My heart was already beating hard against my ribcage. The hands gripping Matsumura's sword were growing a sheen of sweat as I listened into the footsteps in the distance.

This was different from my other interactions with monsters. There was no way to run away with the wall behind me, no allies to rely on and a small corridor to move around only forced the monster closer to me. Even if it did go the other way, I had to walk down this corridor no matter what I did.

"Or you can stay here and do nothing…" I said to myself before stifling a laugh. There was no way I could stay here. Staying still was the worst thing to do. Who knew if the skeletons were just being pushed towards me, and when they got to me, I’d have to deal with an army.

My gaze switched between the smooth wall behind me and the empty corridor in front of me. There were no Onibi to illuminate my surroundings, but some glowing moss on the ground gave enough light that I wasn't walking blind. The sounds of footsteps slowly disappeared into the distance as I clenched my sword with a white-knuckled grip.

I sighed, knowing I didn't have a choice. Carefully, I began trekking down the dark corridor. The shadows of the dark cavern walls loomed overhead as every noise caused a shudder to go through my heart. Every step I took sounded too loud for my ears, and I didn't know how long I had been walking as all I had to tell time was the rattling sound of bone on bone that slowly crescendoed until it was all that I heard.

Then, it appeared. The figure of a skeleton holding a long, rusty sword in its hand showed up in my limited vision. I admit, I panicked a bit. My mind was running on all gears, and my body was so jittery on the adrenaline that the moment I found the source of my anxiety, I sort of… overreacted.

Life Energy flooded through from my soul and into my body with a wave of almost unbearable heat. The warmth fueled my actions and I exploded down the stone corridor faster than I could process my actions.

One step catapulted me several feet, and the skeleton turned to face me finally. I locked eyes with its empty sockets before my next step hit the ground. Suddenly, the distance between the two of us was gone. It's rusty sword was flying straight to my face and I swung my sheathe at the sword without a single thought.

The swing was horrible. It wasn't straight, nor did it hit correctly. I'm pretty sure a child could have done better than me. However, despite its shortcomings, the swing was powered by the full force of my Life Energy. And that was more than enough.

The second my scabbard made contact with its rusty sword, its sword exploded. I flinched as shrapnel flew everywhere. Shards drew small, bloody lines on my arms and face. The cuts burned, but I barely felt them as my scabbard continued on its path and struck the skeleton's skull with a thunderous crack.

It fell to the ground and I chased after it. My improvised club rose up and down, slamming into its skull again. Bits of white bone flew out of its face, but I continued in my adrenaline fueled attack. I only stopped when my weapon hit the hard ground, jolting my arm to an abrupt stop.

For a moment, I just stared at the shattered pieces of skull scattered around the floor. My heavy breathing echoed in the dark corridor.

"Ow." I whispered above the sound of my heartbeats. The adrenaline slowly ebbed away from my veins as the warmth of Life Energy left me. Suddenly, the several cuts I had earned began stinging.

I chuckled hollowly, touching a cut on my face and feeling the wet, sticky blood dribble down my cheek. "This hurts… I didn't think it would hurt this much."

The time I sat there, sitting on the ground with a skull-less skeleton next to me, was long enough that I felt the smallest of my wounds drying up and my breathing finally slowed down. I took out some of Minamoto’s special healing ointment from one of my pant’s pockets and slathered it on whatever hurt the most. Who knew if I would get tetanus or something?

Feeling calm, I looked up. There was only a long, dark hallway in front of me. And the sounds of rattling bones in the distance.

"Okay, you bastards," I ground out, finding my feet on the ground. In such a small corridor, there was no way out. It was either me or them. "Let's do this till I stop feeling scared."

Despite my words, I still tried to keep a lid on my emotions. My first encounter with the skeleton had ended in my victory, but looking back on it, there was no reason why I would lose. Skeletons, no matter how threatening they seemed, were rather easy to beat. Pushovers, really. Their bones were fragile to a strong enough impact, their weapons were easily broken, and they were slow enough that I could dodge their attack if I was careful. On top of that, my Life Energy, even if used sparingly, could carry me through any situation that came up.

The only problem was that I panicked. It was a pathetic first attempt, but I knew that there was nothing I could do. No way was I going to be some genius in fighting when my only experience was a couple minutes ago. As cliche as it was to say, I had all the tools to comfortably beat any skeleton I ran into. Getting hurt against them without knowing what came next would be disastrous.

With a deep breath, I began chipping pieces of sharp rock off the wall with Matsumura's sword. When I had gotten enough rocks to feel satisfied, I slowly started back on my shaky path to the end of the dark corridor.

It didn't take me long before I saw the next skeleton. It was armed similar to the first, but this time it had a wooden shield in its opposite hand. My heart was racing by the time I actually saw it. My original plan was slowly going out of my head before I forced myself to calm down.

"I'm not pathetic… I got this." I mumbled, trying to get my spirits up. With a hushed shudder, I grasped one of the rocks in my hand and threw it as hard as I could. My aim was true, and the rock cracked against its ribs.

The skeleton snapped to me. It was faster than the last skeleton but that made little difference. Another rock was loosed from my hand, crashing into its left eye socket and rocking its head back.

Seeing the clear opening, I rushed in for the finisher. Bursts of Life Energy shot through my legs, propelling me at a pace a little under an olympic sprinter. It wasn't as fast as blowing through my Life Energy for a full body burn, but Life Energy was a pain and a half to keep track of, so I stuck to small, manageable bursts.

I reached the skeleton right as it recovered from my improvised attack. It swung wildly, and now that I was paying attention, it barely used the edge of the blade in those swings. You could've easily replaced the sword with a club and still served the same purpose; though, a club might have been better.

