The zombie dragon raised its claws.
It probably thinks I’m frozen in fear, so it’s coming to turn me into mincemeat.
Everything about the monster before me was horrifying, but staring it down, I was overwhelmed with another emotion—joy.
This thing is just more experience points.
“Paralyze.”
With a creak of bone, the monster’s claws froze in mid-air.
“Poison.”
“Almost done, huh?”
The yellow gauge for the Paralyze effect duration was almost at zero.
“Sleep.”
A blue gauge appeared above the zombie dragon. After a few seconds, the yellow gauge disappeared.
With paralysis no longer holding it still, it crashed to the ground in a heap of bones, legs bent at awkward angles—like someone had suddenly turned on the gravity and squashed it flat.
It’s hard to tell with the hollow eye sockets, but…
“It’s sleeping…I think.”
I sat down cross-legged in front of the dragon’s head. Its white bones were turning a familiar shade of purple. Even undead enemies weren’t immune to my skills.
“Zzz… Zzz…”
Is it…snoring?
It stank of acid and rotting flesh…and there was some green stuff growing on it that looked like moss.
The dragon showed no signs of waking.
All I can do now is wait. I need to stay here and stay alert, though—gotta make sure I’m ready with paralysis before sleep wears off.
Might as well check my stats.
“Status open.”
With one eye on the gauge, I opened my stat screen.
Too-ka Mimori
Level 501
HP: +1503 MP: +12403/16533
Attack: +1503 Defense: +1503 Vitality: +1503
Speed: +1503 Intelligence: +1503
Title: E-Class Hero
“Level 501. I’m starting to look pretty intimidating…”
Though other than my high MP, I still don’t even know if these stats are any good. Not to beat a dead horse, but Oyamada’s vitality at level 1 was +500, right? There’s no way to know if everybody’s stat modifiers work by multiplication like mine, but if they do, Oyamada would only need to be level 4 to have more health than I do.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if you improve even slower than a completely average human.”
That’s what that foul Goddess told me…so my level could shoot up hundreds, and I might only reach the stats of an average soldier?
“So…”
I just can’t put too much importance on any of these stats other than MP. What I really need to do is work on my reflexes so I can react fast enough to surprise attacks and stuff like that. The numbers don’t mean anything, but fighting through these ruins should give me lots of practice.
“And how’s my MP…?”
I used some on the pouch and some on this dragon, but there’s still plenty left. No need to worry about running out soon.
Paralyze: Level 2 / Mana cost: 10MP / Multiple target skill
Sleep: Level 2 / Mana cost: 10MP / Multiple target skill
Poison: Level 2 / Mana cost: 10MP / Multiple target skill
So all my skills had been upgraded to work on more than one creature when I leveled up. I could see all the mana costs as well.
I rubbed my chin.
They’ve improved, but the mana cost hasn’t changed. Given how long these effects last, and their 100% hit rate…
“These skills are incredible…”
I’m supposed to be an E-Class hero—lowest rank there is.
“Are they really low-level skills?”
I remembered Kirihara asking the Goddess about this.
“Why’s S-Class the highest?”
“The ‘S’ stands for ‘Special’, of course.”
She said she used the alphabet system so it’d be easy for us to understand our classes…
“Do they all stand for English words?” Nobody who actually saw my fights would call my skills weak.
“What if—”
A theory formed in my mind—not one I could test in any way, just a shot in the dark.
What if the “E” in E-Class stands for something, too? What if it’s not the lowest rank, it’s entirely outside the ranking system. Not like the others. Outcast. What if the “E” in E-Class stands for…
Exceptional.
“Maybe E-Class heroes aren’t ranked the same as the others—they’re exceptions.”
My stats are so much lower than the A-Class heroes that my “exceptional” status couldn’t apply to them…unless the others gain their stats at a slower pace than I do, I guess. Either way, Oyamada’s vitality at level 1 was still higher than mine at level 100, which makes me seriously weak in comparison. All I can say for sure is that my unique skills are something special. Maybe it’s like…all my points got put into them, leaving nothing for my normal stats?
“Not like I can check down here, anyway.”
I have weapons to fight with—that’s all I need to know.
I sat silently waiting for the zombie dragon to die.
If it dies and I’m really far away, do I still get the EXP? I want to test that, but…I need the EXP from this thing right now. It’s the first time I’ve seen one, too—this isn’t the time to test out new theories.
A long time passed.
“Ggur…”
Level up!
Level 501 → Level 549
The zombie dragon finally died.
It must’ve had a lot of HP—that took a while. Poison is my lifeline, but it’s always going to take a long time to work.
“…”
But now, a new problem presented itself. I’d defeated monsters, hunger, and thirst, but there was one more pressing issue to deal with.
My eyelids grew heavy.
“Sleep.”
I was summoned to this world, transported to these ruins…my heart had been pounding for what felt like days. I’d run sprints, almost died, climbed up and down stairs. And now that I was out of immediate danger and had gotten to eat something, it was all catching up to me. My nerves were unwinding a little, letting me relax. My brain screamed out for relief, and my fatigued body clamored for me to rest.
