With everything in order, I headed down the tunnel with Daryle and Misty walking together behind me. 

I had planned on talking to Misty about her hate for demons at our lunch break, but this new development made me hold my tongue. It would be better to see how close this experience brought them. If all went well, I could let Daryle handle talking to her.

For now, I put the two of them out of my mind and focused on the next cave. I had reached level 50, but the tentacle monster I had faced before had been a lot stronger than the mini-boss golem before it. That probably meant things were going to get harder from here on out.

Getting to the entrance of the next cave, I put my hand up and the other two stopped as I crept forward to scout. The moment I saw what was inside the cave, I had a strong desire to go home. With an internal sigh, I scanned the two ten-foot-tall Minotuars that were pacing back and forth. Each of them had massive axes bigger than I was tall.

Monster Name: (Rare Unique) Brute Captain Minotaur

Level: 62

Physical Power: 1540

Magical Power: 0

Agility: 1260

Resilience: 3220

Abilities :

1. (Passive) (Rare)Overwhelming Ax Wielder: Double Physical Power while wielding an ax.
2. (Passive) (Unique)Earth Cleaver Blessing: Attacks expel twice as much kinetic force on impact.
3. (Passive) (Rare)Veteran Hide Armor: Immune to all Bludgeoning attacks below level 100.

I scanned the other one, but the skills were the same. Neither of them had any magic or activated skills. They were just stupidly strong and built like brick shit houses. If I had a brain in my head, I would go somewhere else and train more, but I was itching to try my new skills out.

If worse came to worst, Daryle would just have to bail me out.

"Oh, those guys look like trouble," Daryle said quietly as he came up beside me. "A bit out of your range, for just one of them, but two is going to be too much for you, I think."

While I didn't disagree with him, I still wanted to try. I needed to get myself to level 200 before I was comfortable with going headfirst into this war, even then I didn't think it was enough. People like Daryle and Mary were two and three times my level. Even so, I had no clue how I would be able to grow that much in such a short amount of time. 

The only thing that I could think of now was to push myself.

"I might not be able to beat them, but I still want to try," I finally said. "You can just save me if I need it, right?"

Daryle nodded. "We will stand back, and wait."

Rolling my shoulders, I turned back to the cave, summoning my daggers to hand. I would start by keeping my distance, and see if I could get a read on their movements. 

Feeling ready, I breathed in and focused, then burst into the cave, taking a hard right. Almost instantly, my movement started to slow as both minoturs looked at me. It wasn't the same as with the mini-boss, they were just faster than me.

Both beasts rushed at me, but my body wasn't moving fast enough. I activated my Time Dilation Stance Skill, but it only allowed me to slow things down a bit, but my body was going slower as well. I barely dodged an overhead cleave from the first minotaur, but the impact sent me flying.

For an instant, my focus broke, and so did my stance. The moment I was able to get my focus back, I was forced to watch as the second minotaur's giant ax cut through my leg just below my knee. I could only open my eyes wide in slow motion as the ax was brought around to hit me with the flat side.

Or it would have, but then I was back in the tunnel with Daryle shaking his head. Then my eyes watered as searing pain started to rise up my leg. I bit down on my lip hard to pull my focus from that pain and used restore. Instantly, my leg stopped hurting, and I looked down with a sigh, and wiped my eyes. Never in my life had I felt something like that before. 

The ice from the golem had been one thing, but that thing had chopped my leg off without me being able to do anything but watch it. The scene of the ax kept playing through my head until Daryle kicked my freshly healed leg playfully.

"Another one of your broken skills?" Daryle asked, and I sighed, looking up at him.

"I am glad that I have it, but I never imagined those creatures could be so strong," I said as I used Restore on my pants.

"Creatures like that specialize in being fast, tough, and very strong since they don't have magic or usable skill. That being said, they are weak to many kinds of magic, but you don't know anything of that level besides levitate, which won't work because they are too heavy. You could have summoned Bonsey, but he wouldn't have been any help either. Something like this should be done with a team," Daryle explained, and I looked back down at my leg.

That encounter had put a good bit of fear into me, but I was bound to face things that were going to be hard in the future. This was a perfect chance to test how effective skill points were.

"So? Are you ready to go back for the day? You can run through here again tomorrow, and the place will be the same. You will be better leveled to face these guys then," Daryle told me, offering me a hand, but I shook my head.

"I have skill points, and I feel like this is a good chance to see just how much of a difference I need in ability points to create a noticeable gap. You were here to save me this time, but if you weren't, I would have still restored myself and had to use my points to get out of the cave alive," I explained, taking his hand.

Daryle chuckled at me. "You really are hard-headed, aren't you?"

"If I want peace, I have to be able to keep it. That means getting strong enough to swat away any problems," I said as I opened my Stat Menu. "There is an art to being lazy. It takes real effort because if you truly desire to not want to turn the light switch off before bed, you will learn to become a sniper with a pillow!"

"What are you even talking about?" Daryle asked, and I rolled my eyes.

"Just save me if it looks like I am going to die," I sighed.