In the second room of the dungeon, I didn’t even bother to hold up my shield. I lifted up my dagger and held it out in front of me while positioning my left leg back a bit so my body was facing the insect from the side. This was a method of making me a smaller target or something like that so it’d be forced to go towards my dagger. Or so I was told by Matt a few days ago.

He was very interested in learning how to properly fight as he felt that the dungeon could be cleared easier through a combination of good weapons and even better skills at using them. Which made sense since I had some pretty good items but ended up near death simply because I didn’t know how to use them properly. I should have spent more time on the relatively safer first six rooms learning how to use my weapons properly granted the enemies aren’t too hard.

Thankfully, these insects, unlike the bird, would fly straight towards me, and didn’t have any sort of special ability like that bat creature. As soon as it closed in, I swung the dagger at it and it tried to dodge, but it got nicked by the tip of the blade, or perhaps it was something like the fire sword where it doesn’t have to directly touch the enemy to harm it. Whatever it was, the bug fell onto the ground and instead of stomping on it, I looked towards the entrance to the next room and found it open.

The next few rooms went the same way, other than a mistake in the fourth one where I missed completely. However, it had no chance to attack me and I killed it on my second swing. There wasn’t much of a difference between standing normally and standing with my side facing forward. I kept at it anyway as I never knew if I’d miss again and it’d get the chance to strike.

After beating the sixth room, I moved onto the seventh without much thought. This trip into the dungeon was mainly to spite the knight order and there wasn’t any particular goal. Since I managed to find a dungeon I could handle fairly well, I decided to go as far as possible, or at least until a point where I wasn’t comfortable with going further. Reaching the break room would be nice as I had finished off the keg of ale a while ago and it’d be nice to have a good draught.

Room seven was the same as it always was, a sudden jump in room size and two monsters. They decided to fly at me one on one, with one of them waiting in place with the other charging. This made it easier to fight, but it meant the second one would probably be harder to fight as it would watch and learn from my fight with the first. As expected, I dispatched the first one and then looked towards the other.

It acted exactly like the first, going straight towards me. I tried slicing it with my dagger while lifting up my shield, expecting something to happen that would make my strategy fail. Instead, it dropped to the ground dead just like that. To my shock, there was no change in their method even though it failed. Even more, its dead body collapsed upon itself and turned into an ore. That was just stupid.

If this behavior continued onto later floors, it’d be the equivalent of wheat grinding there as they’d come one by one, doing the same thing and dying. Which wasn’t anything to complain about. For some reason, the fact that nothing new happened almost disappointed me. Which was baffling that I would prefer something to happen that could potentially harm me. Then again, if I got harmed, I could easily borrow the divine item from Jerry and heal myself.

Borrowing the divine item so soon after giving it to Jerry would just be unfair to him. My new goal was to avoid being injured to the point where I would need the necklace to recover. At the same time, I wouldn’t give up on taking risks when necessary. So rather than a goal I’d actively seek, it was more of a matter of luck and being cautious.

Room eight and nine went the same way, other than there being no loot dropped. Much to my delight or disappointment, the tenth room went the same way. Three bugs that didn’t learn and came at me one by one and died just the same. Surely at some point, things would change.

The twelfth room finally presented a change in the bug's behavior with four of them in the room at once. Two of the bugs latched onto each other, the head of one of them latching onto the tail of the other. Then one of the other two bugs came at me. Distracted by the unusual combined bug thingy, I almost missed the bug coming at me. Nonetheless, I killed it and the next insect as well, leaving me in the room with just the two insects that had combined.

Despite their odd behavior, they still came at me as usual. When they closed in on me, I decided to just treat it as if it was only one of them and swung my dagger, only to miss completely as it stopped two arms lengths from me. Before I had the time to lift my shield or try getting closer to swing again and hit, it swung its tail towards me, followed by the other insect whose tail pierced into my chest.

This was bad news. No pain, just pressure and a feeling of panic set into me. In an instant, I reacted by cutting off the tail of the insect stabbing into me. It instantly died and stopped moving its wings, dragging the other insect down to the ground where I stomped on it. All of the monsters were dead but I had some sort of stinger stuck in my body. Who knew what it would do if it stayed inside me.

