Skill Hunter -Kill Monsters, Acquire Skills, Ascend to the Highest Rank!

Scrrr. Like nails on a blackboard, porcelain dragged over stone.

Ike glanced back. A puddle of dark fluid remained, but no body. Ice jolted through his veins. He hobbled faster. His legs healed as he walked, but his mana drained at a proportional rate. From half to a quarter, and even then, it still vanished, drawn into his wounds. Ike breathed as deeply as he could, trying to draw in more mana, but there was none to be found. Just that strange cold energy that leaked out of him as quickly as he could pull it in.

Once I find somewhere safe, I can properly practice the basic breathing technique Silver taught me. Then, maybe…

That horrible scraping sound echoed off the sheer walls, and Ike shuddered. He sped up, despite the pain in his legs. Nowhere was safe. Not so long as he could hear that awful screech.

Abruptly, the sound stopped. Eerie silence took its place, almost worse than the scraping. Ike walked determinedly on, refusing to turn back.

"What's happening? Wh…where am I?"

Rosamund's voice echoed off the walls. Ike twitched. He started to look over his shoulder, stopped himself, then gritted his teeth and whipped around all at once.

Rosamund stood behind him, closer than he'd like. She stared off into the middle distance. Her body was completely still. There was no shifting, no rise and fall as she breathed, no blinking or twitching. Still. Like a doll, frozen in place.

Her head snapped to face him. Their eyes met, and hers widened in anger. She lunged for Ike. "You! What did you do to me?"

Ike raced away as fast as his aching legs could take him. A clatter sounded behind him. He paused, looking back.

Rosamund laid on her face. She struggled to push herself up, but her stiff limbs barely bent. She screamed in impotent fury. "You've stolen everything! Everything!"

"I don't know what happened to you. I didn't do this to you," Ike defended himself.

She screamed louder. Thrashing on the ground like a toddler, she beat her hands and feet on the ground. More of that dark fluid sloshed out of her. "Give it back! Give it back!"

Ike pursed his lips. She isn't listening to reason. He turned away, walking on. As long as she was giving him an advantage to escape, he'd take it. He couldn't hurt her as it was. Better to put distance between them.

Rosamund's cries echoed down the Abyss as she vanished, hidden behind the outcroppings. Ike walked faster, his legs growing steadier with each passing step. His mana grew concerningly low in return, but at least he could walk and run with his usual strength.

I need to find a source of mana. I need somewhere to hide from Rosamund and recuperate. I need to figure out how to cut through that skin of hers.

I need a break.

His legs healed enough that he didn't need the stick anymore. He carried it loosely in one hand and ran, jogging down the ravine. Standing rocks and rock formations rose from the ground ahead. Ike ducked behind the formations and sprinted on. As he passed by the formations, he peered left and right. A cave. A hole. Anywhere he could duck in and take a breather. Figure out his next move. Stay safe for a moment.

Nothing. Sheer rock faces and shallow hollows. Short, small plateaus, easy to peer over the top of. He wrinkled his nose and ran on.

Behind him, Rosamund stopped screaming. Eerie silence filled the air. Ike looked over his shoulder. Rocks and the sheer walls. No creepy broken-doll-like Rosamund. He ran a hand over the back of his neck and ran on, still searching for somewhere to hide.

A shadow passed overhead. Ike craned his neck. Far overhead, something like a bird fluttered by in pale spring green. He squinted, lifting a hand to shade his eyes.

Not a bird, but a man. He flew on his own power. Long, lightweight green robes fluttered behind him. Noble eyes gazed straight ahead, a slight smile on his face.

Rosamund's maids followed close behind him. The short-haired one gazed down into the Abyss, brows knitted in worry. The long-haired one pointed ahead of them, at the point where Rosamund had fallen in.

Bet he's the city lord. Lord Brightbriar. Rosamund's father. Their faces looked a little alike, though his hair was dark and Rosamund's was pale.

"Please. Take her," Ike muttered. For a split second, the thought of running back and catching a ride out of the Abyss with the city lord flashed through his mind, but in the next, he dismissed it. Rosamund would surely tell her father that Ike had stolen her skills. In his mind, the purple-robed mage thrust his sword through a woman's chest, and he pressed his lips together. He'd kill me immediately. Better to live my whole life in here than die today.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Besides, I'm going to get out of here. Just because no one thinks there's a way out, doesn't mean it's impossible. The Abyss didn't chase me around and swallow me up. Doesn't seem too dangerous, either. So far, the rumors about the Abyss seem greatly exaggerated.

Once more, Ike set off at a jog. The further he was from where the city lord arrived, the better. Someone at the top of the upper city was surely a Rank 4, if not Rank 5. Someone who could crush a tiny Rank 1 like a bug.

Can't crush what he doesn't see. Ike hurried further into the Abyss.

