Odyssey of the Blind God

Upon sensing the mana fluctuations of the Ratmen, Nial immediately noticed that it was not only stronger than the petrification rats in terms of physical strength, but that almost every possible trait of it was relatively enhanced.

This became only clearer when one of the young men let out a squeal.

"Close your eyes!"

His voice resounded through the cave and alerted one of the Ratmen who quickly used a portion of his mana to circulate it towards its eyes, making it seem as if they were glowing, even in his visualization that dispersed only a moment later.

Having used some mana in order to be barely able to visualize the Ratmen, Nial's assumptions were reaffirmed that it was just a gigantic Rat that could walk on two legs.

Other than that, it looked just like any other rat according to what he visualized.

There might be some other factors the others had noticed, but Nial had to digest the information he could procure because he was unable to trust the others completely.

They might be trapped in a misconception, which would be bad.

Thus, he simply decided to ignore the young man's babble and hoped that they had closed their eyes early enough, before he pushed his feet from the ground, and charged toward one of the Ratmen that was astonished for a moment.

It had never seen someone with weird eyes as Nial's, completely white in color and lifeless.

Nevertheless, it was even weirder for the Ratman to see that someone dared to look into its eyes while it cast the petrification curse.

This reaction of Nial dumbfounded it for a moment, but it overcame the shock much faster than the petrification rats were capable of.

Through this, it was able to perceive Nial's straightforward attack and skirted to the side. It was able to evade Nial's spear thrust by a hair's breadth before its tail stiffened, tripping Nial, who stumbled several times.

Having noticed this too late, Nial swayed a little as he had been too confident in his attack despite the earlier clues he had received.

Thus, after falling over the stiffened tail, he hastily got up and looked around for his opponent.

However, at that moment, it was already too late, because he felt a sharp scratching on his leather armor which was probably the Ratman's claws.

Yet, instead of panicking, Nial kept his calm, knowing that his armor was exceptionally strong.

Thus, he could push the Fang glaive backward, whose blade on the rear end was still released.

Through this, it was possible for Nial to pierce the lower end of the Fang glaive into the thigh of the Ratman.

Following that, he tore it out, while trying to inflict as much damage as possible.

This was semi-useful, as the Ratman charged towards him the moment the glaive's pointed end was ripped out of the thigh.

Nial hadn't expected that the Ratmen would be able to overcome its fear, cry out in pain and retreat as it simply charged towards him with the claws stretching out, ready to tear out his innards.

He was only able to stare at it in shock, and for a fleeting moment, Nial felt that his life might be over right now.

However, instead of letting dread consume him, he forced himself to overcome his worries as he circulated the entire mana he had accumulated through his body, thereby increasing his strength and speed by a small margin.

It was only a little bit, but the increase was enough to allow him to evade the Ratman's attack that scratched his armor once again.

Following that, he swiftly moved the Fang glaive, ignoring the pain in his cramping muscles as he slashed at the Ratman that was less than half a meter away from him.

Cutting through its abdomen, the semi myth weapon easily killed the Ratman that fell to the ground with a loud thud.

All three students were astonished to witness the short fight between Nial and the Ratman as they had barely opened their eyes after everything was already over.

After that, Nail perceived that the Ratman was still alive despite the deep gash he had inflicted.

This was most likely some sort of innate survivability trait it had, allowing the Ratman to survive severe injuries, but making it look like it was dead.

Yet, instead of falling into this trap, Nial didn't show any hesitation as he thrust out the Fang glaive, piercing through the beast's skull, and killing it in an instant.

Afterward, its body dispersed into countless particles that gathered into one origin crystal at the lowest quality of the common grade.

This astonished Nial because he had expected the origin crystal to be at least low quality.

However, instead of grumbling, Nial focussed on the fact that his earlier assumption might have been wrong.

'Is the Ratman really an evolved version of the petrification rat? Couldn't it be a mutation?'

It was weird for the evolved version of a beast to drop the exact same origin crystal.

There might be some exceptions but it was certainly not common.

Because of that, Nial was confused when he picked up the origin crystal.

Despite that, he simply absorbed the crystal while replenishing his mana in order to be prepared for a possible attack of more opponents.

After he was fully recuperated, Nial inspected his armor by using his mana perception before he averted his attention to the depths of the tunnel.

Yet, before he could think more about a safe way to enter the deeper parts of the cave which his senses and mana perception labeled as extremely dangerous, the three other students began to express their opinion about the current situation.

"Eh…Sir..I'm sorry but I don't know your name, Sir! I can tell that you want to go deeper into the cave, but wouldn't it be better for us to reach the surface instead, and report the current situation to the military?

