Author's Note: So today, I came and checked royal road like I always do and, I came upon a rather pleasant surprise. "Change: New World" got within this week's Top Weekly Fiction list! Oh, you don't know how excited I was. In fact, I was so excited, I couldn't resist writing a new chapter, so now, here we are.

Trial Run

Before we ventured directly towards the classroom that spawned the minotaurs, we took this opportunity to take a detour towards the restrooms.

Now, this might not seem like much in any normal circumstance, but when you haven’t peed or relieved yourself in 12+ hours, things can get pretty bad.

When we got there, both Hina and Cielle gasped out in surprise. I had forgotten, but the corpses of ten or so goblins were still visible from out in the hallway, or rather, the very hallway was scattered with the remnants of my battle from yesterday.

My eyes scanned the surroundings lethargically as the girls, began to chatter on about what they saw.

“Wh-what happened here…?” Hina’s voice rang out. “These short green things are all….”

Her tone was a mix of disgust and sympathy. It was as if she felt grossed out by all the blood and geen corpses while feeling sympathy for the fact that they had died.

“W-what do you think did this…?” Cielle’s voiced in wonderment.

“I can only begin to wonder…” Hina responded, “... but I think it might have been a monster of some sort…”

Hearing this, I reflexively shook my head.

“No, it wasn’t a monster.” I spoke up for the first time ever since we arrived at the hallway.

“Huh? I-it wasn’t? Then what? Or rather, how would you even know?”

Hina asked a barrage of questions, which I promptly answered with a single phrase.

“It’s simple; I’m the one who did this.”

“Eh?”

“Huh?”

Hina and Cielle uttered their disbelief, which I met readily with an impassive face.

“How do you think I got all these swords?” I indicated to the 4 or so goblin short swords I strapped to my back prior to leaving the art room.

Hina and Cielle’s eyes trailed downwards to look at the swords as their expression only further clouded in astonishment.

I let them gawk for a bit more, savoring the somewhat superior feeling I was receiving before I immediately moved over to the men’s restroom.

As I walked into the familiar area, I called out nonchalantly.

“Oi, you two better hurry up. We don’t have all day, you know.”

I chuckled ruefully to myself.

Despite saying that, I saw the two girls remain fixed on their positions, absentmindedly looking over at me as I entered the room and closed the metal door behind me.

Once I was inside and alone, my light, almost boisterous expression instantly darkened. My eyes were immediately drawn to the carnage of the bathroom.

Like how I left it after the Goblin Commander’s defeat, the corpses, or at least what remained of them, were still littered half hazardly on the floor and smeared on the walls.

“....”

I looked blankly at this scene.

This was one thing I definitely did not want the girls to see.

Brushing of the feeling of both, shame, and unease, I quickly took care of my business. A passing thought such as, “How exactly do I fight a minotaur…” drifted through my head, as I took a long and worthwhile piss.

****

After our quick side trip, we immediately set forth towards our current destination.

The other two were now noticeably tenser. I don’t know whether it was because of the scene of dead goblins that they saw, or because we were getting closer to actual “living” monsters, but their tension was good.

It would make them react faster and get their systems ready for action.

In no time, we reached an intersection within the hallways. The hall that went to the left was the same hallway which housed the Minotaurs’ spawn point.

I signaled the girls to stop by raising my open palm in the air.

As we halted, Cielle’s voice perked up from the back, “Isn’t this the place…” Her voice trailed off, leaking a bit of weird nostalgia in the process.

Hearing her, I nodded in response. “Yeah, this was where I first bumped into you-- but now’s not the time for reminiscing, it’s dangerous out here…”

Upon my command, we then circled back and hid in one of the classrooms close to our actual goal.

There, I chose this opportunity to further elaborate on my plan.

“It’s simple really, we kill some minotaurs, get the experience, and collect any loot that may drop in the process.”

“Uh... Can you further elaborate on that?” Hina asked, somewhat annoyed by the lax tone I had in my voice.

“Well… at this current moment, I can’t.” I spoke simply.

“Eh?! What do you mean you can’t?”

“Well… suffice to say, I don’t have a current plan.” I spoke bluntly, not bothering to hide this tidbit of information.

“W-what do you mean you don’t have a current plan?”

“Well, you see…. I know next to nothing about these creatures… so I can’t really formulate my plan without any information.”

I responded while scratching the bird’s nest I called my hair.

Hina’s face absolutely went pale green upon hearing this.

“O-oi...h-h-ha ha ha….You mean to tell me, we’re basically about to start fighting blind against a giant half man, half bull.?!”

Hina’s voice rose an inflection, which quickly prompted a round of sushing from Cielle.

“No, we’re not going in there blind. I am.” I corrected.

