[Wednesday, September 9]

Zach explored the shopping mall, considerably less frightened of the wolves now that he knew they could be easily defeated.

He was still cautious, though. Most small sounds made him spin around, even if it was just a metal shutter swaying in the wind.

He continued his search, making mental maps of the mall as he walked. He came across a large area where four pathways converged. The area dropped down to a lower elevation than the rest of the mall. He stood on the highest steps and took in the view of the area. A dried up water fountain lay at the very center of the space and was bordered by directory signs. Each of the corners housed a shop and the remnants of public tables were scattered around each. He imagined this area to be the busiest, most beautiful area in the shopping mall.

‘This must be the mall’s center.’

Zach thought he saw a map on one of the display signs by the fountain so he got closer. He stepped over glass, wary of the thin protection the [Terran Leaf Sandals] provided. He looked up and saw that the entire area was enclosed under a magnificent dome of steel and glass. Well, it would have been magnificent at the time. As it was now, parts of the dome had shattered.

When he neared the sign he could barely make out the faded print of a map. It wasn’t very helpful, as all the names of the stores were unintelligible and vast sections of the map were missing, so he gave up this endeavor.

There was a growl.

He looked up to the top of some stairs leading from the side paths to the center. Standing at the top was another Zerean Wolf, covered in grey fur and reflective orange eyes. The beast prowled around, filled with an animalistic hunger.

Zach sprinted at a tangent angle, readying a stone. This time, the wolf was far enough away that he could aim and throw the stone without issue. Just before the wolf descended the steps toward him, he launched a rock with all his might.

His hand whipped with force, the wind resistance audible, and the rock hurtled through the air and buried itself deep into its chest.

This was the result of his {Power} increases.

Unfortunately for the wolf, it didn’t die immediately. It yelped and disappeared from Zach’s view as it ran away. A minute later the system message notified Zach that it was dead.

[Defeated: Zerean Wolf (level 5)]

[Level Up: +1 to all Stats, Full Recovery]

After a shimmer of light encased Zach’s body, he looked over the system messages.

‘It was level 5, huh.’

He thought it had looked a little smaller than the other one he had defeated. He summoned another stone from his inventory, then went to claim his prize.

The beast had run farther than he thought.

He walked for several minutes looking for the beast’s carcass. Finally he found it surrounded by five more wolves, each taking turns to inspect their deceased comrade. Zach tried to carefully retreat and hide but they had already noticed him. They looked up and growled.

Zach’s eyes widened when he realized the sheer number of enemies. Determined not to let his body freeze up, he propelled rock at the closest wolf, crippling its left shoulder and causing it to retreat a little. Zach sprinted toward the rest.

Two of the wolves moved to pounce on him but he dove out of the way with newfound coordination. His mind flickered to his increased stats but in the moment he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

The second of the wolves was getting close to him so he punched. His fist collided with the beast's face and he could feel a bone give way. The wolf yipped and tried to back up, but Zach closed the distance and slashed wildly with his dagger, opening a gushing wound on it’s furry neck. He then let it escape, hoping it would bleed out on his own so he could return to fighting the rest of the wolves.

The third wolf lept at Zach, almost catching him off guard. It’s jaw clamped around his right arm, the one holding his dagger, and started to pull. Zach flinched at the mutilation of his own body, but thankfully there was no pain. He reached out with his left arm and made a chopping motion towards the back of the beast’s skull. SNAP. The beast dropped lifelessly. A system message followed shortly after.

[Defeated: Zerean Wolf (level 5)]

The first wolf with the injured shoulder hobbled backwards. The second wolf with the likely fatal wound ran out of sight, and the third wolf lay dead at his feet. The last two wolves moved forward.

Unfortunately, Zach’s right arm was still locked inside the dead wolf’s maw! He was still struggling to free it!

As if in previous agreement, the two wolves moved at once.

Desperately, Zach used his left arm and left foot to pry the jaw halves apart. He got his arm out with no time to examine the gaping holes. The wolves were upon him and he was surrounded on both sides.

