"Now, let's test this thing."

Even if it was what Tim said, he never shot a bow before. For now, he could only try by grabbing the bow with his left hand, then with the fingers of his right hand he placed an arrow on the bowstring and slowly drew the string back.

"...Now I just need to release it, right?" Tim talked alone.

As instructed by himself, Tim let go of the string. The next instant, the arrow vigorously cut through the air. However, it just flew past the treasure chest by a mile.

"Yep, there's no way I can hit it on the first try." He said to comfort himself.

He fired another arrow. However it once again completely missed the treasure chest and stuck upright in the ground. "W-well... at least the arrow fly."

Tim narrowed his eyes and glared at the treasure. He fired several times, but all of his shots missed the target and ended up as waste shot. The treasure chest wasn't even trying to dodge them. It was just that his arrows were following a weird path.

He felt like the treasure chest was laughing at him. After all, never for once in his life he thought he would be using a bow.

With a deep sigh, he thought it would be useless to continue training in his current condition.

At least on the bright side, some of his problems were ended.

For shelter, he could use this place, at least for tonight. For water, like it or not he must use the low or zero content alcohol drink. For status... Tim stared at his screen. The look on his face said it all, his status didn't increase a single number even with all that running and his health had the same problem, it got stuck on 48.

"At least I have this crazy amount of Dust." Tim said as he looked to his screen, particularly his Dust amount:: 292.

Tim woke up with a jolt from the four-poster bed. He thought he would have some serious nightmare after all shit he'd seen from today and yesterday scenery, but no... he was resting like a baby in his mother's cradle.

His dust amount increased to 294, which meant he only rested for 2 hours but somehow he felt that was enough.

But something was missing... It was the pain from his hand and his leg. Not only the pain, when Tim curiously checked his wound, his eyes wide opened with disbelievement when it was also healed.

He opened his screen and his health rose back to 54. "So... this place is rest area? or only this bed? Anyway, each bite does around 3 dmg, huh... well, I guess that also depends on where they bite me." Tim mumbled.

With somewhat refreshing feeling, Tim continued exploring the dungeon. He opened one of the doors and found a circular stair. With a knife and gun in his hand, bow and quiver in his back, and the Item Bag strapped diagonally on his body, Tim descended a sweeping staircase.

Under the stair was a hallway, this was enough as the proof for Tim that this place wasn't normal. The underground hallway was luxurious and tasteful. Tapestries and paintings of old some figures that Tim didn’t recognize adorn the walls. They had different armour but all of them wearing a metal armour with ridiculous helmet design and straight from the video game looking swords. But there was nothing else worth mentioning or taking in here.

Back to the rest area, this time Tim entered the second door on the right side and greeted by the dining room. The table was set for dinner, but there were no food or guests. No sign of life.

"...Creepy." Tim muttered, though he immediately took some of the tableware and put it into his Item Bag.

Entering the second door on the left, it was a dark oak lined study room. The only sound was the ticking of a grandfather clock, the time showed on it was 20:11 o'clock. Tim took a framed photograph train the desk. It was the same figures like the one in the underground hallway, maybe... It was hard to tell considering the variety from their helmet. But this time they were a group of knights standing in front of rose bushes in the garden. 

From the photo's reflection, a sudden shadow was moving out in the lobby. Tim jumped, startled and looked back. Something indeed ran across the lobby. 

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Tim hesitated to call out but he still did that. "Hello!" 

....

No one answered. "...So am I in a horror movie right now?" Tim protested.

He emerged from the study and went to the third door from the left. This time was a garden, even though Tim was sure this place was indoor, in the distance he could see the dark sky. In front of him was a huge marble statue. A series of bizarre gothic characters dancing around a maypole. A walrus wearing a waistcoat, a rabbit carrying a knife, a knight in armour with a magnificent feathered helmet. Both beautiful and also strangely unsettling.

In his back, Tim senses a movement at the entrance to the lobby.

"Hello!" Tim shouted but there’s no reply. This time he was sure it wasn't a zombie, after all, if it was zombie it definitely would rush toward him rather than playing hide and seek.

