Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha

Chapter 2

"Damn, I'm going to die"

Titanic demonic beast, ready to devour me, dashed towards me and at that moment I knew my fate was sealed.

I, who is an inferior Copper ranked adventurer, Lent Fayna, was hunting for materials and things like magic stone by fighting small and weak creatures like skeletons and goblins, in a Low Ranked Dungeon called Solar Plexus Labyrinth. A dungeon located in a backwater city, Maruto city, a territory of a small nation, Yãran Kingdom.

This was how I earned my living, and as usual I was planning to go back to the town when the sunset to sell the materials gathered to the adventurer's guild.

Unfortunately, things seem to go against my fate, the moment that monster emerged.

I wouldn't be lost if I took my usual route but, that day, for some reason I found a pathway that was unique to that day.

Such bad luck.

Yes, bad luck.

People like me should've ignored it.

People say Adventurers is a profession where experts venture into the unknown with a solid plan and strategy foreseeing their predicament that they might run into.

But in reality, most of the adventurers are people who adventures without any plan in mind, and I am a perfect example for it, probably the worst of the adventurers.

What can I say, the discovery of a new pathway in labyrinth like this where it has been searched to death, would've caused a huge uproar and maybe, it might contain high ranked magic tools or magic weapons, even without any of that, I can explore enough to create a map and earn plenty.

With that common idiotic mindset, I decided to set foot in the pathway.

As a result, after few minutes of walking led me to a huge open space where a gigantic magic beast resided.

If I saw it correctly, it was a dragon.

Dragons are a magical beast of a highest tier, strong enough to render people like platinum ranked and higher mythril ranked adventurers, useless. Their appearance varies, as some looks like a enormous version of wyverns, some with a body like that of a snake, and I heard that there exists a dragon with a frog type body, just few thousands times bigger.

I'm not even hundred percent sure whether such bizarre kinds of dragons exist, because there aren't enough people who escaped alive after encountering the dragons. Plus, the chance for people in their lifetime to even meet one is, zero to none. There are only few dragons who have been identified, but such number already confirmed their prowess.

Their power is said to rival even the Four Demon Kings that roams the earth, and their strength is most comparable to those of gods.

In conclusion, if people like me who has been stuck in Copper rank for years fought the dragon, we wouldn't be able to even last a second. Basically a suicidal mission.

Thats why its not even weird for me to be surprised meeting face to face with such monster. A right decision at this moment was not to fight it. I knew I would die if I didn't run, so with that in mind I was about to move my legs.

….however….

Should I say, as expected of monster at this level.

It noticed my intent to run.

Unfortunately, it noticed me.

….My, legs don't move.

No, my entire body didn't seem to follow my command.

If I were a normal person I would've been confused at the situation but, I had some knowledge about this phenomenon. In past, I learned that when a beings with a completely different level of strength confront each other, such condition will arise.

Due to the powerful mana's coercion, my body's freedom has been derived.

My body couldn't cope with the coercion, lost its control.

When I understood what was happening to my body, I asked for forgiveness, from bottom of my heart but, thinking about it wouldn't help me with the situation I was in.

All I can do was to only look at the mana beast in front of me, and begged for it to not eat me in my heart.

In the end, the real world wasn't as sweet as I made it out to be.

That dragon, after confirming my existence opened its mouth and came rushing at me with incredible speed.

…Sigh, it's going to eat me.

I comically thought so, even though my life was in danger.

I also thought, shit, I'm going to die, but even then, this situation is out of my control. What can I say, I can't even move.

It has been a decade since I became an adventurer at age of 15. I continued my adventurer's profession dreaming about climbing up the rather even surpassing the platinum rank and finally reaching the legendary mythril rank. Earning my livelihood with a shitty quests, even then I always trained after completing each quests, every single day.

After all this work, I'm still going to end in such a isolated place.

Death comes in a most unexpected way huh.

My heart was filled with an intense feeling of frustration and at the same time filled with a feeling of liberation from all the burden—-

My body entered the mouth of the dragon without any resistance.

****

After some time passed, bizarrely, I woke up.

I who has confirmed my death by being devoured by the dragon, has opened his eyes.

Soon, I realized.

—No no no, this is impossible, right?

I whole heartedly though so, as I tried to understand my situation right after my awakening.

You might be wondering what is impossible, the answer to that is my body.

My hand has lost the meat that was there all the time with my skin. All I saw was a thin white bones. That's it, nothing more or less.

It didn't apply only for my arms, as it was true for my entire body. My legs contains no skin or meat, just bones. Same for my thighs, as well as my two arms. My Face…I do not know about it, but following this bony body it should be the same.

That is to say, I an inferior Copper adventurer, Lent Faina, has somehow made a class change from an adventurer to a skeleton.

—-impossible, right?

*****

I don't know what I am supposed to do from now on.

I should probably think about my future and aim for now.

Maybe I should start seeing things in a more optimistic way, maybe it was a fortune hidden behind a misfortune, for me to be alive after being eaten by the dragon.