“W-wait, what? What do you mean?”

Hina continually asked questions, which I would answer, albeit with a heavy sigh in between.

“You all do know that you’re all just level 1, right?” I stated this obvious fact.

“Y-yeah…but why are you bringing this up now?”

“Well, because,” I passed to look at them both. “Minotaurs are at most, level 15 monsters.”

I stated another simple fact.

“L-l-l-level 15?!” A shocked cry escaped Hina’s voice.

Of to the side, I could see Cielle pale upon hearing my words.

I sighed once more, “Ah, geeze~ Don’t yell so loud, you’ll draw the minotaurs our way….”

Hina’s hands instantly clamped down on her still gaping mouth. Even Cielle, who was usually quiet, and even now hadn’t uttered so much as a word, had her hands firmly clasped onto her petite lips.

It seems like that little scare tactic worked wonders.

It’s good to let these two know about the dangers of this world, and there’s no better way to do that then to expose them to an almost insurmountable force (well, at their current level). That way, they learn that at their current strength, they are no more than easy pickings for these types of monsters.

Well, this method of “encouragement” is actually quite a double edged sword. Either they become motivated to triumph over this unfairness (much like me), or they end up in a spiraling staircase of despair and depression, only going deeper and deeper until it becomes almost impossible to crawl your way back out.

Hopefully, its the former, but you never know. After all, human beings are quite fickle creatures.

“Look, I’m also level 15, so give or take, I should stand at about equal ground with one of these creatures.”

I went on explaining, now deciding to ignore the two girls who still wore shocked/scared faces.

“I’ll go in first. Test out the waters, per say. I’ll engage in combat with one of them to, you know, analyze their movements, find out if they have any weak points, etc.

After that I’ll return and together, we’ll develop a way so that you guys can farm experience from these high leveled monsters.

Sound like a plan?”

They looked at me blankly. From their expressions, they didn’t even need to tell me in order for me to guess what they were thinking; they thought it was impossible.

Too risky, too dangerous, I don’t know, but they didn’t believe I was capable of doing it.

Which is an understandable conclusion. I’m just a lanky teenager, and if someone were to pit me against a minotaur in a no holds barred death match, it would be an even greater understatement to call me the underdog.

Even though I could see where they were coming from, still…

[These ladies sure do underestimate me, don’t they?]

I wearily shook my head as I let out a helpless sigh.

“Listen, don’t worry about me, I’ll be back in no time. In the meanwhile, you two get ready. Remember, it’s very possible that I could drop dead while fighting, or that another monster might wander through here.”

I warned them, lowering my voice into an ominous octave.

“I need you two to be ready, incase anything bad were to happen…”

I let my voice trail off, implying several things yet not verbally stating them.

The message was received well enough though, as both Cielle and Hina frantically nodded, a slight fire of determination welling up within their irises.

I solemnly nodded as I turned around and quietly exited the door; It was time to hunt once more.

*****

I walked briskly to the corner of the hallway. My steps were silent, amateurish, but silent.

As I arrived, I crouched near the wall, and peered out into the hall.

From my prior experience with minotaurs, they spawned every 1 minute and 30 seconds, and when their troops built up to three, the group would then venture forth, deeper into the eastern hallway, where they probably caused all sorts of hell.

Now, a minute and thirty isn’t necessarily a large span of time. In fact, this interval was much shorter than when I fought the level 6 goblins. Just thinking about fighting a minotaur in such a short time frame… well, I thought it was pretty impossible of a task.

As for my method of attack, I can either 1) rush out at a minotaur when it’s all alone, and perform a blitzkrieg, hoping I can kill it before its friends spawn or 2) I can attempt to lure one out of the classroom while its alone.

Now there are complications to both methods. For 1, the task of killing something that large and high level within that little of a time frame is next to impossible and will require nothing short of a physical phenomena. And there’s always the lingering concern that I won’t make it in time, and as a result, I’ll get double teamed by two minotaurs, further upping the danger level.

As for plan number 2, well, I haven’t observed what a minotaur will exactly do after it spots someone. If that individual leaves the room, will the monster follow? What if it just stays there? Even worse, what if it waits for its friends to spawn, then goes about tracking me down with the brute strength of three minotaurs combined?

Basically, this was a dilemma over imminent death versus the unknown.

Racking my brain for a solution, as stupid as it might seem, I chose to go with plan number 1. In this regard, I had the advantage of surprise in my hand.

If I do things correctly, and use consecutive [dissects] on the opponents legs, I can probably deal with a minotaur relatively quickly. Of course, I could always just be overestimating myself, which was probably true as well.

But hey, self confidence is important too.

With most of my crudely thought up plan all organized and in order, I set about my “hunt”.

