Chapter 3 – Anger.

I could only assume I woke up in some medical room, there were beds lining the walls and I was currently in one. But I felt fine, my memory was hazy and I was groggy but otherwise I was okay.

It came back to me in patches, the pain I felt at getting stabbed. Naofumi getting arrested, Myne's plan. The plan that I utterly failed to stop. That left a bitter taste in my mouth, all that I tried to do meant absolutely nothing in the end.

I had so much anger, the urge to hit something was overwhelming. I settled for screaming into my pillow instead, it helped a little. Allowing me to clear my head, I was trying to make sense of things even now.

It was then that I noticed that I wasn't alone in the room, there was a nurse that hadn't seemed to notice I was awake yet, did she not hear me scream? Maybe she just walked in and I hadn't noticed.

"Excuse me? Where am I? Can you tell me how long I was out for?" I called out to the woman and she dropped a bunch of papers she was holding and twirled around, eyes wide with shock.

"Y-You're awake!" She gasped and ran out of the room, shouting incoherently leaving me confused. I had enough time to locate my armor and redress myself when a few knights burst into the room.

"Ring hero! Please allow us to escort you, the King wishes to see you this instance." The middle one said… I recognized them. Remembered them, they were there that night.

"You…. Son of a bitch." I snarled, I got up in their faces and they shrunk back scared. "You attacked me, you would have killed me if not for my armor and now you want to escort me? I should try and kill you."

"P-please f-forgive us Sir hero, we were only doing our job!" The one on the left basically slammed his head into the ground in prostration.

"We would have never done you harm if you weren't brainwashed we swear." The one on the right pleaded. "We swear you have to believe us!"

My anger receded slightly, replaced by confusion. "Brainwashed? What the hell are you-" Suddenly, I remembered.

The night that me and Naofumi were attacked the knights called me brainwashed, and Naofumi a demon. I was in too much pain to really think about it but… did they really think Naofumi brainwashed me somehow?

I needed answers, I was still upset but I had to push that aside for now. I swallowed my anger and took a step back. "Take me to the King then, now." I demanded. The Knights sighed and relief and gestured me to follow.

We walked through a long brightly lit corridor, the staff were staring at me in awe making me feel uncomfortable. It looked similar to the castles own so I assumed that's where we were. There must have been an emergency medical wing that I'd hadn't found before. It made sense, it was likely far safer to be treated in your own castle than in a random clinic.

When we made it to the throne room, the first thing I noticed were the loads of people on the second floor above us, they seemed to be watching in anticipation for something. The other heroes were here as well.

Except for Naofumi, he was nowhere in sight. But I didn't expect him to be. I also noticed however that Myne was nowhere to be found. The whispers started immediately when I stepped into the middle of the room:

"The Ring hero's here finally."

"I hope he isn't brainwashed still… it's been a whole day."

"I'm sure he feels great remorse for his actions."

"Honestly, he can't be blamed anyway. Who knew this shield hero was such scum as well?"

That last comment rubbed me the wrong way, were they even trying to be silent!? I can hear you! The King cleared his throat and tapped his decorative staff onto the ground for silence.

"Lucatiel-dono, it is a great joy to see you awake and well. This past day has been full of concern for your well-being."

"Thank you King. But… I'm afraid I don't fully understand, the events of this past day are something I have no memory of. If you would be so gracious to give me clarity I would appreciate it."

"So Naofumi even wiped your memory? Damn him." Motoyasu slammed the butt of his spear into the ground in anger. "He won't get away with this I say!"

"He was unconscious the whole time Motoyasu-san." Itsuki said. "It makes sense that he wouldn't remember."

"Ahh… Right, but Naofumi still brainwashed Lucatiel and raped Myne, that's something that can't be forgiven!"

"Uhh… please explain." I asked. I knew what Motoyasu was alluding too, but more clearly happened after I was knocked unconscious.

"Allow me to explain Lucatiel-dono." The King said. He told me the whole story last night after I was incapacitated. After he was finished the room burst into renewed outrage, as for me I just felt… numb. I think I was past the point of being angry, leaving me feeling hollow.