The city lord vanished as he dropped down to the edge of the Abyss. Ike continued on for another mile or so. A minute into his jog, green flashed by overhead, chased by the handmaids. This time, Rosamund stood beside the city lord, beaming up at him and chattering away. He smiled back, nodding benevolently.

Ike frowned. He tilted his head. Huh? She isn't angry? Rosamund? No way she'd drop a grudge that easily.

After a moment, he shook his head. Inescapable Abyss, ha. The city lord got out, no problem! But… He chuckled under his breath. The city lord is powerful enough to lord over a whole city full of immortals. He's so much stronger than me that I might as well consider the things he can do impossible.

The pair soared away, handmaids flanking them. Ike watched them go for a while, then shrugged to himself. He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

An eerie screech echoed down the length of the Abyss, full of pain and hatred. Ike stared over his shoulder, then shook his head. Rosamund's gone, so that must be some kind of monster. Better put some distance between me and it.

He kept going, but this time, at an easier pace. When he was far enough away from the place he'd landed, he hopped onto a boulder. From little nook to shallow foothold, he clawed and kicked his way to the top. Now that the city lord had retrieved Rosamund, there was no more danger from her, so he stood tall. Lifting a hand to his eyes, he surveyed the Abyss.

From a slightly higher vantage point, he confirmed what he'd seen at ground level: a bleak, dead wasteland, littered with rock, dust, scrubs, and little else. Ahead, the Abyss quirked back and forth, cutting off his line of sight. A thick, dark mist hung in its lower levels, obscuring many of the far details. He wrinkled his nose. Where's all the rumored monsters? A man needs to eat!

Ike sat with a sigh. Dragging the wolf corpse off his shoulders, he got to work breaking it down. He couldn't afford to waste any of it, not in this empty Abyss. The bones he separated, for use for structures, weapons, or utensils. Tendons sat beside them, drying now to be used as rope and binding later. He stretched the pelt between a gap in two stone structures to dry. The meat, likewise, he cut into thin strips and laid atop the boulder to dry, using the small quantity of salt in his rations to help preserve it.

Ike stared at the innards for a long time, lost. Monster organs were immensely valuable for potions, whether for mana, health, or to strengthen one's skills, but he didn't have the slightest idea how to brew potions. At last, he shrugged to himself and packed most of the guts into the stomach to use as bait later. He separated the liver out and started a small fire. A little grease in the bottom of his camp pan, and in no time, bits of wolf liver were popping and spitting as they fried up. It would go bad before he could preserve it, so he might as well eat it fresh.

In an industrious mood, he took out the leftover toad skin and got to work cutting it down to fill the gaps in his current armor. He stitched the panels directly to the armor he wore, not bothering to take it off. It made stitching a bit annoying, but in return, he could rapidly refit and recut the armor to be a perfect fit, so he kept at it.

The liver finished cooking. Ike put down his needle and picked up the pan, fishing bits of meat out of the piping-hot oil with a wolf's-tooth pick. Little flickering tidbits of mana flowed into him through his stomach, barely enough to be worth mentioning. Still, Ike surveyed the bits of liver in the pot. If all it took to recover some mana from the wolf meat was cooking its liver in oil, then maybe it wasn't so hard to make potions after all. I'll have to play around with the monsters I catch in the future and see if I can't make a run at those expensive potions they sell in town.

On a whim, he drew out the guts he'd gathered and threw some random bits into the pot. They simmered for a bit, then melted down. The bits swirled together, red, green, and purple all mixing into a brown sludge. It let off a horrible smell, sharp and acidic, and the pan itself started hissing.

Ike wrinkled his nose and poured it out quickly, before it could eat through the pan. The strange fluid struck the rock under him in a bubbling rush. It swirled around, then sank into the rock. At first, Ike thought it was draining into cracks in the rock, but when it was done spitting and churning, a salt-lined divot punched into the rock where he'd spilled it. Ike grimaced, glad he hadn't drank it. He'd spilled the pot out on flat boulder, not into a hole.

The used-up fluid sat in the hole, looking for all the world like murky rainwater. Ike dropped a pebble into it, and it sank to the bottom unharmed, the corrosiveness used up.

He clicked his tongue. Got it. Randomly mixing monster guts is no good. I'll start from one piece at a time, then figure out how to combine them.

Scrrrt.

Startled, Ike looked up. He turned, searching around him. That sounded like Rosamund. Or rather, the…thing she turned into.

But it couldn't be. The city lord took her home.

A horrible thought crept into the back of his mind. Unless…what he took home, wasn't the Rosamund I met.

Cold fingertips traced the nape of his neck. Black fluid dripped onto his toad armor. A high-pitched laugh whispered into his ear, on the verge of hysteria. "You took it all. You took it all from me."

Ike swallowed. He held completely still. Only his eyes moved. "Rosamund."

Rosamund giggled. Giggled and giggled, her voice twisting, pitching up, up, up. "No, no, no no—" She screamed, right in his ear, and Ike winced in pain. Cold fingers lunged for his throat.

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