As I continued through the tunnels, the green mist had completely receded, and instead, steam rose all around me. I was at a point where I had no idea how much time I had spent in these tunnels.

I laughed bitterly, recalling how excited I was to enter the tunnels. That one kidnapper was going to regret not mentioning that these tunnels continued on forever.

I’d gone through the full range of emotions, in these tunnels. Excitement to find my siblings. Frustration and stress, thinking that I may have missed them, or they may have been killed by the monsters inhabiting these tunnels.

But now, I just felt tired. Tired of everything. I didn’t want to walk anymore. Anything would be a pleasant break from this monotony.

It didn’t help that my only company was guilty of mind-controlling me for the better part of a week.

The world was going to hell, and what better scenery to commemorate that fact than the tunnels around me.

The Fire-attuned Mana Beads were becoming a more and more common sight, and the heat in the tunnels was becoming more and more oppressive. I could see rivulets of lava flash-cooling in the walls.

The moment I heard another sound, besides my own footsteps, my initial reaction was finally.

To my surprise, the sound didn’t come from a monster trawling the hallways. Instead, I was able to walk quietly into the next cavern. I even donned my newly acquired Invisibility Cloak, at Samantha’s suggestion.

Samantha said, the moment we turned the corner and saw Samantha’s next victim.

And victim was an accurate word, in this situation.

There was a level 60 Lava Troll, sleeping in the middle of the tavern. The sound that I had heard earlier was the sound of it snoring.

The first thing that I noticed was that it was massive. If it were to stand up, it would probably be 20 feet tall.

It made me almost pity the creature. The tunnels were all less than 10 feet in diameter, which meant this troll had certainly received the short end of the stick when the Atropos Schema had teleported it into this world.

The troll had dark red skin, probably due to its nature as a lava troll. Almost its whole body was covered in white scars. It wore a loincloth that was made from the furry hide of some unknown creature, which raised all kinds of interesting questions. I could even see signs of very patchy needlework on the loincloth. Is it sentient?

Samantha said, with a hint of joy in her voice,

From the way that she clearly didn’t answer my question, I figured the troll was probably sentient.

I sighed. What did it say about my morals, that “innocent until proven guilty” only carried so far?

Goblins and orcs showed themselves to be sentient in the tutorial. It was likely that this troll was, too.

If it were Justin in my shoes, every time, I’m sure he would try to reason with the other person. He wouldn’t have fared well in the tutorial…

If it were Petra… something told me she would have no qualms slitting anybody’s throat.

I sighed. I was just so tired.

I snuck up to the Lava Troll, still under the Invisibility Cloak, dodging around the bubbling streams of lava that flowed around the uneven floor, until I was just a foot away from the troll. The troll was completely bald, but parts of its body were intermittently caked in rock—likely lava that had hardened in its sleep.

Its skin was wrinkled and somewhat flabby.

To my surprise, it didn’t smell foul. Was that speciesist?

Instead of a smell, it exuded an extremely uncomfortable heat. Standing just a foot away, I noticed that I was losing about one HP per second, just from the creature’s heat.

I followed her instructions, and I struck. The attack wasn’t particularly fast, nor particularly tricky. A solid, powerful blow directly targeting the troll’s neck.

As I swung my blade, I saw the troll’s eyelids shoot open, and a very human look of shock appeared on its face, just as my sword sliced through the Adam’s apple, hit a bit of resistance on something, before plowing through and my blade lodged in the creature’s spinal cord.

Sizzling, hot blood spurted out of the neck, and I had to dodge to the side to avoid being touched by it.

The blood ate away at the rock around me, melting directly through the rock and releasing thick gusts of steam.

My Vampiric Blade’s effect was active, and the same moment it sliced through the troll’s neck, I received mana back from the sword.

I poured the mana into Agility, leaving the sword and dodging backwards, in case the troll had any final death throws.

The troll reached feebly towards me, but its hand collapsed.

Level up!