It sounded like they just… dismissed Naofumi's words to rush to give him a guilty verdict. How could they? I understand that the shield hero isn't really well received in Melromarc but to just do all of this was just… sad.

Something stuck out to me though, I had to ask. "King, you said that Naofumi mentioned that I wasn't waking up due to a sleeping spell?"

He raised an eyebrow at my question. "That is correct, however we just assumed that he was just lying in a desperate attempt to save his skin."

...

I wanted to yell, to throw stuff around and break things. A full on temper tantrum if you would, but that would do nothing except get me in trouble. I had to calm down.

"I-I don't understand, you didn't even bother to check? What if he was telling the truth?" I ran my fingers through my hair in exasperation. "Where is he now? Did you arrest him?"

"No, he's free. Scum that he is, he is still a hero. We need him unfortunately."

"Do you really think that he'll help with the waves after all of this? I doubt it." I sighed. "He's more like to just sit by and watch this world perish."

"Naofumi declared he'd handle the waves his way, whatever that's worth." Ren interjected. "I don't see how though since he's the weakest of us."

"Yeah and besides, the very least he can do is his job." Itsuki agreed. "Maybe he can redeem himself in some way that way."

"Don't even joke like that." Motoyasu snorted. "I for one hope that rapist dies."

"Steering the conversation back this way… why didn't you check my body to see if I really was under as sleeping spell?" I asked again. "Did you just… not want to?"

"I looked just to be sure myself but you didn't have any debuffs at all, your Hp was also full." Itsuki said.

"I… I see…" I muttered. That can't be right, by the way they were making it sound. I had to be under a sleeping spell, there's no way I wouldn't have woken up from all the shouting otherwise.

Suddenly, I remembered. The mage that was healing my wounds after I got hit by the Knights, she seemed to have some remorse… if I could find her… I scanned the room quickly just in case but she was nowhere to be found. She was the only one of that group not wearing a church rosary, she was wearing black and green robes that night as well. I wondered if there was a healing magic that could put the persona affected by it to sleep, that would explain everything.

A pat on the back took me out of my thoughts, it was Motoyasu. "Chin up man, no one's upset with you so you don't need to scrutinize your surroundings like that."

"Yeah, we're… we're glad your okay." Ren struggled to say. He seemed to be more socially awkward than normal. Itsuki smiled and nodded courteously in agreement.

I needed to extricate myself from them soon to find that mage, I was kind of upset with these three right now since they didn't even bother to try and help Naofumi. Perhaps that's on me though, I couldn't see it from their perspective because they don't know what I know… they wouldn't believe me either, the three heroes were too convinced that this was their game and nothing could deviate. They probably thought Naofumi unlocked a hidden side-quest and chose the scummiest option.

This may be a game. But I refuse to believe that there was a side-quest with an ending this rough, this was something more than that. This at least… was real somehow. Maybe… maybe all of this was real, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

"I would like to excuse myself King. I'm a day behind the other heroes on cultivating my abilities and would like to get started right away." I said, it wasn't a lie. I did in fact want to grind, but I also wanted to find the mage.

If she wasn't the one who put me to sleep then she had to at least have a clue who did. I wasn't sure what I would do when I found that person, but I knew I was going to make them pay.

"Of course Sir Lucatiel, my apologies for holding you up. You may leave at any time." Aultcray tapped his staff onto the floor twice, dismissing the people.

"If you'd like… I know a spot where you can catch up to us pretty quickly. It's by a village called Lute. The monsters there are weak but give a lot of experience." Ren offered.

"I'll definitely consider it. But there's something I gotta do first, if it's alright I'll meet you there." I said.

"Sure, no problem."

….Line break…

I went straight to the nearest source of gossip: the Inn that the heroes stayed in that night, mercifully it was empty. The only people there being the workers, it took the owner a moment to recognize me but when he did he smiled widely.

"It's good to see you awake and walking around Sir hero, after that ordeal I was worried you wouldn't recover well…" He gestured to the open bar. "Come have a seat, I'm assuming your here to rest right now."

