Chapter 27

<strong>Finally arriving at my destination</strong>

It seems these lizardmen came from the swamp that had a fairly weaker poison on it .

That seems so based of the fluids that were sticking in their body .

It’s like I thought, I wouldn’t be able to pass through that swamp .

That’s why I think it’s quite difficult to hunt for more of them in their own habitat .

It seems the holes where those two stinking dragons came out from previously, were also connected to that same swamp .

I threw away the bones of the disposed people that those monsters were playing with .

I threw it into that hollow where all those bones were crammed together .

The ground is too hard, so there’s no way I could give them a proper burial .

This is all I can do for them .

The clothes that the skeletons used to wear which had been slightly melted by acid, were wrapped around a weight and is now submerged in the acidic swamp .

This way, those clothes won’t be a plaything by monsters .

After I finished cleaning up the slaughter I’ve committed, I decided to keep going in my journey to the upper grounds .

I am now walking upwards along the gentle spiral slope while still maintaining alertness towards my surroundings .

I can already feel fatigue accumulating in my legs .

However, isn’t there some increase in my correction values?

I feel that my stamina and leg strength are better than before we were summoned .

In the meantime, I continued on earnestly climbing the slope .

And after some time, I’ve finally been able to reach the upper floor .

And there I came across a monster .

It’s a two-headed humanoid panther .

I’m reminded of the monster “war tiger” when I look at it .

There are two of them .

Its physique easily exceeded over two meters .

It’s base features like its skin color seems to be the same as panthers in my world .

It also have that acid that is spouting from its body .

It really looks like the panther when I compared it to the panthers I know of .

Both of the two-headed panthers looked at my direction with a familiar atmosphere around them .

“Finally, the next prey has appeared . ”

Did it descend from the upper floors after sensing my presence?

I can feel its killing intent .

It’s the same killing intent that those lizards were releasing, a playful type of killing intent that treats their prey as a game .

I raise my arms .

The pair of eyes of the panthers narrowed as they looked at me .

It’s an expression that tells me that they clearly didn’t know what the heck I’m about to do .

“What are you trying to do? You do know that no matter what you do is useless, human?”

It’s like I could hear a voice that says as such .

The two-headed panther on my right side treads the ground .

He’s going to move— though before he even gets to move…

There’s a time there where there is a momentary gap in movement .

I learned it by my experience in this ruins .

[]

[Ggoo, gggooaahhh—]

The two-headed panther on my right side stopped in the middle of its posture where its about to pounce on me .

The other panther looks like it’s mouth is stuck on a face that looks like its jaws may fall off .

It’s an expression that shows it doesn’t understand what had just happened .

“That meager human… did it do something?”

A reaction to something when they saw an unexpected phenomenon .

And at that time, the other two-headed panther noticed .

That its body can’t move .

[]

The next thing that the two-headed panther notices is its body’s change in color .

And then, anomalies also started to appear in its body .

It’s natural, since and can now multi-target .

At this moment though, a thought I haven’t settled yet began to surface again in my mind .

I wanted to verify if what I think is viable or not .

Would I still acquire the EXP even if a monster dies from a distance?

Should I try it right now…?

No— I shouldn’t do that since this is the first monster I’ve encountered in this floor .

This monster may be a rare monster which gives a lot of experience .

[Gguu, ggoo, gggoooaaahhh…]

After waiting for a while, both the two-headed panthers died almost at the same time .

It’s quite a good amount of experience .

But it’s not like they give that much experience compared to the others, right?

I pass through the two of the two-headed panthers and proceeded further .

I should just proceed like this, and I’d be able to reach the top-most area soon .

After a while, I arrived again in a cave-like area .

I walked for a while,

[Ah . ]

-and came across the same monsters I just saw before .

Six two-headed humanoid panthers .

They are sitting down and formed a circle .

All of these monsters saw me at the same time .

“Ah? Didn’t this guy meet the guys we’ve sent below?”

Or so their expressions say .

However, the monster became excited immediately .

“The next plaything for us have come . ”

Or something like that .

Meanwhile, one of them went to aside and retrieved something .

Its something looks like a cord that have human skulls attached on it on both sides .

It somehow reminds me of a nunchucks .

That panther held it its hands and began to wield it .

