Exiting the cemetery and crossing the river, Chris and his group entered a dense, jungle like region filled with towering, withered trees.
The canopy was so thick that the already dark forest became almost pitch black.
They were lucky they'd kept the lighters found by the one eared student. Without them, they would have been forced to navigate the maze like jungle in total darkness.
Chris cut down several thick branches, tore some cloth from the "duck guy's" blood stained shirt (much to his dismay), and used the fire to melt some tree resin into a thick, sticky fuel. He combined them to create several sturdy, long lasting torches.
One for everyone.
As for how to find the path through the shadows... they relied entirely on the man eating plants scattered along the trail.
It was another small mercy from the Heaven's Selection Space. Having already punished the newcomers with elite enemies, it seemed the "logic" of the dungeon had loosened up regarding pathfinding.
The Man eating Plants had an instinctual drive to attack anything that moved. Every few seconds, they would spit a fireball to incinerate a passing critter. In the darkness of the woods, those fireballs were like glowing neon signs.
'Aren't they afraid of setting themselves on fire?'
Chris didn't dwell on the logic. He kept moving, using the spectral straight swords generated by [Knight's Throw] to snpe the plants from a distance. The divine damage from his Vampire Hunter template made short work of them.
Before long, a new type of enemy appeared.
They were "Wraith Wizards", small, hooded figures that looked like miniature versions of the Magician. They floated through the air, completely unbothered by the terrain, and threw strange projectiles that looked suspiciously like giant leeks.
In large numbers, they could have been a nightmare.
However, their weakness was the same as the zombies: a pathetic health pool.
Chris re loaded his Vampire Hunter template and applied the divine damage of the [Vampire Killer] to his spectral blades. He was essentially one shotting them.
Like the Strength attribute, Spirit also provided a passive mana regeneration effect. With the [Vampire's Gentleman Cane] in his off hand, Chris's 14 Spirit granted a regeneration rate of roughly 1.4 MP per minute. [Knight's Throw] cost 5 MP per use, meaning Chris theoretically needed a three minute "recovery period" for every few throws.
But Chris had another trick up his sleeve: [Soul Rescue].
The template skill allowed him to harvest "Innocent Souls" from defeated enemies. Despite unloading the template halfway through the stage, his soul count hadn't reset. He was currently holding nearly a hundred hearts.
To his surprise, the souls from the "Vampire Hunter" template had a high degree of synergy with the "Arthur" projectiles.
A single small heart could negate the 5 MP cost of a [Knight's Throw].
Chris suspected that because he was using both templates simultaneously, the "Throwing" ability of Arthur was being categorized as a Sub weapon for Simon Belmont.
In the original Castlevania, players could use hearts to throw secondary weapons: daggers, axes, crosses, or holy water boxes. They even had the "Stopwatch", a legendary tool that, as the name implied, was a major game breaker.
The Stopwatch could temporarily freeze almost every non boss enemy in the area, allowing the player to reposition or attack with impunity.
And all of these Sub weapons used hearts as fuel.
Chris's Max MP was 140, he had 90+ souls, and he was farming more as he went. By alternating between Spirit based mana and heart based throws, he was actually regenerating resources faster than he was spending them.
The divine damage was so high that he was clearing mobs with a single hit. He was essentially "perpetual motion" in combat.
Shedinja watched this with visible confusion.
In the world of Pokémon, there were plenty of trainers who could fight, some knew martial arts, some had telekinesis, but a trainer who actively chased down enemies so his Pokémon didn't have to waste mana was an absolute rarity.
The two students, meanwhile, only felt their loyalty to "The Boss" grow stronger.
The distance from the river islands to the castle gates was about five kilometers in a straight line. But the jungle path was anything but straight. Even following the trail "paved" by the bodies of dead knights, the terrain was rugged and winding.
The forest was oppressive, filled with a palpable sense of evil that felt like it was pressing down on their heads. Between the winding path, the plants, the wizards, and the constant need to boil water and replace torches, that five kilometer trek took them nearly two hours.
But the journey wasn't without its rewards.
Chris's inventory was now efficiently packed. His primary and off hand slots held his blade and cane. His first two inventory slots held the "Demon King's Castle Map (Limited)" and "Red Arremer Wings (Material)."
He'd handed the heavy hammer and the axe to the one eared student and his roommate. Against a Cyclops, a head on strength contest would be suicide, so he prioritized speed and range for himself.
His third and fourth slots were filled with stacks of money bags and golden king statues.
[Money Bag: Valuable. Contains 50 Kingdom Silver Coins. Can be exchanged for 50 Heaven's Selection Coins.]
[King Statue: Valuable. High quality craftsmanship. Can be exchanged for 40 Heaven's Selection Coins.]
[Note: Items may be more valuable in specific world settings, or entirely worthless.]
Unlike items that went directly into his currency tab, these "collectible" valuables occupied inventory space. But the fact that they could be used in other dungeons, or exchanged for "authentic" currency later, made them worth the inventory tax.
Fortunately, they could be stacked.
Chris left one slot open and used the fifth for the Yashichi he'd picked up near the end of the forest. This one wasn't the negative one, it was a gold tier collectible that rewarded 500 Heaven's Selection Coins. That was a third of what the Red Arremer had dropped and ten times the value of a money bag.
The two students didn't offer any complaints about Chris taking all the valuables. And Chris didn't offer any "generosity."
'This is my paycheck. My money!'
...
As the group cleared the last patch of trees, the one eared student and his friend both froze. Their breath hitched in their throats.
The "Giant" that stood between them and survival had finally entered their field of vision.
Even sitting cross legged and hunched over, the creature was easily as tall as a two story house. Its arms and legs were thick columns of corded muscle, like slabs of granite. It wore a sleeveless metal vest adorned with hundreds of wicked spikes.
The single, spiraling horn on its head and the massive upper and lower eyelids, currently closed in a deep slumber, left no doubt about its identity.
It was one of the six Demon Generals guarding the path to the castle: The Cyclops.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]