CHAPTER 20: Levels and Trust

Yasu's Pov

“Sky King!!” A shout erupted behind me as I was about to accept the challenge of the hidden dungeon. Agitated by the voice shouting over and over again, I decided to step out of the hole in the wall and walked around the dragon trying to locate the source of the sound.

Huh? Who the hell? I say in my mind as I looked at her with confusion. She was wearing an armor fit for a knight yet, it looked like I was custom made just for her. Her face was something that can rival A-list actress. Probably even better.

“Die! Sky King!” The female knight dropped her bag and jumped towards the air while taking out the huge sword behind her. At awe seeing her small frame hold a sword bigger than her, I almost forgot to dodge her attack as it came down towards me at high speed. In a nick of time, I managed to activate my seismic step as I jumped to the side sliding on the ground upon landing. Once I looked up to her, she lifts up her two-handed sword and points it at me.

“Where is he?! Where’s Drakun?!” She shouts at me and it’s starting to agitate me.

“Dragon? Are you fucking blind? It’s right there.” I snarl at her pointing at the carcass of the sky king.

“Tell me where is Drakun?!” She shouts again and her tone of voice is starting to really piss me off.

“Huuuuuh?! You mean that stupid fucking wanderer? He’s fucking dead!” I shout back at her. I called out my bag and at the moment I took out the Dragon Slayer, her eyes went wide as her complexion has gotten paler.

“How dare you?!” She shouts at me with tears streaming down her face.

“Look, you must be his sister or something. Mind buzzing off so I can continue with my day? Unless you want to die.” I calmly said giving her a smile. Rather than running away, she grips her two-handed sword and got on a battle stance. I smiled wider as I started approaching her whispering, “Just what I wanted.”

I jumped towards the ceiling of the cave and as I descend, I shouted my skill while swinging the two-handed sword downwards. Her sword started glowing as she swung upwards.

“Lights parry!” She shouted and when our swords met it exploded upon impact sending me flying back up and her flying towards the entrance where she probably came from.

“Heaven’s slice!” I swing my sword towards the wall and I managed to catch my own speed and I land on my feet. “This bitch. Let’s see which is stronger, my punch or your Armor.”

I store the sword away in my bag. And I ran full speed towards her while re-activating seismic step. She was caught off guard by my speed making me get behind her easily. The minute she turned around, I gave her a smirk as I got into a stance.

“Pound!” I shout as I clenched my hand into a fist. She probably didn't have the energy to jump away as she closed her eyes and used her arms as a shield. "Bye bye~ drakun sis.”

“Sis?” She suddenly looked up to me looking confused. “What? I’m not—“

I brought my fist towards her abdomen and the minute my punch met her armor, she went flying towards the dragon going right into the hole. The dragon erupted from the inside probably by the impact of her body but it wasn’t enough to destroy it as it only expanded without ripping.

"Damn that dragon is really tough," I whisper as I walked towards the hole in the stomach. Blood was oozing out everywhere and the smell of it starting to rot was enough to make want to barf. I see her inside laid out on her back and her top armor completely blew off ripping her clothes to shreds. I walk inside the dragon and grab her by the hair picking her up. She’s still breathing but the damage of my attack left a dent on her abdomen.

Well shit, aren’t you weak. I whisper in my mind as I drag her out by her hair setting her down near the campfire. I tried slapping her awake, but she never opens her eyes and I can see blood coming out of her mouth. She suddenly coughed spitting blood into my face and it made me want to punch her mouth in.

"Fucking disgusting," I whisper as I wipe the blood off my face. I slowly stood up waiting to see if she would open her eyes, but she didn’t. “That’s what you get.”

I looked around the room remembering she dropped her bag earlier. I spot in near the entrance and wanting to see what she had I walked towards the bag opening it roughly. I flipped the bag over upside down and few items fell out that probably have no value to me except for a few bottles that clattered around.

“Is this…” I picked up 3 bottles with red liquid inside. I opened one of them and it smelled like a cold medicine. “Inspect!”

Health Potion (Rare)

Type:

Uses:

Family:

Recovery Potion

Recovery, drug

Elixirs

This is an elixir made by an apothecary. This can heal wounds in an instant, at a certain limit. The higher the rarity, the more severe wound and damages it can recover.