My hand gripped it and tugged, sending intense pain throughout my body while it refused to budge. It was in there good. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave it inside me. The healing can’t help with something like this. Perhaps it’d prevent me from dying to any poison or stop the wound from getting infected. As for pushing it out of me, or keeping it from harming me further if I so much as move funny, my shield could do nothing.

There was no other option but to cut it out. I reached for the dagger and pulled it close to my chest. Then I remembered how much damage it did from just tiny scratches and nicks on enemies. My fire sword was no good either as it constantly spewed black smoke whenever I pulled it out. Better than flames but who knew what that smoke would do to my wound. The spear would have to do.

I held the tip of the spear close to my chest and my hands started shaking. Throughout my life I had been cut and hurt hundreds of times, even losing an arm, yet I couldn’t bring myself to cut into my own body like that. There was just something unnerving about it. Fears that I would slip and hurt myself more than necessary and there was this increased sensitivity when I knew what would happen. My chest hurt just thinking about the spear’s edge. Which could also be attributed to the stinger lodged in there, but still.

Ten minutes passed of me sitting down trying to hype myself up. My body was covered in sweat and both my arms were shaking violently. This was all from stress as much as it seemed like it was poison from the stinger. Heck, if the stinger was poisoned things would be easier as it would become a life and death situation where I couldn’t come up with excuses as to why I shouldn’t do it. The last time I was like this was years and years ago, but still in the dungeon.

Since I couldn’t do it, I stopped trying and decided to move on. I continued onto room thirteen because I was confident that I could match the bug now that I knew its gimmick. The necklace from Jerry wouldn’t help with this stinger at all, so there wasn’t much of a reason to return to the surface. Going to the surface was still the better option as someone could help me with the stinger, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

The next room was a rest area. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On one hand, it was nice to find it as I could eat and get a drink. On the other, I was looking forward to facing the insect’s strategy again and countering it somehow and had mentally set the rest area as the time to leave the dungeon if I reached it.

In the middle of the room was a familiar bottle, wine, the very wine that the jewelry merchant had shared with him, but in a larger bottle. The bottle that the merchant had was only big enough for three to four mugfuls. This bottle was enough for seven to eight, double the size. I recognized what it was by its label but was confused about its size in comparison to the original. This was the first time I was having a drink that I first drank just recently so perhaps the sizes were always off from what I actually drunk and just didn’t notice. It seemed like only the taste and alcohol content was replicated while the container was simply similar.

Now that I thought about it, how could the dungeon find this information and replicate it so accurately? It was scary to think about how far the dungeon’s reach was beyond these rooms and entrances. Or was it pulling this information from my memories and desires somehow? Both options were terrifying.

With a stinger in my chest down here and nine knights on the surface intent on screwing me, I needed a drink desperately and happily popped the cork and started chugging down the wine. Barely any of the taste stayed in my mouth at that rate but the heat and kick were ever present. It warmed my insides and I couldn’t help but shake my head a few times in reaction to the aftertaste.

A few moments passed with me sitting there as the alcohol set in and gave me a pleasant buzz. All my worries washed away. Other than the stinger in my stomach, all was well in the world in this small bubble called room thirteen. If this was even in my world still and not a separate one.

Eventually, I grabbed my spear and brought it up to the stinger. I still didn’t want to do it but it was easier to bring it closer and my hands didn’t shake. Soon enough a small cut was made just below the stinger that drew blood. Every last hair on my body stood on end when I did that. Progress was made and it encouraged me to go on. With another mouthful of wine, I cut into my own body at the base of the stinger and cried out in pain.

As a grown man I was expected to hold it in or just grunt. No one was around so I just let it all out, swearing like a sailor while crying like a baby. I had to cut deep as it was half a finger’s length in and even when I got the blade underneath it, it refused to come out, getting caught on the sides. Left with no other choice, I made more cuts at different ends around the stinger and had to cut it out with a chunk of my flesh attached to it.

Finally out of my body, I got a good look at this damnable thing and saw needles sticking out of the sides of it that curved upward. It was barbed like a fishing hook. The damn thing was designed to be hard to pull out even if the insect was dead and separated from it. Blood started to pour out of the hole in my chest and made me start to feel weak.

