Feeling an aching pain all over his body, Damien slowly opened his eyes, only to be greeted by cold hard stone in every direction.
'Huh? Where am I?' Damien thought before he remembered the events that led to this point. 'Fuck! That arrogant bastard actually pushed me into the gate! I didn't do anything to-'
Before his thoughts could go too far, Damien heard a series of roars and screeches coming towards him. When he looked down, he realized that he was covered in blood, which must have attracted beasts.
Coming to this realization, his face paled. He quickly got up, confirming that enough time had passed for him to regenerate from any major wounds, and ran.
Damien was weak. He had spent the majority of his life after the World Awakening fretting over his weakness, and now in this situation, his weakness became all the more apparent. He ran and ran, but the beasts naturally weren't only in one direction.
Damien could only consider himself lucky that the beasts in the immediate surroundings of the gate had been wiped, or else he would've died before he even woke up.
'Fuck fuck fuck! What do I do? I can't fight, but I can't live without food. If I don't fight, I'll die, but if I fight, I'll also die!' Damien panicked. Although he had plenty of experience inside gates, his level of combat experience was almost nil. He had probably stabbed a sword a couple of times when he stole kills to level up.
Damien didn't know how long he ran, but it was long enough for the cries of beasts to fade into the distance. He approached a cave wall and sat down to rest his aching body. This amount of running could be considered the most physical exercise he's had in a very long time.
As he sat with his back to the wall, he tried to calm his breathing and mind, but no matter what he tried, his thoughts wouldn't stop.
'I'll die. I'll really die. I can't do shit against beasts. I don't have a weapon, I don't have muscles, I don't have offensive skills, I have nothing. I don't know where this dungeon is— I don't know how far away Earth is or if it's even in the same galaxy. What will happen to Mom when I'm not around.'
*Pah*
Damien slapped himself in the face. 'No! I can't give up yet! Even if she thinks I'm dead, it's fine. What I need to do now is survive. Survive and make it back to Earth. Make it back to mom, make it back to Elena, and make it back to drop a planet on that sick bastard's head or something.'
Thinking of that last point, Damien's blood boiled in a fury. Damien let all of Jin's antics slide because of his background. He had to endure because he had nothing. He ended up in this situation because he was weak.
'I have to get stronger. It doesn't matter what I have to do to reach that point, but I have to get strong enough to return.'
Though he was still in a panic over the situation, he knew that if he sat still and did nothing, his only outcome was death. He had always worked without fear beforehand, and now, even though the situation is much direr, all he needs to do is the same thing he always did. Survive.
"Damien, you must always remember. Although you are weak, you must forge a will to live, a will to achieve, and a will to survive. No matter the circumstance and no matter the adversity, you must survive because if you survive and you fight, and you persevere through it all, one day you'll become someone that even the heavens must look up to."
Damien thought back to his dad's last words before he disappeared to who knows where. 'Fuck, why am I thinking about that bastard right now.'
But no matter how much he cursed his father, he could never bring himself to hate him.
As he grew and thought back to his last memories of his father, he could feel the pain his father always hid from him and his mother. And thinking about his father's words in the situation he's in now, he could feel his father's resolve.
Though he didn't know what that resolve was towards, it didn't matter anymore. 'Dammit. If that guy could talk all that martial master bullshit and forge such a resolve even before the World Awakening happened, why should I pussy out here?'
'I need to go back and cure mom, I need to go back and check on Elena, I need to go back and pummel that arrogant asshole, and I need to find my father one day and punch him in the face.'
Damien began to forge his resolve. He had forgotten in his panic, but he hadn't died yet, and he still had plenty of things to do. As long as he hadn't died, he could still achieve what he wanted to achieve. As long as he hadn't died, just like his dad used to say, he's become someone even the heavens must look up to.
It seemed like space itself had bore witness to his resolve and his declaration, as the space within a 25-meter radius of Damien started to twist and distort; unfortunately, Damien was too deep in his thoughts to notice.
Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open, and the space reverted to normal.
Several hours had passed since Damien sat down to rest, but it seemed he was in a relatively secluded area since no beast attacked him during his panic.
'Geez, I must be some kind of idiot to have a panic attack in this kind of life or death situation. How do those novel mc's even adapt shit like this happening so fast?' Damien chuckled
"Well, if I was a novel mc, my plot armor would've saved my mom by now, and I'd get a random power boost to deal with this situation, but obviously, that isn't happening."
Damien stood up, his eyes having regained their clarity; he began to quietly run around the dungeon floor.
'No matter which world this dungeon is connected to, it has to have weapons, and someone had to have died in here before. There's no way our party was the first to ever explore it.'
And after what seemed like hours of running, he found what he was looking for, a pile of bones and a slightly rusted pair of short swords.
'I was kind of hoping for a spear, but short swords work too,' Damien thought as he picked them up. They were entirely made of some type of black metal, and although the one of them was showing signs of cracking already, they were more than sharp enough to work as a temporary solution.
'Well then, let's get to hunting.'