“It is!” I shout looking at the potion on my hand. It isn’t big, enough to fit in my hand but I wondered how much it can heal. I looked back at the dying girl and a smile crept in my face as I found my guinea pig. I grabbed some other things like bandages, rope, a bag of coins, a fancy looking dagger and put them all in my bag along with the two remaining health potions in my bag. I stood up and walked towards her with a potion in hand. I dripped some of the potions into her mouth and I saw her body briefly glow as the blood on her mouth disappeared. I checked the dent on her abdomen and it’s still there. I dripped some more and ended up wasting half of the potion till the dent on her abdomen disappeared. Not wanting to waste anymore, I put the cork back in place sealing it shut before putting it in my bag.

I looked at her and having a full view of her topless wasn’t bad at all.

“How can you be a stupid and an idiot at the same time? Aren’t they the same thing Yasu?” I ask myself. “Yes Yasu, they are the same. It's like insulting you twice in one sentence."

“Ohhh, that’s…that’s smart!” I say as I looked at her laughing to myself.

“Hey Drakun, your sister almost met you across the river. I guess stupidity runs in the family huh?” I say as I poked her cheeks, but she still didn’t wake up. “better tie you up.”

Not wanting to get attacked again and waste any more time, I decided to tie her up but then again, I thought about it, she might be strong enough to rip the rope apart. I look at the carcass of the dead dragon and I burst out laughing as the stupidest idea came in my mind.

“What if I stuff her body between the flesh of the dragon. The weight of the meat should be enough to hold her down.” I whisper walking to the dragon. It was strong enough to not rip to shreds, I don’t think she’d be strong enough to rip it apart. It had still a lot of flesh near its chest. Without wasting time, I used the dragon slayer to removes some of its scales and I open a slit in it. I jammed my hand inside and I can feel the pressure of the meat closing down on my hand and I had difficulty moving it around.

“Hahaha if this doesn’t work, I can just cut her head off. But first, I need to ask some questions.” I saw as I pull out my hand using force. “She’s part of this world, she must know some shit I don’t.”

I went back to her lifeless body and picked her up. Noticing the bottom armor might be a hindrance to my master plan, I decided to take it off using the dagger. I carefully cut it from the side and used my weapon to flick it off her body since I wasn’t able to even carry it. It didn’t take long since I got so used to carving flesh off bones, but I accidentally cut up the clothes under her armor making her completely naked from top to bottom. I picked her up and brought her to the opening I made in the dragon carcass. I jammed her feet first inside the slit opening and then I slowly pushed her inside.

“Oh damn, you lucky this dragon is a virgin!” I shout as I struggle to force her in. With all of these happening, she still hasn’t woken up. I see that she is waist deep inside the dragon. Using all my strength I pushed her in more and she slid right inside up to her neck.

“Oh my fucking god…” I laugh as I looked at how stupid this idea was. I placed my finger towards her nose to see if she’s still breathing. I didn’t know how much weight her body can handle her breathing was normal and she seems like she’s sleeping rather than being unconscious. I was tempted to slap her awake but, I was getting hungry and starting to feel tired, so I decided to focus on cooking the dragon meat instead.

I built a campfire near her and sat around eating cooked meat I had in my bag. I waited for her to wake up as I tried to analyze myself.

“My class is a non-combatant class. Anything I kill doesn't vanish." I whisper as I much on the meat. "My DPH and level are always the same. I level up by one, my DPH goes up by one."

I don’t get experience by killing monsters. I say in my mind as I stuff enough meat in my mouth preventing me to talk. I get experience by cooking them. I also get experience by cooking non-leveled monsters.

I took out a water container from my bag and gulped down the food. “Ah~ that hit the spot. Now, there’s some other shit with getting experience based on what I cook. Gatekeeper I hardly got any experience. This dragon I got a lot but, fucking this needs its own flames. The fuck, shit sounds like I needed to kick that thing while it’s alive spitting flames everywhere.”

I leaned back on the dragon as I watched the flame slowly burn the wood. So far, my luck hasn’t run out huh…I was lucky enough to survive the first dungeon. And I was lucky enough to survive this one.

“Ugh…where am I?” I hear a voice to my left and noticed the girl woke up. “Huh? I can’t move!”

She tried getting out but all she was able to move was her head. She shouted some of her skills, but none worked out for her. She looked confused but the moment she saw me, all of her memories probably returned as her expression turned pale. Yet, her expression quickly turned to rage as she started shouting. “Sky King! Get me out of here this instant!”

“huh? Are you sure you’re in a position to make demands to your enemy?” I asked her as I slowly stood up. “Let me ask you, why should I let you out? So you can try to kill me again? Pfft, ~ Get real! Dumbass!”

“I will kill you!! Sky King! You terrorized lands! You need to be exterminated!!” She shouts my way and it baffles me she’s retaliating back.

