Haru's hand subconsciously reached out for the handle of his knife, Haru decided to keep the blade sheathed safely inside its leather holster that was strapped to his right thigh. Resting his hand on the pommel of the kitchen knife he started to walk around the area, the map in his grandfather's journal had previously been correct but Haru remained unsure about the authenticity of its contents.
Trusting the conjoined pieces of paper with his life would not be the wisest of decisions, so as Haru walked along and exclaimed the area closest to the staircase he periodically pulled out the journal from his jackets inside pocket and checked the sketched map. Confirming that the map was accurate was a valuable use of time, while searching for monsters to slay.
True to the man's word from the staircase it took Haru several minutes to even find a sign of a monster in the dungeon after they had cleared them all out on the way back to the surface. Haru stopped in the middle of the dungeons tunnel for a moment upon hearing the soft sound of footsteps, he quickly stored the journal back into its rightful place in his brown jacket and took a defensive stance.
He bent his knees ever so slightly and spread his feet apart a fair amount, his hand wrapped around the handle of the knife that Syr had gifted him and with a small jerk Haru pulled the blade from its sheath. For a moment Haru was able to compare the sensation to his first time in the dungeon, when the first creature walked around the corner and revealed itself to the young boy. But there was little time for such thoughts as Haru pushed those ideas to the back of his brain and focused simply on the present.
His surroundings were in his favor, the path he had traveled so far was clear of creatures so at the very least in case things took a turn for the worst he would have a safe path back to the spiral staircase.
Same as before the stubby green skinned creature with saggy flesh and bloodshot eyes, the monster had its arms raised slightly and mouth agape a tiny bit. Drool leaked from the monster's mouth where several stained yellow and uneven teeth made for a rather revolting smile. Upon seeing Haru with its dark red eyes it started to make its approach towards the unofficial adventurer.
Haru was prepared, he held his knife tightly in his right hand and waited for the monster. He had to fight to push down the urge to simply charge the monster and launch his assault, but the biggest thing that seperated monster from man was a sense of reason and strategy. Simply ignoring and discarding such a valuable advantage would be an idiotic desiction.
Once the creature was within range and only a step or two away from launching its own attack Haru lurched forward with his knife in hand to slay the green creature, Haru had not only had a height advantage over the monster but an advantage in arm length as well. By the time that Haru's knife was already embedded inside of the creature's chest it had barely stretched its arms out to try and attack Haru's torso. The disgustingly pale green monster's dirty and chipped nails dug into his arms just enough to hurt slightly but not enough to actually draw blood.
As the green creature held onto Haru's biceps with a slowly weakening grip Haru pulled back the knife until the blade was just out of the wound before thrusting it forward again for a second time, creating an entirely new stab wound an inch or two to the left of the first one. As Haru stabbed into the monster he felt the grip on his biceps tighten a bit as its nails dug into his flesh, it snapped its jaws several times and tried to bite Haru on the hands or arms.
However the creature quickly found itself unable to do so as its neck was not long enough to quite get at Haru limbs. Wanting to keep the monster occupied and unable to come up with another type of attack to try on the white haired boy, Haru pulled back the knife again and with a scream of pain from the creature he thrust the knife back into the monster's chest.
Red blood now leaked down the monster's front torso, the crimson liquid poured out from the three stab wounds that Haru had caused in the Goblin's chest. Very quickly the two stood in a small puddle of red as Haru continued to stab the Goblin again and again in the chest until it was to the point that it was less of stabbing and more hacking and slashing at the monster's chest.
As the life drained from the creatures eyes and the grip on Haru's arms slowly became more laxed Haru pulled the knife out of the Goblins chest for the final time and with a slight quick jab to the chest it fell backwards weakly with a chilling thud as the monsters skull collide with the cold jagged stone of the dungeons floor. Very quickly a small puddle of blood formed around the head of the monster and it became hard to see the creature's green chest through the blood that gushed from the knife wound in its chest.
Haru crouched down swiftly, pinning the monster's arms to the ground with his knees just to be safe and raised the knife above his head with his right hand on the handle and the left on the top to add some extra force. With a quick downwards motion Haru embedded the kitchen knife into the skull of the Goblin and finished off the creature for certain.