"I'll pass, I'm only here because I'm searching for someone. A woman mage that wears black and green robes with black hair. She may specialize in healing magic." As I described her, the owner began to look more confused.

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid a lot of people would fit that description. Is there any… distinguishing features this woman may have had?" He asked.

I took a moment to think, I never truly got a proper look at her as it was hard to see due to the darkness… the only real thing I noticed was that she wasn't wearing a church rosary, but I doubted that was uncommon.

In the end nothing came to mind and I left the Inn irritated at myself, cursing my lack of observation. I figured the only way I'd find her right now was luck, so I decided to go ahead and find Ren. I hadn't been to Lute village yet but I was sure it couldn't be too far if the monsters were still weak there.

Suddenly, a chill went up my spine. I got the feeling I was being watched by someone, there were far to many people around for me to figure out who-…. Wait. There. There was someone watching me in the alley, a woman in black and green robes.

"It's her…" I whispered aloud. She turned away when she noticed I saw her and walked further down the alleyway, I pushed my way past a bunch of people to follow her. The back of my mind told me this was too much of a coincidence and that it was probably a trap.

The less paranoid part told me that she was alone and it was hard to spring a trap by yourself, that part was winning out until I noticed a man and a woman with swords following me. Immediately I began looking for a way out, there was a small path I could possibly squeeze through if I needed to try and escape that would lead me back to the street.

"D-dont panic please, we mean you no harm." The mage I was following stepped forward out of the shadows.

"Are you sure about that? Your friends have some pretty sharp looking swords." I said dryly. "I'm positive you know why I followed you, though I'll admit it's an odd coincidence I found you so quickly."

"We were going into the Inn when we heard you talking about Ayalia." The woman with the sword behind me said, her brown hair was held up in a ponytail showing off her hard blue eyes. Her sword stance was nearly perfect, she was clearly a fierce warrior. But she looked very young as well, about my age.

It was a contrast to the nervous face of the man, who had orange hair. His stance was sloppier, and sweat made his hair stick to his forehead. He still had some experience though. He was also about my age….

In fact, all of them were.

Regardless, they were all clearly stronger than me. I couldn't win a direct confrontation right now. I raised my hands in surrender. "I wasn't searching for you because I wanted to hurt you either."

Ayalia, the mage. Sighed with relief but still looked suspicious. "I believe you on that… but I doubt you wanna be friends. I'm assuming you remember me from when we apprehended you and the shield-hero?"

Her sudden burst of confidence surprised me, the switch was so abrupt it left me speechless for a moment. "I'm searching for the one who put me under a sleeping spell. Was it you?"

The brown haired girl laughed. "Sleeping spell? Don't be ridiculous, Ayalia doesn't have the magic affinity required for that."

"I-I didn't even know a sleeping spell existed." The orange haired man said.

"Kuro, Mira. Please stop talking…" Ayalia sighed. "Mira is right though, The affinity required for a sleeping spell is wind or shadow. My affinity is fire and water and I was the only mage there that night. So either the shield-hero was lying-"

"He wasn't lying." I snapped, silencing her. "Now that I think about it, why were you there? I'm guessing you hate the shield as well?"

"N-not at all, it wasn't anything personal. Were poor adventurers that just needed money badly, in truth I deeply regret what we did."

"Now's where we ask the question." Mira interrupted, ignoring Ayalia's nervous look. "What do you gain from finding the one that put you under the spell? It's not like you can change what happened to the shield-hero."

...She was right as much as I hated to admit it. In the end finding the one who put me under the spell would do nothing but prove Naofumi at the very least wasn't lying about that. It doesn't clear him of the charges against him.

The only clear cut goal I had was making that person pay, but… with what? Their life? Could I really bring myself to kill someone else even if they were an Npc? I sighed and looked at the ground.

"No answer? Did you really not have a plan? That's seriously reckless." Mira snorted and finally sheathed her sword. Kuro did the same, sighing and rubbing his arm tiredly.

"I-if I-i can offer up some advice… don't pursue revenge just for the sake of satiating your own desire, the books I've read with that plot-line usually only end with you both dead.

