This Clueless Hero

The sudden pain that filled my mind felt all-encompassing and authoritative, almost like a higher-level figure. It was at that moment I realized what had happened.

In the middle of my fight with the lizards, the crown had set itself upon my head. In other words, I ended up taking too much time. It was already too late.

My consciousness immediately began to blur despite the sense of urgency that flowed through my body. It was as though my mind was telling me one thing, but my body wasn't listening.

If I fell here, I would surely die by the black lizard.

Which meant I couldn't just fall here. It would end up being a wasted life, serving no real purpose. Mistakes were inevitable, that was a fact I understood.

And there was definitely a time where I would've accepted that.

That I was unable to do anything more.

But right now, I refused to give up until the bitter end. Even as my consciousness neared extinction, my thoughts remained.

And they were not the most passive thoughts.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was letting out a furious roar. It was as though the spirit of the lizard king came to possess me in order to vent the rage that it was unable to do while alive.

An unbelievably large amount of blood rushed to my head, heating it up considerably. For a moment, it felt as though my head was boiling. In fact, the heat became too much, as a burning pain formed.

It was as though I had become a volcano.

Ironically enough, this compounded with the pain I was already experiencing, making it far worse. However, it was with this hatred that I was able to move.

I lunged towards the lizard and bit down on its neck.

My teeth sank in... then broke off. Warm blood poured out of my gums, dripping down my face. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this situation. However, I suppose that it did make sense considering teeth were not a conventional weapon amongst humans.

But that didn't mean I gave up.

I grabbed at the lizard with both hands. Blue veins clearly bulged from my skin, my knuckles whitened, and my skin reddened. With all I could, I pulled.

I could feel the grating pain of the teeth against my flesh and bone. It ground further, until eventually, one of the teeth was lodged in between my bones. Despite pulling with strength I didn't know I had, this wasn't going to work.

It more so felt like I was pulling off my bones themselves. In fact, if I kept pulling, those were probably going to come off before the lizard.

My thoughts were becoming even more incoherent.

This time, I decided to abandon strategy and thought altogether. It was as though my mind was regressing. And so, I raised my leg and repeatedly slammed the lizard against the wall.

Each hit was slow, but powerful.

I would wind up my leg far back before letting it loose onto the wall.

Several deafening bangs resounded one after another. The lizard jostled violently from the impact, causing its teeth to rip into more of my flesh.

Yet, I didn't even feel it.

I could hardly feel anything anymore.

My only goal was to smash this lizard into a pulp.

The first strike hardly did anything to the lizard, as did the second. However, by the third strike, scales began to fall off. It prompted me to slam the lizard against the wall even harder.

By the fifth time, the lizard was bleeding badly, while huge sections of its body had lost scales.

By the tenth time, fountains of blood were pouring out, but it still retained a weak grip on my leg.

By the twentieth time, the lizard was no longer black, but a mush of dark red flesh. It was dead, no longer holding onto my leg.

Yet, I continued to kick. My mind was simply unable to process anything other than violence. My vision was too blurry to even see the lizard in front of me. The only thing on my mind was to continue attacking.

Continue.

At some point, the lizard had become pieces of mangled flesh scattered across the cavern. As for me, I was still trying to slam a lizard against the wall. However, the only thing I accomplished was slamming my foot against hard stone.

And eventually, I passed out altogether in the middle of a kick.

...

Everything hurt.

It hurt really bad.

Before I could register the fact I woke up, pain assaulted my senses. Certain sections of my body felt deathly cold, where I was injured.

Though my mind was muddled, I forcefully sat up, stressing out my unprepared brain. Upon looking down, I saw dried blood coating the injuries on my legs. One of them was clearly far more messed up than the other.

Even bone was visible.

Despite being in such a terrible condition, I attempted to stand up. Then, as I probably should've expected, I tripped and fell.

Those wounds that had stopped bleeding, began once more.

The blood that came out felt warm, but my legs were only getting colder. Seeing these results, I gave up on trying to walk forward. My eyes widened while my pupils constricted.

Then, I teleported.

It was a strange sensation to suddenly land on my stomach, but I didn't care enough to mind it. With teleportation and crawling, I made my way into the expanse, where the lizards used to be.

I use the term used to, as what laid before me the result of a massacre. The carnage consisted of torn up lizard corpses all across the place. As for the black grass, almost all that I could see was torn up as well.

However, from my memory, the lizard king would block his own plants with a wall of stone. Now that I had the crown, I should be able to command that wall of stone to fall down and the black fruits should be mine.

And so, I slowly crawled and teleported across the expanse, encountering shattered rocks and lizard remains along the way.

Seeing all the destruction when it was now calm felt a bit strange. The dichotomy to it made me really take in the ruin around me. Nonetheless, I continued to drag myself forward on what seemed like an endless journey.

I couldn't imagine how torturous it would be if I was unable to teleport.

After what felt like days, I made it to the end of the expanse.

I strained my neck to look up at the rock wall in front of me. Then, I closed my eyes and tried to make it fall.

...But they didn't.

These walls felt immoveable for whatever reason.

I furrowed my brows then tried once more.

And nothing happened.

What was going on?

...My memories were a little fuzzy. Maybe I needed to get the black crystal first.

With those thoughts in mind, I traveled down the side of the expanse. The entire time, I stretched my neck to look upwards while I was crawling. Eventually, I made it to where the hole was.

Although I couldn't see past it, I teleported with less hesitation than I should've had. And so, I found myself in the section that gradually transitioned from grey stone to black stone.

After another segment of teleporting and crawling, I made my way down. There was a steady pulsating, but it didn't feel hostile. Something I noticed was when my body brushed up against the black rock, was that the pulsating felt stronger.

Eventually, I crawled up to the place with the black crystal.

I reached out my hand towards it, but it did not move.

Suddenly, I remembered that I needed the gemstone from the three-horned demon for it to activate.

With frustration, I crawled back out, traveling all the way back to the three-horned demon. I pulled out the gemstone from its body, but not without cracking a fingernail.

Then, I made my way back.

The gemstone flew out of my grasp and into the floating black crystal, before causing the surrounding black crystals to fly towards it, then were absorbed. The floating black crystal hovered just above my hand as this all happened.

In fact, one of the black crystals underneath me jostled violently and scraped past my wounds as it flew into the floating black crystal.

It further annoyed me, but I let it pass.

After all that, the crystal began to hover around me, as it did so long ago.

I painfully crawled my way back. Upon teleporting out, I then made my way back to where the lizard king's plants should be.

The anger was slowly building up, but knowing that the black fruits should be there was enough for me to keep going.

I made it to the back of the expanse.

Then, once more I attempted to make the wall fall.

But it didn't.

In a fit of anger, I slammed my fist down, which landed on something.

After moving it aside, I saw part of the stalk of the black fruit.