"Regarding your current position, I can't seem to figure out if you're a dumbass or just fearless," I whisper to her glaring at her eyes. "And me? Sky King? Bwahahahahaha! I would guess you’re stupid than fearless.”

“You—“

“But I what?” I interrupted her rising my eyebrows as I got close to her face. “Do you even have a photo of the Sky King? What made you jump to a conclusion that I was the sky king?”

“A-a what?” She asked me confused.

"Ah, you might not have photo's here," I whisper as pull back away from her face. "I mean a painting. Those drawn portraits of people."

"Stop pretending you're not the sky king! Show your true colors you demon!" She shouts and I'm starting to lose interest in asking her about this world.

“For something that’s pretty…you’re pretty fucking stupid!” I tell her and she started gritting her teeth. If the dragon weren’t holding her down, She probably would bite me in the face.

“I don’t care what you think—“

“And I don’t care about your opinion," I whisper as I clamp on her jaw preventing her from even talking properly. "Listen here, you dumb bitch. I don’t know how you idiots work in this world but where I come from, hostages talking back to their captors means a death wish. Want to die bitch?” I tell her. She just stared back at me with a worried look. I slowly let her jaw go and she didn’t say a work till after I stood back up.

“S-so you're saying, you’re not the sky king?” She asked me as she straight into my eyes. My expression has relaxed but I didn’t stop keeping tabs of my surrounding. For all I know she’s trying to get out while she stalls.

“Wow, you’re finally listening," I tell her.

“You, did you conquer this place? Did you see the sky king?” She asked me.

“Yes. I saw it. I fought it, and I fucking killed it. What’s with your obsession with the damn sky king?” I asked her.

“He, he took my fiancé. Drakun Tarabay.” She tells me with a solemn look. “I’m not his sister.”

“Then you must be Stella," I told her, and her expression suddenly changed from sadness to confusion. “Ugh, talking to you is tiring. I’m fucking leaving.”

“W-wait!” She shouts as I turned around to walk away.

“What?! The fucking hell do you want now?!” I shout back getting irritated at her voice.

“I-I-I’m a princess.” She says and without blinking, she continued talking making me more impatient. “D-Drakun Tarabay is my fiancé and he went missing a year ago. And if you help me I will—“

“Listen here you idiot, I don’t give a shit who you are or whatever your purpose in life is," I tell her as I grab her face covering her mouth. “To make everything easier for you peanut size brain to understand, let me explain to you. Drakun is dead. End of story.”

I squeezed my grip over her mouth and I can see she probably feels it as she winces in pain. I slowly let go but she didn't say anything as she tried to catch her breath.

“I don’t care anymore. Drakun is dead so are my people. My marriage with him was for the benefit of my people. Now that he’s gone, the marriage is off and my people will starve.” She says and tears poured out of her eyes.

“Oh is that so. Say, I'll have a few questions to ask you. If you answer all of them, I will pull you out. Deal?” I tell her and she looks at me with tears in her eyes and she nods indicating a yes.

"Ok first question, besides being a princess, your probably an adventurer. Do you see levels on top of some monsters heads?" I ask her trying to figure out more of this world's system. If she is an inhabitant here, she probably knows more than I do.

“Yes. Don’t usually only adventurers see that? It’s a necessity to become one.” She says.

Oh, so only adventurers can see levels. I whisper in my mind.

“You probably killed a couple of leveled monster. Do they disappear after you killed them?” I asked her.

"They do. That's part of the microcellular decomposition cycle.” She replied

“A what?” I asked her trying to elaborate more.

“Our body turns into dust after we die and our soul is transferred to another infant to start anew with no memories of the previous life. Some of the other individuals managed to keep their memories but are killed off due to going crazy.” She explained.

“So if I die, I can have another go at life huh…” I whispered to myself. “What happens if a monster is killed but their body doesn’t turn into dust?”

"The only monsters that don't turn into dust are the one without levels like livestock and house pets.” She explained to me. “Other than that, a monster that has a level not turning into dust is stuff from the legends.”

“Legends?” I asked her.

“Yeah. Haven’t you read it before? In our history books?” She asked me.

“If I did, would I be asking you?” I snarl at her.

“ Relax, I was only asking. Anyways, only certain adventurers have that god-like ability which only exist in history books.” She says.

“What are the certain adventurers that have this ability?" I ask her.

"Well, according to a book I have read, they are categorized as a non-combatant class.” She tells me and it's somehow making me smile.

“Non-combatant class?” I asked her smiling. She tried to avert my gaze as she continued talking.

“It’s a rare class specification that no one has.” She continued talking while averting my eyes. “B-being an adventurer requires to have a combatant class. When everyone takes the adventurers test, the class they are given is random. It’s only in history these non-combatant classes exist.”

