Chapter 8: 6 – Monster hunting

January 5^th, year 782 of the Imperial calendar

'This is bad, real bad!' I thought as I assessed the situation on my bed.

This morning, I didn't wake up to a loud shout, which was definitely strange. Even when the heroine was sulking at me for the last couple of days, she would still wake me up with the usual shout and then run off somewhere.

I would have been rejoicing for the fact that the heroine had finally stopped doing that annoying thing every morning if she weren't currently lying next to me, with only her thin nightgown on.

I was even more mortified when I saw that there were blood on my bedsheet.

Now, thanks to Marcos' memories, I was sure that it couldn't have been her having her menstruation, as she was too young.

That leaves only one possibility and I refuse to admit that being the case. After all, I went to bed last night without doing anything indecent to anyone, just like everyday.

The heroine, who was already awake by the time I got up, grinned devilishly at me. 

'Good, it's just another one of her stupid pranks' I thought, before finally registering the meaning of her evil grin.

'She isn't going to do what I think she's going to do, right?'

"MOMMMMMMM!!! HELPPPP! IT HURTS!!!"

She screamed all the while still having that evil grin plastered on her face.

'Viscount Nightshade will surely misunderstand if she came into my room right now, I have to do something'

Immediately, tried to pulverize the only evidence with lightning magic. I haven't practiced much ever since the day of the ceremony, but surely destroying a bedsheet was no hard task. Besides, the viscount's office was pretty far from here, she couldn't have heard it. Well, even if she did, I would still have enough time to tamper with the evidence.

As I was focusing lightning mana, the door to my room was swung open. Cursing my luck, I looked over to see the viscount standing there.

Viscount Nightshade immediately noticed the heroine in her thin nightgown and the stain of blood on my bed. She mustered up the widest smile she could make.

"Theodore, what did you do?" 

"Nothing of interest." I replied

"Oh really? Well then, I'm going to trust you on this one—" 

"Mommy!! Theodore did something weird to make last night! My thighs hurt and I can't stand up!" The heroine suddenly interjected in our conversation.

The heroine then proceeded to stand up, clearly not hurt in the slightest, then hurried to the viscount's side. 

As I was going to point out the obvious lie, I noticed the heroine using her [S - Shallows of the abyss] skill to take out a pair of scissors, handing it to viscount Nightshade.

The viscount inspected the pair of scissors briefly before turning her head towards me.

"Well Theodore, as the punishment for lying to me, how about I turn you into Theodora?"

I widened my eyes in horror before bolting out of the room through the window. My room was on the second floor but I had awakened my Status so I was not hurt in the slightest when I landed.

---

***

Hiding in the garden and reflecting on what just happened, I face palmed myself for having been so stupid.

Viscount Nightshade had never gone anywhere close to my room since the time she first met me. And there was no way she didn't notice the heroine grinning evilly and walking besides her despite having just claimed that she couldn't move earlier.

Also, the viscount was a bad actor. Her last lines were so stiff that I didn't know how I didn't notice her terrible acting. 

Putting all those facts together, I came to the conclusion.

'I can't believe the viscount of all people joined the heroine on this one. They sure got me good this time'

Having deduced that the proof of me being a man was safe, at least for now, I made my way to the dinning hall to have breakfast.

"Well well, looks who's back" The heroine said as soon as I entered the room.

"Fine, I admit, you got me good this time"

"Hope you know the consequences of not showing me your Status now"

Not wanting to give her an excuse to do this kind of shit again, I showed her my Status. Well, I only showed her my stats. 

"Wow, you're still at G-? I didn't know you were that much weaker than me" She grinned teasingly.

"Whatever, let me just have breakfast already"

This was the last straw. If she did something this outrageous in the future, I would plummet her to the ground, regardless of whether she was a heroine or a noble's heir.

---

*** 

After having breakfast, I went back to my room, ignoring the cooking lesson today.

I skipped the lesson not because I was mad at the heroine. Well, that was part of it. But the main reason was that viscount Nightshade was going to duke Adrancus' - the dragon duke - territory for her yearly report since she was officially a part of the Northern faction.

The heroine sulked even more since her mother was going to be absent for a whole day. For me, though, this was a great opportunity.

With the strongest person in the mansion gone, I could finally go to the Ostual forest for monster hunting without worrying about being dragged back.

2 hours after the viscount departed, I started making my move. I removed the long dagger from under my bed, concealed it in my shirt and ran towards the garden. Luckily, I met no one on my way there. I easily climbed the tree and jumped over the walls. Finally, after 2 months of staying in this mansion, I could finally hunt monsters to my heart's content.

---

***

It only took me 15 minutes to get to the forest since it was relatively close to the mansion.

Upon entering the forest, I saw a pack of Horned rabbits

They looked exactly like what their name would suggest, rabbits with horns. They were small and agile, with horns as hard as steel. You wouldn't want to get hit by their horns. Even an F ranked individual would get badly hurt if a Horned rabbit used all its power to attack.

