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°•○● Table of Gods! - Chapter"5" -/ T
"First Floor! " °•○●
-First floor of the Temple
Eren had never been to an animal farm in his life. The places where they picnicked in the forest or went for a barbecue were always picnic areas. There would be no large animals except for small insects. Except for cats and dogs, which are very common in the streets of his country, he had seen one chicken in his life.
Even in the once-a-year event called "Kurban", the religious holiday of the Turks, sheep or calves were slaughtered and their meat distributed to the poor, some meat was brought to their home and eaten throughout the year. Even on these holidays, Eren would stay at home as soon as he participated in the slaughter of animals. While all of his relatives contributed to this event, he used to listen to music, watch TV series and read books at home.
It was difficult to even eat the meat brought home in these times. Even if it didn't smell, the meat seemed to give off a different and disgusting odor. In short, Eren had grown very sissy—or, in his own words, sensitive.
A typical city boy.
..
He lifted his hand and picked up the small knife he had found from the bag. He had now forgotten the number of his kills. Eren killed the newly arrived spider and brought his left hand close to his chest to suppress the pain from the bites on his arm. Psychologically, he was pressing his injured parts against his own body when not in use. He might have thought that keeping their body parts close to him would somehow protect them from creatures that could bite and eat them. Who knows?
"There was such a thing as PTSD in American TV series. It was like post-traumatic stress disorder, right! What a luxury problem they have. What am I going to do huh? I don't have a couch to lie down or a psychiatrist!
I also want luxury problems and lovely solutions!"
His whole body was full of bites and was smeared with spider blood. His eyes could not see these animals well in the misty corridor. If his vision hadn't been affected by the darkness, or if he had spotted these creatures a little earlier, he would have killed them all by now. But no matter how hard he tried, he was always a little late. There were so many bites even on his back and neck that from time to time he wanted to give up and sit for a while. But he was proud that until now he hadn't been frightened to lie down and close his eyes.
"Why can't I turn around and go back to that clean and bright bar, huh?"
He had tried. But this place was constantly going upwards with slight rising and it was never ending. There was no place to return.
He too kept walking, remembering what the blue-haired alien had said.
From time to time, there were natural places where water flowed through the walls. But these areas were where the spiders really liked to live. After hurting so much in these areas, he decided not to mess around until her ran out of water.
Every ten to a hundred paces, it would take on another spider and fight and kill it. He took every spider he killed and threw it into his bag, which was getting fuller. He could hardly carry the bloody and disgusting smell of the bag.
"In books, such places are always described as very sterile and clean. I have no place to shit! Who the hell is looking here? Where are we going to shit as adventurers here?"
Eren stopped thinking more and more. With each step, he lost hope and continued on his way like a robot. Because a working and thinking modern human mind wasn't suitable here at all. No matter how much fantasy stories are told so fluently and sweetly, no one could be subjected to such non-stop brutality.
He was getting better learning to use his knife, learning to listen with his ears rather than using his eyes, and somehow he could sense creatures from greater distances. But he didn't do any of this deliberately or willingly.
What desperation makes or forces people to do was clearly visible in this cave. He managed to grab the knife from the side wall to a jumping spider and kill it before it even touched his body.
Eren could do these things now, because he had to.
..
At the end of a whole day, Eren was now crawling on all fours like an animal.
Just two days ago, this person lying in bed reading, drinking Coke, and immediately get excited when a small fly or spider entered his room, had long disappeared.
With the index finger of his bloody left hand, he shuffled both noses one by one and emptied his dust-filled nose. When it wasn't enough, he blew out the mucus that filled his nose with all his breath and wiped it on the wall.
He was breathing heavily through his throat, making sounds like animal growls.
Moreover, his whole mouth was bloody. He hadn't eaten raw spider meat just because he had no food left in his bag. It would probably make him lose his mind. But sometimes when spiders attacked his face, he had to bite and swallow the blood with the stress of the event.
As he saw a small beam of light in the distance, his humanity and thoughts that he had locked inside his brain emerged. Feeling a little anticipation, he rose to his feet and walked at a normal pace. Realizing that there were no spiders further down the corridor, he tried to run until he passed through the clearing.
He felt that his feet couldn't take the speed. Certainly the pain in the bottom of his foot had increased, and the scars he was yet afraid to look at had grown. But he didn't mind.
And finally he walked into the familiar large room.
A wooden bar and the blue-haired creature behind it were smiling at him. With the creature of a different race and completely different facial muscles, Eren wasn't even sure she was smiling. But he felt like she was smiling.
Eren threw the dirty bag filled to the brim with spider carcasses to the ground and approached the bar. He threw himself on the floor as he glanced at the long and unnecessary-looking bar chair.
His current body could never sit in that chair.
Eren lay on the ground and waited for the blue creature to approach him. Indeed, the creature came up to him and handed him water and a clean towel.
"You came in slower than I expected, but… good job taking into account your racial characteristics. How was it?"
He had trouble answering. While pouring the big mug full of water on his face, he also took the running water into his mouth, even if it was dirty. He didn't care, even though he messed up the floor. At that moment, he didn't care about hygiene or anything.
"I ....fil-led the bag..li li like you said..huhhh" He stopped speaking halfway through the sentence, coughed, then hesitated to speak again and waved his hand towards the bag.
Eren was sluggish, nauseous, and on the verge of fainting. He didn't care about anything at that moment. There was no trace of the idiot who had prided himself on being able to kill fist-sized spiders in the early hours. That was the Eren of twenty hours ago.
As the blue-haired creature walked towards the bag, Eren laid his body on the wet surface and fell asleep while still holding the glass. The clean towel the creature had given him was resting on Eren's soaked leg.
The creature opened the bag and counted the dead creatures. Then she calculated their value with slightly exaggerating. Normally there were rules and she could never favor anyone. But it wouldn't be a crime to give a little help to someone who didn't enter this temple willingly.
She waved his hand and lifted Eren's unconscious body into the air with an unknown force. The blue-haired woman waved her other hand as some kind of telekinetic power kept Eren and his glass in the air. Holding Eren in the air, she walked to a new door on the side. It was a facility for people to use, with a bed and a bathroom.
The creature looked Eren with sympathy, knowing that this simplicity, which higher beings like herself would never even enter, was so precious to this boy.
She laid Eren on the bed and went behind the bar with the bag. Using the light screen rising from the table, she deposited the spiders one by one and calculated the money Eren earned. The temple would calculate and deposit the money into his account in a second.
Even the temple was operating with a precious currency of its own, and Eren's future depended on every penny of that money.
Perhaps for the Temple or the Universe, no one would care if billions of such humanoids, such as Eren, died. But for the solitary creature named Maevis, Eren was important.
Maevis was really starting to get hopeful now because Eren had managed to pass the first floor in his first try.
She didn't want to share an important piece like, Eren and everyone had three chances to finish every floor until fifth one. Then two chances until tenth floor. Eren thought that he would die if he stopped halfway.
Maevis was training Eren with this mindset.
If he fail and ...somehow die, she wouldn't care much.
He was just a low-level creature right! Why should she care?
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