The Stench
These belonged to other adventurers…
The gear scattered across the floor was varied — bows, swords, shields, staves. Inside the Tower, corpses vanished on their own after enough time had passed, leaving only their equipment behind.
Then a foul stench suddenly seeped into my nostrils.
“Ugh!”
I clamped a hand over my nose. What the hell was that smell?
Thud— thud—
From the darkness came a sound that shook the ground, and a massive shadow lumbered slowly into view. The closer it drew, the worse the stench became. The silhouette looked about four meters tall — and it wasn’t just tall. Its bulk was enormous.
Dangerous.
I spun around and tried to open the door I’d come through. It didn’t budge. Not even a fraction.
I’d heard about this before. Once you entered a boss room, there was no way out until either you or the boss was dead.
So I have no choice but to fight?
I summoned daggers into both hands and gripped them tight. The shadow drew closer, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I finally made out what the monster was.
“An ogre…”
It had a roughly humanoid shape, but with pointed ears, fangs like a beast’s, a colossal frame — and a club clenched in its right hand. Whether it hit me with that club or its bare fist, a single clean blow would be fatal. That much was obvious.
I swallowed hard and stared the ogre down. It seemed to notice me only then, tilting its head slightly in my direction. Then it threw its head back and roared.
“GROOOOAAAR!!”
The ground began to shake again.
Thud— thud—
Thud— thud—
Once I realized what those footsteps meant, cold sweat broke out across my skin.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Shadows of similar size were approaching. Two more ogres stepped into view.
“Three of them? Total?”
This wasn’t some kind of joke. Straight from goblins to three ogres?
The first ogre suddenly bent its knees. Wait… no way—
“KRAAAAH!!”
It bellowed and launched itself at me, club raised high in both hands. I kicked off the ground hard, leaping and rolling clear.
BOOM—
The floor where its club had struck was cratered. I’d barely made it out of the way. Scrambling to my feet, I eyed the approaching ogre and muttered under my breath.
“Poison Coating.”
Poison Coating: Intermediate
Coat your weapon with your own original poison.
Current Poison Effect: Mild Paralysis
A green liquid seeped out over my daggers. It was more agile than I’d expected — but I was still much faster.
I dropped low into a running stance, then drove hard off the ground.
Acceleration.
I closed the distance in a blur. The club came swinging again, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t dodge. With a thunderous crash, the ogre smashed the ground. In that split second of stillness, I was already sliding between its legs — and I went straight for its Achilles tendon.
A clean, smooth cut.
“GRRAAH!”
The ogre screamed and dropped to one knee. This might actually work. I pivoted, aiming for the exposed neck of the kneeling giant — and then another club came flying out of nowhere.
I threw both daggers up to block, but the force of the blow sent me flying. I slammed into the far wall.
“Guh—!!”
The moment my back hit stone, the air was punched clean out of my lungs and I crumpled to the floor. A third of my HP vanished in an instant. I’d blocked the club, but the impact against the wall alone had done that much damage.
I coughed, tasting something warm in my mouth. Wiping it with the back of my hand, I saw blood.
“These things hit like a truck…”
In the distance, the remaining two ogres were closing in at a deliberate pace. One of them kept trying to push itself up, only to collapse again. Being that massive had its drawbacks — once the Achilles was cut, it couldn’t get back on its feet easily. That was a small mercy, but…
This is bad.
A twenty-percent survival rate. Now I understood why. There was no terrain to work with — no pillars, no boulders, nothing common to a cave. Nowhere to hide, nothing to use. And their attacks hit far too hard. If I hadn’t blocked that last swing with my daggers, it would have caved in my chest and killed me on the spot.
And one more problem: even after pumping them full of paralysis poison, the effect took forever to kick in. They were simply too big.
If only the magic stones I’d fed last time had actually upgraded the skill…
I’d killed so many goblins, and still no skill upgrade. And with that ridiculously long digestion time, dumping the few magic stones I had left right now wouldn’t change a thing.
The ground trembled as the ogres drew nearer.
Damn it… isn’t there a magic stone that digests faster?
What was I even thinking? As if something like that existed.
I planted my left hand on my knee and tried to stand — and then I saw the back of that hand again.
Wait… this?
My eyes locked onto the ring.
A ring set with a refined magic stone.
Refined… could it be?
I pulled the ring off and clenched it in my fist, glancing at the approaching ogres. The village chief had given me this ring — said it was my brother’s keepsake. That weighed on me, but…
“I’m sorry, Chief. I have no choice but to use it.”
Holding the ring, I opened my skill window and tapped Feed beneath Acceleration.
Feed the Refined Magic Stone Ring?
I swallowed hard.
“Yes.”
I hit confirm. The ring in my hand vanished, and the skill window blazed with light. Acceleration began to change.
“Huh?!!”
The light faded, and a new skill name filled my vision.
