Chapter 6:The False Hope
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CHAPTER 6:

THE FALSE HOPE

*

After defeating the minotaur and figuring out my powers, I then spent the next few hours exploring the cavern, hoping to find a way out. Unfortunately, though there was one, it had been covered with rocks and stones, assuming from a collapse, and they were too heavy for me to clear out. 

The weird thing about that was, though there were signs of an explosion, they were from my side. It got me thinking: "Did somebody blow up the entrance from within the cavern? But then who in their right mind would do that, and as a result trap themselves in here?" Nevertheless, that left me with no other choice than to go back and venture in the temple, praying that it would eventually lead to somewhere outside.

Incidentally, when I got back to the entrance of the temple, the minotaur’s corpse had vanished, and in its place was a crystal ball. Within it were some kind of brown smoke swirling around like mist. Without any speculation needed, I immediately knew what it was. In basically any web novel I’ve read which involved magic, this was a common trope. 

Of course, it was one of them mana crystals, which drops when a monster dies. And seeing that this one’s owner had disappeared, I guess this world belongs to the old school type of novels where things just evaporate into thin air as they are defeated, like old games where technical limitations did not allow for corpses to remain on screen. It was a shame, because I would’ve liked to collect some materials from the minotaur and sell them for money, something I most definitely lack.

Anyhow, I guessed the crystal could still fetch a good price, so I picked it up and put it in my pouch. Sadly, the pouch was just a normal one, and not a kind of multi-dimensional storage, a trope present in most fantasy web novels. Still, it wasn’t much of a deal breaker, because I hated that trope anyway since it was stupid, and anyone who disagree with me is also stupid. Stupid.

After I was done with that, I then found another one near the spot I woke up in, which I somehow failed to notice back then. The second crystal, unlike the one from the minotaur, was bright and colorful, so much so that I thought it came from a unicorn, or worse, the legendary Nyan cat! And now you millenials can’t get the song out of your head, can you? Muahahaha! 

Anyway, I couldn’t determine where this one came from, because I had only killed one thing so far. “I guess it was something the original owner of this body killed before she died?” Accepting that as a probable answer, I put the rainbow crystal in the pouch with the other one, then pressed on.

----------

“Jesus, this place smells like a sewer." I said as I made my way inside, which led underground from the entrance. The interior was dark, without a sign of a light source anywhere. Yet somehow, I could see everything so well. The individual bricks, the scarce drops of water dripping from the ceiling, the moss that had invaded most of the surfaces, as clear as day. Even when compared to someone well accustomed to living in the dark, this level of clarity was too much. 

And on top of that, my hearing was impeccable as well. The rumbling of the cavern above, the water running along the cracks, the movements within the temple - assumingly from the monsters inhabiting it, I could hear it all. Not only the sounds, but also the weights and the distances from me to the owners of those sounds. "Is this girl even human?" I thought. At this point, it wouldn't be strange if she were actually a demi-human. You know, one of those animal-eared girls that every young boy has a totally unhealthy amount of fascination for but is too afraid to admit it. Unfortunately, this one doesn't have those ears, so hold your horses, you perv.

Anyhow, with my outstanding senses, there was no longer any danger I had to face. I could detect any monster's location, and sent my knives through walls to kill them way before they could see me. I could hear mechanisms clanking within the walls, figure out if a room or corridor was filled with traps, and easily avoid them. Thanks to that, my journey was a breeze.

Or at least it was. Until now, every monster I've met was easily defeated in one strike from the knives, with the same tactic. That was, to make them go underground beneath the monsters, then stab them from below. Sounds cowardly, but it worked flawlessly. And to begin with, I was fighting for survival, not valor.

The problem was the closed room ahead of me. Inside that room was a creature that, judging from the weight of its footsteps, was several times bigger than the minotaur I fought in the beginning. What's more, its intimidating presence could be felt from a mile away, and was already making my skin crawl.

So naturally, I reused the same tactic: controlling my knives to phase through the ground, positioning them under the creature, then launch them upward. This time, I used all eight of them to be sure. Aaaand… that didn't work. The moment the knives left the cover of the ground, the creature immediately jumped in unison, avoiding them completely. In fact, it jumped so high that it crashed into the ceiling, before attaching itself to it. 

Though losing the element of surprise, I continued to fire my knives at the creature. But just like before, it easily jumped out of the way no matter when and where I fired. It was like a locust that keeps escaping your hands when you reach out to catch it. Though this "locust" weighed several tonnes and was causing earthquakes everytime it crashed against the wall. 

Just how quick are your reflexes?!! I screamed inside my mind out of frustration, as the knives kept missing.

I could've ignored the thing. I could've left the sleeping dog lie and went the other way, avoiding all the trouble. I really could've. Unfortunately, and the creator of this temple be damned, the only way forward was through the door on the opposite end of this room, where the wretched monster that I hadn't even seen its face yet, was currently causing unintentional havoc. And I had no intention of facing it head on, not when my most effective means of attack was failing over and over.

Which means there was only one way to go. "Right, let's book it." I told myself after weighing all the options I had. The plan was to throw my knives to lure the monster away from the door, then run as fast as I could while making the knives fly wildly around to keep it from attacking me. It was a crude plan - if that could even be called a plan at all, but I had no other choice. Either risk it, or be doomed to wander this cavern and temple till I starve to death.

