Another Stupid Isekai

It's hard to tell if I even managed to sleep through the night. I remember starring at the bottom of my cart, with Ki'rey peacefully passed out with her head on my shoulder. My mind was blank. I was just following the patterns of the wood grain with my eyes.

Eventually, she woke up and immediately crawled out of our little hideout. I followed her after few minutes.

- You are scared - she said to me.

- No. I'm not.

She twisted her head while starring at me.

- Then what is it?

- I don't know. Let's eat.

With those words I started going through the supplies I bought, and grabbed few things I liked, then just sat on the ground, enjoying the food. I washed it all down with a bottle of beer, just as Ki'rei picked her breakfast snacks.

- You should stay here - I said to her.

- I want to go, but I'll stay if you are afraid.

- I'm not afraid - I replied.

She was starting to irritate me. She shrugged her shoulders as an answer. I wondered for a moment where did she learn that. I picked my weapon from the cart, and headed out, giving her the last look. She seemed to ignore me, focused on a piece of dried meat.

I started by quickly clearing up the perimeter, so some random group of orcs wouldn't end up finding her by accident. Then I went back to the camp, to summon my shadows, and grab the carts. From there I made my way to the orc settlement, empowered my body, shadow walked straight to the middle, and just started swinging.

It was just a matter of time before they were all dead. I could cut them and their weapons with ease, so they couldn't even block my attacks. Evading was also impossible as my blade was just too fast. To the point, I wouldn't even give most of them an opportunity to attack.

When the last one fell, I returned to my shadows that waited a bit further away and brought them to collect the crystals. I picked one among them and ordered him to follow me to the cave. He was keeping quite a distance from me, not get involved in any fights, and slowly picking up the spoils. Making it to the second level of the dungeon was just a matter of time.

The armored orcs used to be a little bit difficult because I just couldn't cut them in half, but now there was almost no difference. They kept holding together even when I attacked them from few different directions, which was annoying because there wasn't enough space to just go in the middle, and start swinging.

I had to chip them away little by little, but eventually, I cleared the whole level and made it further.

Fight with berserkers was fast and fun. They kept coming at me, but because of how disorganized they were I had plenty of space to just shadow walk around, and cut them down. Because of how strong I got, I didn't even need to aim. Every single blow was deadly.

I took a bit of a rest there, knowing that I will need to be fast with mages living lower. Their magic still was something that could probably kill me easily if I wasn't careful. With a radius of the fireball explosion, I could get myself in a tight spot if I would just be reckless.

I tried to follow what I did when I was hunting here with my friends, and clear every single floor in a fast manner, so they couldn't assemble at the staircase and throw flames at me from multiple directions. It was a quick battle, as I got faster, and the whole thing required me to keep up a high tempo.

I picked all the crystals and brought them back to the shadow that was waiting for me upstairs. It took some time, but I still had plenty of time and was also quite a bit hesitant to just go after the boss. Ki'rei was right, at least a little bit, I was afraid.

I was also done with being a coward, so after collecting every stone, I made it to the door. I could feel how nervous I got. The hair on my skin was standing up, and shivers ran down my spine. The showdown was approaching, but it had to happen.

I slowly pushed the door to reveal a large, oval chamber. In the middle of it was a three meters deep pit, around fifty in diameter. How did I know? Well, the intelligence upgrade was allowing me to calculate the distance in my head, but at that point, I wasn't really realizing it.

The pit itself was rather well lighted, with many metal torches fixed to the walls, and in the middle of it was embedded in the floor, a large ax. There was only one part that remained in the shadows, right across the entrance.

I could see a big throne carved in the stone, with something sitting on it just barely outlined. Large beast of an orc. Intimidating even when I couldn't properly see him.

I came closer, to the edge, and jumped down the pit. This made him move. Rise from his royal chair. The weapon was far away from him and a thought, to use this opportunity, passed my mind. Call me a fool, or even an idiot, but I wanted this fight to be fair and square, so I remained waiting, until he grabbed the handle, and picked the ax up, letting it rest on his shoulder.

He looked straight into my eyes. There was something menacing in this monster, paralyzing almost. I could feel my heart going crazy, pumping blood through the veins. I could feel the adrenaline making me sharper, stronger. I used all my skills to make myself stronger.

Then he let out a battle cry, so loud that it shook the entire dungeon.