Tutorial Rewrite 117

Honestly, the fight itself was kind of disappointing, but it was still fun if only because we got some nice banter going. She’d insult me, I’d insult her back, all the while we traded blows and spells and whatnot. She’d blast off one of my legs, I’d tear off her hand, she made a hole through my stomach, I ripped out her eye… Fun stuff.

In the end, though, I was able to win, if only by a small margin. The weakness of magicians here is that they can only blast you if they can point directly at you, which is obviously impossible if they don’t know where I am. The weakness here is that she was a bit too clever for fetal position blowover to work consistently, meaning that instead of just cheesing the whole fight, I had to switch up my strategies constantly. It kept me on my toes—not that I had any left—and was, in all, a very enjoyable fight. I haven’t had many of those, but this really felt like it. If I could, I wouldn’t mind doing it over again.

In the end, thanks to a cheap shot I got in by abusing her weakness in not being able to see above her, I was able to get the final upper hand on her.

And here we are. She’s lying on the floor, and I’m just above her, holding two lungs in my hands, one big, the other small.

The witch draws in a raspy breath. “So, how is it?” she asks, which is impressive, considering that she only has one lung.

“Tastes about the same,” I say, mouth full of lung. “Apart from the size, it really is just regular old goblin, though the harpies also taste the same, so it’s not like I expected anything different.”

“D—does, haah, your kind taste any different? Whatever it is you are?”

“Me?” I ask. “Hmm, well… Humans and goblins taste pretty similar, but I do think there’s a clear difference. It’s slight, but in my opinion, humans taste just slightly tangier, though that might just be because my own lungs have gotten a bit roughed up as of late.”

“Human…” she whispers, her voice all raspy. “So that’s what you are. Hu-man.”

“Yeah, human. Homo sapiens. Or, if you ask me, dumbus idioticus. But my name is actually Ho-Jae.”

She gives a hoarse laughter that sends a few spasms through her mutilated body. “Dumb… aren’t we all?” She smiles. “You didn’t, haah ask, but… I’m… Jalussa…”

I look down at her. “I kind of don’t care and I’m just going to keep mentally referring to you as witch but um okay sure also that’s a kind of really dumb name, were your parents drunk at your time of birth?”

She chuckles. “It’s not like… haaah… your name is… any… better…” She smiles and looks up at me through her one remaining eye. “Earlier, you saw… my mane. The foul one, on my head.”

I take a bite of her lung, chew, and swallow. “Yeah,” I say. “So what?”

“Your kind…” she breathes. “These… humans… do they all… have manes… on their heads?”

I purse my lips thoughtfully. “Okay, um, that depends on kind of a lot of things like some people shave their heads for various dumb reasons and others get cancer and lose it because their wills are too weak to keep a grasp of it and also we don’t call it manes ‘cause unlike animals we’re civilised or so they say but like purely physically most people do have hair on their heads yeah, a bunch of them even have hair on their faces and chins which usually looks dumb.”

“And are they all… like you?”

“Um,” I say intelligently. “Sort of?”

Her smile broadens. “I see. In that case… wherever you come from… must be quite… the Godless… place…” She looks off into some unspecified corner of the room. “I’d like… to go there… someday…”

And I’m just about to tell her some snappy and clever comeback when her eye goes dull and a message pops up in front of my eyes.

<Witch of Ash (Lv.62) Defeated.>

<[Level Up]>

<You have reached Level 59.>

<Agility has increased by 5.

Strength has increased by 6.

Stamina has increased by 5.

Magic Power has increased by 2.

Petrification Resistance has increased by 1.

Enhanced Smell has increased by 1.

Parasite Resistance has increased by 1.

Fever Resistance has increased by 1.

Enhanced Taste has increased by 1.>

Oh, there she goes. Before I can really react in any other way, the lungs I hold in my hands suddenly shift, with the big chimaera lung turning small and petite out of nowhere. That’s… weird. Oh, and the living tree branches outside the window are also gone. Hm. Something strange is going on here.

But I don’t have any time to ponder it before the floor clear message predictably pops up.

<You have cleared the thirteenth floor.>

<You have received 1 000

points for clearing the floor.

You have received an additional

1 000 points for being the first to clear

the floor.>

<For clearing the stage completely,

you will receive an additional reward.>

<To repay your debt,

the additional reward has been

traded for 5 000 points.>

<8 Gods have shown a positive response to you.

You have obtained 8 000 points.>

<46 Gods have shown a negative response to you.

46 000 points have been deducted.>

<To repay your debt,

the floor clear reward has been

traded for 1 000 points.>

There it is. Ah, beloved debt. It’s a shame I wasn’t able to eat more than one of her lungs, half of her heart, her entire spleen and a spool of her arteries before I cleared the floor. Real shame, that one. Still, the chimaera skin was a nice gain, as well as all the other harpy skins I picked up, so all and all, I’m pretty happy with this fl—