Chapter 28

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Chapter 28: Thrown Out

Tasha was thrown out again, her back hitting the soft wall of the Training Ground, bouncing back, falling to the ground.

The walls and floor of the Training Ground were made of a rubber-like material, reminding Tasha of a running track, providing grip and some elasticity to prevent serious injuries. Perhaps because of this, the Amazonians were not holding back as they pushed her towards the walls and floor.

It was Tasha who requested the Amazonians to train her, having such a good teacher, facility, and physique, it would be a loss not to seize the opportunity to learn. The Amazon Queen remained composed, showing no curiosity about the arrival of a strange person wearing a wolf’s head. She simply set down her bow, motioned to another person practicing shooting on the Training Ground, and said, "Dora! Come and teach her."

The surviving scout had mostly recovered from her serious injuries, her remarkable resilience was worth mentioning. It was said that Dora was one of the best warriors among the Amazonians, which couldn’t be verified, but what the Queen mentioned was clear: she would be very strict with apprentices.

"Stand up!" Dora scolded lightly, "Try again, your eyes aren’t just for show!"

Tasha’s "eyes" were like two red flames, similar in shape to those of the Skeleton Soldier, just different in color. Marion had said it was a wolf skull, but luckily the eyes were actually similar to human eyes, not color-blind, and could see a bit wider than ghosts. Watching from a bystander’s perspective (dungeons really could do this), listening to Amazonian scolding her without changing her expression, the scene was actually a bit funny.

Being in it was a different story.

Tasha breathed rapidly, sweat dripping down her arms. She almost forgot this feeling of exhaustion, even back when she was still human, the last time she got so tired might have been during a high school 800-meter run. Her body below the head was no different than before, feeling hot and cold, feeling pain and fatigue, intense exercise making her muscles ache, sweat sticking her clothes to her body, making it heavy and making her not want to stand up. Her skin had become several shades paler than before, not just from "not getting sun," but all her features had changed, making bruises from bumps and scratches more noticeable. Through the flapping of her clothes when she jumped, she could see her back was all bruised.

I was wrong before, her old body couldn’t compare to now. If it was her old body that lacked exercise, Tasha probably couldn’t even stand up by now.

Having a body made up of subordinate elements was undoubtedly superior, she ran faster, jumped higher, punched harder, as if she had entered an athlete’s body. The "Excellent Reserve Soldier" provided by Amazonian worked perfectly in this body. Tasha could use weapons she had never touched before, she could pull a bow without shooting her own foot, handle a sword skillfully, and sometimes she could block attacks almost by accident. This unique sense of fluency was as exhilarating as a newbie playing a pro’s account in a game.

But that was it. Tasha could beat up five of her former selves, but at this ten-year-old Amazonian’s level, facing an experienced Amazon warrior… The time she spent standing up to fight was less than the time she spent on being knocked down and getting back up.

At first, Tasha complained in her heart about things like "why do skulls sweat" and "I don’t have a respiratory system, why am I panting," but soon she had no time for such thoughts. Her combat teacher didn’t allow her to use any weapons, the current training only involved running, dodging, and fighting bare-handed, which meant for the present Tasha, it was a course of running away and getting hit.

This time Tasha dodged for three seconds, then flew out on the fourth second.

"You really have no talent," Victor’s voice came out.

"Thank you for your kind encouragement," Tasha said, moving her arm, suspecting her shoulder might be slightly dislocated.

"Press inward in a clockwise direction," Victor said.

Tasha did as he said, hearing a slight click in her shoulder, the previous sharp pain gone. "Thank you," Tasha was a bit surprised, "I thought you would say I was wasting time again."

"Increasing your chances of survival is never a waste of time," Victor said unexpectedly gently, though his next sentence revealed his true self, "By the way, your combat skills are truly pitiful, you wouldn’t last long in our old hometown."

"The pressure to survive in the library is intense," Tasha said.

"It’s Abyss! Abyss! I am a great demon!" Victor said angrily and fell silent.