I guess us picking the class we want is an unnatural occurrence. Fucking Luro.I whisper in my mind.

“And what are these class called?” I ask her.

"In history, there is only two class that is in the records. One is a gives the individual a specialize ability for unparalleled body movements called footwork. The other class is a lot rarer than the first." She says and it brought a smile to my face.

“Rare? How so?” I asked.

"The amount of information it has is very limited. All the history books say they specialize in cooking and creating new ways of edible arrangements by mixing ingredients that are considered to be foods for the gods." She explained to me and I can't help feeling excited.

"These are non-combatant classes right? What makes them god-like?" I ask her. I have a general idea since my skills are overpowered but I asked anyways to get a second opinion.

“Well, I don’t know much about why they are godly ability except for the fact that you have to be gifted by birth to obtain them. But I did come across one record that says their skills can rival gods. Their skills can get so strong that if it was a fighting skill, they might be able to take on a whole army. I never met one so I don't know if they actually fight at all. If they do, they probably can stand against the world itself.” She explained to me and somehow, my future is looking brighter and brighter.

“Is that so…” My voice trails off as I think about all the possibilities this class have.

I don't have zero chance of surviving after all. I say in my mind.

“Um.” She said nervously. “Can I ask you why are you asking me these questions?”

“Curiosity. Say, you probably have a level right? What level are you?” I asked her.

“I’m level 152.” She replied back.

“Hah? You kidding right?” I tell her raising an eyebrow.

"No, I'm not." She replied proudly making me want to punch her face in.

“How do you level up? Do you know anything how these non-combatant classes leveling system?” I ask her.

“I don’t know anything about the non-combatant class but as for most adventurer around the continent, we level up by killing monsters.” She tells me.

"Elaborate," I tell her.

“Well, when we kill monsters on our level or higher, we gain life orbs. These life orbs are what increase our experience and can only be obtained through killing monsters of the same level or higher. The higher-level monster you kill, the more life orbs you get. Since you killed the Sky King, which is a legendary being, you probably leveled up a hefty amount and are higher than mine. I don’t know how you did it. I wasn’t sure if I was able to kill him myself. How did you kill the Sky King?” She asked me looking into my eyes while I ran different thoughts in my mind.

Ok, so I guess mine works the same way. Killing monsters don't work for me. I have to cook them to get experience. Since experience means the knowledge or the amount of time I spend doing something, a cook's experience can only be obtained through cooking. If I cook monsters that are my level, I probably get average experience orbs or ‘Life orbs' as they call it. So that means if I cook higher level monsters, I gain a bigger amount of life orbs. Since I have a non-combatant class, I don't have the same effect on these monsters turning into dust as they do. I can kill them and they remain dead for me to cook and level up. Guessing on the superiority of this dragon, it's probably the reason the meat takes certain special fire to cook it properly. So the more superior the monsters, the harder the meat cooks? That doesn’t make sense for the gatekeeper. That thing was definitely superior. How come I cooked it easily? But then again, it didn't give me any experience orbs. Is it because it wasn’t superior like this dragon? Argh!! Fuck this is confusing.

I scratch my baldhead while pacing back and forth. Stella moves her head following my movement. I spoke in a low tone that made it harder for her to hear me properly.

“Ummm. Can I get out of here now?” She asked me and interrupted my train of thoughts.

“Not yet, I have more questions. Say, how fast do people tend to level up? How fast did it take you to reach your level?” I asked her.

“Um well, it is easy to level up when we are all low level.” She tells me and watching her head talk as it sticks out the dragon is making it harder to hide a laugh. She continued talking as I listened to her explanation.

“After we reach level 15 it becomes a bit difficult to level up. The higher your level gets, the harder for you to level up. It took me a little over a year to reach my level but that’s because I had someone help me kill higher-level tier monsters that gave me a lot of experience points. But there are other cases where killing something higher doesn’t really give a lot of experience points to some adventurers and their skills went way pass beyond their level.”

“And why is that?” I ask her.

"This is a limit to prevent a certain class from becoming overpowered. For example, the Dual class is a class that specializes in offense. They wield two blades that basically make them a killing machine. This class level up much more slowly than the rest due to the fact that they can kill a lot more monsters in a short amount of time."

Dual? So that's the class I wanted, in the beginning, I say in my mind thinking more about the level system.

“Do you know who Luro is?” I asked her she then looks up to me with fear plastered in her face.

“T-t-The devil god?!" She says surprised. I can see the fear in her eyes. Seems like he doesn't have a good image.

