Chapter 144.1

144 Part 1

Let’s be an Adventurer! ~Defeating Dungeons with a Skill Board~ 144

Let’s Improve Our Bodies Steadily!

After finishing their dinner and Karen returning to the hotel, Haruki once again armed himself and headed for the dungeon alone.

Rhea and Esta insisted that he take them with him, but he couldn’t have them stay up all night for two days in a row.

Haruki basically had to escape from his own house without them noticing.

It was Karen who had made him do that.

Her rapid growth sparked the fuse of Haruki’s motivation.

Haruki wasn’t being a sore loser.

He was just envious of Karen, who had taken the next step before her.

The difference between Haruki and Karen was due to the difference in their basis.

Karen continued to solidify her basis.

Haruki didn’t intend to neglect his basis, but he knew he was no match with Karen’s patience and determination when it came to gaining experience.

As a result, Karen, who had a solid basis, easily advanced to the next step.

Haruki, on the other hand, had his hands full with reviewing his own movements.

Haruki was still unable to take full advantage of his increased physical strength.

This was his first time feeling this unfamiliar with his own body.

But it actually made a lot of sense after thinking about it for a bit.

With his accelerated growth, Haruki’s body had a large amount of energy that he had yet to process.

That solidified energy greatly reduced the power that Haruki was supposed to be able to draw out.

It was kind of like rust in a tin toy’s joints.

If the rust were to be cleaned off, the joints would move smoothly, but it would be too smooth, making it hard to control its movement.

The only way to get used to this body quickly is to keep moving.

In addition, Haruki was still unable to master his Divine Energy.

But that was only natural.

Suddenly increasing a few levels in a single skill would cause said skill to become quite difficult to control very quickly.

Despite this, Haruki had raised his Divine Energy to 5 at once.

There was no use to a skill if it couldn’t be controlled.

Haruki, like Karen, wanted to move on to the next step as soon as possible.

But he had to take care of those two issues first.

Using the gate, Haruki arrived at the 15th floor.

He really wanted to play with the Centipedes, but the monsters on the first floor were too soft for Haruki to use all of his power against them.

So Haruki decided to train against Werewolves.

He wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked by multiple monsters, and since Haruki had greatly improved his level, he wouldn’t get too many experience points.

“Alright!!”

With a tough expression on his face, Haruki pulled out his two short swords.

First, he had to explore how much he could do with his body while fighting Werewolves.

On top of that, he also had to learn how to use his Divine Energy.

The challenges kept piling up.

However, Haruki had already decided what to do.

He only had to fight while giving it his all.

“–!!”

Haruki poured his energy into his mask and activated his Divine Energy with all his might.

A Werewolf who was attracted by it approached from the other side of the bushes.

If he kept on using his Divine Spirit with all of his energy, Haruki would be able to lure monsters to himself.

I’d have a strong presence that others would notice!

“This is something I definitely have to master, no matter what!!”

The flames of motivation burned brightly within Haruki.

The Werewolf stopped nearly 30 meters in front of him.

It lowered its posture, pushing its claws onto the ground.

Haruki delved deep into his own consciousness.

He collected his consciousness, deepening his focus.

Directing his own Detection to himself, recognizing every corner of his own body.

He was to become aware of every single fiber in his body.

“–!!”

He instantly reduced the distance between the Werewolf and himself to zero.

The Werewolf reacted.

He quickly moved away to avoid him.

However, Haruki wouldn’t allow it.

Before it could avoid him, Haruki went around him and attacked with his short sword.

The blade flashed, and the Werewolf’s head swirled around in the air.

Haruki had defeated the Werewolf with a single attack.

It had been an attack so swift that the Haruki from some time ago wouldn’t have believed it to be possible.

Even so…

“…Damn it!”

Haruki was overflowing with regret.

That attack had been too aggressive.

Even if he were to lose his posture, or his opponent ended up avoiding them, Haruki knew he could execute his attacks in a more flowing manner.

Haruki had learned that in his duel against Shigure.

He had been able to understand that completely from that battle.

(The idea is that my movements have to be as lean as possible!)

Reflecting on the current battle, Haruki immediately used his Divine Energy to lure more Werewolves to himself.

After that, Haruki kept on fighting Werewolves without saying another word.

He repeated a series of battles through trial and error.

Eventually, the Werewolf corpses started to form a large pile in the dungeon.

At that time, Haruki’s conscience, which had been deeply submerged, rose to the surface.

He estimated that around 3 hours had passed since he defeated his first Werewolf today.

Haruki took off his mask, and wiped off the sweat on his forehead.

“My movements are much better now, but…”

Haruki still seemed to be rather dispirited.

That’s because he realized that his body was feeling different than how he had expected.

At this rate, it could take him a week or two to perfectly balance his consciousness and his bodily sensation.

However, there was a high chance that he would have to start over if he were to suffer from a strong level-up sickness.

“…Okay. There’s still some room for improvement, but I suppose I should call it a day.”

He really wanted to keep hunting Werewolves to his heart’s content, but doing so would mean that he’d have to stay up without sleeping for two nights in a row.

Staying up all night for two nights in a row, all while hunting on the 16th floor, was a dangerous thing to do, even for Haruki.

Back when he was working at the printing company, he would be able to recover from a mistake after staying up for two nights in a row.

However, if he were to make a mistake in the dungeon, the consequences would be much worse.

He couldn’t afford to make mistakes, so he couldn’t overdo it.

Even though he was strongly reluctant to do so, Haruki took the Werewolves apart and then returned to the surface.

＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊

The next day, Haruki and the others warmed up on the 16th floor, and then aimed for the 17th floor.

As they had hunted a lot of Mountain Wasabis the other day, Haruki could already fight perfectly against them.

He also had a great understanding of how much distance he should keep between himself and the club-wielding Mountain Wasabis.

Haruki and the others couldn’t fall behind the Mountain Wasabis, whose physical abilities weren’t that different from those of Werewolves.

The forest stage seemed to be a problem, but this was solved by Haruki climbing on top of the trees and keeping a good grasp of their current position at all times.

“It’s a bit different from the tree climbing that I know of…”

Karen was surprised to see Haruki climbing trees with a triangular kick.

That was how he had learned to do it in Asahikawa.

(But what’s so different about it…?)

“Well, it gets the job done, doesn’t it?”

“I-I guess…”

Looking from atop of a tree gave Haruki a wider Detection range than when he was in the middle of the forest’s thickness.