However, their method of attack was very simple, they only knew how to charge straight forward, kind of like the Mana boar and its variants.

Thanks to the knowledge of their attacking pattern, I was confident that I could defeat them.

I pulled out my dagger and held it like a sword. Having infused it with lightning mana, the dagger's blade crackled with pale white electricity which gave it a paralyzing property.

Speaking of magic, I haven't really been practicing anything other than lightning for the last 3 days. Space and Time mana was absurdly hard to control, and my wind magic was pitifully weak. Thus, the only thing I've learn in the last 3 days was to infuse objects with my lightning. 

Putting the subject of me learning magic asides, I focused on the current battle.

There were 5 rabbits.

2 of them charged at me while the other 3 fled as soon as they saw me. 

'They have good instinct' I thought.

One of the rabbits leaped at me, its horn making its way towards my abdomen. I rolled aside and dodged the attack. 

The second rabbit didn't let me recover from dodging as it immediately started to aim its horn at my neck, wanting to pierce my throat.

I ducked down and used the dagger to cut its belly from below. However, the cut was too shallow and it didn't die.

Luckily for me, the electricity on the dagger paralyzed the rabbit. I ran up to it and lodged the dagger into its neck, putting it out of its misery.

I quickly turned around, fully expecting the first rabbit to be charging at me since I took quite a while to kill the second one.

As I looked around, however, I found the first rabbit with its horn stuck in a boulder, struggling to get out.

'If that had hit me...' I gulped at the dark thought.

Poor rabbit though, it couldn't do anything but to struggle in vain when I walked up to it and slit its throat. It died soon after.

I cut out the horns and put it in the space pouch Viscount Nightshade gave me as a gift for awakening my Status.

I said down to catch my breath, waiting for the nausea of killing a living creature for the first time kick in. But, even after 30 minutes, nothing happened.

'Huh, I guess my guilty conscient wasn't activated since it was just a monster' I thought as I stood up and made my way into the deeper parts of the forest.

---

***

I spent the next hour going deeper into the forest, killing any Horned rabbits that got in my way. 

"Seriously, are there only rabbits here?"

As I was complaining, I came across a peculiar cave. After further inspecting it, I came to the conclusion that it was not a cave, instead, it was a dungeon.

The vines that were growing undisturbed over the entrance proved that no one had came across it before me. That or they had already explored this dungeon dozens of years ago.

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Getting unusually excited at the prospect of dungeon delving, I quickly ran inside it, cutting the vines that were blocking my way apart.

'Seems like this is a floor-type dungeon' I thought was I saw a flight of stairs leading downwards.

Floor-type dungeons are the most common type of dungeons. To put it simply, the dungeon is divided into many floor. Each floor have its own theme, kind of like mini pocket dimensions. Time also gets distorted in this kind of dungeon, making the time in the outside world slower than the time inside the dungeon.

I didn't pay it any mind though, as it would only mean more time exploring for me.

I descended onto the first floor. The floor's theme seemed to be a small grassy hill. Seeing nothing of interest, I started to climb to the top of the hill, only to hear rustling sound from a nearby bush.

I cautiously made my way towards the bush, before realizing what was making the sound. Well, it was... more Horned rabbits. I found it rather disappointing that the dungeon still had this kind of monster.

'How am I supposed to test out my magic if everything dies in 2 hits?'

Despite my grumbling, I still scaled the hill. It seemed like that those Horned rabbits earlier were the only monsters on this floor.

It didn't take me long to find the stairway down to the second floor. Right next to the stairwell, was a chest.

After checking for traps, I opened it. Inside was a skill book.

I was surprised, finding a skill this early on in a dungeon was definitely not common.

'I'm that lucky I guess' 

==

[F - Emotionless]

The skill consumes all of the user's emotion to boost the Strength and Intelligence stats while active, effectively raising the 2 aforementioned stats up to 2 minor ranks.

==

Despite being F-ranked, this skill was pretty decent.

While I could use it right now and get the skill, I decided not to since a certain heroine would kill to get her hands on this skill. I'm keeping it in case the plot somehow go awry and I would not be able to entice her into my party the same way the protagonist did in the novel.

Putting the skill into my space pouch, I continued further into the dungeon. 

The second floor was exactly the same as the first, except, there was... more rabbits. These rabbits were a bit stronger and much more numerous than the ones on the first floor though. Most of them were G ranked as opposed to the G- ranked rabbits of the first floor. 

That was not to say I was struggling with them. Using my [C - Magic eyes of fear], I scared away most of the rabbits. Only some higher ranked ones still stood their grounds. Thanks to it, I was only fighting a couple of rabbits at a time.

Just like that, the second floor was cleared without any issues. There were no loots, unfortunately.

'Is the dungeon mocking me?' I thought. After all, I've yet to meet anything other than rabbits.

The third floor was a jungle. As I got out of the stairwell, the first things that entered my sight was... yet more rabbits.

Angered, I ditched being stealthy and charged straight into them. 

Startled by my sudden appearance, most of the rabbits ran away while some foolishly stayed behind, preparing for a battle to the death.

