At what I could guess was around 5 am I woke up. It was still a little dark, but I didn't think of that as a problem. I got up and prepared myself to leave. I gave the keys back to the owner of the inn and left. I thought about it before, but I'm very sure that there is a great power gap between me and the other heroes. The most appropriate thing to do right now, would be to fight monsters. Thanks to my ammo generation skill, I'm very prepared in the terms of weaponry.

As I was leaving the capital I realized something,

The last time I was hunting monsters, I forgot to insert the materials into my knife. I suppose it's not that much of a problem though, the balloons aren't very formidable foes.

I quickly killed one of each color and put their remains into the gem in my knife.

I quickly noticed something, according to the guide in my menu, there's a proficiency system, which means if I use these for long enough, I'll get their bonuses permanently. The weird thing is, I instantly got the bonuses permanently.

As I re-read the guide I noticed what I was looking for:

...the Assassin Hero instantly gains proficiency to catch up to the other heroes in terms of power....

I see. That will certainly be useful. Now that I think about it, can I insert other things into it too?

I decided to grab some herbs nearby and put them into my knife.

It appears I can also put other things into the gem, not only materials from monsters.

Now since that's out of the way, I decided to hunt monsters to level up.

Timeskip

After an hour I got up to level 10. The difference on how much experience you need to level up now and at first is very visible. Sadly, I didn't unlock any skills.

Just as I was about to rest, I felt weird. I felt as if there was something or someone behind me, yet there was nobody in sight for the past few minutes and I'm not necessarily close to the gates of the capital. I grabbed my handgun and quickly turned around pointing it in the direction I felt someone was.

And yet, nobody was there. I decided to look around a bit just in case. After a while, I decided that I must've imagined it, although once I took a step, I fell down.

The ground below me collapsed and I found myself in some sort of cave. As I looked up, there was no hole in the place I fell through and that means that this is some sort of secret place.

As I looked around I noticed a large gate, with a symbol of a skull carved in the middle of it.

I decided to approach it and suddenly, the gem in my knife shot out two separate beams of light into the eyes of the skull. Moments later the gate started to open on it's own, since my weapon reacted with it, perhaps this is some kind of training area for cardinal heroes?

As I walked through the gate I was in a large area, but before I could react monsters started appearing around me. The monsters here were much stronger than the ones I fought so far, so I relied heavily on my firearms.

After about ten minutes of fighting the monsters stopped appearing. Because of all the fighting, I got up to level 16.

I decided to try out my new skill on a corpse of a monster that was left, but before I could both it and the rest of the corpses evaporated. I could hear something opening behind me and when I looked it that direction, a wall was opening like a door, revealing stairs going down.

That was the moment when I realized what kind of place this is.

This is a dungeon.

I wasn't sure whether to go down or stay. A part of me wanted to continue because of the amount of experience I gained, another part of me wanted to leave because of the strength of these monsters.

After thinking for a while, I decided to descend further down. Once again monsters started appearing around me, the difference was the fact that they have visibly gotten weaker, or I simply got that much stronger from gaining six levels.

Timeskip

I kept going for what felt like one hour. I had finally finished the fourth floor and was ready to descend further down. What stopped me was the fact that I could hear sounds coming from down there. The monsters only appeared when I entered the floor, but could one be already waiting for me?

Before going down I decided to inspect the skill I gained a while ago.

That sounded extremely useful, although it had a relatively high mana cost. I shouldn't overuse it in that case.

I didn't decide to try it out because of the latter part, I suppose I'll use it when the time is right.

After mentally preparing myself, I decided to finally descend onto the fourth floor. The first thing that was in my sight were corpses of monsters on the ground and blood smeared on the walls.

In the middle of the room, stood a giant Ogre with a mace covered in blood. I shuddered at the thought that the ogre killed all the other monsters in the area.

It appeared that it didn't notice me just yet, not taking any risks I didn't come closer, I pointed my handgun at it's head and pulled the trigger.

It hit, although to my surprise the ogre didn't die.

It turned around, growled at me in anger and proceeded to charge at me.

It swung it's mace at me, I barely dodged it.

And ran away from it.

Unsure what to do, I proceeded to shoot a whole ammunition magazine of my submachine gun at it. I reloaded.

