I'm outside.

Finally.

A mix of emotions well up inside me.

I did it.

I finally escaped that place.

And yet...

It feels like it's not over yet.

That's right.

He said something about 'extra stages'.

I don't really want to listen to whatever he says...

But if I don't, he might do the same thing he did to that skeleton...

Status screen: Open

I open the status screen and switch to the quest section.

Quests:

Current quests: Save the Henduria port

Completed quests: None

Save the Henduria port?

When I focus on it, more information pops up.

Quest: Save the Henduria port

The Henduria port in the western regions of the Armundis kingdom is in trouble.

A monster, who was sleeping for hundreds of years has awoken and is ready to cause chaos.

Vanquish the threat and save the port.

Win conditions: Defeat whatever is threatening the Henduria port

Fail conditions: You die

More than 10 people from Henduria port die or more than 2 buildings are destroyed

The contents of this quest are revealed to someone else

...

A monster is going to attack somewhere?

What kind of monster even?

And my task is to defeat it while protecting people?

...

At that moment, I realized I will probably meet other people from now on.

Maybe some of them will be like that god...

How will I even deal with them?

Can't I just kill the monster and leave?

...

In the first place, where is this Henduria port?

I look around and the only thing I see is water.

The small piece of dry land I'm standing on doesn't have any paths from it.

I will probably have to travel through the water if I want to get out.

But even then, which way do I go?

Every direction looks to same...

Ugh, I guess I will have to start somewhere.

I reach out into the air and grasp at empty space.

After using some mana, a blue orb appears in my hand.

This is the 'reward' I got from conquering that dungeon.

It taught me the pattern for some peculiar magic.

This magic doesn't even have any element.

It uses pure mana.

What it allows me to do, is to store items in some weird parallel space or whatever.

It can only be relatively small things and it's restricted to inanimate objects.

Before I went here, I put all the stuff from the safe room inside of it.

But it's quite a weird kind of magic...

Even if I know how to do it, I really don't understand how it works...

Now then...

I put the water orb in my mouth and dive in a random direction.

It sure is dark though...

There aren't those green mushrooms anymore around here.

And even with these shining dots up above, it's still too dark.

...

I might as well close my eyes, since I don't see anything anyway.

I close my eyes and try to sense mana around me.

But there is nothing.

|= One death later =|

I have been attacked.

But I couldn't sense it at all.

It's harder to sense things underwater for some reason.

To avoid that 'something', I swam up.

But it wouldn't let me.

It continued its assault and when it hit me in the head, I accidentally let go of the orb.

Without the source of my air, I drowned, completely forgetting I can use air magic to create air.

...drowning isn't pleasant.

But it's still nothing compared to having my heart ripped out...

When I died, I appeared back on the dry land.

So he didn't lie.

My starting point has really moved here...

But how do I go about this?

If I can neither see nor sense things underwater, then what do I do?

I can't use fire for lighting.

And being near the surface of the water doesn't solve anything.

That would make me an even easier target for those things underwater.

I sat on the ground and tried to come up with a solution.

But after a while...

Something...weird started happening.

The darkness and the bright dots above me started to slowly disappear.

And it was soon replaced by a bright ball, which rose from the mass of water.

...

This phenomenon feels familiar.

Even if I don't know what's happening, I have a feeling that it's normal.

And it kind of works in my favor, because now I can see a little better.

I put the orb in my mouth and start to swim again.

This time, I stay near the surface while I swim.

As I swim, everything gets brighter and brighter.

The shining ball slowly glides across the sky and eventually reaches a place exactly above me.

It's not gonna fall on me, right?

Nothing attacked me so far, but I can never be sure.

In case something comes, I need to be prepared.

Although I say that, I stored my weapon in that parallel space to make it easier to swim.

But if needed, I should be able to pull it out relatively quickly.

...

I swam for so long and I still see no land.

I'm starting to get hungry.

Getting food out here is near impossible.

If I go too deep to search for it, it will get too dark and I will just get one sidedly beaten again.

And even if I managed get something, it would be hard to cook and eat when submerged in water.

And for some reason, when I drink the water all around me, I get even more thirsty.

Even if I cleanse it, it doesn't quench my thirst.

Ugh...

What now?

...

The bright ball sank back into the water on the other side.

And darkness with the bright dots reappeared.

I'm getting really tired and I'm still hungry.

But still no land in sight.

Did I go the wrong way?

...

Damnit...

|= Another death later =|

When the bright ball started rising from the water, I cut my head off.