While Haru had been nearly positive that the monster was dead from the previous wound, it was a smart idea to always land another solid hit to guarantee the creature's death. With the blade in the skull of the Goblin, Haru went to work getting prepared to harvest its crystal. Pulling the knife from the creature's head he kneeled down beside it and started to carve it open, his hands and lower arms quickly becoming stained a rather dark red with the foul smelling blood.
Inside of Haru's backpack was a small pouch that would store his harvested crystals after he finished digging them out of the corpses. It took a little while to work the knife and dig out the small purple crystal, mostly because Haru was trying to be as careful as possible with the blade to keep it as clean and sharp as physically possible while digging through monster guts.
Most adventurers carried a second smaller knife with them, to use for carving out the gems of monsters. They were typically smaller and more easy to maneuver and in doing so it also saved wear and tear of an adventurer's main weaponry.
Unfortunately Haru did not have the liberty for such a knife so he had no other choice then to use the one blade that he had in his possession, making a small mental note that after he got back on his feet and had a bit of spare money that a spare gutting knife would be a smart purchase.
Finishing with the bloody gutting Haru found the monster's small purple crystal and pulled it from the monster's body, upon doing so the remains of the Goblin disappeared in a small pile of ash that made Haru cough slightly and take a moment to rub his eyes. Standing up he slipped his arm out from the left strap and undid the few buttons keeping it closed. He placed the crystal inside a small pouch he had stored inside the backpack, he heard a soft click as the crystal came into contact with the only other gem inside the small pouch. The other Goblin gem that he had managed to acquire during his last dungeon trip, Haru was already doing better than he was before and he cracked a small smile.
Not wanting to get too overconfident like last time however Haru simply closed up the backpack and slung it back over his shoulder, he took a brief moment to wipe off the sides of his blade on his pair of pants to clean it of most of the Goblins blood. As Haru walked along and continued to make his way through the dungeon he gave his knife's edge a small examination and finding that the edge was still in decent shape he returned it to his sheath on his thigh to free up his hand.
Haru pulled out his journal again and continued to confirm the map's authenticity. It was not the most detailed map but his grandfather was far from an artist so it was not particularly surprising to the white haired boy. Though for the most part, it had the general map of the first floor correct enough so that Haru could make head and tail of it.
Just as Haru was about to take the right path at a fork in the tunnel they boy heard an odd groan coming from the left way, with a bit of curiosity getting the better of him Haru decided to continue down the left path and see if he could discover the source of the sound. In the back of his head Haru kept the exact path back to the staircase in his mind just in case things took a turn or he ran into something unexpected.
Two lefts, one right, one left, three rights and straight down the way to get back to the staircase… Haru repeated a few times over and over in his head to keep from forgetting. One thing that he had picked up on was how similar everything in the dungeon looked, all of the tunnels and paths looked nearly identical and Haru cautioned himself that it would be rather easy to get turned around and lost. Which in the dungeon could very well be a death sentence, one wrong turn into a dead end and it would be the end.
Several minutes passed and Haru stopped as the source of the sound slowly made its advance towards the white haired boy in the tunnel. It was a Kobold, though it was not in very good health. There was a deep gash in the creature's right shoulder that left that arm unusable as it hung on by only a few stray strands of muscle and tendon that had not been torn during whatever attack caused the wound. It must have had some type of wound on its head as blood leaked down the left side of the monster's head and down its left arm. The most notable wound that the creature possessed was that its right leg was mangled slightly, enough that the Kobold had a limp and mostly dragged its right leg along and moved at an almost painfully slow speed.
Those various injuries were nothing compared to the blood, its arms were stained a dark red and it was almost impossible to tell the original colour of the creature's fur. Blood also stained both its sharp claws and fangs, enough that blood mixed with saliva leaked from the monster's agape mouth and left a small trail behind it.