“Yeah. The fucker who has wings. Looks like a maniac and is very rude.” I tell her and she looks at me with disbelief.

“You saw him?!” She shouts with disbelief in her voice.

“Yes. He’s the reason why I’m here. Do you know if he has any weakness?” I asked her, but I guessed she didn’t listen to my question.

“When did you see him?! Are you his henchman?!” She shouts, and her voice is starting to give me a headache.

“Would you shut the fuck up or else I’m going to grab your tongue and rip it out. Trust me, it isn’t the first time I have done that~” I tell her as I raise my eyebrows and she went silent. “Ok good, now to answer your stupid fucking questions, it’s a no. I’m not Luro’s fucking follower. I’m the opposite. I need to kill him. Now if you have any information on his whereabouts or his weakness, tell me quick.”

Her expression relaxed a bit as she shook her head from side to side. "No one knows where he is. If we did, we would've tried to kill him. That bastard brought famine and death to so many villages he needs to die!"

Didn’t you just fucking hear what I said? I’m trying to kill him!” I tell her, but her reaction shows me how terrifying Luro is to the inhabitants of this world.

“He needs to die! He needs to die! Please kill him!!” She kept shouting and it’s making me clench my fist.

“Tch, well have fun shouting your lungs. Bye~” I tell her smiling as I started to walk away from her.

She can die there for all I care.I whisper in my mind as I focused on the hidden dungeon.

“I answered all of your questions! You have to let me go!” She shouts at me. Getting more pissed off, I walked towards her grabbing her hair and pulling it back as much as I can, I see her wince in pain as I grabbed her hair near her scalp.

“All this fucking time you shouting and demanding me, you still haven’t fucking noticed?!” I shout at her face.

“N-notice what?!” She asked me.

I laughed as I let her hair go. I looked straight into her eyes “You! Your one of a kind woman! I don’t know how long it will take for you to notice but let me just skip all that waiting! Do you even notice what’s restraining you?”

“W-what is this?!” She screamed as she tried to break free.

“Bwahahahahahahahaha! Let me tell you then!” I tell her as I opened my arms ready to tell a story. “The sky king you have been searching for a long time is none other than a dragon! Which is a huge fucking dragon by the way. But that’s not the main thing. I thought it wouldn't work but here you are! Lodged inside a dead carcass! Unable to move!”

“Y-you, what are you?!” She asked and I grabbed her hair again pulling it back forcing her to look up. Not wanting to hear her rambling and shouts, I covered her mouth with one hand.

"Let me tell you a little something about myself," I whispered close to her face and I felt my breath hit the top of my hand. “Did you really think I’m that nice to just let you go?”

I moved closer towards her ear.

“I am a normal guy that broke out of hell. A hell my enemies decided to throw me in.” I whispered in her ear. I pulled myself back and let her head go. "Let's see how well your luck plays out. Stella~"

I stare down at her as if I was looking down at the goblins and trolls that tortured me. Anger resurfaces and my face contorts while I reminisce the pain my body endured. I see her look at me and the color of her face was completely pale as sweat slowly trickle down her forehead.

I clench my fist and activated my pound skill. I grabbed her by the hair and forced her head to face me directly. She screamed nonstop and before I punched her in the face, she quickly passed out from the shock as her head became like a ragdoll. I stopped before y hand reached her cheek frustrated she didn't see my fist coming.

"Son of a bitch. Now you shut up?" I whispered as I lowered my arms and let her hair go watching her head go down. “Yasu, it’s now or never.”

"Now or never," I reply to myself

I needed to level up fast and gain as much battle experience as I can get. If what she says is true, if I level up my skills, I can deal with stronger enemies even if I am lower level than them but, I think it will only work on a certain amount. Even if I did kill the Sky King, It wasn't because I overpowered him. Every time I fight, my life is on the line and I'm sick and tired of that.

I need to get stronger.I whisper as I walk around the dragon towards the dark hole in the wall.I want to get stronger fast. And the only way for me to achieve that is by entering the dungeon. This way, I can level up and gain experience of combat at the same time. Cooking the dragon will help me level up, but strength is nothing if I don’t know how to properly use it.

I kept on walking until I’m standing at the entrance of the hidden dungeon. Inside is a dark hallway that’s illuminated by blue torches. The door started closing by sliding back in place behind me and I never bothered to look back.

“Yasu! Where are you?! We’re here! Yasu! Yasu wait!” I hear a familiar voice shouts my name right before the door closed shut and I was enveloped in a dark silence.

“Never trust anyone Yasu," I say to myself as I walked towards the darkness. "Not even yourself."

I kept walking until I disappeared in the dark.