Summoning all the stones, sticks, and wood spikes from his inventory, Zach’s body and immediate surroundings lit up with a grand shimmer of light.

The wolves were momentarily blinded by the unexpected smokescreen. Zach grabbed a wood spike from the frey and retreated a safe distance.

The wolves recovered and looked at Zach cautiously, yet hungrily.

Unfortunately, Zach was out of materials in his inventory, and he wouldn’t be able to try that move again.

With the same inaudible agreement, the wolves split, one prowling left, and one prowling right. In a moment they would be on either side of him and at least one would be outside Zach’s peripheral vision.

Attempting to not let that happen, Zach clutched his weapons and dashed towards the smaller of the two. The wolf didn’t react. It froze, as if out of shock that their prey was so smart! Just as Zach closed the distance, the fifth wolf attacked from the side. Unfortunately for them, Zach could hear the clacking of nails on pavement as it closed the distance. He tucked into a roll, dodging underneath the charging wolf itself. Now that it was right above him, he slashed at an exposed underbelly, creating a lengthy cut that immediately sprayed blood, and stabbed with his spear. He kicked the wolf’s hind leg to help him roll out. Unknown to him, afterwards, this wolf tucked it’s tail and ran away.

[New Skill: Long Slash (level 1)]

Zach was momentarily distracted by the system message and didn’t realize how close he had rolled toward the other wolf. He didn’t have time to dodge so instead he blocked with his good arm. The wolf’s fangs easily sunk into his soft flesh, ruining his left arm too. Zach flinched, but again, when no pain accompanied, he furiously stabbed the beast with his dagger. Instead of letting go, the wolf began to whip him around like a chew toy.

Zach kept stabbing the beast. Over and over until he regained his footing on the ground. The beast perished, leaving Zach mildly disoriented as he breathed heavily.

[Defeated: Zerean Wolf (level 6)]

Trying to catch his breath, he glanced over the system message, then returned his attention to his currently stuck position. The first wolf, the one with the crippled shoulder, and the last one who didn’t flee or die, also noticed this and started limping toward Zach. It’s eyes glinted with the hunger of a starving hyena and also a lust for revenge. It recognized that Zach was especially weak with his right arm full of holes and his left arms still trapped in the dead wolf’s jaws.

Zach tried to pry his arm free. He tried to use the flint dagger, but his right arm was too weak, refusing to move the right way, and the jaw remained closed. Zach racked his brain, trying to find some solution as the last wolf drew closer.

Abandoning his thoughts and allowing his primal instinct for survival to take over, Zach ripped his arm free of the dead wolf. He let out a battle cry before charging the beast. The wolf flinched from the spectacle, all signs of revenge left its eyes as they filled with fright.

[New Skill: Intimidation (level 1)]

Zach dashed toward the remaining wolf. He let his left arm, which was far more mangled, fall loosely by his side. He used his newest skill, {Long Slash}, trusting the system to deal its worst.

His dagger seemed to move on its own as he slashed through the length of the wolf’s body. Momentum carried him past the wolf. He spun around and activated {Long Slash} again, flaying the wolf’s other side the same way.

The wolf limped a few steps before collapsing.

[Defeated: Zerean Wolf (level 5)]

[Level Up: +1 to all Stats, Full Recovery]

The familiar light encompassed his body again. Every gruesome injury was repaired in an instant. The teeth holes in both of his arms closed in milliseconds, not leaving a single scar.

Exhaustion, blood loss, fear, adrenaline, exhilaration, relief. It all vanished in an instant as his body was restored to its natural state.

“Holy crap!” Zachary cursed and he collapsed to the ground anyway.

He grimly looked around the mall at the devastation. Four Zerean Wolf carcasses lay in various mutilated positions around the mall. Two trails of blood led off to another area of the mall. Several minutes later, two more system messages appeared, followed closely by a third and another shimmer of light.

[Defeated: Zerean Wolf (level 5)]

[Defeated: Zerean Wolf (level 6)]

[Level Up: +1 to all Stats, Full Recovery]

Zach stood and leaned against a wall. If the level-up hadn’t reset all of his injuries and adrenaline rush, he would probably be curled up in a ball, contemplating how close he had been to death. Instead, he grimly reflected on his actions.