I decided to rethink how to approach this.

I might have been going in the wrong direction, but even still...

Every way is just as much water as far as I can see.

What to do...

...

I can try to jump up in the air with a burst of air magic and try to look if I can see land any further I guess?

Hmm...

Yeah, let's do that for now.

I go to one side of the island and start running.

When I reach the other side, I put as much power to my legs as I can.

[Wind blast]

And propel myself even more with air magic.

I fly up high into the air and start looking around in a hurry.

But I see nothing.

|= Several jumps later =|

Just water everywhere.

I have no idea which way I should go.

...

Back in the caves, I always had paths laid down before me.

But now, it's different.

I don't know where to go.

I don't know what to do.

...

It's...

A little scary...

...Huh...?

Fear?

...nonono.

I don't feel fear.

This is more like...

Anxiety?

Yes, that's it.

I'm anxious.

Not scared.

Ugh, but what do I do?

I seriously don't even know which direction I should be aiming at.

Status screen: open

I once again open the status screen and look at the quests.

Maybe I will find more information here.

Let's see now...

Hmm...

I inspect the quest and read what it says again.

Henduria port...

Where is that?

When I focus on it, suddenly something strange happens.

A ball of...something...shoots out of the status window and flies over the water.

Startled, I follow it with my eyes until it disappears from my sight.

...

What was that?

It gave off a strange feeling...

A little like the crystal back there...

And where did it fly to?

Was it showing me the way?

I try to focus on the Henduria port part again.

And sure enough, the same thing happens.

A strange ball of something shoots out and heads the same direction.

...

That must be the way to go.

But I remember jumping that way and saw nothing.

Does it mean it's really far away?

Ugh...

How do I cross?

There must be a better way.

When I look around the small island, my gaze lands on the tall plant in the middle.

Well, it's a tree.

But I don't know if it's of any use.

I don't remember seeing it in the plant encyclopedia.

There are some big brown fruits up there, so maybe I can eat those at least?

I climb the tree and grab some of those brown fruits.

Why are they so hairy?

And they seem to be too hard for me to bite into them.

Maybe something is inside?

I throw the fruit in the air and cut it in half with a swing of my sword.

But the fruit bursts into some sort of white liquid and showers me with it.

...

That's not what I expected...

I lick the liquid on my hand to taste it.

It's...

Sweet.

It's much tastier than all the monster meat I ate back there.

I take another one of those fruits and this time, I carefully cut it on the ground.

Once it's open, I bring it to my lips and drink from it.

So good!

...

But it doesn't help me with crossing this water!

Ugh, what do I do?

|= Several deaths later =|

Here we go...

I start running at max speed and aim in the direction of where the mysterious ball flew.

Every time one of my feet touch the water, I expel a tiny burst of air magic.

It propels me enough to stay above water.

Like this, I can basically run on the surface of this water.

But because I spend some mana with each step, I hope I find whatever I'm looking for soon...

...

After running for a while, I finally spot something in the distance.

Some objects floating on the water?

Getting closer to it, I notice, that they are two ships.

One of them looks all white and seems to have boxes on top of it.

The other one is completely black and even has a black flag put up on a pillar.

Those two seem to be connected by some ropes or something.

What's this?

?!

Suddenly I see an explosion on board of the white ship accompanied by a bursting sound.

...let's investigate.

[Wind blast]

Putting even more power into the spell, I propel myself high into the air and fly over to the white ship.

From the air I can see...people.

Some people in black clothing are encircling a person.

There are some others cowering behind that person.

On the sides, there some more people lying on the ground...but they seem to be dead.

When I land on the deck with a thud, everybody's gaze is turned on me.

Bonus:

'I wonder how high level the skeleton or dragon are to be able to beat her.'

Question by YepImThatGuy.

They are actually much lower than her.

The reason why the dragon is so much stronger is simply because of his race.

Every race has a level cap on each of their stats and as you could see, Reiza has already maxed all her stats.

The only thing that still increases as she levels up are maximum health and mana.

But even those only rise by a tiny amount every level.

On the other hand, a dragon like him has much higher cap and therefore his stats are much higher.

As for the skeleton...well, for now let's just say the god did certain something to him to make him stronger...

"Hey hey! What is this?

You are using questions from the readers now?

How lazy of you!

And that wasn't even a question!

He was just innocently wondering!"

Shut up.

I can do whatever I want.

And what is wrong with answering questions from the readers like this?