I certainly was dealing damage, although it wasn't high enough to stop the ogre in it's tracks. It got close to me once again and proceeded to wildly swing it's mace at me. I dodged most of the blows, but its final strike hit me and knocked me into a wall.

I pretended to have fainted until the ogre turned it's back to me. I quickly pulled out my submachine gun and fired at the ogre until there wasn't a single bullet left. The ogre noticed and tried to charge at me again but had trouble doing so because of the knockback.

I had to quickly think of a plan, the bullets were about to run out and I didn't have the time to reload.

Y/n:

I threw my submachine gun aside and reloaded my handgun, I stopped using the skill when I was done and fired at the ogre's head.

The impact made it take a few steps back, it nearly fell to the ground. Just how much can a single monster take? As the ogre regained balance, I felt the drawback of using Time Alter, the exhaustion made me barely able to stand.

The ogre ran straight at me, ready to swing it's mace, I decided to charge at it too, surprising the ogre. Once I was in it's range, it tried to hit me, unsuccessfully. That gave me a perfect opportunity to execute my plan.

Y/n:

I cut the ogre's stomach multiple times with my knife as it yelled in pain. It tried to hit me again and slammed the mace on the ground. Using the opportunity I ran up to the ogre with it's head down.

Y/n:

I quickly reloaded my hand gun once again and fired a bullet at it's face, nearly at point blank range. The ogre collapsed as it died and I knelt on the ground from exhaustion.

I let out a sigh of relief as I the battle was finally over. I slowly got up and noticed two things:

One: I was now level 28 because of that battle.

Two: The ogre's corpse didn't disappear like the bodies of the other monsters. I cut off a chunk of it's skin and inserted it into my knife.

This knife looked like it was made out of an ogre's fang.

I really wish I had this skill before I fought this thing, oh well it's still really useful, I'm glad I got it. I heard the wall opening behind me as usual, what surprised me was another sound beside it.

I looked behind me to find a pillar rising from the ground, it stopped at around the height of my waist.

On the pillar, there was a ring with an emblem on it, which looked exactly like the symbol on the gate at the entrance of the dungeon.

I inspected it with my status magic and a different kind of menu appeared.

Where would you like to go?

-Entrance

-Floor 5

I realized that floor five is where I'm currently at, so I picked the entrance. I was surrounded with a blue light and when I opened my eyes I was at the gate once again, the difference was that now, I could actually exit the cave, since an exit appeared where at a place where once was a stone wall.

I left the cave and found myself around the place where I fell down. I decided to go back to the city.

As I was walking I noticed a carriage with one of those giant birds carrying it, the bird was bigger than the ones I usually saw. The carriage stopped next to me and inside it, I saw Raphtalia and Naofumi.

Naofumi: Y/n! What happened to you?

I didn't realize until now that I was almost completely covered in blood.

Y/n: An Ogre. An Ogre happened.

He was confused by what I said at first but understood after a moment.

Naofumi: Just where exactly did you go that you found and ogre?

Y/n: Sorry Naofumi but I'm not exactly in the mood for talking right now, I need to get back to the capital.

Naofumi: Well fine, but at least drink this potion, it should heal your wounds.

He handed me a vial with a green liquid inside of it.

Y/n: Very well, thanks.

I took off my hood and drank the liquid, I instantly felt much better.

Naofumi just looked at me surprised.

Y/n: What?

Naofumi: Oh, sorry I just expected you to look different.

I smiled at his words as he did the same.

Y/n: Well thanks for that potion, I feel a lot better now. Stay safe on your travels, wherever you're going.

Naofumi: Thanks, are you sure you don't want to come with us?

Y/n: Say, where are you planning on going?

Naofumi: Oh, I decided to be a merchant and sell medicine, I'm going to travel quite a lot now.

Y/n: Then we're bound to meet once again sooner or later, I'll give you my answer then.

Naofumi: Okay, see you then.

Y/n: Goodbye.

I put my hood back on and kept walking in the direction of the capital, it wasn't that far away now thankfully.

As I entered the city I got a few looks from people because of my appearance, I really needed to get cleaned up. I'm was too exhausted to even do that. I was thinking about one thing, I really wanted to rest. I entered the same inn as before, the owner was visibly disturbed by my appearance but didn't question me. I paid for the room and got my key. Upon entering my room I took my hood off and instantly went to sleep. I really needed that after today.