‘Those wolves could have attacked me when I was asleep tonight, or traveling unprepared on the road.’

He looked back at the carnage and took a deep breath. The sight was gruesome, but he wasn’t going to let his efforts go to waste. He took the time to remove the largest canines of each wolf, depositing them in his inventory.

While looting the bodies, he found his rocks and wooden spikes, one of which was broken.

The wooden spike, which he thought he had thrust into a wolf, was completely shattered, it’s sharp tip perfectly clean. He figured he must’ve been unlucky and hit a rib.

While examining the last wolf, the one with two lengthy cuts across either side of its body, he remembered the other new skill he obtained in the midst of battle. He summoned his window.

[Zach: Level 10]

[Health: 140/140 Stamina: 55/55 Mana: 21/21]

[Classes: {Dreamer}, {empty}]

[Titles: none]

[Stats:]

- {Litheness: 20}

- {Constitution: 22}

- {Power: 25}

- {Will: 22}

- {Intelligence: 21}

- {Consumption: 21}

[Abilities: {?????}, Novice of Dagger (level 1)]

[Skills: Observation (level 2), Clothes Making (level 1), Tool Making (level 2), Stones Throw (level 3), Candle (level 1), Dungeon Detection (level 1), Weapon Making (level 1), Long Slash (level 1), Intimidation (level 1)]

He was level 10 already and all of his stats had leveled up pretty evenly, though {Power} was in the lead followed closely by {Constitution} and {Will}. He still wasn’t sure how those stats affected his body. It was going to be worth some experimenting when he got out of here. He had gained an ability and two skills. The system had also notified him of his new ability.

[Abilities:]

{Novice of Dagger (level 1): Increases attack with a dagger or short-sword. +10 damage with daggers}

[Skills:]

{Long Slash (level 1): A dagger specific skill for opening long cuts on enemies. The bigger the enemy, the stronger this move’s attack. Requires 2 mana to activate. +1 litheness and +1 power per level}

{Intimidation (level 1): Use your killing intent to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. Requires 10 mana to activate. +2 will per level}

He had gained a dagger-exclusive skill and ability. The damage he could do with his dagger had probably increased by a good deal. And he had learned a skill that probably inflicted a status condition. All of this was good. The only downsides were the mana costs. He could activate one {Intimidation} and five {Long Slash} skills before his mana was depleted. Or he could save his mana for only the dagger skill and get ten attacks out of his mana.

Other than the heavy mana costs, he would try to use {Intimidation} a lot. He re-read the last part of its description again. {+2 will per level}

Forgetting what willpower did for him, he pulled up the description for the {Will} stat.

[Stats:]

{Will: 21: Denotes the player’s presence and presence detection. Elemental connotation: air}

He didn’t know what his own presence meant in the scheme of things, but the words 'presence detection’ seemed pretty good. He recalled facing the last two wolves and noticing how they look slightly bigger than their friends. Perhaps increasing {Will} meant he could tell how strong his enemies were. He decided he would milk {Intimidation} for every single bonus point it attributed.

He dismissed his windows and finished extracting the fangs of the last wolf. (Naturally, he also collected all the stuff he dropped in the smokescreen.)

He cleaned his bloody dagger by wiping it on his trousers, leaving a stain on the material. At this point, after rolling around on the dirt covered ground and getting blood sprayed on him from freshly opened wounds of both himself and the wolves, his originally pristine trousers and tunic were slowly turning black. He felt like a walking crime scene, but he pushed aside his desire for a bath since he didn’t have access to something like that right now. He went to find the two remaining wolf carcasses.

He followed the trails of blood to an isolated convenience store that would make a quiet hiding place and found the two carcasses. He retrieved his prizes and continued down the hall.

After a while of exploring Zach fought one more wolf and attempted to use his wooden spikes to gain a ‘spear’ skill or something similar.