I ducked under a horizontal swing, feeling the top of my hairs being pulled slightly. Suppressing a shudder from how close that was, Matsumura's sword swept the skeleton's knees. They caved instantly with the left one snapping right off the creature.

It fell to the floor unceremoniously, flopping on the ground as it continued to try and strike me with its rusty sword. I jumped back, grabbed the rocks I had dropped when I went in and began pelting the skeleton from a distance till it stopped moving.

When its skull cracked open, I exhaled a long breath. I wasn't as exhausted as last time, but it was still stressful mentally as I had to keep track of its sword at all times.

However, this proved that I could do it. That last time wasn't just some fluke. A spark of confidence was beginning to flow through me with the experience, and I looked to the dark corridor once more.

This time, I only hesitated for a second before continuing.

With my confidence fueling me along, the next couple encounters with similar lone skeletons ended in easy wins. I'd attack from a distance with rocks. If that failed, then I'd close in for a melee after a distraction. Life Energy bailed me out of anything serious, and I would try to finish the skeletons off from a distance if I could. Really, I was stacking up my confidence by breezing through the easy mobs.

Though, I hit a snag when skeletons began grouping in twos or threes. Charging in recklessly became much less of me conserving my Life Energy and more about seeing if I can take care of one skeleton before their reinforcements attacked me. I had less of a safe backup of Life Energy to call upon in case things hit the fan.

It was why I was currently splayed out on the cold floor. The rocks felt heavenly on my skin as the warmth of combat soaked my clothes. My breathing was labored and heavy, coming out in gasps.

That last fight was a total of three separate skeletons. I had been lucky to pull one away from the group with some rock throws, but the other two were on me by the time I had finished it off. In the end, I had to dip dangerously close to Life Energy exhaustion to finish off one of the skeletons, and the last one I fought purely with my own, inadequate body.

The whole situation had led to my current state. It was dangerous, to say the least.

"I'm getting too *huff* arrogant." I said to myself. I had let the situation end up horribly because I hadn't expected the other skeletons to react as fast. It was only by chance that I didn't get stabbed, and I had to thank all the gods watching over me that that didn't happen.

[Amatsu Mikaboshi has his eyes on you]

Except you. You need to get a life.

Ignoring my perpetual stalker, I once again looked down the never ending corridor. I had been walking for what felt like an hour or two of interspersed battles, but I still hadn't seen the end or signs that the corridor ended. There was no guide book to Dungeons as far as I could tell, nor had I been given some idea on what to look out for.

However, continuing down this path made it abundantly clear that something was wrong. I couldn't explain it in words. My sixth sense was acting up again, and I felt that there was always something off about the way forwards. It was like I would never see the end by going down this way.

There was no way to tell if what I was sensing was right or not. Honestly, I had only been able to sense it after every single fight with the skeletons; like every fight was building up to something.

I squinted my eyes, trying to peer into the dark. Obviously, there was nothing there. Everything was the same, but I felt it. A small trace of… something spiraling off into the void. It seemed warm, for a word, almost like Life Energy. I got the vague impression of a blacksmith in a dark cave building up an armory.

"Nope." That settled it. My weird soul sense had been iffy half the time, and not active for the rest, but I trusted my first supernatural ability of this place. Even if I was going crazy, I trusted it. As it was the only thing I could trust in this situation.

Immediately, I turned back around and started heading towards the oddly smooth wall I found myself in front of. I had always thought it was weird, but hadn't questioned it because of my experience with Dungeons. That was until I realized it was the only wall out of place.

It took awhile, but I eventually made it right back to the solid, smooth wall. It looked like someone had polished off a piece of the cave and just left it there. I unsheathed Matsumura's sword and pointed the tip right at the wall.

"Open up, you wall bastard."

I had gone through the ordeals of fighting and nearly getting impaled by skeletons while walking on an infinitely long, barely lit corridor. There were many frustrations brought about by this wall, and I felt rather justified at being mad at it. Even if it was only a wall, I still have the right to be mad.

Yet… it wasn't only a wall. I realized that as two horizontal slits cracked open on the wall. Massive, luminescent eyes with black sclera and white pupils as large as my head opened up and glared down at me.

I blinked slowly. "Ehem, I would like to pass, Mr. wall. Your polishing looks immaculate might I add. Did you do it yourself?"

Instead of a verbal answer, I saw six large spikes on the ceiling. Were those stalagmites or stalactites? My knowledge of geology aside, those sharp rocks were anything but inanimate objects.

Cracks began spreading out around the spikes, and I hurriedly jumped back, using my Life Energy to get some extra distance. A tremor shook the cave as I found two absurdly large hands with three stone-colored talons attached to the ends of large, midnight fingers. Those fingers were connected to two long arms that trailed right to the smooth wall with eyes. I almost missed them in the light as clouds of dust and debris swirled down from above, and it was only the two trenches that were suddenly in the ceiling signaling that there was something there.

I swallowed a mouthful of saliva and sand as I just stared at the two arms larger than my body. The walls around me shuddered as the arms in front of me flexed and the corridor's walls cracked and caved, allowing the wall monster to pull itself closer to me. I started running before it raised its arms again.

A loud bang echoed behind me, and I turned to see that the wall was beginning to pick up speed. It's arms continued to slam into the sides, floor and ceiling of the corridor in order to drag itself towards me at a pace walls are most definitely forbidden from going. The actions deafened any sounds around me into a loud droning boom that signaled its hands crushing solid stone on impact.

"I don't suppose a sorry will help?!" I yelled, feeling my heart beginning to pound in my chest. Sure, I was confident it would try to kill me regardless of what I said, but why did I have to insult it!

I ran without looking back. My mind was reeling while trying to look for a solution that didn't involve me dying via murderous wall.