"Tch. Fine whatever, I'll leave you alone now. Bye." I pushed past them to leave the alley but Ayalia called out to me.

"W-wait! T-there was another reason why we wanted to speak with you." I turned around and raised an eyebrow, confused at her sudden nervousness. Her personality whipped back and forth so strangely.

"...what is it?" I asked when they said nothing after a long moment. It was Kuro who spoke:

"W-well it's common knowledge that you don't have a party member…. And we're just poor adventurers…" He trailed off, suddenly losing his confidence.

I understood what they were getting at, and I felt my nose scrunch up at the thought of it. "After what you helped do to Naofumi, a hero. Do you really think I'd be stupid enough to trust you? I'm still not sure that you aren't lying to me about that damned sleeping spell."

"Ugh are you still on that? Then why are you just walking away if you don't believe us?" Mira snapped.

"Because, I'm not strong enough to kill you yet if you are liars."

Their eyes widened at that. Clearly, they weren't expecting that answer. At the moment I wasn't sure myself whether it was a bluff. It felt like the truth but at the same time when it came down to it the question was brought up again: Could I really take the life of another person?

Monsters were one thing, but a person was another ballgame. Right now I was just talking shit, I could only hope they didn't call my bluff. I took their silence as their answer and left them alone.

I began to make my way to Lute Village, briefly stopping to get directions. The way there was rather uneventful though long, it took about two hours to walk to the village and by then I was exhausted.

I saw Ren's party, but no sign of him. The two girls stopped fighting and walked up to me. It suddenly occurred to me I didn't know their names, actually… I haven't ever heard them so much as talk.

"Sir Ring-hero, thank you for joining us. Sir Ren has been growing rather impatient." The girl on the left bowed slightly. There was nothing particularly notable about them anyway, though they looked like they could be sisters.

Woman #2 looked rather annoyed. "If you could hurry up a little that'd be great, we've been so miserably bored waiting."

Woman #1 gave her the side-eye but sighed and turned away, I noticed that Ren was missing one of his party members. He'd had five before. The village gates opened and Ren walked out looking annoyed.

"Alright, we're leaving Lucatiel behind! We can't wait fo-' The rest of his sentence died on his lips when he saw me, leaving him chastised.

"Leaving me behind? How rude." I said dryly. "It took forever to get here and you're just gonna abandon me."

"You were taking forever, what did you do walk?"

"How else was I supposed to get here?" I asked. Ren's eyes widened before he facepalmed, I felt a prick of irritation at his attitude.

"Did you not see the Filolial carriage right outside the gates? It costs ten coppers to fast travel here." He sighed. I had, in fact seen the carriage but I just assumed it was for cargo transport.

I wasn't going to tell him that though, I cleared my throat and turned away. "It doesn't matter, I'm here now. So where are we heading first? The woods I'm assuming?"

"...Yeah, but not where you're looking." Ren pointed off in the distance to a thick forest. "There's a mine-shaft there, we can not only level up but gather some ore."

"What would we need ore for?" I asked. I hadn't seen anything about reinforcing weapons with it, as far as I noticed the only method for powering up was my weapon level up mechanic and leveling up in general.

Ren sighed again. "For absorbing it, we can gain usable materials from it. As well as other useful stuff, maybe even another weapon with an equipment bonus… speaking of… how do you have a Ring that uses all three balloons? Does it do anything special?"

"It's called the Rainbow balloon ring. It combines the stats of all my other balloon rings and triples them, I also gain a skill from it called Rainbow blast." I explained to him, as I talked he started switching through his stuff. Growing more frustrated as we walked.

"I have nothing like that. That's… annoying."

"It's probably because of my Ring's unique skill: Ultimate item creation. Using that skill I can create unique, extremely powerful items not found in this world by using regular monster parts, though it doesn't tell me what I can create nor what the materials are until I find them all."

"That sounds op. Make sure to use it effectively, as a matter of fact…" Ren stopped walking and knelt down, then he began pulling monster parts out of his sword. "Everyone stop for a second!"

He handed the monster parts to me. "Absorb these, you might get something interesting."

