We were currently walking through the ruins, it was dark and humid, but the torches on the walls helped us see.
And after what felt an eternity, we arrived infront of a giant door at the end of the hallway.
[Challenges' Door - Complete it to Escape]
These words appeared infront of us as soon as we were close enough to fully see it.
"FINALLY HAHAHA" Daemon boasted proudly.
"Looks like we did it" the girls sighed in relief.
But... this wasn't where I wanted to go...
Since I started reading the novel in my past life, I always felt like the author ruined this arc by making them find the secret room but not kill the monster because of Mina's recklessness.
Which is why I really wanted to go do it myself.
And so before everybody's eyes in this tight hallway, I saw the button that opened the secret room and acted like I fell down.
"Watch out!" Mina said when she saw me fall.
But at the same time came out another sound.
RRRRRRRR
I had pressed the button and opened the secret door, thus revealing the room.
The others stopped when they realized what I had done and peeked inside to see what the content of it was.
The room was pretty small, and inside of it was a single pedestal on which was a gun-looking weapon: it was a high-grade laser gun.
One bullet of this would be enough to kill the octopus monster, and that's the twist: there is only one bullet.
So that's why when Mina rushed inside to grab the gun, I grabbed her arm and squeezed it.
"Don't touch that" I spoke coldly.
[Anger meter: 97/100]
"Huh... okay Kaine, you're hurting me..." she said in a puppy-like voice.
I then approached the pedestal and took the gun, it was now in my possession, I could finally kill the monster...
"Hehehehe..." I couldn't stop myself from laughing.
[Anger meter: 99/100]
As soon I took the laser gun, another row of text appeared infront of us.
[Second way to escape: kill the octopus monster.]
"Well... you can keep playing with that gun, but i'll be going" Daemon said and headed towards the challenges' door.
"Same, I don't wanna fight that thing" Sarah nodded and followed him.
Which left me and an anxious looking Mina inside of the room.
"I'll use my winning bet in order to ask you to leave with the other two" I asked her gently while smiling.
"I d-don't want to leave you alone, i'll come!" she stood her ground.
[Anger meter: 100/100]
"I'll ask again, leave" I didn't try to talk gently anymore, "a bet is a bet"
"No! What if something happens to you?"
I then approached the elf and hugged her tightly, "I promise nothing will happen, we can't even die in here..."
"..." eventually, she agreed and let me go, "you better complete that test..."
Mina in the original novel had pressed the trigger of the laser gun by accident and put everybody at risk, this was the best decision I thought of to both have my shot at killing the octopus and to make sure nothing could disturb me.
And so without even checking behind me to see if the other three left, I took the opposite direction of the hallway, meaning I was heading back to the entrance.
My goal: going back to the beach from the beggining and fight the octopus using that new weapon.
***
I reached the beach as the sun was starting to set and finally got ready to go all out.
If I failed the others would of probably already finished the challenges' room by now so it's okay.
[Skill: Hatred, activated]
The aura around me darkened and became overwhelming, then I grabbed the laser gun in my right hand and looked at the water.
"C'mon Kaine, it's now or never!"
I concentrated all the power I had in my legs and...
Ran towards the water at full speed, anybody would expect me to just sink but surprinsigly not, I was litterally running on it as if it was plain ground.
Once I reached an approriate distance from the land, a tentacle came out of the water and tried to grab me, but me being able to stand on the ocean helped a lot as I avoided it with ease.
"GRAAAAHHHH!!!"
The monster roared and revealed it's head, it was gigantic and it's eyes were red, it was terrifying.
Then after the head appeared, dozens of tentacles started surrounding me, and I knew there was no way I could avoid them all.
I then looked back at the beach and surprinsigly saw... MINA?
She had a worried look on her face and I could see her try to tell something to me.
This isn't good, I wanted to take some time to make sure to aim at the head and kill the monster, but now that she was here...
A tentacle appeared infront of Mina and she fell to the ground, paralyzed from the fear.
I was so angry both at her and at the monster at this moment that I just pointed my gun at the octopus head without caring and pulled the trigger.
Energy started accumulating at the end of the barrel and after three second, a giant laser beam was fired and hit the octopus monsters' head, creating a massive hole in the middle of it.
But this wasn't over.
Even though the tentacle who was threatening Mina fell down, I didn't want to risk anything.
And so I ran back to the shore towards Mina and picked her up after reaching the beach.
BOOM
An explosion was heard but I didn't turn back to see, apparently even after you fire with the laser gun, once it hits an enemy, the energy starts decompressing until eventually creating a huge explosion.
When I was deep enough inside of the forest to make sure we were safe, I put Mina down and looked back at her.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I shouted.
"Hic... i'm sorry I didn't listen, I was just so worried..." her tears made me calm down a bit.
[High-grade Monster: Octopus King, eliminated]
[All students currently on the stage have completed the Island Escape practical exam, congratulation.]
[Imminent Teleportation.]
And the last thing I did as I saw my body flash continuously after the message, was hug Mina.
"It's okay" I said while patting her head, which did increase the volume of her cries.
But in all honesty, the only thing I could focus on was how to control my current anger, because i'm sure I would snap at her if I didn't try.
We were teleported back to reality in this position.