Free Web NovelChapter 9: First Choice
The igniting disgust did not stop.
Disgust toward the monsters.
Disgust toward the eyeball that threw him in this swamp.
Disgust toward the fate the man spoke of, that willed his death.
Worst of all, disgust toward the part of him that had learned how to keep on living.
Amidst everything, there was a bright side to it... He could now try the combat style of the warrior, and that thought alone drew a grin onto his face.
The excitement that man had in his heart had partially, unknowingly infected Slave 135.
Or maybe they were similar to one another more than he knew.
Though he wasn’t the one doing the fighting, the fact that he experienced it in first person was precious beyond compare... and that fact alone changed everything.
Yet, at the end of the day... The whole thing was closer to a very a long dream than an actual battle. He could only realise that he had not taken the toll of this battle completely.
The moment he fell again into his body, things started reversing again.
Everything was still slowly regathering...
He was no longer seeking a path, nor did the numbers pressure his heart. freёwebnovel.com
’Survival, what was survival to him?’ He thought while watching the swamp go backwards.
Maybe surviving was not just an instinct, but also a decision...
Or rather a choice, to walk away with his existence intact, untainted by this place.
’Is living past this trial the lesser evil?’ He wondered, ’Staying here forever is an option, maybe the easier one.’ He concluded.
His frozen body failed to express the bitterness in his conclusion.
Maybe this was his first choice, the lesser evil was to fight for however many days it took and escape the Trial.
Because there were no better choices there... that alone made it a lesser evil.
Though maybe he was thinking too much about it.
Soon, the color returned to the swamp. The monsters’ growls did not give his thoughts time to settle.
He sprinted forward without hesitation.
He eyed something on his path.
A blade lay abandoned on the battlefield, dropped by a dead goblin long ago. He grabbed it.
The blade he dropped didn’t return to him, but it didn’t matter now that he had a weapon.
The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, a smile crept onto his face.
A smile like something he had lost a long time ago. He caught his reflection in the blade for a brief moment.
He noticed something, but there was no time to dwell on it.
"Shit show commences," he spoke, mocking the mechanical system.
He tried to mimic the movements of the warrior from the memories, awkwardly, but his blade surged forward.
His body moved wildly, swinging the blade again and again.
Goblins fell, one after another. His blade found a throat to cut, or an eye to pierce, but he was still not refined. He hit a skull, shattering his own blade along with it.
He was starting to kill more efficiently, and the monsters reacted to the new threat within a few exchanges.
They surrounded him more aggressively now that he was fighting back, but he managed to find a gap and slipped out of the encirclement.
Once.
Twice.
He failed on the third attempt, but he only received a light wound on his back...
Every time he succeeded, his success reduced his enemies by one or more...
He licked his lips ’Should I this too?’
He tried to calculate ahead, for when he failed, he still had in mind a plan, or rather, a path where he could escape and slip through.
One of the warrior’s slashes was exceptionally wide and misleading once the trajectory was unravelled...
Slave 135 saw a chance to try this very slash once two wolves started rushing at him, but that was a costly attempt.
His shoulder dislocated mid-motion, but the pain wasn’t the problem... It was the fact that his arm hung unmoving.
Only then did he realize how difficult those movements truly were.
The warrior had made it look effortless... painful, but natural.
Slave 135 was not sure how to make it happen, but he did not stop.
He transferred the blade to his other hand in a split second.
But his blade wasn’t the only weapon; he also had a pair of strong, functional legs.
He crouched slightly, gathering strength into his legs before jumping, just like he had seen, landing his heel into a goblin’s nose, crushing the smaller creature’s face entirely with his entire body weight.
He kept fighting.
Even with a dislocated shoulder.
Even with a bleeding back.
Yet, his mind was calm, he was perfectly sane. Though things didn’t keep progressing as easily as he thought, it was inevitable...
The greater goblins at the back finally started moving. For the first time since the second wave began, they advanced.
Their movements were more coordinated. They ran, encircling him.
Heavy clubs crashed down together.
He tried to move to a gap between the falling attacks, but in the process he turned his back on the one closest to him.
Instead of a club,
Slam~
A foot slammed into his side, launching him into the air like a broken doll.
Yet, he somehow managed to survive that brief exchange and landed successfully on his feet.
Though, it wasn’t the last. Another coordinated attack came.
"Dammit" He found his balance shaken by the kick, this time he failed to move or react.
Clubs rained down on his head without mercy, bringing familiar darkness with them.
The Trial reversed... and as soon as the message came announcing the return of the trial...
A wide, vicious grin crept onto his face.
For he had finally changed his view of this place. His place had become something else now.
A testing ground.
A place where he could attempt everything he had seen.
Without consequence.
Without permanence.
Pain still existed, but it no longer ruled him... It was part of his acquired experience.
He had the experience in his mind as a memory, and he must find a way to make it his own.
"So what if I happened to die a few more times here?" A chuckle followed his words.
He also remembered the words of the man in the bright space. The mental fortitude he had was something hard to realize unless circumstances allowed it.
Like now.
And thus, the Trial proceeded, along with the never-ending slaughter.
His grinding was slow, but the numbers were thinning...
He was by far slower than the warrior, far slower than the memories.
Yet, he was improving, and this improvement, for a warrior, brought joy.
The joy of his very own efficiency beginning to take form, an instinct that was his own.
Wild and chaotic on the outside, but deep within, it was perfectly organized and intentional.
His very own survival instinct was taking form, built on foreign experiences he felt first hand.
Unfortunately, that didn’t prevent more deaths, but it reduced the number of times he was getting ripped apart.
By the time he died the third time after witnessing these memories, all monsters from the first wave were already dead.
Not a single one was left.
He wasn’t as exhausted as he thought he would be. He was not certain about the man in the bright space.
He had a miraculous ability to heal exhaustion left by time, by suffering, and by pain.
And for some reason, now his words of assurance felt more trustworthy than ever.
Right now, it felt more so than anything in his life.
His words became something like a promise that he would hold onto regardless of anything.
Amidst his thoughts, thinning the numbers of these monsters was his top priority.
By the fourth death after the memory fragment, only a few dozen monsters remained.
He suddenly broke into a sprint.
There was one last thing he wanted to attempt.
That dance.