"H-how did you do that?" I was staring at his sword slack-jawed, when I put monster materials into my Ring it just disappears forever. "Do you have like an inventory or something?"

"I… I'm not supposed to be surprised at this point but I am, are you sure you played games back in your world?" Ren asked, it irritated me for him to say that. But I could tell that he didn't actually mean any offense… this time.

I took the materials from him silently and held them up to my Ring, watching in anticipation as they were absorbed.

Suddenly my eyes were assaulted by a bunch of notifications: Skeleton's Ring unlocked – equip bonus – increased physical defense (medium)

Bloodletting bat's Ring unlocked - equip bonus – Life drain (Small).

Minor Demon's Soul acquired X1

Hungry rabbit's foot acquired X3

"You gave me a demons soul? I-I didn't even know there were demons in this game." I said.

"Yeah that one was new to me too, if it wasn't for my party I might have died and got sent back to the town. It's a pretty dope update though. Take it, I tried absorbing it for a weapon but I got nothing from it." Ren shrugged.

After a few more notifications of monster parts I acquired I got one final message: You have obtained the necessary materials to use Ultimate item creation: Bloodletting bat's Ring, Minor Demon's soul, Hungry rabbits foot.

Use Ultimate item creation? Yes – no.

"Ultimate item creation wants to use the demons soul!" I grinned, Ren suddenly looked very interested in my Ring.

I tapped yes. My ring glowed and my Bat's Ring and materials were absorbed and once again I was locked out of them, then suddenly a new ring began to take shape on my finger. This one was solid black with white flame patterns on it. Simple, but it looked soooooo cool.

You have synthesized the: Devouring Demon Ring. Equip bonus – Life drain (Large) – Mp drain (Small).

You have unlocked the skill: All Consuming Hunger.

This… this ring was insanely broken. All of my stats except for physical attack and elemental resistances were raised plus the addition of Life drain and Mp drain on top of this skill I unlocked.

"So… did you get something good?" Ren prodded at my silence. I'd forgotten he couldn't see what I received so I told him, I took a bit of satisfaction at the obvious jealousy on his face.

"So… anyway I could get that soul back?" He eventually asked dryly. I shook my head and turned away to hide the grin on my face. We continued moving into the thicket, I was excited to try out the power of this new ring.

I forced myself to sober up a little, this ring was unbelievably powerful but I shouldn't use it yet. Not until I've leveled up my Rainbow balloon ring enough to get the strengths permanently.

Yeah that was another thing about my strengthening method. If I leveled up one ring that had a skill enough I'd gain that skill and it's stats permanently. Allowing me to use it's power even while other Rings are equipped. For example my magic attack without any boosts is 234.

But! There's something I call a 'plus counter' that effects my stats and boosts them through my different rings.

It looks like this: 234 + 500. giving me 734 magic attack, that's with my Rainbow balloon ring. If I de-equip it or equip another Ring the total stats change. My 'natural' power is 234, until I level up my ring enough. Permanently adding that 500 attack, making my natural power 734.

So as a result if I hard focus on one thing at a time I can effectively gain unequivocal power, I needed to get as strong as possible to defeat the waves.

Wait… defeat the waves? When did I start wanting that? A few days ago I was asking to go home. Isn't that what I wanted instead? I couldn't leave my brother behind to fend for himself, he literally couldn't.

I didn't even want to think about how my mother was, she was around but absent at the same time. I sincerely doubt that she's even noticed I've disappeared, well… that's why I should want to go home. To... look out for my brother….

No… no I'm just trying to lie to myself. I feel sick even thinking about going home, the truth is… I didn't want to go back. I felt suffocated and trapped in my previous life taking care of Noah and making sure my mother didn't fully go off the deep-end, I hated it. Dying and being pulled into this world was the release I didn't know I wanted.

It… felt horribly amazing to admit this. Admit to myself that I hated everything about my life. Guilt filled the pit of my stomach like poison, but I also knew I deserved to live my life the way I wanted instead of the way I was forced to.

It was strange. I felt guilty, but I don't have any regrets at the same time. That may be kind of an oxymoron but it… it's how I feel. This burden of guilt I alone shall carry, as to not consume others with it.