Unfortunately, he quickly realized that the wooden spikes were useless in combat. They shattered every time he tried to stab them into the wolf. After finishing it off normally with his dagger, he realized what was wrong. The wood he used was too dry and brittle.

It was a small mistake that he didn’t realize would be costly. Now, he was down to using only rocks and daggers. All he could do was shake his head, learn from the lesson, and keep moving.

Eventually, Zach came across a structure that was particularly ancient compared to the rest of the scenery.

In the middle of the pathway and protruding from the ground was a stone obelisk that looked like a miniature version of the Washington Monument. On each of its four faces were glowing symbols, each about the size of an apple.

[Dungeon Monolith]

Zach got closer to study it. The symbols glowed with green light and he could hear the hum of energy but he didn’t see any light bulbs that could cause it. He knocked on the stone to see if it was hollow, but the dull thuds told him it was solid all the way through.

The symbols themselves were fairly strange since they didn’t look like they were part of any language. The patterns repeated but they lacked the natural organic nature that symbols for language had. In fact, they looked more like electric pathways on a circuit board for a computer. The green light also reminded him of a motherboard in a computer.

A low, deep voice interrupted Zach’s studying.

“Greetings young one.”

The voice sent chills down his spine. He backed away from the monolith and searched wildly for the source. Finally his eyes settled on a certain series of shadows making out the outline of some hulking figure.

"Who are you?" he called out warily to the shadow.

"Long has it been since I conversed with another."

The figure hidden in the shadows, which seemed huge before, decided to stand up. Zach observed in mixed fascination and horror as the beast gained detail. He instantly recognized it as a werewolf.

Black fur covered its entire body. Its muscular legs supported a large, lean torso. Its posture was slightly haunched, showing it could walk on four legs or two, whichever he chose. The werewolf's head resembled the heads of the Zerean Wolves. The only difference was its eyes. This beast's orange gaze lacked the wild hunger of the regular wolves, and was instead filled with an ancient intelligence.

"To think a single human could get this far." The voice of the werewolf reverberated throughout the mall.

Zach repeated his question more timidly. "Who are you?"

"I was once called Elmarud, before the downfall of my civilization."

The werewolf stopped a respectful distance from him. His hand-like claws opened and closed as if agitated.

Of course Zach didn’t want to fight the werewolf. For one, he was intimidated. Clearly, Elmarud was stronger than the regular Zerean wolves. For two, this was the first intelligent being Zach had come across since everything started happening. He wanted to get a conversation going.

Zach cautiously asked, "What happened to your civilization?"

The werewolf showed its teeth in a grimace, causing Zach to flinch, before saying, “The black orbs started appearing. When they broke open, horrible monsters befell our people.” He raised a sharp clawed finger and pointed at the monolith. “The only way to stop the monsters that came out, was to destroy the power sources.”

If this thing called a monolith was supposed to be the power source for the dungeon, then the best way to close the dungeon was to destroy it. But then why would a denizen of said dungeon tell him this?

“Out of curiosity, why are you telling me this?”

“I was once a soldier, protecting my people against the monsters. But their numbers increased and they became too strong for us to handle.” The werewolf grasped his head as if in pain and let out haggard breaths.

Out of courtesy, Zach asked him, “Are you alright?”

“There is no time. Listen.” Then he resumed his story. “When the end for my people was near, I was suddenly filled with power and transformed. I was deposited in this place with my own pillar and new urges. Please.” He opened and closed his claws again, as though he were fighting something inside himself. “Now I have gained the form of a monster. I have the urge to protect this pillar, and the urge to kill you. But even now, as those thoughts threaten to consume my being, I can see. I have become one of those monsters that assaults other worlds.”

Zach blinked at the increasingly erratic movements of the beast and continued to listen to his next baffling statements.

“Please, stop me. Save the lives of innocents like I never could.” His rising voice finally climaxed at his last sentence. “Destroy the power source!”

Zach watched the werewolf stagger backward and unleash the unearthly howl of a wild beast.

Zach shot a quick glance at the monolith.