Wait, am I even alive?

Skeleton, is a type of undead magical beast, people say it's a magical beast that has already died.

It's a monster infamous for being utterly weak against priest's purification magic, a simple purification chant could turn me into nothing.

It is said that skeletons are afflicted by the purification magic, due to the idea that the existence of skeleton itself goes against the divine providence of "Dead should not exist in the world".

I don't know whether this is true or not, because I'm not a priest or a bishop, but the logic behind it being me being dead, is without a doubt an important truth for me.

I am already dead and is existing in this world while being dead.

I am in a really difficult position.

Just like I have said before, for a dead to exist in the world, is going agaisnt the divine providence of god.

If I were to return back to the town and insist on myself being a Lent Faina, I would be purified and will be the end for me.

I would like to really avoid such miserable outcome.

Even while in a skeletal body, I am still alive.

Even if I am a skeleton, who is defined to be dead, my consciousness exists in return, I am alive.

So, I can't return back to the town, where I will only die for real this time.

But then, the problem becomes, what will I do from now on.

Should I live here forever?

However, this is a labyrinth, a place where adventurer's come to hunt magical beast, no matter how backwater this place is, people stronger than me comes here. If I were to roam freely here I would be subjugated.

What should I do…..

Now that I was deep in though, I suddenly remembered something.

I am a magical beast right now. A being called magical beasts have this mysterious characteristic that when they grow old or gain experience, they are able to evolve into a higher being.

I'm not sure if I am a magical beast, but my appearance is completely identical to magical beast skeleton. If that is true, then may be I can evolve?

As my work is centered around the magical beasts, I've done some reading on it and from what I remember, skeleton will evolve into Ghoul.

Of course, Ghoul is another undead type magical beast, so called undeaded monster, but it has more human like appearance compared to skeletons.

With meat and muscle there, I'm sure with robe and mask I can somehow communicate with humans to a certain extent.

With that, I can go to the city and have a chance to explain things to my old acquaintances.

For now I should aim to evolve into a ghoul in this labyrinth.

—-I shall aim to become ghoul through skeletal evolution…

It's fine that I'm set on the course I should take, but the problem comes from how powerful I am as of currently.

As a person working for the guild, I was a copper ranked adventurer, so I'm newbie out of all the newbies, maybe a little better than the iron ranked adventurers, so I wasn't strong per say, but a bit experience.

To be exact, I had enough strength to take on one or two, goblins or skeletons by myself with enough margin for my safety, and acquire victory.

It starts to get difficult for me to fight 3 or more, but it doesn't mean I will lose. Over four, I will run away without any though. As for five, I'm hard pressed.

—Don't call me weak ok? I can't do anything about. Even then, I've been an adventurer for a decade, and including the time before becoming an adventurer, I've trained desperately with life on line for 2 whole decades. Please feel empathy for this one, who couldn't amount to much even after that much work.

You are wondering why even though I trained seriously for such a long time and saw no progress, the answer is actually very simple; It's just that I have a very minimum amount of mana, spirit power, or holy power.

Maybe it's a fortune for a person like me with such a low amount of these power and yet can't even control them properly.

It's amazing to the point I should be complimented for it.

By the way, previously states mana, spirit power, or holy power, are a source of energy people like magicians need to cast magics, a power that is limited to those born with it.

Simply put, if you have mana, you can produce fires, wind, water and even move earth. A stronger magicians could do something more complicated and sophisticated. It's a very handy power.

Around 1 in 55 people are born with mana, so it's not too rare. However, those with enough talent to become a great magicians are said to be born in 1 in 1000.

With a good amount of mana, people can easily use lower ranked magics like fire bullet and earth arrows, however to go further than that, as previously said you need a talent that is 1 in 1000 people.

As a matter of fact, regarding my situation, I did indeed have a bit of mana but not to the point of having the 1/1000 people's talent. I'm at a level where I can't even use a lower ranked attack magics.

Now you can see how low my talent is.

Even then, I can pour a little bit of water through magic, enough satiate my thirst, or create a small fire, so maybe I am leaning toward the luckier ones.

It's a pity I can't use it in the battle.

Next up, the spirit power, has many alias, such as qi, chakra or phlana, to put it simply, its a source energy that vitalize most of the living beings. In contrast to mana, it originates from people's life-force so in theory anyone can use it. If you can utilize this energy source, you can strengthen you body, bring out powerful strength, or get a stamin surpassing any normal humans.

However, for a common people, they have a hard time being able to control the power, since they are maintaining the use through subconsciousness. (need fixing)

Even if they were somehow become aware of the power, it requires intensive training just to use it, and to do that you also need a good talent.

I was able to reach the point where I am aware of the power, but didn't have enough talent to fully control it.

I use this little bit of control I have to use it as a powerful hidden card that makes one of my attack 1.5 times more potent, which is a wonder in itself, but to the people with greater talent its nothing more than a child's play.

Last but not the least, Holy power. Holy power is an energy that majority of the commoners won't have any relation with.