Despite the injuries that the Kobold had, it continued to move towards Haru at its slow pace. Seeing the creature triggered a small thought in Haru that lingered in his mind for a few moments. If the monster in front of him was so injured, how was the person that had caused all these wounds doing? There were two viable options that Haru could come up with to answer his own question, either the person had gotten into the altercation with the Kobold and sensing that they were not going to come out on top, turned tail and escaped from the monster after wounding it heavily.
Or the Kobold had killed its opponent, leaving it wounded and barely alive. But alive nonetheless.
With a small shake of his head Haru pushed down those thoughts and instead focused purely on the Kobold for the time being, without even really making the conscious effort Haru already had his hand wrapped around the handle of his knife and was ready to pull it from its sheath. How long Haru's hand had been in that position he was not exactly certain, but with a bit of will Haru let go of the handle and decided to try another tactic that he had come up with several days prior.
Haru turned around and fast walked back down the way that he had come for a minute, turning his head back to look at the Kobold every few seconds to make sure that it was still following along. After reaching a safe distance that Haru felt to be safe with how slow the Kobold limped along, Haru crouched down and removed his backpack and set it down on the ground.
He opened the backpack and dug around for a moment before finding what he was looking for, a small bundle that was just a spare shirt tied into a makeshift container that was tied up with a strip of cloth.
Undoing the small bow and unfolding the small bundle Haru found three paint grenades, a bright orange, a light pink and an ocean blue. Though Haru did have a full crate of the grenades because of the generosity of Syr, it would not be good if he packed too many and they ended up bumping each other too much and going off inside of his backpack. So Haru had only packed just a few for this trip until he could figure out a better method of safe storage.
The young boy reached down and picked up the blue paint grenade and lightly tossed it in his hands a few times to get used to the estimated weight of the item. It was a bit lighter than the rocks that he had practiced with but it would not make a huge difference. At least that was what Haru had hoped.
He stood up from his crouched position next to his bag and directed his attention towards the Kobold still lingering slowly towards him, he waited for a minute for it to get a bit closer and got ready to throw the small ball shaped item.
Haru pulled back his right arm and stopped forward slightly as he whipped the small blue paint grenade towards the Kobold and it passed the creature and landed on the ground several feet behind it as it continued its slow advance towards the white haired boy.
Haru muttered softly under his breath as he reached down into the bag and picked up the light pink paint grenade and, same as before, tossed it in his hand a few times before getting ready to throw it at the Kobold. The first miss had hurt a little bit, Haru did have a limited number of the paint grenades and wasting them on misses was not something that he could afford to do for long.
He pulled back his right arm the same as before, with a small step forward he whipped the small pink orb in the direction of the Kobold.
Contact.
Though the paint grenade had actually managed to hit the Kobold, it was not the desired location and thus did little to the creature that shrugged off the impact and continued shuffling forward slowly. As the small pink cloud cleared Haru was able to guess that it had struck the creature's neck or upper chest based on the paint stain that now covered the creature's upper half.
"Too low.." Haru muttered softly under his breath as he reached down and picked up the third and final paint grenade that he had with him, he lightly tossed the orange paint grenade back and forth in his hands. The Kobold was getting closer with each moment and given enough time it would soon reach Haru, wanting to keep the same estimated distance the white haired boy grabbed his backpack and turned around to walk down the tunnel for a little bit.
Haru walked until there was a decent distance between the two and set his bag down again so that the straps of the backpack did not interfere with his throw, he took a moment to spread his feet apart and wind back his right arm.
"Third time the charm…" Haru said with a small wishful smile and a slight shake of his head, with a small step forward Haru hurled the final paint grenade that he had with him and watched as it closed the distance towards the creature.
Contact.
Same as the previous throw the paint grenade made contact with the Kobold, however, the paint grenade had reached the desired target and exploded in a small puff of orange paint in the creature's face. The Kobold stumbled back slightly from the impact of the paint grenade to its face, it started to turn its body to the right and left randomly as though it was lost.
Haru smiled and even though he had wanted to celebrate the success of the paint grenade he held off for a moment to see if it was truly as successful as it first appeared to be, he watched as the creature tried to use its one good arm to wipe the paint from its face and eyes. After a minute or so of trying to wipe the paint from its eyes and being unable to regain its vision, the Kobold changed its strategy and switched to simply swinging its one good arm around widely in broad slashing motions in hopes of finding its opponent.