But of course, he had no tools in his arsenal for destroying huge, solid stone pillars. He turned back to the werewolf, who was now salivating and breathing heavily.

“How! How do I destroy it?”

It was too late. The werewolf glared at Zach. The previously intelligent eyes were replaced with the same hunger of the Zerean Wolves. The beast crouched on all fours before charging Zach with a surprising burst of speed. The werewolf closed the distance in the blink of an eye, intending to lock its jaws around Zach’s body. Somehow Zach managed to sidestep. The beast’s momentum carried him past like a rhino and stopped far enough away for Zach to line up a hasty {Stones Throw}.

The rock in his hand hurled through the air with deadly force and it struck the beast in the head. There was a loud bang accompanied by a cloud of dust from the pulverized stone.

‘Yes! Direct hit.’

Contrary to his expectations, though, the werewolf snorted, blowing the dust out of its face and growled, completely unharmed. Zach closed his slack jaw as the werewolf charged him again. He used {Long Slash} as he sidestepped again. The move only made a tiny scratch on the surface of the werewolf’s shoulder, but in return he received a deep cut on his right arm. Blood started pouring out of the wound.

At this rate, Zach was going to lose an exchange of blows. He dashed toward the monolith, deciding to use the only source of cover in the area and came up with an idea. When another black claw slashed at him, he ducked and let it hit the monolith. To his delight, a sizable scratch was left in the monolith.

The werewolf howled in outrage. Zach wasn’t surprised by his reaction. He had missed the thing he was supposed to kill and hit the thing he was supposed to protect.

The werewolf redoubled his efforts against Zach. He stopped charging, seeing Zach had gained a semblance of cover, and stood on his hind legs. With both of his hands freed up, he swiped at him over and over again.

Zach dodged and maneuvered around the monolith, leading their fight in circles around the stone structure. The effect was similar to strategies he would use in a videogame to deal with bosses or other high HP opponents. The strategy would give him a nearly unlimited amount of time to evade, observe enemy attack patterns, and plan counterattacks.

The wolf was slower on two legs than he was on four, but standing up, his massive wingspan could nearly touch both sides of the monolith at once. Already, he was deciphering the werewolf’s attacks, which mostly consisted of huge arms slashing at him with sharp claws. He was fairly surprised the beast didn’t have a broader moveset, but seeing as to how he was limited to chasing Zach around the stone obelisk, this effectively cut off the use of his previous charging attack.

As time passed by, Zach started luring the beast’s attacks toward the monolith itself, allowing his opponent to inadvertently damage it for him. With each slash, new scratches appeared in the stone. However, he was also sustaining some surface scratches himself. Since he didn’t feel pain, he quickly checked how he was doing with his window.

[Health: 90/140 Stamina: 33/55 Mana: 18/21]

His health and stamina were dropping at a steady rate. He was also on the defensive. At this point he wouldn’t be able to do any more damage to the werewolf. He quickly reassessed the damage he had already inflicted.

His normal attacks hadn’t done much damage to his opponent. In fact, the only thing that seemed to do any damage was Zach’s {Long Slash} skill. And even then it barely scratched Elmarud’s skin.

Zach dodged another strike by a hair's breadth but obtained another scratch in the process. It brought his health down to 85.

He grit his teeth, determined not to panic. He needed some way to break out of this cat and mouse fight. He glanced at the scratched up corners of the obelisk, the beast’s attacks weren’t dealing enough damage to the monolith. In a few more minutes, Zach was going to run out of stamina.

He dodged another attack. This time, however, he noticed something strange. The werewolf’s claws were coated in an orange glow. It was very subtle, which was why he didn’t notice it the first few minutes of dodging and leading the attacks into the obelisk. He watched again as another attack passed by his face and the orange coated claws slashed into the obelisk. When it was retracted from the stone’s surface, there was no coating on it.

‘It’s magic!’ he realized.

The orange coating on the wolf’s claws looked just like his glowing hand did when he cast magic. He must be reinforcing the strength of his claws and his body with mana. And that would also explain how he was so tough. He was reinforcing his body too.