"Are you alright Lucatiel? You've got this… melancholy look on your face." Ren snapped me out of my thoughts with his question, we were deep in the woods now but also inside a clearing in the middle that revealed a beautiful field of flowers.

"Yeah, I'm just lost in my own thoughts." I brushed off his concern, the Sword hero could be surprisingly perceptive. "I don't see a mine-shaft anywhere. Are you sure this is the right place?"

"It has to be, this is exactly where it was in my game…" Ren snapped. "Look around everybody, it's here somewhere!"

"Uh… Sir Ren, if I may…" One of his party members walked to him, he looked mildly embarrassed. "The mine-shaft we're looking for isn't here…. It's up in the hills at the back of Lute village."

"What!? Why didn't you tell me you damn Npc!" Ren shouted at him. "We could have saved so much time!"

"W-well Licht tried to tell you but you screamed at him and kicked him out of the party when he beat you in that sparring match."

I struggled to understand how those two things correlated as Ren went silent and stomped off in anger. I thought about following him and chastising him about speaking to his party that way but I didn't feel like being screamed at either, instead I walked up to his upset party member and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" I asked him. "What's your name friend?"

"...Welt, my names Welt." He said. "I'm fine, he doesn't usually act like that."

"Good. I'd hope so… Well then Welt, do you mind leading me to the mines? I'm sure Ren will catch up with us when he gets over himself."

"I-I don't think I'm allowed to-" Welt tried to say.

"Ren runs this party like a small guild right? That means you're essentially free for independent action. If he has such a problem with it then I'll take the blame I promise." I assured him.

Seeing my sincerity, he agreed and began to lead me back the way we came. I noticed that the other members of Ren's party were following behind us as well, I didn't question it. They probably didn't want to just sit in the woods.

The inside of Lute was rather simplistic, and reminded me much of those medieval villages you'd see in video games or history books. The villagers paid mostly no mind to us other than the occasional mummer or curious look. The mines however, were closed off. A large sign saying 'keep out: Dangerous" and some fences were blocking the entrance.

"This wasn't here last month." Woman #1 said. "I wonder what happened…"

"Perhaps a cave-in?" Woman #2 suggested. "Maybe the miners hit something that caused the cave to collapse."

"Excuse me adventurers." A tired voice called out to us I turned and saw an elderly man making his way towards us slowly. "I am the mayor of this village, and as mayor I must warn you that these Mines are closed off for the foreseeable future."

"Well… that's obvious." I gestured to the makeshift blockade dryly. "Care to tell us why that is? Was it a cave in?"

"N-no sir adventurer… during the last wave a swarm it's monsters burrowed and made that place their home, they would have killed us if it weren't for the efforts of some mercenaries. So I'm afraid we've denied access to everyone."

"Can you make an exception for a hero?" I showed him my Ring and he gasped and put a hand over his chest, for a moment I panicked thinking he was going to have a heart attack right there.

"O-oh! You must be the hero who brought the Ring back to our world! S-sir Lucas right?"

"Lucatiel, but thanks for trying. Anyway, will you allow me entry?" The old man was nearly falling over himself in agreement before I had even finished my sentence.

"O-Of course Sir Lukeastiel! I hope whatever is in our humble mine can help you on your journey."

"I-it's Luca-…. Oh forget it." I muttered as he hobbled away, I set apart tearing down the barricade. Finishing just as Ren made his way up to us, his face stormy. He locked eyes with me and his glare deepened.

Oh great. He's pissed about something else isn't he?

"So, you just take my whole party while I'm off huh Lucatiel?" The teen hero seethed. "Real mature man, just because you can't get people to deal with you doesn't mean you get to take my own!"

He stunned me into silence for a few seconds, all I could do was stare in shock. "Seriously? What the heck is the matter with you? Do you really think I'd do something like that?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if I can trust you yet after everything that's happened thus far. And from my angle I walked away to cool off from the Npc bug only to come back with all of you being gone!" Ren's voice was raising into a shout, and mask or pretense he had been building began to crumble to dust.

