小嫂子的味道

As Favian looked at the kobold he\'d just killed, for some reason, he quickly pulled out an arrow from his quiver and stabbed the air behind his back. He then darted forward and after going to a safe distance he turned and gazed back.

There was another monster waiting there for him…an orc. Though the said orc had an arrow stabbing its abdomen, it was put off balance. However, the orc was not going to stop only from that.

Leave stepping aside, it let out a roar and a battle cry as it smacked the ground with its feet, moving the thick chopper in its hand in fashioned motions.

Favian got on his guard and pulled 3 arrows from his quiver, though something he was fearing might happen, did happen. Instead of 3, only 2 of the arrows were grabbed by Favian\'s hand. He tried moving his hand in the quiver more, but the result was the same.

\'Damn it! Not right now!\' he cursed internally as he accepted the fact.

The fact that he had run out of arrows and only two of them were left now. He gritted his teeth as he looked at the upcoming orc. An orc\'s size is bigger than a kobold, so he can\'t kill it in one blow like before, he\'d have to be on high ground to do that and there was no such place in here.

Despite that, he loaded one of the arrows while putting the other back in the quiver. He charged it up full of mana like before and aimed at the monster in front of him. The orc was constantly moving as it ran toward him, and its humongous size only made him a less easy target.

He aimed for somewhere around his head and released the arrow. Flying through the air smoothly, the arrow hit the target, but that didn\'t make much of a difference anyway. The arrow had landed and drilled itself inside the orc\'s left eye, but the angle at which it hit wasn\'t quite right, hence the metal tip was not able to reach the brain of the orc.

However, this did one thing for sure. And it was to anger the orc even more, causing the monster to do something Favian didn\'t foresee even in his dreams.

It roared loudly and then applied pressure to its feet, then a booming sound was heard.

… The orc was nowhere to be seen, at least not on the ground.

"Fuck!" Favian screamed as he looked up in the air and almost on survival instincts, he ran backward.

The thing he was seeing in the air was nothing but that orc. It had jumped in the air due to the rage and anger it harbored toward Favian and now, it was searching for a good place to land—which pretty sure was Favian.

Favian ran as fast as he could, but it was of no use. The orc crashed onto its feet to the ground just a meter to two away from him. The force of the impact was too high, the ground where the orc landed crumbled away, and a crater formed, Favian was hit by the resulting shockwave and was hurled away.

A pained groan left Favian\'s mouth when he crash-landed at a distance from the act while getting rubbed against the rough ground. He tried to get up by lifting his body with his hands, but only slumped down again.

He was not in the best condition, but the orc didn\'t give a fuck about his condition. It walked angrily toward Favian while swinging its blade in the air as if preparing for an attack.

Finally, the orc was standing a foot away from him; it gazed down upon Favian as it moved the blade up and then stopped for the one last time before bringing the blade down and bestowing death.

-Slash!

-Stab!

Favian was ready to let go of his life—not like he had the choice to do otherwise. But somehow, he was still conscious and breathing like an alive man.

He turned back to look at the orc. His eyes widened and a wave of relief, calm, and surprise washed over his heart.

The orc was alive but not moving for now, and it was clearly in pain. And why won\'t he be in pain? After all, there was a blade—the same size as the chopper of a Minotaur, stuck in the orc\'s back and half of its body was burning.

Blood covered and dripped the monster\'s body as it gritted its fangs.

A smile appeared on Favian\'s face when he spotted the two figures at a distance behind the orc.

On the right was Xara and on the left side was Spene; they were still in the place where they\'d been fighting before, but in Favian\'s line of sight.

"That\'s so pathetic, you know?! If you\'re dying like this after saving me," said Spene; his voice was loud since they were far away.

"I agree with him this one time...don\'t go dying like that, you idiot!" Xara spoke in a little shy tone.

This might have been one of those moments when Xara\'s heart almost popped out because she thought that Favian died, the fear of losing someone she loved, maybe was the feeling which caused her to move. And maybe in Spene\'s case, it was pure friendship.

However, the battle wasn\'t over just yet…

"Khwaaa!" the orc roared, letting go of the blade and beating its chest like the classic King Kong.

"Thank you," Favian mumbled, but maybe his friends were able to hear him for some reason.

"Shut up now! Weren\'t you the one who kept me from thanking you? Get your ass up from there and fight, we don\'t have the whole day to waste here!" Spene instructed and Xara nodded.

"Well, you ain\'t wrong about that," Favian smiled and slowly rose to his feet.

But there was still one problem left: the lack of arrows; he had only one left.

"Favian!"

He looked at where the voice came from and saw that it was Zero who called out his name. He was waving, maybe to catch his attention, and when he saw that Favian had noticed him, he showed him something.

It was the dagger he used on the last floor to defend himself. "Take this! You have run out of arrows, haven\'t you?" said Zero.

"Hey but I…"

"This is no time for arguments, look behind that guy is about to attack," with that, Zero threw the dagger toward Favian.

He stumbled a few steps forward and then caught the dagger, the second he left the place where he\'d been standing the orc—who was now mad in rage, crushed the ground there with its punch.

"Thanks," Favian turned toward the monster, dropped his bow, and prepared to fight with the dagger.

Maybe he would\'ve been unable to fight with a sword, but since this dagger was lightweight, he had no such problem. \'I\'ll probably take this one down, at least.\'

Along with that thought in his mind, Favian dashed toward the orc. The orc screamed and let out an ear-piercing sound as it charged toward Favian.

They both came close, Favian didn\'t stop moving to avoid the orc\'s attack. While doing that, he remained close to the orc\'s legs and kept delivering slashes on his joints and major muscles.

This kept going on for a while, Favian was using the \'hit it till it dies\' strategy used in the RPG games from Zero\'s former world.

The orc raged more and more as it took damage from Favian. The chopper of the Minotaur that was thrown by Spene was still stuck in its back, and the skin Xara had burned with her magic was still on fire and was constantly delivering pain.

At some point, the pain got so strong that the orc\'s eyes turned blood-red; its veins popped out, and its muscles got thick and tense.

"Gwahhhhhh!" with a scream, the orc launched a punch.

Favian was dodging them until now, but maybe it was his bad luck or something, the punch connected this time. And maybe it was his bad luck because the punch contained much more force than the ones the orc used before.

Blood came out from Favian\'s mouth as he was thrown away backward. He flew in the air and crashed hard into the wall behind him. He was sure that his skill was cracked from behind, as he was able to feel intense pain there.

Still, he didn\'t have the time to groan, hence he forced his body and stood up. Wiping the blood off his mouth, he looked at the orc who was coming toward him with loud steps.

However, it was not the only sound he heard. The other sound that resounded in the whole area was weird, as if someone was rubbing a huge stone against another stone.

And in fact, that was exactly what was happening. The entrance door, from where Zero and the others stepped into this floor, was closed shut. But along with that, one more door moved…and instead of closing, it opened.

Just a bit away from where Favian was…