He dodged another strike and let it hit the obelisk. If he could channel his magic into his weapons, then he could theoretically give them a power boost. In fact, he was pretty sure that was what his skill {Long Slash} already did. He clutched his dagger and held it in front of him.

After he dodged another strike, he imagined the energy going into his hand, similar to the first time he cast {Candle}. This time, instead of ‘desiring’ it to go into the tips of his fingers, he ‘desired’ it to go from the palm of his hand into the blade.

In an instant, the blade in his hands glowed a bright orange and a system message notified him of his success.

[New Skill: Input Fire (level 1)]

The surfaces and the edges of the dagger lit up with color. Orange light, brighter than the wolf’s own claws, flickered over the weapon like flames. Zach grinned with delight, taking the newly enhanced dagger and waited for the werewolf’s next strike.

When the werewolf slashed at him with an enhanced claw, he in turn slashed with his own enhanced weapon. The dagger cut through the werewolf’s left forearm like it was nothing, leaving a deep gash in the muscle and causing a spurt of blood to douse the immediate area. He retracted the dagger and dodged another strike, this time the right arm, as the werewolf howled in pain.

Zach resumed his dodging tactics to observe the extent of his damage and his weapon. The dagger, which was once covered in a strong orange glow, was much dimmer than it had been previously. It seemed that some of the energy in the blade had been spent getting through the werewolf’s defenses. Judging by the light difference, he probably had about five more strikes left before his dagger ran out of mana. He quickly checked his own mana.

[Mana: 2/21]

Charging his dagger the first time had taken nearly all of his mana, so re-charging it wasn’t going to be an option. He looked at the wound on the werewolf, dodging another strike as he did so and scoring another cut in the process. Both wounds were pretty deep, and the werewolf seemed to be favoring his right arm more than his left. This slowed him down by quite a lot. But the blood pouring from the wound stopped.

Zach thought this was kind of weird, so risked a closer look.

He stepped in closer to the werewolf, dodged a swipe from the beast's right arm, and stayed in close to let the werewolf strike again with his injured arm. A subtly orange covered claw streaked menacingly past his midsection, tearing through his white tunic and earning him a shallow cut across his sternum.

‘Damn.’

He had to rethink his strategy. When that last attack passed by, he saw an orange glow surrounding the wounded area.

‘So he had self regeneration too!’ Zach grimaced.

It was getting harder and harder to focus. His breath getting heavier and the cuts developing all over his body. His only saving grace was that he couldn’t feel the pain of his own wounds, even though he knew exactly where they were somehow.

He had to figure out a way to deal with the steel-like skin and self regeneration capabilities with his opponent. He had five uses of his enhanced dagger left. He had to either land clean, fatal blows on his opponent, or find another way to win.

Unfortunately for him, he was using a dagger; an exclusively short ranged weapon. He also figured, even if he stabbed the werewolf five times in the chest, the wounds inflicted would not be deep enough to pierce the heart. There were several other weak points. Mainly the head. But seeing how tall the werewolf was, he simply couldn’t reach.

Zach needed to stall for time, so when the next blow came in from the werewolf’s right arm, he deftly dodged underneath the massive limb and brought his dagger down on the werewolf’s bicep. He activated {Long Slash}, regrettably draining the last of his mana, but also dealing massive damage to the wolf. The dagger penetrated the werewolf’s arm, hit something hard, then slid around the muscular arm severing both the bicep muscle and some tricep.

Zach retreated backwards after a spurt of blood drenched his increasingly dirty tunic and the werewolf let out a howl of pain. Zach was allowed to catch his breath as the werewolf grasped his injury. The area around the nearly severed arm suddenly glowed in bright orange. Zach watched in astonishment as the werewolf sped up its regeneration process. The limb, which immediately stopped bleeding, knit itself together until only a shallow wound was left. At this point, the bright orange glow dimmed. The wound would still be considered serious by normal standards, but it must have been good enough for the werewolf, seeing as he was satisfied after flexing his arm this way and that.