Doesn’t matter how high my stats are—I still need sleep. And if my stat modifiers stop working when I’m sleep-deprived, that’s even worse.
What do I do?
If there was someone else here with me, we could take turns keeping watch. These are ruins, right? So, where are the ruined buildings? The rooms?
I let my eyes follow the spiral slope that stretched high into the ceiling.
I’ve got to go up there, I’m sure of it. Can I even make it when I’m this exhausted? I might collapse halfway up. And I beat this one dragon-thing, but what if there are more further up? Should I try to get some rest down here—is there even a decent place to sleep in this huge cave?
I decided to check the perimeter of the cave I was in. The opening the zombie dragon had made in the rock led to a tunnel, which narrowed toward the end into the dragon’s inner sanctum. The whole chamber was full of dark green liquid, like a city sewer system.
It looked like acid. I picked up a stone and threw it in—it hissed as it dissolved. It seemed a little weaker than the stuff that oozed out of the monsters’ bodies, but still dangerous, and the smell was so intense I could hardly stand being near it. I couldn’t sleep there.
What now? I don’t want to sleep in the open…
I looked over at the defeated zombie dragon. Its bones were in a heap, jutting out every which way—my sleep spell made it collapse in on itself.
I had an idea.
“Uh…I don’t know if it’s a good one, though.”
I walked over to the dragon and lay my hand on its broken skeleton. Then I drew back and punched it hard—it was like a rock.
“Should be solid enough…”
I began to climb the fallen
skeleton.
“Maybe…here?”
Two thick bones had crashed down on top of each other, leaving a small gap.
I peered into the tight hollow beyond.
“Can I…really fit in there?”
I squeezed myself between the two bones.
“Uhn…okay…”
I popped through the opening, then held up the leather pouch to look around. The little chamber was too small to stand up straight in—I had to stoop—and there was just enough space for one person to lie down. It was good enough.
“It reeks pretty bad in here, but at least I’ll be safe enough to sleep for a while.” There wasn’t anything I could do about the smell, and at least it didn’t burn my nose like the acid smell in that tunnel. I shimmied back outside. The dragon’s giant bones were strewn around the area, and some had shattered when they fell. I picked up a thin fragment and broke it in half with one firm stamp.
Okay, this piece is soft enough to snap, and it makes a good, loud sound, too.
“Here, here…and here…”
I laid out pieces of bone all around the hollow where I was planning to sleep. If a monster tried to get near me, it should step on a bone shard and make noise. It was a simple alarm system, but having it there made me feel a lot calmer. I squeezed back into the hollow.
I sat in the dark, propped up against a wall of bone. It would be too dangerous to lie down—I wanted to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. I let my eyes close, and almost immediately drifted off.
Crack!
I woke with a start and slowly opened my eyes.
“They’re here.”
How long was I asleep? My head feels…good. I can do this. I read on the internet once that as long as you sleep deeply enough, a short rest is enough…I feel kind of heavy and sluggish, but not much more than I usually do when I just woke up.
Okay, let’s see what kind of monster it is this time.
Crack—
Huh?
A chorus of cracking sounds followed.
Sounds like more than one…I guess these ones travel in packs.
I shifted so I could peek out at them from my hiding place. I couldn’t make out their shapes, but I could feel the clear presence of multiple monsters outside. They looked like they were searching for something…me, probably.
I wonder if they caught my scent. Maybe this rotting dragon is masking the smell? Still…they seem organized, way different from the monsters I’ve dealt with so far. The minotaurs and bird-heads acted like animals, but these ones are acting intelligent.
With a cacophony of cracking sounds, they stamped down hard on my alarm bones and let out a series of strange noises.
“Geeeeh? Geh-geh-geh-geee!”
“Where is it?!” they seemed to be saying over and over.
“There’s no way I’ll be able to slip away unnoticed. But hey…”
I squeezed myself out into the open.
“Running away was never the plan.”
I can’t turtle in my hiding place, my line of sight wouldn’t be good enough to hit all these guys. I have the higher ground up here, and cover from keeping my back to the wall.
I finally got a good look at the approaching creatures. They were humanoid lizard monsters—pretty much like lizardman monsters from games or movies, with a few horrifying additions. They each had writhing bunches of black tentacles sprouting from their shoulders, and their hands flopped in the wind like wet handkerchiefs.
The wriggling tentacles dripped onto the rock below, hissing with each drip.
Acid. Of course. Might as well give up on eating any of these things…
The lizardmen had jet-black eyes with clouded gold pupils, just like the others. And on their foreheads, each one had…a second mouth? It seemed bizarre. The creatures had massive, overdeveloped legs compared to their thinner arms, and they were enormous—bigger than the minotaurs, even. I counted twenty of them.
“Geee-ehh?”
The first lizardman to notice me let out a guttural cry.
“Geeaah!”
The monsters turned their murderous eyes on me all at once.
They want to kill me, but…there’s something else.
“Gyo, gyo, gyoi!”