Okay, now I'm pissed off. "Oh! Oh yeah Ren!? From my angle you verbally abused your party members because you couldn't admit that you were wrong about something from your game and stormed off like some attention seeking little brat!"

"That still gives you no right to just…. Hi-jack my party members!"

"I wasn't hi-jacking them, I was asking them to show me the actual location of the mines because you were to busy whining about being wrong!" I shouted unintentionally. I didn't realize how loud I was until I saw some people from the village looking our way in confusion.

Ren started shaking, his eyes darting around the village to and glaring at the ones who were listening. I suddenly felt bad. I'd fully broken down his persona without meaning too, so for the first time I could see him for who he actually was; a kid. A teenager, a goddamned anxiety ridden teenager who was putting up a mask so he wouldn't crack under the weight of the reality that he died.

When I was first summoned here. I assumed that Naofumi was having the most realistic reaction to it, that wasn't entirely true. Ren… Ren might have been freaking out a little more. So he was trying to overcompensate for it by playing the part of the charismatic loner.

The wall repaired itself, they came back up and all I could see was the false Ren. The persona. My anger drained out of me, leaving a hollow feeling in the pit of my chest.

"Ah… Ah dammit… Ren I'm sorry…" I ran my hands through my hair and looked at the ground. I was sincere in my sorrow but I couldn't bring myself to look at him. "I should have tried to look at things from your perspective, I didn't mean to snap like that. I'm just weak and wanted to get a move on to get stronger quickly."

He didn't respond, when I finally gathered the will to look at him I found his arms were crossed and he was looking off in the distance. His party was standing around in awkward silence, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Ren to blow up again.

"At this point, I think it'll be best if you grind alone. Since you don't have a party you need to learn to do so. We're going to a new village a couple of days east, so good luck Lucatiel." Ren walked away without another word.

His party stood awkwardly for a long moment before looking at me apologetically and following him, I watched them until they disappeared from my sight. The villagers were observing quietly so I looked to the mines.

Now that I was alone… there was something sinister about this place, there was a thin black aura that was choking the very air. When I actually stepped into the mines however nothing about me seemed to be affected. That was when I noticed that my Ring was glowing slightly, a purple hue was coming off it and seemingly beating back the dark aura.

"Are you… protecting me?" I asked it. I'd hadn't seen a passive ability from my weapon, I didn't get a response but I could swear that the ring glowed a little more intensely for a second. As I walked further into the mines a cold chill went up my spine, and alarm bells were ringing in my head.

I was nervous but something kept drawing me down, there were lit torches around giving me plenty of light. The narrow corridors gave way to a wide open empty space, there were some holes in the ceiling shining light down into the cave.

It was… empty. Entirely empty of anything living, but that didn't make any sense. From my standing position it didn't seem like there was any other route I could take to get to another place. There was also that dark aura, what was thin on the surface seemed to coalesce in the middle so thickly that it looked to take the shape of a ball.

Then, a monster started crawling out of the ball of darkness. And hit the ground with a loud thud, a massive black dog with two heads aptly named the; Two headed black dog. It strongly resembled a rottweiler from my world, with glowing red eyes. It's teeth were extremely sharp looking and saliva dripped in ounces from its mouth.

Then, it saw me and began snarling and making it's way over to me. Instantly I flung my hand forward and magical energy burst off my hands, it knocked the dog off its feet and flung it into the wall so hard a chunk of the cavern came down on top of it. It screamed in pain and rage and flung the boulders off it into my direction, I dove to the ground just in time to miss the boulders completely annihilating me.

The black dog began to gallop towards me, but the cave was too small to dodge so with both of my hands I sent another blast of magic towards the monster, once again knocking it off its feet and sending it flying into the walls.

Relief filled me, I was clearly far stronger than it. Which meant that I could kill it. "Rainbow blast!" My skill hit the monster with force, blowing through the side of its stomach. It howled and writhed in pain as blood coated the cavern walls. A large experience notification appeared in my status as I leveled up twice and my ring five times.