I waited patiently, counting out the intervals in my head, until I finally saw a group of three minotaurs, leave the classroom excitedly as they made their way down the eastern hallway.

Once they turned the corner and were now safely out of sight, that was when I bolted out from my hiding spot.

With hastened movements, I immediately ran through the doorway and entered the spawn point.

I looked around warily, verbally counting out the limited time I had left before the next minotaur spawned.

I was currently searching for a hiding spot. The simple plan was to find a place not too far from where the monster would spawn in order to successfully launch a surprise attack from the moment they blinked into life.

My eyes hastily looked through every nook and cranny of the room. All the areas I found where either too far away, or I simply deemed as an inconvenient place to attack from.

With only about 30 seconds left, I was disheartened, and in frustration, looked up above, as if I were venting out my frustrations towards the ceiling.

[Wait, that’s it!]

My eyes widened at the sudden insight.

If I nestled myself within the rafters of the ceiling, then I could very much land a successful surprise attack. Rather than aiming for an [amputate] towards its legs, I can whittle away its health by obstructing and attacking the most important part of a body; the brain.

Imitating what I saw in movies and various sports shows, I leaped up with a running start and kicked out against the wall. My body was instantly reminded of a past action I used to so often perform; a running jump side kick.

While the intention behind my current act and my memory were different, the movements were relatively the same, allowing for little to no error.

Normally, doing something similar to parkour would have been next to impossible for the past me, but I figured with my added stats, especially my inflated stats to agility, I could somehow manage this well established human feat.

As I kicked out at the wall, my hands instantly reached for the top of the window frame. Using my arm strength plus the initial inertia I recieved from my leap I swung myself over and jumped upwards, reaching the top of an almost 2.5 meter cabinet.

I looked above and measured the distance I had left.

The height of the ceiling was well over 7 meters tall, not an easy task to climb up against, but surprisingly, my agility, or maybe it was my strength, but regardless, my boost in stats allowed me to jump higher and reach further.

With a leap of faith, bounded upwards. My initial jump elevated me over 1 meter upwards. I then performed another kick out towards the wall. This time, my kick pushed me upwards by another 1.5 meters and redirected me to a lowered rafter, which was one I could safely reach.

I swung myself forward, using the initial inertia to stand above the rafter.

Like I’ve said before, this part of the school was old, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise that the ceilings had visible rafters sprawled along side the intertwining ventilation shafts. Like a tight wire, I steadily made my way using rafter after rafter until I was directly below where I assumed the newest minotaur would spawn.

Luckily, I had exactly 10 seconds left.

I inwardly counted out the time, as I braced myself for the coming battle.

10...9...8…

My hand reached to the back of my uniform as I pulled out efhermet. It gleamed within the absence of light.

….7….6….5

I crouched down and used a free hand to steady myself.

….4….3….2….

My legs were poised and ready, my mind was completely in a state of heightened concentration.

….1….

Almost.

…..0….

Now!

Woosh!

Not a second after the rippling in the air began, I fell from the rafters.

Or rather, I pushed myself down, accelerating with a far greater velocity than normal.

The lumbering giant blinked into life just as I slammed down against its back with a tremendous force.

The monster’s shoulders drooped downwards from the impact.

I didn’t even have time to check its status as it began to recover from its initial state of confusion.

I had purposely landed on the creature with an outstretched knee, hoping to buy me some form of time. My knee had hit the beast directly on the space between the back of the head and its neck, yet despite that, it was already steadily getting back up.

Damn, what a formidable monster.

The minotaur roared. It seemed more annoyed then angered that someone was trying to kill him. It shook its upper human half, all in a vain attempt to shake me off.

Before I could slip off though, I twirled my hips so that they hugged down on the creature’s massive neck. With my free hand I gripped one of its horns tightly, steadying myself from falling.

Not being able to shake me off, the beast’s movements became even more erratic, as it vented its frustration and anger out on the poor school walls.

I stubbornly held my ground, like a cockroach, refusing to die!

With one single thrust, I stabbed Efhermet deep into the monster’s eye socket whilst activating [Dissect]. While this move wasn’t going to trigger any [amputation] status effect, it would at the very least trigger a [Lacerate]. Plus, the actual use of this skill would result in more damage given than normal.

Upon my thrust, a [critical hit] flashed above the minotaur’s head as it cried out an inhumane wail of agony.

As the dagger lodged itself even deeper into the eye socket. I wriggled and twisted the blade, endeavoring to reach the vulnerable part of the head though its only opening.

While I did this, the creature continued screaming. The pain got so much so that the minotaur’s movements abruptly stopped, as it stood down and fell on its knee, its screams of agony complementing its drop in height.