I was extremely thankful for the D-ranked Interdimensional Pouch that the Imperial Scouts had gifted me. Without it, I would have to chop up and harvest the most valuable troll organs…

Or, on second thought, I could have left the troll here. I had plenty of money anyway.

All it took was placing a hand on the corpse, and the next second, it was gone.

Then, I glanced around at the loot around me.

There was a Town Token that had appeared on the troll’s corpse. Now that I had four town tokens, all I needed to do was kill the Region Lord, and I would be free from this hellhole.

Next to the Town Token was a skill book:

Overpowering Strike (D-rank): When activated, doubles your effective Strength for the next five seconds. Cooldown: 1 hour. Requires Strength Affinity.

Maybe this would be a good apology gift for Ryker. Thinking about Ryker reminded me that I hadn’t seen him since Lord Ignatius died. I hope he’s not bitter at me, too.

After collecting my loot, I turned to my Status Window next. I had one free point.

I ignored Samantha, and put the point towards Mental Power. Samantha had been downplaying Mental Power this whole time. If it was only useful for defense against mind control, then shouldn’t it be called Mental Defense, not Mental Power?

Name:

Jarek

Level:

25

HP:

35/35

Physical Defense:

18

Strength:

31 (+5)

Mental Power:

14

Dexterity:

10 (+5)

Agility:

10 (+14)

Perception:

20 (+2)

Luck:

11

Mana Pool:

78 (+10)

Mana Regeneration:

33 (+10)

Available Points:

0

Coins:

155,247,000

Class:

Mana Modulator (D-rank)

Profession:

Rune Master

(E-rank)

Titles:

Region Lord (E-rank)

Skills and Spells:

Identify (E-rank)

Mana Modulation (D-rank Core)

Death’s Defier (A-rank)

Mana Sensing (E-rank)

Healthy Magic (E-rank)

Don’t Mind Me (D-rank)

Aquatic Respiration (E-rank)

Polyglot (E-rank)

Soul Communion (D-rank)

Cursed Lightning (D-rank)

Affinities:

Internal Mana (D-rank Low), External Unattributed Mana (E-rank Low), Soul Magic (D-rank Low)

Equipment:

Vampiric Blade (D-rank): +5 Strength, +5 Agility.

Bloodied Battle Robes (D-rank): +5 Mana Pool, +5 Mana Regen.

Imperial Scout Boots (E-rank): +4 Agility.

Greedy Gloves (D-rank): +5 Mana Pool, +5 Mana Regen.

Bonded Blades (D-rank): +5 Dexterity, +5 Agility.

Goat Mask (D-rank): +2 Perception.

Interdimensional Pouch (D-rank):

Missions:

Zone Offense

Renegade Bounty Hunter

I wish I could say I easily found the Region Lord, now that I had all four Town Tokens.

But no. I had to fight through a cave of Giant Lava Spiders, and then a cave of Lava Crocodiles. After the crocodiles, I started encountering monsters basically every 10 feet. Bats, worms, bugs, aardvark-like creatures, you name it.

The incessant flood of creatures in the tunnels at least indicated that I was almost at the bottom of this god-forsaken place.

I was used to the heat, but I wasn’t used to the pain of countless injuries, or just the mind-numbing nature of it all.

It had likely been well over 24 hours since I entered these mines. I’d been forced to take brief power naps—never for too long, because God knows what creatures might sneak up on me. There were skills out there that enabled people to get by on less sleep, but it was unlikely that my three affinities would allow me to learn them. By continually increasing my own Strength, though, I would be increasing my Stamina, which would mean I could last longer and longer without sleep.

The deeper I traveled into these tunnels and caves, the more I felt like I was walking through gold. In fact, there were definitely moments where I casually Identified large gems to find Mana Shards buried in the walls around me—and each Mana Shard would be roughly worth 10,000 coins.

I’d heard once, that if Bill Gates were to stop “working” and pick up a hundred-dollar bill, he would be losing money.

I felt the same way, as I ignored the priceless treasures around me.

Finally, I turned a corner, and saw the largest cavern I had seen yet.