One day passed since then, and Damien could be seen crouching behind a rock with his short swords out. At the moment he was stalking his prey, which was…a bunny.
Even Damien thought it was extremely lame for him to hunt bunnies, but when he carelessly attempted to kill the first one, his only reward was a deep gash on his leg that still hadn't healed.
Because of that, Damien started calling this species, Demon Bunnies, and began using hit and run tactics using his teleportation to kill them while they were off guard.
'Now'
And just like every time he hunted for the past day, he waited for his opportunity and teleported directly behind the bunny, stabbing his short swords down before he even teleported, instantly killing it.
Another discovery he made was that his teleportation ability carried his momentum. Although he had no idea how that worked scientifically, old laws of science didn't apply to the new reality.
Still, he did his best to use the old science he learned to justify his power. It was human instinct to try and define the unknown in terms one already has knowledge of.
Using his bunny killing method, he had already gained a level, but killing the same beast too many times significantly decreases the amount of experience earned, so he would have to move on to bigger prey soon.
Grabbing the fresh bunny carcass, Damien went back to the cave he had found and set up residence in yesterday. He threw the body into the pile of other bodies and sat down.
Today would be his 2nd day going without food or water, but he was holding up relatively well due to the rich density of mana in the environment. Although he had 6 or 7 demon bunny corpses, he knew it would be stupid if he ate them as he is now.
Beast mana is infused in their bodies to strengthen them and is incompatible with humans, so it's usually impossible to eat beasts unless the carcasses are purified by a priest class or similar people.
When the world first changed, there was a couple of cases of people trying to cook and eat beast meat, however, things didn't end well for them.
Through further research, it was discovered that 99% of the time, people who ate non-purified beast meat had their bodies corrupted by the foreign mana and exploded.
The other 1% of people mutated into Demi-humans, but not the cute cat girl kind of that show up in the manga, rather they would have wolf heads and wolf paws with random tufts of fur jutting out from their bodies.
These people also tended to lose most of their reasoning, becoming more animalistic and primal.
Even knowing about these abysmal odds, Damien had a certain level of confidence in mutating successfully as long as he got stronger before he attempted it.
Either way, he would have to eat the beast meat, he just decided to delay it to increase his chances. However, he could only last at most another day or two before he needs to eat.
Once Damien got his thoughts in order, he thought back to the layout he made of the floor he's on.
'I don't know which floor this is, but it's definitely near the top. There are also only classless beasts on this floor since the rest were wiped out during the raid. Although it's frustrating, there's no way to go up or closer to the surface, there's only a single staircase that leads to the next floor.'
'I can't gain much more from classless beasts unless I kill everything alive on this floor, but that'll drain my stamina to the point where I'll be forced to eat the beast meat and take my chances with mutation.'
As his thoughts followed this path, he made his decision. 'I already firmed my resolve. There's no more use in hesitating. If it means I can get stronger faster, I'll go down to the next floor.'
But first, he decided to rest. Among the classless beasts here, he could reign relatively supreme with his teleportation, so they don't usually disturb the area where he stays.
What felt like a couple of hours later, Damien woke up feeling refreshed. Since it's only been around a day and a half since he got stranded, he still had a relative view of the time.
When he got up, he looked at the pile of corpses he'd made and sighed. He didn't know if he'd be able to come back for these and felt it was a waste to save them.
'Okay. It's time to go. This will be my first time facing real danger in my life.'
With an increased sense of vigilance, Damien walked down the staircase leading to the next floor.
When he reached what he had dubbed as the second floor, he was surprised to find that plants were growing here and there. Although it was mostly as desolate as the 1st floor, it still had a bit of spice.
Damien was pleasantly surprised by this discovery, after all, this meant that there was a possibility of there being a water source somewhere in this dungeon.
As Damien vigilantly walked through this new floor, he finally met his first prey. In front of him was a grey wolf that was slightly shorter than the average human, and judging from the aura it gave off, it was probably around level 8 or 9.
Damien and the wolf eyed each other vigilantly before the wolf made the first move and pounced. Damien jumped to his right and drew his short swords. He then teleported to the left side of the wolf and slashed down.
The wolf howled in pain as a gash was created in its side and attempted to bite Damien, however, he had already teleported to the adjacent side of the wolf, repeating his previous motion.
The wolf, in its confusion, turned completely towards Damien, who vanished from the spot and continued his tactics, 3 stabs later, the wolf collapsed to the floor.
[You killed Lvl 9 Grey Wolf, obtained 50 Exp]
"Haa..haa.."
Since the wolf didn't possess a great deal of intelligence, it was relatively easy to deal with, but Damien was still gasping for air. After all, he was never in frontal confrontations before this. Still, he couldn't help but smile. Even though his fight was for survival, he found himself having fun.
Fighting, killing, growing stronger. Ever since the possibilities opened up with the introduction of mana, this was all he ever wanted to do.
As he looked forward to the seemingly limitless future, he reaffirmed his determination.
'I will survive.'
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