I don't know how long I sat there, but I couldn't move. My stamina was low. My health was also dangerously low — it had never gotten close to this low since the night my parents died.
The weight of everything that I had done over the past five waves finally pressed upon me. My shoulders slumped under the realisation of my heartless acts. But when you think about it, did I deserve this guilt I'm suddenly under?
Under Paradigm's influence, the goblins reacted with hostility towards me, the user. If I hadn't killed them, they surely would have killed me. It wasn't like they were real living creatures in the real world anyway, just a creature created by the System as an opponent for the quest. I guess it just surprised me that I was able to think as clearly as I did under all that stress. Maybe the story of me rushing in to fight the bandits wasn't an exaggeration after all.
Once I felt that I had enough strength to stand up again, I gingerly stood. I grumbled disappointingly at the sight of my ruined jacket and made my way over to the satchel I threw out of the way.
Along the way, I pressed the [CONTINUE] button that was at the bottom of the congratulatory message in the middle of the clearing. A white glow went through my body and I realised that all of the pain I had felt and the fatigue in my muscles had disappeared.
A Window appeared in front of me when I slung my bag over my head onto my shoulder:
[LEVEL UP!
LEVEL 4!
HP REFILLED AND (+10) CAPACITY
MP REFILLED AND (+10) CAPACITY
STAMINA REFILLED AND (+10) CAPACITY
3 AVAILABLE STAT POINTS—]
I swiped that Window away and took a look at the new message that appeared in the middle of the room.
[150EXP REWARDED FOR CLEARING ROOM!
ALL STATS IMPROVED (+1)!
50 GOLD COINS REWARDED!
ITEM: SWORD OF THE CHIEF REWARDED!]
There was a green glow that swelled and receded repeatedly from something near where the Goblin Chief had died. I was still stuck on the fact that I had gotten 50 gold coins for clearing the room. That was more coins than two weeks' worth of hunting. I had never seen that much money in my life before. I quickly checked my Status Window, and right at the top right corner, I could see: [52 GOLD].
With the added reward of having all my stats improved by one, it meant that my attributes were now:
-STR: 6
-VIT: 6
-AGI: 6
-INT: 4 and
-WIS: 4
Although, oddly enough, the mysterious sixth attribute in my Status Window had stayed the same.
I learned quickly to stop asking people about the sixth attribute after learning that everyone else only had five. Everyone I asked had said the same things.
"What do you mean? There're only five attributes."
"Stop joking around, there is no such thing as a sixth attribute."
"You must be reading your Status Window wrong."
However, ever since I was Registered, there had always been a sixth attribute sitting there. The name of the attribute was blacked out by the System, and unlike the other five, the status of the sixth attribute was put into percentages.
Whilst all my other attributes have been affected by the room's clear rewards, my sixth attribute stayed the same.
[███: 10%]
I studied the sixth attribute for a little bit but gave up. I had spent countless hours trying to figure out what exactly the sixth attribute could be and I was never able to think up an answer that seemed to fit.
I finally walked over to the source of the slowly pulsating green light and I realised that it must have been the item that the rewards Window mentioned.
"Scan Item," I ordered the System. After a second, the scan was completed and I was gifted with a new Window about the item:
[ITEM: THE SWORD OF THE CHIEF
ITEM CLASS: D
TYPE: SWORD
STRENGTH +5
THE SWORD ALL GOBLIN CHIEFS HAVE AS PROOF OF THEIR STATUS ABOVE OTHER GOBLINS. MUST BE EQUIPPED WITH A DOMINANT HAND TO USE. CAN BE EQUIPPED, STORED OR SOLD.
EFFECT: RALLY ORDER
GOBLINS OF LOWER LEVEL THAN YOU ATTACK THE ENEMY YOU HAVE DAMAGED WITH THE SWORD. EFFECT LASTS UNTIL EITHER:
-YOU ATTACK ANOTHER TARGET, OR
-AN ENEMY MANAGE TO DAMAGE YOU WITH THEIR SWORD OF THE CHIEF.]
