My body had practically been in overdrive for the past week or so… so I took my well-deserved nap.
…
As soon as I woke up, I was met by tons of panels that just displayed the god's reactions to the outcome of this battle.
Some were hoping for me to get tortured to death, some just wanted to see me die, and some even wanted to see me survive and overcome the battle in the face of despair.
I mean, I don't know if I really despaired at any point, but I did feel hopeless for a second until my mind slowly melted again.
That was a strange experience that I'd rather not go through again if possible.
But I did gain a pretty good skill that helped out tons in that past battle.
"Urk… *cough* *cough* *cough* *cough*... Seems my internal injuries weren't healed that much," I muttered, and upon glancing at my status, I clicked my tongue.
[HP: 24/35 MP: 10/10 SP: 15/15] - Normal Human
My health was stuck at a decent number because of my injuries that wouldn't heal, so I slurped up some more water and felt the taste of it linger in my breath and mouth.
I gagged a few times before finally pushing it down and seeing my health begin to rise again… very slowly.
It was one health point per five or so minutes, so I decided to just hang out here for now and wait for my body to fully recover.
"Fooooooo… Let's upgrade my strength and mana while I'm at it,"
Upgrading your strength was simple… all you had to do was just workout, but the process of gaining more strength was probably much slower than mana.
Also, it could just be that I'm too talented in mana, fufufufu.
After about three hours, I stretched out my entire body to try and feel out any injuries, and thankfully, nothing came back in my investigation.
But, I wasn't done with my rest break as I wanted to reflect on what I did wrong in that past situation.
First of all, I didn't run away when I had the chance and instead attacked that rat ruler, which could've been lethal.
It could've known some type of magic that I'm unaware of, or it could've had some special skill up its sleeve.
That was really dangerous…
I began to replay the fight in my mind, and each of my moves was calculated despite being puppeted by my overwhelming bloodlust.
Only some of it transferred over to this life, but I don't have a skill that makes it tangible, so I can't use it to its fullest potential.
I replayed the fight so many times in my mind that I could describe each and everything that went down.
"Okay… I guess all I have to do is just calm down. I managed to get by with a stroke of luck, but in any other fight, I probably would've just died," I muttered while biting on my nail as I stared at the ground.
I couldn't imagine things by just closing my eyes, but rather staring… It was a bad habit that I picked up in my past life.
"I guess all I have left is the boss, right? And since it's a sentient sewage dungeon… it must be that thing… *sigh*... How the hell do I beat that thing?"
After biting my nail and staring at the ground for quite some time, I had decided on one thing that might've not been the smartest of decisions.
I was going to try and search for a secret area within this dungeon where I could possibly obtain an item that could help me.
It has a 5% chance of appearing in every dungeon, so the chances are slim, but as of now, I literally can't defeat that thing.
Everything about it counters me perfectly.
But the only problem was, I didn't know what a secret area looked like in a sewer dungeon as each one is different.
For example, in a labyrinth-type dungeon, you would find a secret area by pressing on one of the millions of stone bricks or plates.
For an open landscape type dungeon which consists of jungles, deserts, or swamps, it is always in the ground.
But for sewer-type dungeons? Uhhhhhhhhh… yeah, where could that be.
There aren't any plates or bricks for me to press on in these cylindrical-shaped pipes, so I had no choice but to try and discover something new.
After brainstorming and brainstorming for what seemed to be forever, I came to two conclusions that were based on nothing.
"It's probably related to the water, right?"
But that was too simple and most likely made no sense… so it must be the well where I came down from, right?
I'm sure that was the secret area, and the city is just the hidden area… but it could also be the entrance, and I'm just psyching myself out.
"Arghhhhh… Then that means I could just exit through the entrance if that was true… Fuck it. I'll just walk through the entire dungeon. If I can't find anything, I'll just try and escape through the well,"
As I proceeded through the dungeon calmly, I ran into very small batches of rats as I had basically eliminated their whole population.
Killing them was easy as smashing an ant, but the sludge which continuously tried to close in from all sides was annoying.
I had to waterboard them once at a time, making the process just tedious and not worth doing.
…
A few weeks later, I had assumed that I finished looping around the entire dungeon at least twice, and my status had grown… kind of.
『Status』
[Name: Cyrus]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Water Magician]
[Level: 9/25] (81/100) XP Needed
[HP: 35/35 MP: 10/10 SP: 15/15] - Normal Human
[Strength: 5] - Normal Human
[Defense: 3] - Normal Human
[Magic: 13] - Normal Human
[Speed: 3] - Normal Human
[Aether: 5] - Non Human
[Skills: [Tidal Strike] [Water Manipulation] [Water Ring]
[Passive Skills: [Water Body]
…
I only gained three levels over the past few weeks, which is extremely disappointing, and what is even more disappointing is that I couldn't even find a secret area or an entrance… meaning the well was the entrance the entire time.
I cursed internally multiple times as I made my way towards the long stretch leading towards the boss room.