When the beast resumed its assault, Zach actually smiled. Not just because he rested long enough to regain ten whole points of stamina, but because he noticed something weird when the werewolf was regenerating. Specifically, the orange glow coming off the werewolf’s wound interacted with the green light of the runes on the obelisk. When the werewolf's orange light was brightest, the green light of the nearest runes dimmed and sometimes even flickered.

Zach brought his own, orange light covered dagger towards the obelisk and grinned when the light of the runes dimmed to that as well.

He had found his way out. The obelisk.

He dodged and rolled away from the werewolf’s next attack, creating some space and popping up in the middle of the obelisk’s wide face. Facing the werewolf’s direction, he held the dagger with the point facing one of the large, green glowing runes. When the werewolf poked its head around the corner, Zach grinned and thrust the dagger into the rune. The werewolf’s eyes got really wide as he tried to reach toward Zach to stop him.

The dagger sank unnaturally deep into the obelisk as it parted the stone like it was made of butter. Then the rune ‘broke’ with a sound that reminded him of shattering glass. Then one by one, runes on this face of the obelisk started to flicker out. Zach likened it to a Christmas tree. When one bulb burns out, the rest follow suit.

He pulled out his dagger and retreated from the rapidly approaching werewolf. The werewolf’s eyes, which were full of wild hunger, were now replaced with something akin to panic. He still chased Zach around the obelisk and attacked with the same basic attacks, but the flow of the beast’s movement was more disorganized. Once again, Zach was amazed by how limited the boss’ moveset was.

‘Gotcha.’

Without hesitation Zach used the remaining three charges on his dagger, plunging them into runes on the other three sides of the obelisk. Glowing runes all over the dungeon monolith started flickering out as some rapid chain reaction started occurring inside the stone structure. Finally, the light in the last rune turned off. He noted with satisfaction that the humming of the energy also ceased to exist.

The werewolf, which had been attacking him for several minutes without rest, suddenly stopped. It grabbed its head and staggered. Zach took this opportunity to catch his breath but made sure to keep his attention on his previous attacker.

The werewolf continued to howl and apparently the pain brought the beast to his knees. He continued to crawl away, in a disturbingly human-like manner.

Several system messages announced themselves to Zach.

[Destroyed: Dungeon Monolith]

[Level Up: +1 to all Stats, Full Recovery]

Light enveloped his body and when it faded, he felt refreshed once again. Another message appeared a moment later.

[Dungeon will close in two hours. Please exit the dungeon.]

[02:00:00]

Then a timer appeared at the top of his vision. It even followed him as he turned around and failed to be dismissed like his information window.

[01:59:57]

[01:59:56]

[01:59:55]

[01:59:54]

Realization dawned on Zach’s face. If he didn’t get out by the time the timer ran out, the dungeon would close with him in it, and he would be stuck here forever.

He nearly sprinted towards the exit but stopped when he remembered the werewolf still lying partially in the shadows.

He cautiously walked over to the body, deciding on at least collecting its fangs, and possibly its claws while he was at it. While walking over to the creature, he realized that it was still breathing, taking shallow, labored breaths. He poked it with his foot, coiled and tense like a mouse ready to dart at a moment's notice. But it didn’t even stir. It was passed out cold.

‘This is it.’

He gripped his dagger in such a way that the blade pointed downwards. The subtle orange glow that seemed to strengthen the previous beast was nowhere to be seen. A quick test showed that he could easily cut the werewolf’s skin (still not waking it up).

He would put the poor creature-from-another-world out of its misery before it could hunt him again.

So why was he hesitating?

A moment ago, he would have easily plunged the dagger into its chest, several times even, just so that he could live. So why was it so hard now, even when he had won the fight, and his enemy lay at his mercy?

Somehow it was different.

His hands around the dagger loosened and he let his arm fall back to his side.

He couldn’t do it. Even for the probably very valuable fangs or the two levels worth of experience. He couldn’t kill someone else.

He turned away from the wolf and started walking toward the exit. He looked back one last time to say, “Goodbye, Elmarud.”

[End Chapter 6]