I wasted no time in executing my plan. First, I made a knife launch itself from behind the monster, which was crawling on the wall directly above the exit. As expected, it quickly jumped back - away from said wall, to avoid being cut. I kept on throwing the knives at it from different directions, indirectly controlling where it would jump to, until the monster was finally at the place most unlikely to interfere with my escape. It was now on the ceiling, with its back touching the wall on the opposite side of the exit. In other words, directly above the door leading into the room, and where I was hiding.

Having a monster of unknown nature hanging right above my head was nerve wracking, but I was now in its blind spot. Which meant as long as I carefully concealed my presence, I could at least move to the center of the room before it could see me. The rest of the distance could be covered by just running really fast, and I had confidence in my speed.

From behind the entry door, I started crawling forward. Very slowly, while paying extra attention not to make any noise. I didn't even dare to breathe, or look up to see what the monster looked like, in case it would somehow sense my gaze. Does it ever occur to you that sometimes when you look at people and suddenly they, as if having eyes on their back, turn around and look straight at you? Yeah, wouldn't want that to happen here.

Slowly, calmly, inch by inch I crawled, while the monster above me was growling and - I could've sworn, breathing next to my ears, but I assumed that was just my excellent hearing working perfectly, and had the unintended effect of psyching me out. A drop of liquid dropped on my head, and I could immediately smell it out to be the monster's saliva. Normally I would've yelled out of disgust, but that would spell my death, so I bit my lip and kept moving. All the while, my sweat rolling down the floor was tracing my way. On the way, I passed numerous piles of bones, presumably leftover from the monster’s mealtimes, and my nerves were shaken even more.

As soon as I reached the center of the room, I ran with all my might without bothering to look back, with the exit being all I focused on. I was confident that even if the monster could see me now, it would've still taken a good second to reach me from the other end of the room. And by the time it did, I would've gone through the exit which was too small for it. But the moment I put strength into my legs, I felt something approaching me from above.

I had made a terrible mistake. I had thought I was in the monster's blindspot the whole time, without considering the fact that such assessment was only true if it only had eyes on the front of its face. Feeling the danger a tick too late due to my overconfidence, I couldn't dodge it in time, and as a result, I heard a *crunch* - the sound of bone breaking, followed by a sharp pain on my right leg.

"AHHHGH!!!" I screamed. The pain was excruciating, comparable to having my leg cut off. It certainly wasn't, but only because "crushed" and "cut" are two different words. I could no longer feel anything below my right thigh, and when I looked at it, I saw a giant gorilla leg stomping on my knee. I then looked up at the owner of the leg, and saw a gorilla snaring its teeth at me. 

Or at least, that was what its silhouette looked like, because that "thing" looked more like an eldritch horror in the shape of a gorilla. It had four pairs of legs, three of which resembled spider legs and were sticking out from the monster's waist - patchwork style, in addition to the normal looking pair that were standing on mine. 

Its body and arms were normal, if not crazily buffed in gorilla fashion, but its head was something out of a nightmare: there were eyes all over its face, front, side and back. They were even sticking out of its ears and underneath its chin. Each of which was bloodshot, and moved independently from one another as if they were separate entities, just housing themselves on a gorilla head like barnacles. 

No wonder my plan failed - with that amount of eyes, it had no blindspot. And judging from where it dropped on me from, it must have been following me with those spider legs to not make a single noise, even to my excellent hearing. And now, it was smiling ears to ears (I thought animals can't smile), as if mocking me. So the entire time, I was making a fool for myself, crawling on the ground like an idiot, while this bastard was watching and snickering to itself. And even though it could've attacked me the moment I walked through the door, it decided to wait till I was complacent, in order to crush my spirit along with my leg.

And that worked. Right now, my mind was blank. The broken leg meaning there was no way I could escape from the monster now, and the pain was getting worse. I was sweating like a water fountain, breathing heavily and my head was getting hazy. Damn it! If only I had taken a glance at this thing first…

"HUEGHHH!!!" It kicked me in the stomach with the force of a power hammer and sent me flying. I didn't know how far I went, or how many times my lifeless body rolled through the dirt, it only stopped by colliding with a stone wall. As my head also clashed with a hard surface with a bang, I struggled to keep my consciousness from fading. I didn't even know why I did that. At least if I passed out then, it wouldn't hurt when the monster would kill me.

…Wait, "with a bang"? Stone shouldn't make that sound? As the spider-gorilla was jolly walking towards me, I turned my head, which was burning in pain, to the place it hit, and saw a light brown, wooden surface. 

"...The exit!" Because my head was in a haze, it took me a while to notice that the monster had kicked me straight at where I was trying to get to in the first place. I still have a chance! Using the last of my strength, I forced myself up and slammed the wooden door open with my shoulder. The spider-gorilla, which had probably figured out my intention, immediately came at me with a deafening roar. But I was faster. Taking out the knives from my thighs and throwing them at it, I then put pressure on my still healthy leg and sprung myself through the doorway, as the monster was busy warding off the knives that kept coming at it like mosquitoes. 

“HURGH!!!” The impact from the jump put a toll on the broken leg and caused more pain, but I ground my teeth, as I was not safe yet. I immediately rolled to the left, far away from the door just in time for a gorilla arm to burst through it, and missed me. It kept waving about, trying to find its prey, but thankfully the arm was too short and muscular to fit through the door entirely and reach me. After a while, the arm finally stopped thrashing around and retreated, and the door automatically closed after it. “Haah... Haah...” Only then could I hear my ragging breath again, and my head was getting cloudier. The last thing my eyes saw before I passed out was a ray of silver light, bright but warm, coming from a pedestal situated in the middle of the room.

*

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