Chapter 65 – Floor 10. The Living Dead

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Name : aaaa

Level : 12

Health : 101/154 ■■■■■■■□□□

Magic : 25/75 ■■■□□□□□□□

Hunger : 110/120 ■■■■■■■■■■|■​□

Thirst : 110/120 ■■■■■■■■■■|■​□

Temperature : ◀■■■■■■■□□□▷

Strength 11(+2) | Dexterity 15(+1) | Constitution 11(+1)

Mental 08(+2) | Perception 09(+1) | Charm 15(+2)

《Skills》

『Thief’s Luck』『Magical Nature』『Battle Command』『』『Hero II』

《Magic》

『Onahole Creation』

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By defeating Alraune, my level rose to 12, and simultaneously I satisfied the growth conditions for 『Hero』, evolving it to 『Hero II』, significantly increasing my specs.

Moreover, after chugging down enough of Alraune’s honey in the flower bud to last a lifetime, my hunger and thirst were essentially at max.

As my rationality gradually returned, I stroked my bloated stomach and discovered a silver chest that had been hidden in Alraune’s flower, which was rapidly rotting and turning into a handful of nutrients.

“Oh my, I can’t strip off this precious silver again. There goes my ten million won~”

The amount of silver lining the edges would probably fetch around that much if I could tear it all off, but unfortunately, my backpack was already full of items and onaholes.

Why don’t I have an inventory?

Isn’t it a cliché to provide an extradimensional pocket or something similar as a special benefit?

I wiped away the tears flowing down my cheeks with a passing Junglian hamster and tossed it aside.

Originally, Junglian hamsters aren’t a species that lives in jungles, but what does it matter? Then it wouldn’t be a Junglian hamster.

“The Flower Queen was holding a chest.”

“I don’t know if they all do, but all the bosses I know had at least one of these.”

D.D. only showed a portion of the region leading to that eye-tentacle thing, so there was no way to know the situation in other regions.

Awkwardly donning my armor, now honey-soaked enchanted, I passed by Blue Tongue and opened the silver chest left by Alraune.

Inside were a transparent liquid in a bottle about the size of artificial tears that couldn’t be identified through text, a flanged mace with sharp iron plates attached, and a spirit composite bow.

The mace was an ordinary weapon, but it was excellent considering the next region, while the spirit composite bow was useless since I didn’t know how to use a bow.

And above all, what caught my eye was the unidentifiable transparent liquid.

Could this also be an event item with some important role?

“Hmm…”

Even staring at it intently didn’t provide any information, as the once-noisy log remained immovable.

“Do you know what this is?”

If the know-it-all log wouldn’t tell me, I’d have to ask the natives.

When I presented the liquid to Blue Tongue, she flicked her tongue, narrowed her eyes sharply, and glared at the small bottle.

Zzzing-

The gaze was so intense it created the illusion that the bottle might burst from her eyes alone. But after a moment, Blue Tongue closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side.

“Unfortunately, it’s an unfamiliar smell. However, the closest similar smell was the strange water scent from that pond.”

‘So is it Healing Spring water?’

“But it’s not completely the same either. It’s hard to say for certain, but it gives a more gloomy feeling, human.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

Is it urine left behind by some fairy of public urination?

For such unidentifiable objects, it’s best to keep them. If I throw it away and it turns out to be a necessary item later, I’d be the only one in tears.

After putting the rewards from Alraune’s silver chest into my backpack, I moved toward the path leading to the 10th floor.

In fact, it would be inaccurate to call it stairs, as there wasn’t much to descend; the 10th floor was simply a sunken open space in the center of the 9th floor.

Moreover, I had already passed through while searching for Alraune.

“You’re not stopping by the village?”

At Blue Tongue’s voice, flicking her tongue as she asked, I flinched slightly but managed to keep walking without stopping unnaturally.

Shit, a full-body lizard is still…

“Do you know anything about the headless ogre?”

Remembering what she had said in the Lizard village, I desperately tried to divert her attention by talking about the ogre.

Blue Tongue had been excessively wary when passing the corpse of the headless ogre near the 10th floor.

“Hmm… if you’re referring to that beheaded traitor, I do know. The corpse, not yet rotted, fell there a few days ago.”

“I need to fight it.”

