I unleashed Overwhelming once again. First I slaughtered the Needlewood right in front of me and immediately followed with a diagonal slash to the right. The Skills effects have diminished by that point, but despite that I still followed the previous two attacks with a third one where I raised Durandal high into the air and slammed it into the ground with all my strength, slashing the third Needlewood cleanly in half.
I finally arrived in the corner that I wanted to reach so desperately, all the while avoiding the attacks of the monsters who were still right on my tail. With this, the angle they can attack me from has been reduced to about 90 degrees. Lowering Durandal to the level of my waist, I looked through the room to assess my current situation.
First thing I noticed almost right away was the enemy's numbers were greatly reduced. I only saw that now because I actually had the time to look around calmly, without having to swing Durandal left and right to avoid being overrun by the brownish-green abominations. Now there was only ten or so of them left. This made me realize that one of my earlier statements was a big fat lie: while I thought I was staring death in the face calmly, I was never calm at all. All this time I was simply thrashing around like a scared child oblivious to everything that's been going on around it. If I just took a damn moment to actually observe what was happening around me maybe I wouldn't be so obsessed with going from corner to corner like an idiot. Yup, my observational skills are truly of the Godly levels it seems.
The next thing I noticed was the fact that my hands were sweaty as fuck. Like seriously, they are like friggin waterfalls right now. That's why I have to be extremely careful. If I end up dropping Durandal, even by accident, that's probably going to be a game over for me. So I did the only thing I could have done in this situation: even if I knew I'm going to get attacked, I wiped my sweaty hands in my pants. Several vines of the Needle woods attacked me during that short while, but there was nothing I could do about it, since that was more important to me. I gripped Durandal again, this time with sweat-free hands and run to the right.
First I dispatched the farthest Needlewood to the right. Now that so many enemies have been dispatched, I should be able to move however I want, or in other words: Go wild with my OP as shit holy sword!
I jumped forward, swinging Durandal all around me, ruthlessly decimating the branches that were shot in my direction. They are being cut down as if they were no more than the blades of wilted grass, and their owners soon follow after them. Continuing the battle with the leftover enemies in such a manner, I kept on pressing forward.
Another two Needlewoods came at me from the front, so I cut them down. Another one tried to ambush me from the left with its branches, but I dodged them and immediately countered with a slash that went upwards and to the left, and used the created momentum to deliver another powerful downward slash that instantly killed another Needlewood in front of me.
There are only three enemies remaining.
I am not going to run away now, and it looks like they are not going to run away either. I invoked Overwhelming again, defeating two of them with a single slash of my sword.
Only one enemy remaining now.
It rushed towards me head-on with its spiky army and vines, but before they could so much as reach me, I strongly stepped down with my left foot and swung Durandal from the last Needlewood's left shoulder all the way to its right leg.
「Haaah…」
When it was all over, I finally had the time to catch my breath in peace. That should be all of them, right? I have defeated all of the monsters that ambushed me back in that room, right? Apparently that has to be the case, because when the last of the Needlewoods finally evaporated into a puff of green smoke, there was no more of them coming out to get me. Even though it was finally all over, it still took me a good while for my ragged breath to return to normal.
Okay…now that that's taken care of… maybe I'll finally have a chance… to look around the room I am currently in.
Characteristics-wise, it was the same small cave as all the other caves I have passed through on this floor. Same walls, same ceiling and the same doorway that you would find in the other parts of this Labyrinth, in other words: everything here was perfectly ordinary, except that the floor was now littered with the branches that all of the defeated Needlewoods left behind when they perished by my sword.
Is there anything else here that's noteworthy? No, I don't think so. I mean, it would be great if a treasure chest or a piece of some legendary equipment were to appear before me right now, but come on, what are the odds of something like that happening? But just in case…
As I went around the room collecting Needlewood Branches from the ground I made sure to scan the entire area with my sight again, but regrettably I have truly found one big pile of nothing. So was that simply a room filled with monsters? Because if so, then that's truly a pity. That was the worst random event I could have stumbled upon here. Let's face the facts here: if I didn't have Durandal with its OP as fuck abilities with me, I would have been killed like some random rookie Adventurer who wandered into the Dungeon unprepared, underlevelled and underequipped because he thought that everything's going to work out just fine because that's the first Dungeon in the game, only to be brutally buttraped by reality (TL NOTE: Looking at you, Goblin Slayer). This Labyrinth… I have to admit that it is much more dangerous than I have initially anticipated.
Does that mean I should just ran away from here with my tail tucked between my legs? Absolutely not! As long as I have Durandal and my Skills, I can still fight, even if the enemies might be stronger than me. I have already made my decision to live in this world, so I cannot allow a minor setback such as this to discourage me from going forward!
I finished gathering all the branches, and since there's nothing else here in this room, I'd best be on my way. I already wasted enough time here as it is.
I brought up the Job Settings menu. My current levels are as follows: Explorer Lv.8; Hero Lv. 5, Warrior Lv.6, Villager Lv.5, Merchant Lv.1 , Swordsman Lv.10. I also didn't get any new Jobs, which is strange, because I was sure that singlehandedly defeating so many monsters was bound to get me at least one new Job. Also, the levels of my Jobs start to look really nice. Not to mention that when I used that last Overwhelming during the end of the battle, I wasn't feeling depressed or swarmed by the dark thoughts. That was probably due to the fact that my level had increased and my MP regenerated at that moment. That would also explain why am I not experiencing that gradual feeling of mental recovery that I used to feel whenever my MP was going back to the certain amount.
It is a little bit early, but let's leave the Labyrinth for now. After a round of walking around the town I returned to the inn. As expected, I caught no sign of bandits at all. If I want to find them, I guess I'll have no other option but to go deeper into the slums.
「I'd like to rent a room for another night. I'll also be having a dinner, and after that, give me a some hot water and a lamp.」
「As you wish, kid. So a diner, hot water and a lamp… you know what, I'm feeling generous today, so I'll be charging you only 245 Nar for all of that.」
The Innkeeper told me. A single batch of hot water costs 20 Nar, and If I'm remembering correctly the rent for the lamp (an oil lamp, by the way) was certainly 10 Nar. Curiously enough, when I bought the hot water yesterday my 30% discount didn't work, but today it worked like a charm! Maybe the discount is not taking effect if you're only buying a single item? That is a possibility that I'll have to check later.
「Do I have to show you my Intelligence Card again?」
「No need for that if you're renewing your stay. Your room is the same one as before, do go ahead and enjoy our stay.」
And he offered me a familiar key, which I took upstairs, feeling glad that I won't have to flash my Intelligence Card every time I'll be