I mercilessly murdered them to vent my anger. After sending all those rabbits to the afterlife, I was about to rest to recover my stamina when I heard a rustling sound. Raising my vigilance to the extreme, I tensed up and readied my stance. What came out of the bush was 4 goblins. 

Instead of getting horrified, I was absolutely overjoyed. After all, I've been fighting nothing but Horned rabbits for the whole time. Goblins would be a nice change of pace.

'I hope they can last longer than those damn rabbits'

The goblins shrieked at the sight of me. There was a goblin archer, 2 goblin swordsman and 1 club-wielding goblin.

Even though the goblins were monsters, they still had enough intelligence to get into a formation when encountering an enemy.

The archer immediately started shooting at me, which I promptly dodged with relative ease. After all, the goblin with its frail arms had barely enough strength to use the bow and the arrows were crudely made out of wood.

The archer wasn't alone in attacking me, though, as the 2 sword goblins started to charge towards me.

They swung their sword wildly, not having any techniques at all, just like I did. However, I had the advantage of having much more physical strength. As such, I knocked the sword out of one goblin's hand while kicked the other one away to distance it from me.

'This is the best moment to test out my magic', I thought as I noticed the two sword goblins were struggling to get up, the archer was reloading and the club-wielding goblin was not moving at all, seemingly affected by my eyes that were still hidden behind the pair of sunglasses.

I looked towards the struggling goblin before deciding on one to become my test dummy.

[Discharge] I chanted, using lighting mana to form currents of electricity and directed it towards the goblin.

And... nothing happened.

'Huh?' I stood there confusedly as the violent currents of pale white electricity dispersed immediately just 50cm away from me.

While I was confused about my spell not working as intended, the archer goblin had already finished reloading its arrows and shot one towards me.

Not having time to dodge, I raised my left hand to block it. Thanks to the arrow being very crudely made, it didn't do much damage. I was just bleeding a bit from the wound, nothing too special.

I was still annoyed that a mere goblin dared to wound me. As such, I immediately rushed to kill the archer goblin whose existence I've been ignoring until now.

I charged towards the sword goblins soon afterwards, decapitating one while stabbing the other in its heart.

That's when a goblin wielding a long sword jumped out of a nearby bush, forcing me to meet swords with it.

Infuriated that it dared to even use cowardly tactics against me, I infused even more lightning mana into my long dagger. The dagger shone brightly, as electricity was running wildly through it, distorting the air slightly due to the intense heat it gave off.

The electricity was then transferred to the goblin's sword and electrified its hands.

Shocked, the goblin let go of its sword and howled in pain. Using this opportunity, I kicked the goblin to the ground before stabbing my dagger in its chest multiple time, venting my anger.

Having satiated my anger, I turned towards the remaining goblin, only to find that my dagger was all bent and melted. 

Cursing myself for infusing more lightning mana than the blade could handle, I threw the dagger away and got into a stance, attempting to beat the goblin with my bare hands.

I ran towards the club wielding goblin who was horrified to see someone stronger than it aiming for its life.

It grabbed its head and crouched down, seemingly accepting its fate. 

"If you're going to die, you should put up a fight, even if it will be in vain. After all, I won't be entertained if you keep giving up like that" I snickered.

My fists connected. A shriek of pain came out... from me, instead of the goblin.

I grossly underestimated the hardness of monsters' skin. Even when my fists were infused with mana, it still felt like hitting steel.

Using the top-tier weapons of the Nightshade territory made me forget how tough these monsters could be. If I had gone in with a normal mass-produced steel sword, it would have broke as soon as I finished the first floor.

Not giving me time to dodge, the goblin swung its club at me after realizing that I couldn't do anything to it.

My body flew through the air, bending in a V shape before crashing into a nearby tree. 

"ARRGH, FUCK!" I cursed as blood spurted out of my mouth. It seemed that the strike had slightly ruptured my internal organs.

'If only I had a weapon'

<[F - Mana blood] activated>

'What?' I widened my eyes in surprise at the sudden appearance of the translucent blue screen.

Drawing my attention away from my Status though was the thing that was on my right hand.

It was blood, more specifically my blood. They were coming together in my hand from wounds all over by body, molding itself into the shape of a sword sword before crystalizing, forming short sword made out of hardened blood.

Although my vision was a bit blurry, which I thought was due to blood loss, I could still make out the hazy figure of the enemy.

Not letting this chance go to waste, I tightened my grip on the sword and charged towards the club-wielding bastard.

However, without even being able to take 3 steps forwards, I feel down to my knees.

"YOU BASTARD, YOU POISONED YOUR ARROW!" I screamed, cursing the dead archer goblin as I realized why my vision was getting so blurry earlier.

'Are you kidding me? Where did they find such potent poiso—' 

Interrupting my thoughts, the club-wielding goblin strike my head with its club.

Suffering from concussion, I started to lose consciousness, leaving my body at the mercy of the goblin.

'Please, someone, anyone, save me..'

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