Bunbunbunbun! (T/N: sfx of buzzing)

[Ggooggaaaahh♪ ggaa, ggaaa♪ gggaaaahhhh♪]

The two-headed panther next to the one wielding the nunchucks pointed its finger at me .

[Ggooaaaahhh!? Ggaa, ggaaahhh!?]

That’s quite a sadistic expression you have there .

I somehow understand what it was trying to say .

“See that? Did you see that? They’re your friends, right? Are you scared now, human?”

I stick out my arms .

[]

[—uwoo…? Gguuggooohh!?]

[]

<strong>v</strong>

There are now 6 corpses of the two-headed panthers lying right before my eyes .

After applying on them earlier, I went back to the place where I had killed the two-headed panthers that I had first encountered .

I think the distance between them is about 500 meters .

My level did not increase .

It seems that if I were 500 meter away, I will not be able to get EXP .

Killing two of them made my level go up from Lv 665 to Lv 692 .

After that, I had defeated 6 of the same monsters .

If it were just because my level has been high, an increase would have happened even if its just 1 level .

[I don’t know the exact numbers, but at least I understood something . If I’m too far away, I wouldn’t be able to get the experience . ]

It’s a shame that I didn’t get the experience after killing them .

However, I’m happy that I have verified what had been bugging my mind earlier rather than putting it for later .

[……… . ]

I picked up the nunchucks made of human skulls .

I disassemble it and removed the skulls .

I held the skulls under my arms and went back to where I came from .

My goal is to find the place that I had found earlier where a dent on the wall can be seen .

I place the two skulls side by side in the recess at the wall .

I put my hands together and offered a silent prayer .

I’ve never thought the skulls I’ve just touched were disgusting .

Rather, I can feel some kind of familiarity with them .

They’re the same disposed people like me .

Now that I arrived here, I believe in the idea of ascending out of this place more and more .

[…………]

I continued on moving forward .

<strong>v</strong>

The cave filled with nothing but bare rocks is all I see for a long time .

A winding, rugged path .

It’s a similar scene that continued endlessly .

However, the path was definitely heading up .

I can see that I’m steadily approaching the place above ground .

The feeling that what I had been doing is nothing but fruitless effort has been considerably alleviated .

[—oh . ]

The light that the leather bag has been emitting disappeared .

I thought I had injected it with as much magic energy as possible .

It seems that the amount I had injected before killing the lizardmen had already run out .

[Hmm?]

This is?

[Eh? The jewel’s color… have reset to its original color?]

The gem that had turned gray had now returned to its yellowish green color .

Another kind of nervousness runs through my chest aside from monster encounters .

I ate one of the jerky I have on the way here .

I only have one bag of it left .

There is only about one mouthful of cola I have left .

A feeling like I’m wishing for something came into me as I infused magic power into the jewel .

A violet hue slowly colored the originally yellowish green color of the jewel from the bottom .

H- how’s that…?

Does this leather bag transfer food and water for me from somewhere every time I inject it with enough magic power?

It would be useless if something like nails shows up…

I’m relying on you…

The result is—

[Seriously?]

One egg onigiri and green tea in a 500mL PET bottle .

[It really came…]

Food and drinks .

I want suddenly want to scream .

But, I can’t still perfectly decide whether my leather bag could really transfer foods and drinks .

However, the possibility that it might be so has greatly increased .

My leather bag may really be a unique item that transfers food and drinks .

Most of all, what made me happy was—

[—That the transfer function will be restored over time . ]

I have seen egg onigiris before at convenience stores .

However, I’ve never eaten this before .

Prriii…

I remove the wrapping around the onigiri .

[Ahm… chomp, chomp… uwo!?]

D- Delicious…

Is the seasoning inside based deeply on soy sauce?

The most delicious part, the egg yolk rolls over my tongue .

The feeling when the soy sauce and mayonnaise melts together is also the best .

The taste of nori further increased the flavor of the onigiri .

Furthermore, this rice that I haven’t eaten for quite a while .

Is this rice boiled with the dashi or something?

The rice grains were coated by something that is slightly brown colored .

A surge of deep flavors commenced on attacking my tongue with its wavelike attacks .

The richness of this onigiri had successfully conquered my palate .

I open the cap of the green tea .

I pour the green tea into my mouth that is completely filled with the aftertaste of the onigiri’s deep flavors .