Haru picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder as he slowly started to make his advance towards the creature. It took a fair amount of restraint to not rush the blind monster and try to finish off the already heavily injured Kobold as quickly as possible, instead Haru walked around the creature in a wide circle.
As the Kobold continued to spin around in circles and swing its claw around widely and let out the occasional gurgly snarl, Haru bent down and picked up a small rock from the dungeons floor. Haru pulled back his right arm and lightly tossed the rock in the direction of the furry creature, the rock passed the Kobold and lightly bounced off the dungeon wall with a barely audible noise.
Because the Kobold had lost its sense of sight it was instead relying on its other senses, it turned sharply towards the soft sound and started to widely slash and swing its arm in that direction. With the creatures back now to Haru the white haired boy made his move and pushed off the stone floor and rushed towards the monster.
Before the Kobold could turn back around to face its attacker, Haru pulled the kitchen knife back out from its sheath and stabbed it deep into the back of the creature and used his body weight to pin the creature up against the wall.
The Kobold in retaliation turned its head to the left as far as its neck would physically allow, it started to snap its jaws trying to sink its fangs into any piece of flesh within range.
The white haired boy tried to place his hand on the upper back or shoulder on the monster to keep its head and more importantly its fangs away from his body, despite Haru's attempt to try and keep the creatures jaws away from his tissue due to the struggling Kobold it did not quite go to plan.
Haru's arm slipped off of the Kobolds left shoulder and passed by the creature's head, before the white haired boy could correct his critical mistake and pull his arm back to safety. The fangs of the monster sank into his forearm and started to send shearing pain through his arm.
It took only a brief moment for the sharp stinging to hit Haru in a sudden massive wave of agonizing pain, the Kobold was clever enough to not unhinge its jaws and try to bite down into Haru's arm for a second time. Instead it resorted to swiftly shaking its head back and forth, tearing some of the flesh from Haru's arm and only increasing the pain belt felt significantly.
Haru was quick to come to the conclusion that the Kobold was not going to willingly let his arm go and simply trying to brute force his arm out of the creature's jaws would likely do more harm than good. So instead he pulled the knife from the monster's back and started to thrust it into the Kobold several times in quick succession.
Just as quickly as he had concluded that the Kobold would refuse to release his arm, Haru was able to realize that though the stabbing was harming the Kobold it was not enough to kill the creature. So Haru instead pulled away from the wall and grinded his teeth against each other slightly from the agonizing pain his left arm was being forced to experience.
Trying to ignore the pain as much as possible and focus on killing the creature, Haru used all of his body's mass to slam the Kobold up against the jagged stone wall of the dungeon. Haru repeated that process several times until eventually the Kobold started to go limp from the constant bashing of its skull against the cold stone, the creature fell to the ground limply as it finally released Haru's arm from its jaws.
As the Kobold fell towards the ground, because of the amount of blood that had leaked from the creature's back from the constant stabbing with the kitchen knife, the handle had become so slick with blood that it slipped right out of Haru's right hand. The nearly dead creature was left lying face down on the ground with the kitchen knife still lodged in its upper back.
While Haru nursed his bleeding left arm and held the wound tightly with his right hand to try and cut off the circulation to his arm for a short time, the Kobold had started to recover and was using its one good arm to try and push itself off the ground and get back on its feet. With the knife still embedded in the monster's back and not wanting to risk grabbing the slippery handle, Haru used another method he thought up on the spot to try and finish off the creature.
Haru raised up his right foot and proceeded to stomp on the back of the Kobolds head several times, by the time that the white haired boy finished lifting and slamming his foot up and down the Kobolds skull had been flattened. The young boy was left panting as he stood there over the corpse of the deceased Kobold, as the adrenaline in his veins started to fade the pain in Haru's left arm flared up again and Haru let out a loud drawn out hiss of pain.
Quickly Haru did a one eighty in spot and let go of his left arm, his right hand was dripping with his own crimson coloured fluids and the pain was making Haru feel a bit light headed. Carefully Haru removed his backpack and set it down on the ground, he opened the bag with his right hand and he started to route around for the potions that he had packed.
