This Is Not the Life That I Imagined

John shot arrow after arrow while dodging the bear's deadly strikes continuously. His sharp eyes were solemn and his mind filled with frustration. The beast moved unusually fast despite its massive body. Every one of its attacks was threatening to sherd John to pieces; its black eyes glinted with brutality.

Ten minutes of fighting, and after using all his arrows, John realized something—only by drawing his bow to its absolute limit could the arrow penetrate through the bone-like armor. But even then, they barely made it past the skin.

With an irritated curse, John slung the bow to his back and unsheathed his sword. The bear's growling never stopped as it echoed through the night, and it seems it still had a lot of stamina left. The fighting became a jumping concert for John, and he felt like a clown leaping and dodging around to avoid turning into a bear's feces.

? What the –! What kind of bear are you?" John's frustration and anger were rising with each passing minute, nearly to a boiling point. Every arrow, every strike—was useless, as if throwing a pebble at an armored tank. Undoubtedly, it achieved nothing.

'Calm down, John. Think. Anger won't solve the problem.' His brain was running at its last gear, looking for a solution. John's eyes darted, inspecting the beast's body, searching desperately for a weakness.

'Its eyes have no protection, do they?' His eyes lit up for a second, continuing his thoughts while bending his body backward, narrowly avoiding the beast's massive claws.

If he could thrust his sword into the bear's brain in one clean strike... But it was a huge risk. If the attack fails to kill it, the bear would have him before he could withdraw.

John shifted his attributes to strength and tested slashing at it first. (STR: 13--> 18, AGL: 16--> 11.)

The force of his next strike cracked through the armor. a deep gash forming across the bear's side. It would have been worth celebrating if not for the sword nearly snapping in the process. "SH—!"

A chilly Whimper followed by a furious roar made John's hair stand on end. The bear went berserk after getting injured, forcing John to leap out of the way. He shifted his attributes back to agility in order to dodge the frenzying beast's onslaught. (AGL: 11--> 16, STR: 18--> 13.)

John now has no doubt—only by thrusting his sword through its eyes to the bear brain could he end this. Otherwise, his sword would break before doing any substantial damage.

"F—! I will take you down, you abomination!" John growled, his frustration reaching a breaking point.

John began to feel that from his start of learning of his talent, he took one risk after another as if throwing his life away. But the problem was that he couldn't end the fights without taking risks. Or he would get drained of his stamina, and the risk could be even greater by then.

From his perspective, he was never cowardly. Maybe in part of his life he ran away from some responsibility many years ago, but he learned his lesson. In the test site, when he delayed his first fight, he thought it was a very normal thing.

You couldn't expect someone to be forced into an unknown place and encounter a lion; after running away from it, the person would fight the lion if he was issued a mission from an unknown source. John was in that position at that time, or even worse.

John dislikes fighting, but he knew it's a necessary evil. So, once he started fighting, he would throw every distracting thought out of the window and do whatever it was necessary to end the fight swiftly and cleanly.

Now, he was presented with two choices. Take a risk, but the fight would end quickly and neatly. The second choice was to drag it out and try different types of attacks, and in this case, there was no guarantee that dragging would achieve his purpose.

There was no doubt about which choice John would choose. 'Take your time... No need for any haste.' John reminded himself, waiting for the right opportunity.

The dance of evasion lasted for a long time, but John remained patient. John's eyes narrowed suddenly and his pulse quickened as the bear stood on its hind legs, roaring and growling out of rage in the night sky.

'That's it!'

Just as the bear let himself fall forward, John turned his stats to strength. His legs and arms exploded with force. He lunged forward precisely at the position where the bear would fall. (STR: 13--> 18, AGL: 16--> 11.)

John, in a powerful thrust, pointed his sword at the bear's eyes. "DIEEE!" With all his muscles and joints in one swift and fluid motion, the sword pierced the eye of the bear. Then it went through the eyes and continued its path and reached its brain, but it didn't stop. It continued and went through the brain and exited from the other side in a sickening crunch.

Only the halt was left out of the beast's skull. The whole world seemed to stop for a moment... then it continued with the beast losing all of its strength, falling to the ground with a thud. The bone-like armor disappeared the moment life left its body.

John, while panting and taking slow, heavy breaths, yanked the sword out. "Finally!"

John sheathed the sword and walked to a tree and slumped under it, catching his breath. "What level is that dungeon? How can the mutants around it be more powerful than what I fought in the last dungeon?"

He adjusted his sitting posture as his murmur continued, "I knew now why the professor warned to not underestimate the mutant animals."

Once his breathing steadied, John rose and scanned the bear's carcass before continuing toward the dungeon.

Zzz! Zzz! Zzz!

His watch vibrated like crazy as the numbers of the energy sensor spiked. John didn't need to focus too hard to spot the dungeon entrance. Unlike the last Level 1 normal dungeon portal, which was barely noticeable. This portal, however, was more outlined.

It was as if someone had sewn the air itself with a mix of black and gray thread, creating a dark, circular rift that suspended a few centimeters above the ground.