The excitement floated up from my feet to my legs to my whole body as I read the description of the item. The Rally Order effect could be so good if I continued to fight goblins, but then the most important sentence in the description brought my elation back down. I had to use my left hand to get the effect.
I looked down at the bandaged left arm and sighed in defeat. I could always sell the item for quite a bit of gold once I exited the dungeon. I grimaced when I took a look at my left arm's status. 40%. I squeezed my hand into a fist and I could feel the numbness that had grown stronger in it. Even though I tried my hardest, I realised that I hadn't even squeezed my hand into the tightest fist possible. I had lost a considerable amount of grip strength. Damn it.
A loud, scraping noise started and when I turned around, a doorway to a lit hallway had appeared where there used to be a wall. It looked like the hallway I had walked through when I ended up in this room. I guess the dungeon was saying that this was a dead end.
At some point, I found myself back at the original intersection. I decided to go down the middle one out of laziness. As I kept walking, the same thing happened in the left hallway. Torches kept lighting up by themselves, lighting my way for a few steps at a time.
It was a lot windier this time, and I felt like I was going up and down hills as I followed the singular walkway. I realised that there was an odd silence in the cave that seemed so out of place. It just reminded me that I was not in a natural cave, but rather a sort-of synthetic cave that the System had created.
After walking for what seemed like hours, I was brought to another clearing. The same things that happened in room 1A happened in this one and a Window, I learnt that this was considered room 2A by the System.
Room 2A worked on a wave clearing system like the previous one. I noticed that the waves this time around were slightly stronger than the ones in 1A. By Wave 5 (the last wave again), I had been tasked with defeating a level 5 Goblin Chief.
Like the basic goblins though, the Goblin Chief followed the same pattern as the one that spawned in room 1A and I was able to manoeuvre around the clearing and managed to take it down quite quickly. I was rewarded once again with my overall LVL improving. I received the usual rewards: all my bars were refilled and had +10 capacity and I was given another three Stat Points to put into any of the attributes, but a second reward Window caught my attention.
This time around, I got one reward for clearing room 2A. I had unlocked the 'INVENTORY SYSTEM'.
I swiped my arm up and my Status Window disappeared, being replaced by the option to 'open my Inventory'. The Window expanded and I was greeted by a two-by-five grid of boxes. Interested to see how to work the system, I looked around and realised that in the skirmish of clearing the waves, a stray Fireball must have accidentally destroyed my satchel. The contents of which were strewn around on the ground.
I went and brought my water canteen and paused. How does this system work? There were no instructions.
"Store...canteen?" I asked.
A white light engulfed the canteen and before I knew it, the canteen disappeared. A picture of it appeared in the first box in the Inventory Window. A little "32%" in the bottom left corner. I realised that's how much water is left in the canteen. That was a neat touch.
Luckily, I had wrapped the meat jerky in a cloth, so I quickly picked up the remaining pieces and also stored them in the inventory. Like the canteen, they appeared in a box in the Window.
The inventory even noted how many pieces of jerky there were. So, it seemed that when I put multiple of the same item, it will all end up in a single item slot, instead of cluttering and taking up multiple.
Lastly, I put the Sword of the Chief in there. There was no point in my hauling it around in the real world since I wasn't going to use it.
I was still admiring the Inventory Window when a slot in the wall of the cavern opened up like it did in Room 1A. When I walked through it, I found out I entered Room 2B. I cleared that one with relative ease. There was another difficulty increase, but it was still manageable.
I received the same rewards as Room 1A, and I also increased my overall LVL. I was finally at level six. I had always dreamed of being this high-levelled. Typically, a new User started at around level seven or eight, gifted with several free Stat Points to put in their attributes. That was if they had Registered at the normal age of their early teens. However, since I had Registered at an abnormally young age, it seemed like I was severely undercooked when I was taken out of the System's oven.
I realised I was starving so I grabbed a couple of pieces of jerky out of the inventory.