Haru leaned up against the dungeon wall and slid down until he was sitting on the ground with his back against the stone wall. Pulling the small vial out of the backpack Haru brought the glass tube up to his lips and used his teeth to bite down and pull out the small cork, Haru turned his head to the right and spit the cork out.
There were two viable ways to utilize healing elixirs, the first way was to simply pour the light blue liquid over the wound or affected area. While that way was the quickest way to heal wounds it was not exactly the most effective. The second method was to drink the potion and allow the healing elixir to take effect, while drinking it was slower it would heal more severe wounds and internal wounds far more efficiently then simply pouring it over the wound.
In basic terms it was the difference between speed of quality, in combat most people would choose to simply pour it on the wound and continue with the fight in front of them. While drinking the potion was commonly used out of combat as it took longer to take effect or for more serious types of injuries.
The wound on Haru's arm was not the most severe of wounds but it was not a particularly small injury either, Haru held the vial in his teeth as he rolled up his sleeve to examine the wound and come to a description on which method he should make use of. Seeing the mangled flesh of his arm Haru could not help but cringe slightly, it was worse than he had first thought and with just a quick glance he decided on which method to use.
Haru did not even take the vial out of his mouth, he simply held the glass tube with his right hand and tilted his head back. He swallowed the light blue liquid and placed the empty glass vial back into his backpack, within a minute Haru could feel the pain in his arm start to numb and not long after the wound started to heal itself.
Haru sat with his back up against the cold stone for several minutes, as his arm finished healing there was still a slight lingering pain in his forearm. As though there was an itch just under his skin that he could not hope to scratch, Haru tried to ignore the subtle pain and instead focused on the surroundings.
There was nothing but rocks and the dead mangled corpse of the Kobold around him just a few feet away, Haru pushed off of the stone and just like before he started to go about digging out the monster's crystal.
The first thing that he needed was his knife, he wiped his bloody hands on his pants and reached down and grabbed the handle. With a slight tug Haru pulled the knife out of the deceased creature's back and wiped off the handle on his pants as well, with a decent hold on the handle the young boy went about cutting open the monster's body in search of its crystal.
Most monster's gems were located in the center of their bodies, as if they were the beating heart that powered the monsters. It did not take too long to find the crystal and as Haru pulled out the gem the monster's mutilated corpse disappeared in a small pile of ash. Haru backed off and pulled his backpack over and dropped the crystal into the small pouch with the other two Goblin gems.
With a slightly heavier gem pouch and a tad more confidence Haru started again down the tunnel of the dungeon in search of more monsters and confirming the map located inside of his journal. Haru would end up killing just a couple more monsters before he decided to quit while he was ahead and return to the surface, at the entrance to the dungeon stood two guards armed with spears. While they may be curious of someone entering the dungeon in the early hours of the morning, someone coming out of the dungeon drew far less attention and as Haru walked passed they did not say a word.
That did not change the fact however that Haru was incredibly nervous the entire time that they could stop Haru and begin to question him, but his fears were never realized as soon Haru was out of eyesight and making his way back towards the Hostess.
Haru reached the Hostess as the moon was almost out of sight, the white haired boy was starting to feel incredibly tired. Using healing potions did have their downsides and exertion was one of them, especially on someone that was not blessed; it did start to take its toll on the boy's alertness.
As it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open Haru stacked up a few boxes and just managed to climb through the window that he had propped open, closing the window and latching it closed Haru hurried to his bed for a well deserved sleep. It would be only a few hours until sunrise and Haru had already messed up his sleep schedule enough, the one thing that the white haired boy was positive of is that he was going to sleep like a log. Nothing short of a Minotaur rampage would wake the boy from his slumber.
As Haru laid his head down on the pillow there was a small sense of pride that Haru felt, his second trip to the dungeon had been far more successful than the first and it would only be up from that moment on. For whatever reason Haru felt as though that this day was a pivotal moment in his life, but soon his mind could no longer function and he fell into a deep slumber.