Once I was satisfied with my initial stab, I pulled out the dagger with a single yank and proceeded to stick the sharp edge into the other eye socket. Of course, I activated [Dissect] at the same time, which prompted both a [critical hit] to appear from above its head, as well as a [lacerate] effect to trigger.

The beast’s shrill shrieks now numbed my eardrums, yet I didn’t care. I continually stabbed at the creature’s eye sockets, frantic to bring it down within the next 30 seconds.

While killing it this way wouldn’t let me attain the “goals” I told Hina and Cielle about regarding this fight, truth be told, I had another reason for confronting a minotaur alone, rather than with the girls.

I needed a body.

It was simple enough; I wanted to kill a creature to attain a dead corpse so I could thoroughly examine it.

For that, I told a half lie about wanting to find their weak points in battle, while the truth was, I really just wanted their body to acquire their weak points outside of battle.

With such twisted reasoning and even more twisted determination, I continually stabbed at the eye sockets, alternating between left and right.

After its hp dropped down to half, I abruptly stopped..

Killing it here would warrant another set of problems, for instance, there was no way I could properly [dissect] something while another minotaur loomed over my shoulder. That’s why it became readily important for me and this half dead bull head, to be out of this room before the next interval came.

With a large yank, I pulled out the still embedded knife from its eye socket.

I held the handle of ethernet by my teeth as I now gripped both of its horns with both of my hands. I ignored the metallic spray of blood that colored my cheeks and face.

With a mighty pull, one that capitalized on my increased strength, I jerked the beast back up to its feet. Readily, the monster’s lumbering body reflexively moved, unable to resist my current actions.

With clumsy and inexperienced movements, I led the bull by the horns towards the door frame.

Several times, I came close to falling over or being struck by a poorly placed wall, but regardless held my ground.

Every Time it fell to its knees or resisted, I’d yank its head upwards, forcing it to bend to my commands.

In no time, I reached the doorway and forced myself through along with the giant beast I currently rode.

The doorframe was mangled and half destroyed by the time I successfully drove the bull out of the room and into the hallway.

I glanced around the hall.

By now, 50 seconds had passed, and I couldn’t afford anymore wasted time moving the bull further and further away from the spawn point. This would have to do for now.

Once again, I was now gripping the bull by a single horn while I grabbed a spare goblin short sword from my back. With one quick thrust, I lodged the blade into its eye socket, before I promptly released the handle.

I then reached over close to where my mouth was and took hold of Efhermet once more. I stabbed my favorite dagger into its unoccupied eye socket.

Both respective stabs warranted a round of [critical hits] as well as sorrowful cries towards the Minotaur.

As I gripped Efhermet, this time, I was more determined to see it through the end. With a timed exhale, I plunged the dagger deeper than ever before. I had to actually reach around and stick some of my hand into its eye socket since the blade was a bit too short, but readily I continued onwards until another pop up, this one labeled as [Fatal Blow] emerged from the creature’s head.

The beast promptly slumped over as it fell with a staggering crash.

I quickly reacted and leaped off its back before it could crush me under all its dead weight.

As the beast lay motionless, I barely had a second to congratulate myself before I fully noticed I had about 15 seconds left.

In that short time span, I needed to drag the corpse over behind the corner so I could properly [dissect] it undisturbed.

Looking at it momentarily, I had no choice but to waste 5 precious seconds on amputating one of its legs and one of its arms. The beast was simply to heavy to carry intact, and while it was regrettable that I couldn’t fully dissect both pairs of appendages, for my current situation, one of each would suffice.

After words, I dragged the body as quickly as I could. It was at this time I seriously regretted not investing more points in strength as I struggled with both the weight and lack of traction from the tiled floors.

I counted out the seconds remaining as I slowly neared the corner.

….7….6….5

I finally got past the classroom windows.

…..4….3...2..

I’m almost there, just 2 more meters.

...1...0….

I finished dragging the body behind the wall, as I heard the whoosh of air and the roar of a bull, signaling the newest Minotaur blinking into life.

But for now, that was none of my business. I had accomplished my task and received a suitable body.

My lips curved upwards in a weary smile.

[Later, once I get into a spare classroom, I’ll begin dissecting. Like, that, I’ll learn all of this cow’s weak points, and by the time my first team battle starts, I’ll be fully prepared…]

With wandering thoughts, I sighed whilst I hunkered down and proceeded to further drag the massive body down and away from the spawn point.

****

Author's Note:

With this chapter, I will also be posting a separate thread later that will show all the current skills introduced in the story. Word of caution, skills that haven't been fully explained yet, such as [Gemini Blue] or [Full Element] might come of as a little bit spoilerish when you read their skill window in this separate post. This list will be continually updated as the story progresses.

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