After receiving the additional intel, more militants should be able to come and help the other students!"

When Nial heard this, the first reaction he gave was to stare at the young female student using his lifeless eyes.

In fact, he didn't even stare at her, but he simply turned in her direction, which made her feel uncomfortable the moment she finished her 'well-meant advice'.

Yet, instead of accepting or even acknowledging her opinion, Nial could only frown as he countered her.

"So, to put it simply, you want me to take you three back to tell the military things they should already be aware of, if they're not stupid?

You do know that it will take me more than a whole day to take you guys back and return to this spot, right?

What do you think will happen in one day? Furthermore, are you guys even worth being rescued? From the looks of it you three are but a burden, and I'm just an Original at the 1st Origin stage!"

Nial's blunt comment hit the three students hard and they were taken aback by his harsh but honest critique.

Yet, instead of accepting that Nial wanted to venture further into the deeper parts of the cave in order to solve the mission he had been given, the female student wanted to continue convincing him but was held back by one of the young men.

It was the one who seemed the most reasonable…or so Nial initially thought.

Unfortunately, the young man seemed to be the exact opposite which Nial only noticed after he heard him speak.

"Who cares about the others? I can give you everything you want if you bring us back. You saved our lives, so I'm already obliged to thank you, owing to our family's motto.

If you help us out, I can promise you to give everything within my power!"

Nial was unfazed by what the young man believed to be a tempting offer, and the only thing he could answer was,

"Don't fret about it. There is no need to return any kind of favor. Just let me go my way and you can go yours. I want to save someone else, and if you guys don't want to come with me, the exit can be found easily.

Just walk upwards!"

Even though he could understand the students' mentality as they had been stuck in the cave for days and they must be afraid of dying, their mana core had already undergone one or more enlarging processes.

As such, if they had learned to fight, it would have been possible for them to fight against the petrification rats and the Ratmen.

Thus, even if they were injured, they would be able to survive as long as they would be desperate enough to return to the surface.

However, that was not the case, and they had visibly relaxed after Nial's arrival and hoped that he would turn into their bodyguard and deliver them to the outside world with a smile that was clearly visible according to their body's stance.

It was almost as if they had simply fooled around in school, doing nothing special, other than learning math, languages, dungeons, and much more.

This was ridiculous, and Nial didn't think that they deserved to be treated with a priority just because one of them belonged to a somewhat affluent family.

With that in mind, Nial continued to walk down the cave, ignoring the obviously dumb students, who thought that wealth was the answer to all problems.

In the end, it might be possible to lure certain individuals with wealth, but Nial was not one of them.

Neither did he like getting anything he didn't deserve, and even less did he adore not keeping his end of the bargain.

He might not have promised the blacksmith to bring Shana alive to him, let alone that he was capable enough to protect her, but that didn't mean he wouldn't give his utmost efforts to save her as long as the slightest possibility of her being alive was still there.

With that in mind, bringing the three students back to the surface before returning would mean that he had to waste precious time that might turn into a deciding factor between life and death of the captured students.

Right now, he didn't even know what had happened to the students or what the Ratmen planned to do with them.

Because of that, Nial felt uncomfortable about the entire situation.

In fact, if possible, he would rather encounter many opponents sooner, than see how his opponents overwhelmed the other students, killing them in a gruesome manner.

It might not be possible for Nial to fight against hundreds of petrification rats at once, but at least he harbored the will to fight against them, which was something most students didn't seem to have.

However, this was even more confusing than everything else because in his opinion students should have been taught that it was important to clear dungeons to make them disappear so that it was possible for mankind to regain their territory if the dungeons were not permanent.

And even if there were permanent dungeons, figuring out the period until they would have their breakout, and a perfect tactic to clear the dungeon would be enough to solve this too.

In that way, they might even be able to regain some of their lands and expand their control beyond the nine shelters.

Yet, Nial also knew that the nine shelters were completely different from each other with Katu being considered the place where everything was still cozy and relaxed.

And this was exactly what Nial was currently witnessing, the relaxed and laid-back attitude of students that didn't even realize how dangerous the situation was they were currently in.

This didn't even change completely after they had been injured severely, which was something that Nial couldn't understand, at all.

Whether it was his mindset that was closer to reality or them being simply too stupid, he was unable to tell, and in the end, it didn't matter because he left them on their own, accepting whatever they wanted to do with their time and life.

Yet, when he heard them shouting after him, Nial couldn't help but feel a little bit frustrated.

'Couldn't they have just left…?'

Despite that, he halted in his tracks and tried hard to not turn around and give them a nice scolding.