I marvelled at the status of my money. A bright, glowing [102 GOLD] shimmered as if backed up by angelic light and it was only a soft whooshing sound that woke me up from the happy trance.
I turned around and on the opposite wall of where I walked in, or at least I guessed that it was on the opposite wall, I spotted a light-blue vortex had formed. It was about the size of a doorway and when I used Paradigm to scan it, the System came back and said that it was a 'portal'. From what I could understand, it was a magical doorway?
Since there was a moment of grace to prepare every time I stepped into one of these wave rooms, I simply stepped into the vortex. The light blue of the vortex filled my vision and then got brighter. So bright that I had to shut my eyes from the glare. When I opened it again, I found myself back at the original intersection.
Awesome. I didn't want to walk back again.
With only one last choice left, I went down the hallway on the right.
This hallway was considerably shorter, and when I looked back to the intersection, I realised that the hallway skewed quite severely to the right, while the other two hallways were more straight-facing and windy. The walls of the hallway were also a lot rougher and jagged than the torches were sparsely placed. If the first two hallways were carefully crafted, this third one was an absolute rush job.
As I walked further, I could taste the air becoming damper. The rocks and earth of the cave hallway also glistened from the humidity.
The last torches of the hallway lit up and as I was about to step through, a Window popped up in the doorway.
[USER HAS FULFILLED REQUIREMENTS TO UNLOCK THE SECRET BOSS BATTLE.
DEFEAT THE DUNGEON BOSS TO RECEIVE EXTRA REWARDS ONCE THE SOLO DUNGEON QUEST IS COMPLETED.
DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE?]
[YES] | [NO]
A cold chill ran down my back and I looked behind me just to confirm what I already instinctively knew. I was alone.
This Solo Quest has shown me what I'm capable of. Even with my weak arm. It has allowed me to become stronger and level up. And it has given me rewards I never thought I'd live to see. I realised that it had reawakened something in me that hadn't been around since the night my parents died, and that was a passion for adventure. I was so terrified of becoming helpless with my arm holding me back, that I was denying myself of anything and everything that made the young me...me.
I was so enraptured by what made me disabled that I was blind to what made me capable. I remembered that the reason why what Nobu said made me so upset was that I couldn't do anything to rebut it, even though I desperately wanted to. I wasn't Registered like he was. It wasn't yet my time. Something in me called out so strongly, that even though logically I knew I shouldn't risk attempting the boss battle, I was going to anyway.
I double-checked my Status Window. I decided to use the 9 Available Stat Points that I got from levelling up to make myself a bit stronger and more well-rounded. The surge of power and clarity that I got from the increased Stat Points was incredible. I was now sitting comfortably at:
STR: 9
VIT: 8
AGI: 9
INT: 7 and
WIS: 7
I gripped my hunting dagger in reassurance and pressed the [YES] option.
The Window disappeared and the gaping hole of the doorway glistened in front of me. I wiped my forehead from the thin covering of sweat that the humidity had created. The gravity of the situation I was about to put myself in also helped.
It took me a couple of nervous walking starts to step through the doorway. That hunger for adventure in me finally won in the end.
The cavern that I walked into was unbelievably high. As I looked up, I couldn't see the ceiling of the cave. The actual size of the cavern was also around double the size — no, triple the size of the previous wave rooms.
A deeper stone scraping sound rang out and when I looked back at where I had entered, it was replaced by glistening rock. The humidity and warmth in this cave were on a whole other level as well. I started sweating almost profusely. It was that kind of hot wet that we sometimes get in the depths of summer at Ohda.
When I turned back around to face the front, a new Window appeared in front of me. I gulped the bile that rose from my stomach down with burning trouble. The Window said:
[WARNING!
USER CAN NOT LEAVE BOSS ROOM UNTIL BOSS IS DEFEATED OR THE USER IS DEAD. AUTOMATIC FAILURE OF SOLO DUNGEON QUEST UPON DEATH.]