“Huh?”
One of the monsters near the back came forward, holding a long stick with something hanging off it…it was a skeleton, most likely human, wearing a long dress. It looked like they’d dressed it up in those clothes.
“Wahh, wahh, waahh~! ♪”
The lizardman waved his stick and jiggled the skeleton back and forth, and the one next to him wailed and narrowed its eyes, pretending to cry and looking at the ceiling.
“N-Ngooooo… Gnaaaahh!”
Its voice changed. Was it imitating a scream?
“Oh, I get it now.”
The skeleton in the dress—they were acting out the last moments of her life. Next, another lizardman brought forward a blackened, charred skeleton in masculine clothes.
I can already guess what happened to that one.
One of the lizardmen rolled over onto its back and started flailing its limbs wildly to the cheers of the others.
“Gye-gye-gyeeeaaaahh?!”
“Geh geh geh geh!”
They were mocking the way these heroes died. I could imagine the man twisting in pain as he burned to death. These creatures had watched. They’d enjoyed it.
Next, a tall one stepped forward and laid a human skull at its feet.
The lizardman looked at me with narrowed eyes and sharp fangs as the sole of its foot came down hard and crushed the skull to powder.
“Fear me,” it seemed to threaten. “This is how we kill. We crush. We annihilate.”
Their message came through loud and clear. They weren’t bothering to attack…because I wasn’t a threat to them. No matter how much I leveled up, nothing except my MP really improved—and it seemed like they could tell, through smell or some other sense, that I was at the bottom of the barrel. So why bother killing me quickly? They were certain they could kill me whenever they felt like it, so why not have some fun first? They probably don’t think somebody like me could’ve killed this zombie dragon—they think I came across the corpse randomly and I’m just cowering inside it.
They had the same violent instincts as every other monster I’d come across, but there was something else.
Cruelty.
“…”
My mind went back to just before I was sent to the ruins—the faces of Kirihara, Oyamada, Yasu, the Goddess, all of class 2-C, throwing stones at the weakling, mocking and abusing me, looking down their noses and laughing, telling me to die. I stretched out my arm toward the lizardmen, and they looked overjoyed, jeering at me in delight. They must’ve thought I was raising my arms in surrender.
“Thank you.”
“Gyo?”
I glared coldly down at the lizardmen.
“For being trash. I don’t have to feel bad about killing you.”
Suddenly, the eyes of the first lizardman began to glow, and a strange, high-pitched noise echoed through the cavern. The creature’s eyes and the mouth on its forehead began to glow red.
“Paralyze.”
“Ge-geh?”
The lizardman’s head exploded. It had been preparing an attack, but the energy from its forehead had nowhere to go.
Was it pissed that I wasn’t scared of it? Or maybe it just wanted to kill me and thought lasers would be a good way. Doesn’t matter now.
I looked down at the headless lizardman.
“Trying to shoot me was a bad idea.”
I realized something else, too. It might’ve been all the practice I’d had being attacked by monsters, but my reflexes had gotten incredibly fast. I walked with death, but my instincts were keeping up.
I was surprised at how sensitive I’d become to my enemies’ movements. I reacted so quickly it was like I was seeing the future.
A preemptive strike, you could call it.
&n
bsp; Walking through the ruins of death had honed my senses—this wasn’t some speed stat modifier, it was what real experience had turned me into.
Who cares about numbers on a screen? These reflexes are my real stats.
As long as I learned to read my opponents, honed my reflexes, and always pulled off the first attack, I’d be unstoppable. These ruins were the perfect place to train—I didn’t have a second to relax here.
The pack of misshapen lizardmen fanned out. They looked worried and paused to consider their next actions, maybe wondering if their dead companion had misfired.
The ones in front couldn’t see what was happening in back—they stood facing me, frozen in place.
That’s right. You can’t move.
Their faces had lost all of that confidence, replaced with confusion as they struggled against an inconceivable threat.
“So, I can hit multiple targets at once, you know,” I said casually. The lizardmen stared back at me, their eyes filled with dread.
“Geh…Gehh…”
“I love the expressions on your faces.”
“Hm?”
Something’s coming. Rumbling of feet on stone.
A stampede.
A horde of lizards on all fours burst into the cavern with the sound of a raging torrent. They had string collars around their necks.
They were probably drawn here by that explosion. Are they pet mounts for the lizardmen?
There were at least twenty of them.
Golden eyes, black skin crisscrossed with orange lines, and acid spitting from horn-like antennae…and murder in their eyes, focused only on me.
“Igyeeeeh!”
With unearthly screams, they charged at me. They knocked the paralyzed lizardmen aside in their frenzy to reach me—I guess they weren’t the lizardmen’s pets after all.
Behind the lizards, another explosion shook the cavern, creating a new tunnel in a shower of rocks and dust.
With a shriek, two zombie dragons emerged and charged straight at me.
“Jeez…”
Why are these monsters like this?
“Are the people who come here just prey to you? Toys you kill for your amusement?”
You’ve killed so many of us…
Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells Vol. 1 Page 9