I tore some more cloth from my pants and dumped some of the wine onto it to make up for the fact it wasn’t too clean then pressed it against the wound. The alcohol burned and the wound throbbed. It felt even worse than the time my arm was chopped off. Tears streamed down my face freely and snot dripped from my nose. Such an injury would heal with the shield’s assistance but it was an experience I would never want to repeat.

About twenty more minutes passed until I finally let off with the pressure and found the cloth stuck to me. Which was probably a good thing for now as I had to get up and move, so having something to cover the wound was nice, especially if it reopened from the movement. And as soon as I tried getting up, my legs gave out. The pain was instant and vicious, stopping me from doing anything.

It took a few more mouthfuls of wine and ten minutes of coaxing myself until I managed to get up. Then another ten minutes after I leaned over to pick up the cork for the wine bottle and the bowl of miscellaneous food. Then I finally started heading back towards the entrance. All I wanted to do was make it to the surface and go to sleep. There was no way I was going to fight further with this wound.

The only thing I had to be thankful for was the fact that the stinger didn’t hit any organs or major veins and arteries. Just muscle and fat were affected by it and the procedure to remove it. As I moved through the dungeon, every step stretched my skin and flesh around the wound, irritating it. Before long, I was limping, favoring the right side of my body as that didn’t hurt the wound as much.

A little over an hour had passed since I entered the dungeon, but thankfully that wasn’t long enough to make any new monsters to pop up. However, with the mechanics behind fishing, I knew that I couldn’t linger and had to keep going through each of the twelve rooms without resting. It was easy to start resting with a wound like this and hard to stop. Fifteen minutes could pass in what felt like seconds if I so much as sat down or leaned against the wall for too long.

It was so much of a relief as I exited the dungeon and started heading towards town. None of the others were there and that was just fine to me. I didn’t feel like talking with anyone. Sleep was the main thing on my mind. It was hard to keep going and keep my eyes open as limped towards Tom’s bar. Not even ten steps later, I was forced to stop and shake off some of my fatigue.

A plume of smoke rose from behind the treeline, towards the outskirts of town, very close to here. It gave me a bad feeling as so much smoke could only mean one thing, a fire. Redirecting towards where the smoke was coming from, I walked through the treeline slowly with a sinking feeling in my gut even worse than the hole there.

On the other side of the treeline was a massive bonfire where a building once stood. Near the flames were a few people. Jerry and Matt sat on the ground a ways away from the fire. They just stared into the flames with blank looks on their face. Chris and Stephen were likely still in the dungeon and didn’t know.

Barn, headquarters, or whatever it used to be was now a glorified campfire. They burned it down. The place where I had lived for a week and the others had called home for far longer. The knights of Mans Tontrau warned us that they would do this if we entered the dungeon and we had brushed their words off as nonsense, or empty words. This was them backing their words and making their statement literal.

My wound seemed minor in comparison to this and I couldn’t even bring myself to go up to them, to try and comfort or reassure them. In a way, this had been my fault as my divine and the forming of this order lead to this situation. If I hadn’t formed it as a way to test Jerry, this would have never happened. Or at least, they would have focused solely on me and I might’ve been able to handle it better.

There was nothing more I could do. Of all my equipment, I could only make the flames worse with the fire sword and there weren’t enough people to carrying buckets from the river to put it out. If it was closer to town, the risk of the flames spreading would bring the entire town to our aid. However, with it being on the outskirts, it was just more convenient to let it burn. Even if it was put out, it had burned for so long already that nothing could be salvaged from it.

I limped away, back towards Tom’s bar which was thankfully unscathed. None of the knights were at the bar so I limped up the stairs and went to my room. Then immediately shut the curtains, hoping that would make it harder to tell I was there or that it would offer some form of protection. If not for the wound, I might have gone out of the way to try and blockade the window.

The rest of the day was spent by nibbling away at the food bowl and sipping a bit of wine until sleep took me far away from reality. Not far enough as the day’s events ran through my mind as soon as my eyes closed.