Unpleasant.

Painful.

Dizzy.

I regained consciousness and those sensations were assailing me from every part of my body.

My last memory was of me falling somewhere, and it was most likely exact since I indeed fell but was caught by something.

My body was caught in some sort of long spiraling and elastic tendrils.

I have no idea where the hell I am, but first I’ll have to verify something.

Summoning over my reality figer, I sent it out as patrol, surveilling what was beneath my feet.

There seemed to be a platform under me, not too far, maybe five meters or six.

I don’t know how much time I spent hanging, but I can’t stay here forever, trying to free myself from the restraining vine, I was suddenly assaulted by an acute pain that just slightly missed to knock me up for a second time.

Unlike the spike wound I received that night, the one I received earlier if it was really earlier, didn’t have time to cicatrize around the wound.

All in all, I’ll be fine here, for the time being.

I ran once more...

I was too exhausted to be depressed.

I let out a long sigh.

I could feel rage and frustration rising within me.

In an attempt to vent my rage, I began kicking and agitating in every way, baring my teeth like a crazed dog, and I was even tempted to bark at this point but was stopped by my last strand of sanity.

To be honest, I was expecting the tendrils that were keeping me from failing to break, leaving me to fall to my death.

My fortune has recently been so abysmal, that if that actually happened, it wouldn't even come by as a surprise to me.

At this point, I would be a more appropriate holder of the title of accursed than Djeem the accursed himself.

“Ouch… Aie… aie… my arm.“

My constant agitation appeared to have triggered the pain in my right arm, I was trying to ignore. Instinctively I tried to grab onto the arm with my right hand, just to notice that it was also missing.

Aaah. Should I laugh or cry?

I’m collecting disabilities one after another.

First my right arm, then my eyes, and now the only arm I have left hurt like hell every time I try to move it.

At this point, it's as if I'm speedrunning the march of misfortune straight to a horrible and painful death, at this pace, I doubt I’ll make it past ten.

At first, I tried to be optimistic about my vision loss, telling myself that as long as I focused on an objective, a dream, I would be fine.

But no, everything is worthless, useless, and in vain; every single living thing in the damn world exists solely to obstruct my goddamn path.

And the most frustrating part is that I lack the strength to blast away those things or those who stand in my way.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.

A gentle yet wet bristle came caressing my face.

Maybe, I should build another shelter here. And forever stay here.

I mean I haven’t explored yet… but from what I’ve read magical beasts around here are said to be not as horrible and as strong as magical beasts dwelling in some area of the forest.

Peace… it would be nice, right?

“GRAAAAAAH!” my own roar dispelled my own thoughts.

I suddenly felt a scourge of anger coming from deep within.

Hiding here like a rat, as if … I could.

Arm, limbs, who need these as long as I live, I can replace but never again, I said never again I will accept such humiliation.

Maybe it was the strange enraged state I was in but the strange tendrils entangling my whole body were reacting to me.

As if getting lives, they were moving, wrapping around my body and I felt it ...

Suddenly they tore off from where they were attached, leaving me falling straight to the ground.

With a “thud”, I reached the ground, I wasn’t hurt or anything.

I knew what it was, it's just that I have forgotten.

I once showed this strange trick to Ramia, but she never managed to learn how to use it.

When enhancing a weapon, you simply infuse your own weapon with aina, your aina, it's as simple as that, but the process is a little more complex than that because enhancing a weapon is akin to making the weapon an enhanced extension of your own body; This method not only solidifies your weapon, but it also improves some of its initial properties, such as sharpness.

But what if the thing you're enhancing isn't as straight as a sword, but rather something bendable or malleable to some extent, like a rope or the tendrils that were entangling my body?

I'm not sure why Ramia couldn't, but I'm capable of enhancing, changing its shape, as I did to restrain her that time.

At that time Ramia referred to this thing as something worthless but it was the thing that inferred me from falling flat onto the ground.

