Chapter 8 (1/2)

Chapter 8 : Abyss

Gore Warning.

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Zaa-the sound of running water. A cool breeze brushed against his cheeks and caused him to tremble. There was a solid sensation in contact with his face and a chill pierced his lower half of his body. Hajime raised a groan as he work up.

Absentmindedly, he put forth effort to sit upright while his whole body scowl as it throbbed with pain.

“Ow, This is…For sure I…”

Holding his unsteady head with one hand, he studied the vicinity whilst he recalled his memories. Even though the surrounding was dim, thanks to the emission from the green light stones, it was not like he was blinded by the darkness. In front of Hajime was a river about 5 m in width, and it was in this that his lower body was submerged in. Hajime’s upper body seems to have been caught and stranded by protruding rocks located at the side of the river.

“Yeah…I fell down the broken bridge…thereupon…”

His head that had a fog clouding his mind finally started to turns its gears again. Hajime must have survived the drop by sheer luck. In the middle of his fall he encountered area where the cliff had a puncture, from this leak water sprouted out like a flood. There were numberless waterfalls here, and these waterfalls blew away Hajime time after time until gradually he was thrust to the wall. At the very end he was pushed out of a tunnel that was like a waterslide. It was an unbelievable miracle. When he was flying out of the tunnel Hajime hit his head and lost consciousness. Personally, Hajime did not know how such a miracle took place.

“Anyway, I was saved…Achoo! I-It’s cold.”

He was submerged in the cold underground water this whole time, because of this his whole body was completely cold. At this rate there was a possibility that he could catch hypothermia, Hajime quickly picked himself up. Trembling and shivering he took off his clothes and wringed them.

Using his transmutation he created a single sheet of paper. On the hard stone floor he started to engrave a transmutation circle.

“It’s too cold to concentrate…”

He wanted a “Spark” magic. This was a simple magic that even children could perform with a 10 cm magic formation. At this moment, there was no magic stones to increase the efficiency of the magic because Hajime needed it with his zero aptitude for magic. Hajime would have to make a complicated formula that would be 1 m in diameter to cast that “Spark”. After 10 minutes he was able to finished the magic formation and started his chanting to activate it.

“I seek fire,The power of light, Manifest, “Spark”…Why is there such an exaggerated chant just to create an ordinary flame? So embarrassing…Ha-a.”

The sighing seems to have become a habit recently. Still he invoked the fist-sized flame and bathed in its warmth. He set his clothes side by side near the flames to dry it.

“I wonder where this is…I think I fell a considerable height…can I return?”

Warming himself with the flame, he could feel himself calm. Gradually anxiety started to fill his heart. Hajime really wanted to cry, tears even started to accumulate in his eyes , but he bore with it because if he cried now he would fall apart. He wiped away the tears that had collected and slapped his own cheeks.

“Got no other choice, I have to find a way back. It’s fine, I’m sure it will be fine.”

Hajime’s face developed into a determined one after he muttered encouragements to himself, all while staring at the flames.

After about 20 minutes the clothes were dry and warm, so Hajime set off. Hajime was not sure which level he was in but for sure he was still in the Dungeon. It wouldn’t be strange to have monsters lurking. He carefully proceeded to walk down into a huge passage that lead into the depths.

The passage that Hajime continued on felt like a cave. Rather than a low-rise square passage, the passage had rocks and walls protruding in many places and it winds around complicatedly. It was similar to the last room on the 20th floor, the only difference was the size. The complicated passage full of obstacles was 20 m in diameter. Even the more narrow places was still 10 m in diameter. Although it was not an easy path to treat, there were a lot of places to hide and Hajime advanced stealthily from hiding area to hiding area.

He wondered how much he walked. Hajime started to feel tired, until he finally reached a fork for the first time. A huge crossroad was presented to him. Behind the boulder was Hajime hiding, he wondered which path he should take.

A moment was taken to think over it. He thought he saw something at the edge of his vision and he quickly hid behind a rock. Quietly he stuck his head out and waited to see. From the passage straight ahead, a white fur ball hopped into view. It had long ears, and it looked like a rabbit. However, it was about the size of a mid-sized dog and its hind legs were heavily muscled. The “rabbit” also had several dark red lines running along its body like blood vessels, the lines also pulsated like a heart. That was very creepy.