Blue Tongue tilted her head, seemingly not understanding my words.

“It’s already dead. How do you intend to fight a dead opponent, human? Even the greatest warrior cannot resurrect a fallen rival.”

As Blue Tongue pointed out quite accurately, and as the name “headless ogre” suggested.

The boss waiting for me on the 10th floor was already dead, a fact I had confirmed at the stairs on the 6th floor.

But it’s alive. For such a boss, not much more explanation is needed.

***

The Headless Ogre. I could see text describing it as a traitor, rejected by both the Orc faction and the Lizard faction.

Of course, as always, due to the characteristic of not providing detailed stories, I couldn’t know why the ogre was called a traitor, why it was left dead, or why it was avoided.

I could only roughly infer what terrible deeds it had done by seeing the ogre’s end.

The most prevailing hypothesis, as a result of collective intelligence from players who had poured their lives into D.D., was that it had sold its soul to the eye-tentacle.

The reason being that despite being personally beheaded by his friend Jeff, he didn’t rest in peace and continued to move to crush players’ heads, which couldn’t happen unless he had sold his soul to that eye-tentacle.

“The stench of rot, ugh…”

I held my nose and dry-heaved at the foul odor of acrid pus and decay gases produced by rotting flesh.

Maggots bubbling from the corpse of the headless ogre, waiting for me in the same posture as on the 6th floor but now in the center of the spacious 10th floor, fell to the ground in handfuls.

“Hmm. Does that traitor really come back to life…?”

Blue Tongue took a defensive stance with her spear, as if not believing it.

Before us was the ogre’s corpse, dripping pus and rapidly decaying.

‘I can’t use the slime, but… Severa and Kali are nearly at full strength, and I can also use Alraune, so that should be enough.’

Since I hadn’t used as many resources as expected in dealing with Alraune, I could challenge the ogre right away without resting.

I strode forward to the ogre and took out the cloth wrapping the ogre’s ugly head that I had kept in my bag, placing it in front of it.

In D.D., to fight the ogre, there was a condition that you had to place the ogre’s head, picked up at the first encounter, in front of its corpse. The problem was that since it was treated as just an item that took up inventory space and had only useless text written on it, novices often discarded it, thinking it was trash.

‘It’s even more vicious in that you would have to abandon that playthrough if you couldn’t go back up to the 4th floor.’

That’s why I had brought the ogre’s head all this way, enduring the unpleasant sight.

“Here, I brought the head you left behind. Let’s not waste time and have a clean fight.”

“…”

RUMBLE─

The ground trembled as a boil burst, pus flowed out, and the creature raised its massive body.

Stagger- And stagger-

Despite its thick legs, it repeatedly staggered as if drunk, limply extending its arms, barely maintaining balance just before falling, as its two feet stepped on the ground.

A rotting body that shouldn’t move.

No, a body that shouldn’t move stands on the ground of its own will.

And hands that fumble around the neck area, as if searching for the missing head.

Flinch- As if startled, the ogre paused, then slowly reached out to its head placed on the ground and grasped it.

“How is this possible…”

“I don’t know. Do you think I know? Right now, I’m just focused on taking down this bastard and opening the portal behind it.”

The portal on the 10th floor was closed.

This meant there was no way to deliberately avoid the boss battle, unlike with Besha, the King of the Underground Sewers, and players interpreted this as, ‘If you can’t overcome this level of opponent, don’t even think about stepping foot beyond here.’

Holding its head like a lantern, it roughly pulled out a massive Chinese cleaver-like crude knife stuck beside it, pulling up mud with it that flew through the air.

“Do you have a way to win, human?”

“Of course. What do you take me for?”

I gripped the handle of the White-Winged Bird Greatsword tightly as Blue Tongue, who seemed a bit frightened by the horrific sight, shrank back slightly.

The headless ogre extended its severed neck toward me like someone holding out an oil lantern to create a beam of light in the darkness. Its inverted white eyes trembled.

Slowly, the whites of its eyes rolled back, gradually revealing the pupils.

Dark, dead pupils that reflected no light.

I faced that most terrifying sight.

“Weakness number one of the headless ogre: it can’t see if it’s not in the direction the head is looking!”

“…Isn’t that obvious?”

Oops!