(T/N: Hazure Waku isn’t a cooking novel . )

[Gokun… gokyun…pffuaah!]

The refreshing green tea washes off the flavors in my mouth .

It has a refreshing taste different when I’m drinking cola…

There’s a different kind of satisfaction after eating the combination of jerky and cola .

[……fuuu~]

To put it in a few words… It’s the best .

I stopped drinking the green tea after I’ve drunk about half of the bottle .

I’ve already eaten the egg onigiri, but I will leave some of the green tea .

I stash away the PET bottle into the leather bag .

For the time being, I’ll put all my trash on the leather bag .

The leather bag was surprisingly elastic, and it seems that I can still store more things in here .

Is it because this is a magic tool?

The fabric in this leather bag seems to be surprisingly tough…

Now that my stomach is full and my throat is parched, I think I should move on .

<strong>v</strong>

I continued climbing all the way up .

Ascend, ascend, ascend .

I encountered monsters several times along the way .

This is how the standard “dungeons” I know function .

Usually, there is that standard where the lower you go, the stronger the monsters you encounter .

However, it looks like that it’s different in this ruins . Even if I go to the upper layer, the monsters doesn’t show any hint of them being weaker .

Rather, it seems that the monsters I’ve encountered lately is stronger than the minotaurs and birdheads .

Why do you think I said that?

Because my level still continues to rise .

As expected, the increase in level has been slowing down as of late .

This is probably because the necessary EXP I need to level up has increased .

However, my level still continues to rise little by little .

Perhaps even if I continued to kill the same number of minotaurs and birdheads, it would not continue to rise like this…

[Ehheheh~ Hhiiyyoo ggoooeeehh!]

A monster that have the lower body of a horse and the upper body of something that looks like some carnivorous plant, appeared in the darkness .

It’s running towards me while screaming with its strange voice .

At first glance, I thought that it kinda look stupid .

That’s why, on the contrary, it looks creepier and creepier .

[Oggoguueehh! Gguueeehhh! Goggeehhiiiiii!!! Oh—guueeehhhh!!!]

The creepy monster suddenly discharged acid from its mouth .

Firmly— I clad myself with killing intent .

I won’t be fooled by its eccentric appearance .

[]

I will still punctually kill you .

[]

You’ll just be joining the pile of monsters that I will be making from the monsters that will cross my path .

[]

To kill, killing someone, to be killed .

I never neglected to regularly check the color of the jewel attached in the leather bag .

When I saw that the jewel had returned to its original yellowish-green color, I immediately injected it with magic power .

The third gift I received is yakisoba bread and a pack of vegetable juice .

I could finally get some vitamin supplemented on my body .

Who ever should I be thankful for these blessing?

I gratefully accept it .

After I’ve finished my meal, I continued moving forward again .

To walk, walking here, I walked for a while .

I just noticed that my thoughts have been slowing down for quite a while now .

The soliloquy that I had been doing has become fewer and fewer .

I’m starting to feel some itch on my head and body .

…can I take a bath using the green tea?

However, I can’t use something like my precious green tea for something like washing my hair or body .

I often take some time for me to sleep when I find some hole on the way .

I would take out some of the bone fragments I have from my leather bag .

It’s that rotting dragon’s bone .

I place these bones around the hole I’d be sleeping in .

Its in order for me to respond immediately .

However, I think it’s only useful for one surprise attack .

At that time though, this bone alarm I’ve installed would play its role .

After killing the monster that triggers it, I would level up .

I aimed to proceed even further .

For the topmost floor I’m aiming for, I continue moving my feet .

If I find a monster that releases its killing intent, I would immediately kill it .

I also regularly check the condition of the leather bag .

I’m just repeating this same routine for some time .

My thoughts have also been steadily becoming simpler .

I’m not thinking of anything .

I have no thoughts on anything .

It’s like I’ve become numb .

No thoughts, nor emotions at all…

How long have I been walking?

[……… . . ]

I raise my face .

I had finally reached this place .

[This is—]

Obviously a different scenery from what I’ve always seen .

Disposal ruins .

I’ve thought there must have been a reason why this place is called ruins .

I could see ocher-colored buildings that were entwined with ivy .

It’s like there used to be a civilization that had lived here in the past .

[The ruins area, huh…]

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