Clearly, it was a dangerous demon. Hajime decided to avoid by going left or right instead of going straight. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to proceed to the right because the “rabbit” was near it. Hajime held his breath and waited for the time to move. At that moment, the rabbit turned around and started to sniff the ground. Right now! He tried to move at that.

The rabbit seemed to react to that and it quickly straighten its back to stand up. It’s vigilant ears rustled.

(Crap! D-Did it find me? I-I’m fine?)

He clung his body to the boulder to hide himself, and he tried to gain control of his thumping heart. Those keen ear felt like they could pick up his throbbing heart, he broke out into a cold sweat at that thought.

Luckily, it was a different reason the rabbit was alert.

“Guru~ua!”

A wolf-like demon with white hair jumped out and growled at the rabbit. The white wolf had two tails and was about the size of a large dog. Just like the rabbit, the wolf had the same palpitating dark red lines all over its body. After that wolf jump out, two more wolves jumped out from behind different stones to join it.

Hajime peeked his head out and observed the situation. No matter how you look at it, the wolves were going to prey on the rabbit-chan (though it wasn’t cute enough to attach chan). With the cover of confusion Hajime half rose his feet. However…

“Kyu!”

A cute cry leaked from it and jumped into the air with a rotation. The rabbit gave a roundhouse kick with its massive legs and smacked the first wolf.

Dopan

The kick generated a sound that wasn’t thought possible. Rabbit-chan’s got a clean kick to the wolf’s head.

Gogya

There was a resounding echo and Hajime could see that the wolf’s neck had been bent into the wrong direction.

Hajime went rigid at that display. Using the centrifugal force from the roundhouse kick, the rabbit rotated in the air until it was in an upside-down state. The rabbit stomped the air and fell towards the ground like a meteor. Just before landing, it rotated itself perpendicular to it and gave a powerful heel drop to the wolf close to the landing point.

Begya

Without even getting the chance to give off a death throe, both the wolves heads were pulverized. Another two wolves appeared to jump at the rabbit when it landed. Hajime thought it was this moment that the rabbit would lose. The rabbit was able to do a handstand while rotating his legs, just like a break dancer. Both of the wolves were flung towards and slammed against it because of the tornado like rotating kicks. Blood splashed against the walls and their corpse trailed down.

The last wolf ruffled its tail as it growled. Soon the tails started to discharge electricity. It was trying to cast a Special Magic.

“Guru-ua!”

Lightning fly at the rabbit with a howl. As the high-speed lightning approached, the rabbit avoided it splendidly by performing zigzagging steps. When the lightning dissipated the rabbit drove a somersault kick into the wolf’s jaw in one go. The kick blew the wolf away and it landed on the ground backwards and bent. It seemed like its neck broke from the force.

“Kyu!”

A victory cry? The rabbit raised its forelimbs and brushed off its ears.

“Mommy, tell me it’s a lie.”

Hajime who was still stiff can only give a dry smile. Isn’t this dangerous? The Traum Soldier that the students had trouble with looked like toys compared to this bunny. This rabbit may be stronger than the Behemoth, who could only do simple monotonous attacks.

He knew that if he was caught it would be certain death, this fretting caused him to unconsciously step back. That was an error.

Karan [Tap]

That noise echoed throughout the whole cave. Hajime had kicked a pebble near his feet that fell and created that racket. Such a cliché grave mistake. A large amount of cold sweat streamed down his face. The rabbit turns its head like a machine that wasn’t oiled to the sound.

Hajime was definitely seen.

It’s ruby red eyes narrow as it caught sight of Hajime. He froze like a frog hypnotized by a snake. Alarms bells started to go off in his head and his soul told him to run for his life, but his body did not listen to him.

Finally, the rabbit that had only been looking back at Hajime with his head, orientated its whole body towards him. It started to pour energy into its legs.

“It’s coming!”

He instinctively knew that. Rabbit demon exploded towards him, it dashed at him at an absurd speed that left afterimages behind it.