-Vol 6: Dusk Of An Era-

-Renewing The Contract(4)-

“This is the place?” Kenshin stood in front of two trees intertwined with each other in a creepy way. The branches were swirling around each other, together with their slightly bent trunks, it gave an impression of a gateway formed naturally. The ‘gate’ that formed from this pattern was covered in thick smoke, black and smelly smoke that reminded him of a rotten egg.

This was the gate to the first dungeon he had chosen.

“This smell of rotten corpse is really putting me off!” muttering in depression due to his heightened sense of smell, Kenshin took a single step into the mist that covered the middle part of both trees. As soon as he did, a message box popped up informing that he had entered a high-end dungeon.

[You have entered Level 10 Dunegion Death Forest.]

“Thank god there was no restriction about the number of people.” Thanking his good luck, Kenshin arrived on the other side of the steam gate. Dense and gloomy dead forest greeted him with all the spookiness one could expect. The soil was ash grey with footprints that didn’t look like it belongs to a human all over the place.

His map had already synchronized with this place, giving him the idea of where he should look. As such, he moved in a straight line towards the corner of the dungeon. There were two ways to enter a core room, one was to find it and enter, and second, was to slaughter the enemies so fast that the existing guardian would be forced to show itself.

Although his map function was quite OP, it still couldn’t show some of the concealed places, especially if that place happens to be in a dungeon. Since he didn’t have time to search for it manually, he instead decided to go for the second option, slaughter them all as fast as he could, and force the guardian to show itself.

After walking through the forest a little further, he finally spotted the monsters that call this dungeon their habitat. They were all four-legged creatures with bodies that looked like a half decomposed horse. The muscles already vanished from their legs and heads and a greater part from their bodies. Some maggots could be seen writhing around their decomposing flesh, the scene was horrendous and gruesome to the extent that one would lose appetite, sleep from just their sight alone.

[Rotting Grotes Lv 94]

[Class: Undead/Specter]

[ATK: 245; DEF: 45; AGI: 300]

[Skill]

Corruption Bite Lv 9

50% chance to inflict a curse that would constantly deplete the HP of a living being by biting the target. The chances rise to 100% if the target is bitten by them twice.

[Hint]

Weak against fire, it is advised to use strong fire abilities to fight from a distance.

“Hmm! Surprising! So these guys not only have stats that didn’t match their level, but they also have such amazing skill to boot?” Kenshin was surprised at the unfairity of the world, but of course, it wasn’t a Level 10 dungeon for nothing. It was advised to at least form a party of 4 with a pure magic based skill user that knew how to heal amidst before one is allowed to enter any dungeon that was above level 9. That advice wasn’t some useless ramble, after all.

‘If it’s not for its biting restriction, I would have copied that skill… but oh well…’ Thinking that it was such a loss, Kenshin pointed his index finger as a bullet made of pure fire conjured and started to swirl around itself at astonishing speed. The damage of skill was noted on the system, but the world wasn’t a program build with codes and functions; various things can affect reality too.

Even a skill with only 1 ATK power could instakill someone with 1000 HP if used correctly under the right circumstances. Knowing that these creatures were very weak against fire as per the hint, he used his skill as skillfully as possible. Even without a hint, he had killed and hunted enough undead types to know their strengths and weaknesses.

The flame bullet swirled around itself, rapidly creating a drill-like shape. Kenshin let it go just like that. The bullet went for the four-legged undead like a flash of light from a torch, and drilled into its head and then exploded with a booming noise… that’s right it exploded. The countless comics he read and games he played came in handy, giving him more than enough image he could use while shaping his skill.

While using a skill, one of the most important things was to have a ‘definite image’ of what they want in their head. According to that image, the skill would take shape into reality. Often a few people gave their skills ‘names.’ That’s not entirely to sound cool, it was so to help them image the skill in case of an emergency usage.

Most of the time, when we utter the name of an object we are very much familiar with, our brain automatically projects it’s image into our conscious memory.

Kenshin had seen this while Akari was fighting against her opponent that time when he had taken them to a dungeon to let them get rid of their ‘dungeon-virginity.’ Later that night, when he asked why she had given her attack a name, a pretty crude name at that, she said, “I could instantly imagine the shape and size of the thing I wanted to manifest with my skill.”

Kenshin never had to worry about these problems as he had his system do them. Since today he got time and leisure, he wanted to see if changing the shape and form of imagination, the damage of his skill increases or not.

[Critical Hit!!]

[-10,000]

[You have killed a Level 94 Rotting Grotes. Earned 1,747,554 EXP]

[You have earned 100 Gold coins and an unranked item.]

“Okay, let's see, from manifestation to moment of firing, it took 1.4 seconds… pretty long, in my opinion but well… seeing the damage it dealt… no wonder I guess.” Kenshin mumbled at the smoldering ember that quickly incinerated the whole thing, not even leaving behind ashes.

“Then, let's see this time… Fire Arc!” as he called the name, he imagined a wide arced blade that looked so sharp that it could even cut steel like a hot knife through a block of butter. He imagined every meticulous detail of such a blade that, when slashed would instantly kill all and every opponent on its path, no matter how many there may be.

In front of his very eyes, a huge wide slab of flame appeared. Then it rapidly took shape according to how he imagined in his head. Soon, it resembled a scythe’s balded end, well polished and deadly with sharp angle… only its made of pure hot at the same time destructive flames.

‘It's quite fun!’ thinking of this, Kenshin let it go while imagining how a scythe would slash. He had once used a scythe and had a scythe mastery skill to go with it… he can pretty much create an accurate image in his head.

The flame scythe named [Fire Arc] blurred across space with its target being the group of undead that slowly approaching Kenshin after sensing his ‘life’ from afar. Kenshin didn’t have a concealment skill. As such he couldn’t hide his presence the moment he entered the dungeon.

The flame scythe did what it meant to, bisecting the approaching monsters horizontally from the top of their noses to back.

[Critical Hit!!]

Three monsters died like that giving him experience and some pocket change gold coins.

“I see, I understand now. The way I used magic… it was so wrong until now. No wonder everyone valued pure magic skill users like they are family treasures.” Kenshin unexpectedly gained enlightenment in a very random place at a random time.

And thus, he rampaged around the dungeon slaughtering as fast as he could. The whole dungeon was filled with these types of creatures even so; although he slaughtered 94% of monsters, he still couldn’t find the boss let alone forcing the guardian out.

Twenty minutes later, he gave up hope and exited the dungeon after forcing it to enter a reset period.

“Damn!” cursing lightly, he fixed his target to the next dungeon on the list, hoping he could at least see a boss on this one.