Third door from the right and also the last door. It was a maze and Tim was following someone or something deeper and deeper into the maze. He already planned to spend his night on this place, and the thought of something stalker was in here making him uncomfortable. Tim was rapidly chasing to the figure but the figure within the maze was faster. With every corner Tim turned turns, he felt the tension mounted and cold sweat fell from his cheek.

Tim continued chasing until he was about to turn back when he suddenly stumbled upon the middle of the maze. At the very centre point was a chair. And in the chair, a man sitting with his back to him.

"Hello?" The man didn’t reply.

"Can you understand me?" Tim shouted while trying to hide his knife and his gun.

The man still ignoring him. ...Somehow felt annoyed, with a vein throbbing in his temple, Tim cautiously approaches him.

"Are you the owner? Or are you another refugee like me?"

The man still doesn’t speak. Didn’t even move. Tim reached out to touch his shoulder.

"Are you deaf?!" Shouted Tim, his hand was touching the man body. He was cold to his touch. Very cold.

"F- hm?"

Before saying the F-word, Tim realized that he had his hand on the shoulder of a statue. The statue is of an old man with a fedora in his lap.

Tim sighed. With relief. With embarrassment. He thought this man was some kind of touchable ghost or something like that.

Until he realized. Then... what is that shadow that I chased?

Suddenly, a shadow roared out of the bushes. It lunged forward while Tim was leaping to the side, barely avoiding it. Gaze darting, He noticed it was another monster as Cat Sith Lvl 12 floating on its head.

The slinky black feline before Tim had a single white spot on its chest. It was a little bit bigger than the usual cat, but still smaller than normal children.

Its mannerisms and movements were eerily human, it seemed to flinch and hesitate to attack when Tim aimed his gun toward it.

Seeing the hesitation, Tim pulled the trigger. It clicked...empty.

Cat Sith's face moved a little too slowly, as it was taking in the surroundings. Then he grinned. As it did so, Tim felt the temperature of the room fell a little. Even in the dim light of the night, Tim saw its bared teeth. It was a cheshire grin of sorts, the kind that was so wide it was more as if it wanted to eat Tim.

He quickly and efficiently clenched his dagger. Tim swung his dagger as Cat Sith lunged at him, its bared teeth like razors. Tim slashed it away, not deep enough to kill it, but enough to throw it a few meter away, while hoping it was enough to scare it.

It didn't.

The Cat Sith She turned again and took a diving leap onto him. Tim tried to avoid it, but its jaws already snapped at Tim's thigh, trying to bite the meat clean out of his body.

Tim opened his eyes wide, blinked, and tried to hurl the Cat Sith, but was unable to because of the pain. As a new spasm of pain wracked his body, he shouted out in anguish.

"This... little pussy... Leech Seed!" Tim shouted, clearly this time he didn't have an open or stable hand to cheat its number.

One thing that Tim knew, a systematical pattern was created on the Cat Sith's back.

Next, with weakened hand, Tim used his knife only to slash across Cat Sith's cheek and neck, the blood spurted but he didn't have enough power to embedded his knife deeper than this.

The Cat Sith continued to bite him, this time, its teeth were deepened and the sudden pain threw Tim off balance. He stumbled back and staggered down to the statue. He frantically groped the statue as he kept thrusting his knife into the Cat Sith's body.

As the cat was finally eating the meat out of Tim's thigh, Tim collapsed to the ground.

With every last bit of his power, he raised his arm and descending the knife into the Cat Sith's back.

24 Dust earned.

Tim should've felt relief, but his face was screwed up into a mask of agony, and he was trembling violently from head to foot.

He wanted to crawl back to the lobby, but the pain was excruciating and the thought of the distance between this place and there alone was enough to make Tim gave up.

Until green bud of something suddenly growing itself out of the Cat Sith's body. Tim's eyes were all riveted to Cat Sith's back as the seed from his Leech Seed's bud was continuing to grow out until a little bean the size of a children's nail sticking out from the bud.

From his crawling position, Tim used his hand to reach out to the bud on the Cat Sith's body and without hesitation eating it. The texture was somewhat to be a cross between an uncooked bean and a celery stalk, and it tasted like fish.

But the moment Tim gulped it down, the gaping wound from his thigh was closing down. It wasn't completely healed but at the very least it didn't splatter fluids and blood anymore.