Chapter 66 - Gears

Yuki planned to extract the one thing that kept his enemies alive.

Yuki was no longer getting exhausted from the battle as he did not need to create flames using his ability in exchange for his stamina. The essence for all things in the new world to survive was stamina. It acted like an energy system in exchange for being used to attack, defend, run, or use an ability, it would consume a certain amount of stamina from the player. As a solo player in a dungeon full of enemies he could not defeat without pushing himself to the brink of death each and every time, Yuki had to exhaust a lot of stamina all the time.

Even with the use of potions, it would drain away quickly when he was faced with a strong enemy. As such, he had to come up with creative and efficient ways on the spot to survive. As he had done previously, Yuki had succeeded in finding a way to survive and move on with the stages.

Yuki activated his ability once more, draining the life energy of the other golems around him. Each one losing its shape, getting smaller by the second. As their flames continued to drain, the clutter of rocks which formed their body began to fall off, now only leaving a group of baby golems.

Now above Yuki was a large ball of fire. Much resembling the one he had created in the previous stage to destroy the hell hounds and mentally scar Cerberus before finishing him off as well. Unable to drain more flames from the golems as it would cause the large fire ball to lose its shape, Yuki thought of another brilliant idea.

Since he wouldn't be able to leave the stage until he had defeated the remaining golems, Yuki needed to come up with a way to defeat the tiny golems while the fire was still contained in its ball-like shape. If it were to be undone, the golems would just return back to their previous form. Yuki was in a stalemate as the golems couldn't harm him but he couldn't harm them either. It would just be a waiting game, however since Yuki was slowly draining his stamina because of the flames that were keeping him in the air, he would eventually lose the battle.

To compromise, he thought to turn the golems' power on them. Seeing the rocks that fell off from the deceased golems as well as from the living ones which had dropped when their magma core weakened due to Yuki draining them. Yuki began to use the flames that he had been storing in the ball to reassemble a golem by combining them with the dark rocks. Each and every second, the golem grew in size. Intaking the combination of rocks and fire until it had finished all of the supplies. Still left with a bit of fire, Yuki decided to still pump it into the golem.

Now a large supercharged golem stood on Yuki's side, all its movement controlled by its master. Yuki began to use the golem as his personal servant, ordering him around by pointing at the small golems left on the ground. As Yuki pointed at the target, the super charged golem aimed and crushed the baby golems.

Once all of the left over golems had been taken off, Yuki landed himself back on the ground.

"How exhausting. It would've been a lot easier if I knew to do that from the start," said Yuki.

Seeing no use for his super charged golem, Yuki decided to activate his ability once more and drain the fire within it, turning the golem back to a pile of useless rocks.

Once he had extracted the flames, Yuki once again had a large fire ball above his head. Not knowing what to do with it, he threw it in a random direction of the stage. Since he had finished the stage's challenge, Yuki no longer cared about what would happen to the stage.

Yuki was now finally done with the 4th stage of the dungeon. Feeling completely drained, Yuki fell to his knees. Almost unable to feel his legs or arms, Yuki realized something. The only reason he's been making it out of every stage alive was because of the adrenaline rush in his body. In constant fear, his mind temporarily changes his state of mind to get him out of the predicament. The consequence for it was always an extreme amount of strain placed on both his body and mind. Nearly making him unconscious after every fight.

"Now I understand why Meurig wanted to leave. This place is truly hell," Yuki said.

All he wanted to do right now was leave and never enter another dungeon again. The only thing Yuki wanted in life was to be normal, he didn't want to be an outcast.

"When did I become like this? Why do I even want to get stronger?" Yuki asked himself.

Then it came back to him. The flood of terrible memories from his past life. Yuki indeed never wanted to become more powerful than all others. All he wished for was a normal life, as a kid he had thought that he was robbed of that because he would have to move which caused him to lash out at his mother, not understanding how much worse of a position she was in. Now he realized that he was wrong, however what kind of a reaction would an average child have to being told to suddenly forget about the few friends they had.

While he was wrong for his actions towards his mother, it wasn't necessarily his fault. This goes back to the ideology of if it's wrong to condemn a person for something they had done without them actually meaning to cause the damage. The roles had been reversed. As a kid Yuki was much similar to the monsters in the dungeon and in the outside world. While his actions weren't the best, he still had done them as he didn't know better. Much like the monsters which only know of chaos.

On the other side was his mother who had more power and could choose which method to use to discipline her son. In this world, the one responsible for disciplining/executing the monsters were the players, more specifically in this case was Yuki. Not realizing it, Yuki had become exactly like his mother.

There were no excuses for his actions. His reasoning for allowing himself to run wild was because he experienced a horrible life full of humiliation and bullying. His mother on the other hand was a single mother who was left by his deadbeat father to raise Yuki on her own. Both of their reasoning and actions were wrong. There was no other way around it, no matter how much you try to sympathize with them. No amount of understanding could turn their evil actions into acts of righteousness. Those who try to kill a monster will eventually become a monster themselves.

That of course is because no one is completely good or evil or even balanced. The scale of good and evil change in an instant due to the circumstances which the world puts them in. Much resembling a clock with many gears, as one turns, the others who are connected to it become affected.