Your body’s movements become even faster. While Acceleration is active, a poisonous mist afterimage is left along your path of travel. Toggleable on/off.
Poison Effect: Dizziness
Poisonous Afterimage?! It was basically a poison gas trail.
With an inhaled toxin, there was always the risk of hitting allies — or myself. But I was alone here, and I had the Poison Resistance skill.
“Heh…”
I found myself grinning without meaning to. I could do this. With this skill, I could win.
I walked forward. The ogres were eight meters out. I pulled a potion from my inventory and downed it in a few gulps. A tiny amount of HP recovered, and my natural regeneration ticked up. Then I dropped low and shouted.
“Hey, big guys! You’re my prey now! Acceleration!!!”
I exploded forward. In a heartbeat I was right on top of them, and I called out in my mind:
On!
Green smoke began billowing out behind me.
Passive skill has been activated.
Poison. I had to finish this fast — Poisonous Afterimage burned one MP per second, and after feeding the ring to the skill, I only had fifteen MP left.
I circled them once, spreading the smoke. It rose from my path and filled the space around us. As the air turned hazy and the poison saturated everything, the ogres started coughing.
“Guh-koff!!”
Even their coughs sounded grotesque, matching their appearance. Once they’d inhaled enough, they began to thrash and stagger.
Before the smoke clears!
I started carving into their flesh one cut at a time — the tops of their feet, their shins, their Achilles tendons. Anything within reach, I sliced. One of them dropped to a knee, howling in agony, and started swinging its club wildly. The club came straight at my face. I snapped my head back just in time — and the club smashed into the ground, whipped through the air, and cracked another ogre square in the face.
“KUEK!!”
The second ogre toppled backward from the blow. Just like in fantasy novels — ogres really were that stupid. Beating your own ally to death with your club?
The wild swings were starting to scatter the smoke. Crap—! I immediately hit regular Acceleration, sprinted at the remaining one, ran up its kneeling thigh, and slashed its throat. Ogre blood erupted in a spray. The creature pitched forward and crashed down.
THUD—
“You stinking bastard! One down!!”
“Grrraah…”
The first ogre let out a furious roar.
“The rest of you will be easy.”
They were already half-crippled. One by one, I finished them off.
You have cleared the 5th Floor Boss of the Tower.
“Hah… I won!!”
I collapsed flat onto my back. The System used to give me guidance when I first arrived, but lately it had gone quiet. Was it because I wasn’t a newbie anymore?
I lay there watching the ogres fade away. Before long they were gone completely, leaving only their loot behind. Might as well see what dropped.
I grabbed my knee, pushed myself up, and walked over to where they’d fallen. Three ogres. What had they left?
At the first one’s death spot lay a strangely shaped object.
◈ An ogre's ear packed with foul-smelling earwax. Used as a medicinal ingredient.
“What the hell? Disgusting…”
I didn’t even want to touch the thing — but a medicinal ingredient? In a world like this, those were incredibly rare. Pinching it between my thumb and forefinger with my nose plugged, I dropped it into my inventory.
“Ugh… what about the others?”
I checked the remaining death spots. Same deal — more ears, plus one piece of equipment. A glove-shaped item. I appraised it.
◈ Gloves crafted from tough ogre hide.
◈ Defense +15
◈ Cold Resistance +5
They looked like they reeked, but the defense was three times higher than the gloves I was wearing. Who cared about appearances when your life was on the line?
I slipped on the Ogre Leather Gloves and flexed my fists. Surprisingly comfortable fit.
I’d cleared the boss room. The fifth floor of the Tower, where only one in five survived. It had been dangerous, no question. I thought back to the moment my hand touched that blue door — the voice that had echoed inside my head, my hand opening the door on its own. Just remembering it made my skull ache.
It’s driving me crazy. Next time, I’m not even touching a boss room door.
I dumped my remaining stat points into Strength.
Clearing the boss room opened an exit on the far side. I pulled another potion from my inventory, drank it, and headed that way. After walking for a while, a single gate appeared — and oddly enough, it was black. The same color as the gate at the Tower’s entrance. Floors one through four had blue portals. The fifth floor had been a door. And the way up to the sixth was a black gate again.
“What kind of place is waiting for me this time… that it’s black?”
A flicker of worry crossed my mind, but my hand was already reaching for the gate.
“Let’s go! Floor six!”
Caw— caw—
The light was so intense I couldn’t open my eyes. From the first floor to the fourth, things had gradually brightened, but it had still been dark enough that carrying a lantern helped. This place was different.
It took about ten seconds before I could slowly open my eyes — and what I saw left me stunned.
The first thing I saw was the sky. Birds flapped overhead. Insects chirped. Every so often, the cry of some beast. Trees stood packed so densely they nearly blotted out the sky, and in the distance I could see a river with a massive current.
It was a jungle.