sylvar has told him about.

Whatever it is, he cannot afford to go back now, and he doesn't intend to. He has vowed to make all the people who mistreated him pay heavily. He has sworn to never back down, never give up, and never surrender to anyone or anything anymore.

So, as he prepares himself by doing a warm-up and taking a deep breath while still feeling scared, he walks toward the gate. Slowly, he pushes it open, ready to face whatever is inside.