Two strands of tendrils were wrapped around my waist, supporting my body, and the four extremities of the strand of tendrils were firmly anchored on the ground, preventing me from collapsing.

The wrath I was initially expressing was gradually fading, replaced by a gentler feeling; it wasn't relief, satisfaction, or surprise, but something in between.

It was a sudden mood shift but the moment I realized what happened it felt like seeing a thread of light after being in the dark for years.

Coming from the extremities of the tendrils firmly encased in the ground, I could feel the moisty mosses wetness and coldness, strangely I even slowly also noticed that I also could felt the moistness of the surrounding from my tendrils.

To be honest, it was even overwhelming. It felt like your body was suddenly expanding, causing you to feel sensations from parts you'd never used before.

I descended the ground slowly, controlling the tendrils. My feet had drowned in a small pool of cold water, just as I had felt from the tendril extremities. Those sensations I felt from my tendrils were not just figments of my imagination.

I was still lost in thought when I heard a loud and sharp screech coming from not far away, but slightly above my level, possibly on an adjacent parallel platform.

The aforementioned screech was immediately followed by several other screeches.

The middle layer, as previously stated, is made of giant overbearing mushroom caps that grew on the wall, forming a large horizontal platform. As a result, the relief in the middle layer is composed of multiple layers of half-disk-shaped platforms that are roughly parallel to one another.

Like a massive staired veranda, if I could say.

The first screech came from a slightly higher adjacent platform above the one I was on, while the others came from various directions around me. Except from my left, which I believe is the gap between the two sides of the ravine.

Following the first screech, there was a noise that sounded like a jump, followed by the thud of a landing about ten meters away from me.

The thing that landed let out another screech, but this time, due to the creature's close proximity, the screech was on a whole new level in terms of crispness.

The creature took a step closer to me, and the noise of its step suggested a quadripedal creature, possibly the size of a large horse.

What did I just say about my fortune?

Being no longer able to use my right arm, I noticed that I had already deployed the tendrils as some sort of tentacles around me.

I was awaiting any sudden movement from the beast and was soon served with a savage leap.

With one of the tendrils supporting my body, I distanced myself from the ground and the beast and sent out two of its extremities slamming toward the monsters.

The thing made no attempt to avoid the tendrils and instead charged straight into them, the tendrils enhanced appearing to carry a relatively strong force with it, as I could feel the monster wobbling upon contact. During the brief interaction, I could feel the creature's though and scaly skin.

It worked….

This thing worked on monsters… or at least this one.

Instead of being happy, I was slowly eaten away by a very chaotic feeling just like earlier…

“GRAAAAAAH!” I instinctively let out.

anger… rage… frustration… all of this, I felt like I was given the opportunity to vent it all out.

I charged at the monster, sent out my tentacles to immobilize it,

It tried to evade by clawing at it but was instead more easily restrained, once he was and I pinned on the ground, I dashed at it to get closer and went toward it, toward the area where its rib should be.

Then I began stomping in like a maniac.

My tentacle, which was restraining its mouth, choked out the creature's pained screech.

“That’s it! Screech!! Cry for help!! Nothing will come to save your life!!”

It started out hard and bony but progressively turned soft, bloody, and squishy.

After some time, the creature which I assume was a drake, went completely silent surely dead.

Breathing in and out loudly, I distanced myself from the monster corpse, it was then where I heard several other “thuds” just like earlier.

If I had to guess the creatures which landed on this platform were the same which let out the same faraway screeches from earlier responding to the first one.

“Hahahaha! What a farce! At the very least, something came for you." I couldn't stop myself from laughing. "It's a shame they're too late! But don't worry, they'll be there soon." I said, aggressively barring my tentacle at them.

I fought, tore them apart, stomped their body…

Again and again…

For that was all I was fated to do…

For that was all I could do….

I went on a rampage.

I was simply trying to let out all of the anger and frustration that had been building up inside of me.

Dragonoid, High beast, it didn’t matter, I fought them all, I killed them all.

For that was the only way I had to make myself feel less worthless.