How did he survive?
Once again, by some miracle, he survived.
The poison was gone from his body when he woke up, but the aftereffects remained.
If he didn’t eat soon, he would really die.
For a human to die of starvation, it would normally take roughly 2 months.
For a human to die of thirst, it would normally take 2-4 days.
With the introduction of mana, these limits were somewhat surpassed, but the level depended on the amount of mana one had.
For him, starvation and thirst were still things that could kill him in a week.
That was if there were no extraneous circumstances.
Even without mentioning the poison, he had been running around and accumulating fatigue for days on end.
Not to mention how often he got injured and had to cope with the blood loss.
It was only normal for those time limits to be rapidly shortened.
He had to eat.
And so when the fifth day in the dungeon dawned, he became fiercer in his hunting.
And he ended up in a situation he couldn’t cope with.
He almost died. No, he surely would’ve died. Why did he survive? Once again it could only be attributed to luck.
He was just lucky.
It wasn’t fair to say everything was due to luck. Since the day he was stranded, he had indeed grown a lot.
However, even taking this growth into account, he should’ve died five times over at least.
It was strange.
He loved to complain about how his luck was terrible, but that was just avoidance.
In reality, his luck was amazing. What was terrible was the consequences of his own actions.
The only time he was truly unlucky was when he was thrown into the dungeon.
Ever since then, luck had kept him alive.
When he was almost killed by the rabbit, when he was almost killed by the poison, when he was almost killed by his lack of basic human necessities, he himself didn’t do anything that could help him survive.
Instead, he only worsened the situation.
It could be argued that his reckless actions were forced by the situation, but even that was just an excuse.
It was his fault.
And on his fifth day in the dungeon, the culmination of consequences of his reckless actions befell him.
His fatigue caught up to him, a beast too powerful for him to kill targeted him, and his luck could no longer protect him.
As he watched his arm get torn off of his body by the jaws of that beast, he realized this.
And he snapped.
He didn’t care anymore.
If he was meant to die, he’d die while killing this beast.
He stabbed into its flesh, tore into its body with his fingers and teeth.
Even after his blade broke, he jammed the jagged stump into the beast’s eye to cause any degree of damage he could.
Perhaps because he had finally been able to put his life on the line, he was able to kill that beast.
And he devoured it.
He didn’t care anymore.
So he tore into its body with his teeth. He feasted on its best and drank its blood.
It didn’t taste good.
But it was the mark of his survival.
So he ate and drank without pause.
But it wasn’t like that beast died immediately.
In its death throes, it decided to perish together with him.
He survived once again due to luck. Or maybe this time, it could be attributed to his own efforts.
Falling was one thing, but what came after was another.
A trial by blood.
Forced maturity.
He stood inside a blood world of his own making, facing an endless horde of beasts that wanted to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
But his own stamina was infinite as well.
He killed.
He killed and killed and killed.
He started to enjoy the feeling of killing.
He started to crave the feeling of blood splashing onto his body.
So he killed and killed and killed.
His mindset began to change.
He was pathetic.
When he looked at how he had been behaving for the past few days, he wanted to kill.
He wanted to go back and kill that pathetic version of himself.
If he wanted to get stronger, all he had to do was kill.
How long was it before the horde of beasts finally came to an end?
By the time it was over, the man who exited the blood world was no longer the same man who had entered it.
It was forced maturity.
He killed so he wouldn’t be killed. He did so until killing and becoming stronger became the only thought that occupied his mind.
Revenge? It could wait. He needed strength to get revenge.
His mother? She could wait. He needed strength to cure her of her illness.
Everything could wait. Strength was above all.
He regained consciousness at some point. He seized his body and took control over his bestial instinct.
Or did he?
Maybe he just merged with it.
After all, he wasn’t much different from the version of him that was possessed by that instinct.
The only difference was that he was capable of conscious thought.
An indomitable will forged in fire.
That was what he liked to delude himself into thinking he had built.
But he was wrong. It was all just the delusion of a man who was falling into the depths of insanity.
The only thing he had built was bloodlust. Bloodlust that trumped his fear and allowed him to continue forward without it.
But at least he wasn’t pathetic anymore.
He wasn’t sniveling like a bitch on the floor after every battle.
He wasn’t coughing up buckets of blood every time he teleported.
He had achieved his first class. He had achieved a perfect mutation.
He now had the qualifications to grow stronger.
Who cares how he got it?
So what if he didn’t earn it himself?
What was the point in being hung up on pointless matters like that?
He moved through the dungeon. He cleared it floor by floor.
He killed and he killed. He devoured and he evolved.
He loved the taste of blood on his tongue. The feeling it gave him when it splashed on his body.
He loved the pain.
The pain of evolution meant he was growing stronger.
The pain of injuries was just proof that he deserved to become stronger.
But it wasn’t easy to maintain his insanity. Every once in a while, he would have moments of lucidity.
“I’m lonely.”
“I’m tired.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
The thoughts would flood his head.
It was hard to get rid of them. They were his true feelings after all. The feelings that he hid within a sea of blood and a mountain of corpses.
“I want to go home.”
“But where is home?”
Earth wasn’t a home anymore. He had been cast aside by earthlings long ago.
He only realized it after he was stranded here how little he cared about earth.
The only thing left for him there was his mother.
And his revenge.
And just like that, his bloodlust resurged. Malice clouded his mind.
The feeling of blood, the taste of blood, the pain and the thrill of battle.
Those were the only things that could quell his insanity.