I barely had time to bask in my victory before a bunch of monsters started to crawl out of the ball at once, the air suddenly seemed thicker and that ball exploded and dispersed. The monsters left behind being a whole lot black goblins wielding swords and axes.

Wait… they only had one health bar! Holy shit, I was fighting a boss. The Black Goblin Legion.

They made sounds I don't know how to describe, and squeaked like rats before all rushing at me at once. "Get back! Haah!" I flung my hands forward and my magic sent them back, but they were noticeably less affected by my attack than the Black Dog. Especially damage wise, since I did nothing to their health bar.

This was really bad. Handling ten opponents at once would get me killed, so I needed to think of a plan. Luckily I already had one, I retreated into the narrow hallway I walked through to get here the Legion tightly on my heels. They realized they were screwed when they got stuck trying to climb over each other in eagerness to kill me.

I flung my both hands forward. "Die you chittering little shits! Rainbow blast!" the force of my attack rocked the narrow cavern but held firm as my attack eviscerated about half of the legion in a single strike.

Wait… their health bar isn't going down… could they be…?

The squealed and stomped their feet as they retreated back into the open, which I followed. Immediately they attacked again but this time I was more than ready, one swung their blade right at my head and another at my leg but I grabbed both goblins before their attack connected and shoved them head first into the ground using my skill at the same time. It hurt my own hands to do so but it one-tapped them.

Their health bar still hadn't dropped. "Tch. Yeah I'm certain now."

Three left, seemingly realizing that they were losing the battle they started to fight more defensively, too little to late. I'd already caught on to their game. This goblin legion acted like a hive-mind, only one monster made the decisions while the rest just followed. That meant it was a 'trick-boss'. Several enemies but only one mattered.

I'd figured out which one it was. Embarrassingly I should have figured it out sooner, because it was the only one with a helmet. I flung my hand forward and blasted it with Rainbow blast, the entire boss health bar went down by about 25% and the monsters abandoned all notions of defense, attacking me with desperate abandon. I jumped over their attacks and ran straight at the bastard with the helmet.

It brought its ax up and I kicked it out of it's grip. And stomped it's head into the ground, it started squealing in fear and the last two regular goblins began rushing me to stop me. But it was far too late. I pushed them back with my regular attack then blasted the leader two more times with my skill.

It howled one last time before going limp, I looked at the last two goblins as well; which fell over dead as tons of experience was given to me. I'd leveled up more: all the way to level 17, and my ring was apparently at max!

A message appeared in my status: You have reached the max level for, Rainbow balloon ring. Would you like to reset it's power? Yes – No.

"Well, obviously yes." I said to it, tapping yes another message appeared in my status.

Add power to oneself? Or to another Ring?

"Give me the power." I said aloud. My then ring made a chiming sound and my body glowed, suddenly I felt stronger as my ring dropped to level 1 again.

But my stats remained the same, I was no longer getting a boost from the ring itself but my power remained augmented permanently. I went around absorbing the materials from the monsters I'd killed, I'd gained a few new rings that didn't do much but raise my stats by a little.

I got a skill from the Black dog called 'danger sense'. It was a passive ability that allowed me to sense the presence of monsters stronger than me from 15 meters away.

What was really interesting were the parts from the monsters. They caused ultimate item creation to activate again!

You have obtained the necessary materials to use Ultimate item creation: Two headed black dog's heart, Black goblin legion teeth, Hungry rabbits foot.

Use Ultimate item creation? Yes – No.

I tapped yes immediately, like usual I lost the materials and my Ring glowed with power. What appeared after however….

"Wait… this is!?"

A/N: It took me so unbelievably long to finish this chapter. I have writers block so badly. Like dear god it was rough writing this chapter because I had to sit and really think about what I wanted to do because I wasn't sure where to go with it. I want to make less time skips but the light novel and anime didn't really detail every little things that happened.

Which makes perfect sense, I wont be doing that either but I want to have more substance than the previous version of this story.

In the end though at least I am satisfied with this, I still have that block. So I am actually open to suggestions, of course I will give credit to anybody's suggestion that I use.

Unless its crossover stuff, I am not cut out for that aside from vague references. (I put one here in this chapter, guess what it is).