Tasha fell to the ground again, hitting the weapon rack, unable to get up for a moment. What made her disheartened was not the repeated failures, but the feeling of stagnation, not seeing her progress. Tasha suspected she had only improved in endurance, touching the back of her head, feeling like if her skull contained a brain (which sounded really weird), a concussion was highly likely.

"Use your eyes, don’t just be busy getting hit!" Dora said. "Look at my shoulder, you can see when I will strike. Look at my waist, you can predict which way I will move next."

She wasn’t wearing armor before, now glaring at Tasha with frustration, she took off her short-sleeved shirt. The warrior woman in her tank top was strong and fierce, Tasha noticed the muscles on her upper arm bulging, then she was sent flying again.

"No." Dora frowned, "You’re not even trying."

"I am trying!" Tasha argued for the first time. How could she still be here getting hit over and over if she wasn’t putting her heart and soul into trying to learn something? She wasn’t a masochist.

"You’re not," Dora said, "You’re not committing to the fight, or even to each movement, you move like you’re just wearing your body."

Tasha couldn’t argue.

Dora hit the nail on the head, this was the body she had gained out of nowhere. She had been given a physically exceptional body without having to spend the long hours in training, but because of that, she had never had the chance to really fine-tune it. There was a subtle divide between body and mind, like having a high-performance car that had hardly been used.

"Have you considered switching to a wizard career path?" Victor suggested.

"You’re going to teach me magic?"

"Abyssal magic comes from bloodlines, and you, well, you would have to find a willing wizard or magic book to take you in."

Tasha had neither a wizard nor a magic book, so what Victor said was just empty talk.

This training session left Tasha completely exhausted. She collapsed into her room, too tired to even move. Her hand hang down beside the bed, and Ahuang crawled out from underneath the bed to nuzzle her hand, but Tasha didn’t even have the strength to touch it. Soon, Marion kindly brought her a large basin of hot water. Tasha thought about the hassle of fetching and heating water, and decided to immediately create a bathroom.

Setting up a bathroom was much easier than mastering combat for dungeon, which controlled her body more than she did. Dora was right, she couldn’t fully commit. Compared to the energy dungeon demanded, this new body she had just acquired was like a mere puppet.

The underground tunnel kept expanding, and the gnome team grew larger. Their ceaseless work day and night covered the entire Angaso Forest with dungeons. This underground network was intricate and sturdy, with space for expanding new rooms, ready to evolve into a real dungeon city from the drainage pipes. The expanding watchtowers firmly incorporated the Angaso Forest, ensuring they wouldn’t be caught off guard again.

Therefore, when strange people appeared at the edge of the forest, Tasha noticed them immediately.

It wasn’t an army, just a convoy with guards at most. They lit torches under the cover of night, placed cushions under the wheels and horseshoes, traveled lightly and quietly sneaked in here. The specters immediately emerged, luckily, she didn’t sense another Magic Cannon in the carriage.

They stopped outside Angaso Forest, turned around, and had the front of the convoy facing out. Several people got off a carriage and pieced together some strange things in their hands to the back of other carriages. Tasha tried to see what was in those carriages, but they were tightly covered with tents, no openings, solid as a rock. Those frames and long poles arranged horizontally were connected to the rear compartments of these carriages, making it unclear what they were doing.

Whatever they were up to, it couldn’t be good.

Tasha immediately informed the Amazonians when she spotted them. The warriors donned their armor and sprang into action. The human soldiers had come with so few people this time for easy entry and concealment, but their plan backfired as they were caught red-handed by the Amazon warriors. As for their intentions, they could find answers after capturing or eliminating them.

As if knowing they had been discovered, the soldiers hastily assembled half of their setup and ceased their actions, with most of them returning to the carriages or horses and departing.

Only four carriages that no one could sit in, a few horses, and the same number of strangely dressed people stayed behind. They wore leather gloves, thick heavy coats made of the same material as the gloves, and the coats with attached hoods covered their entire bodies. Under the hoods were strange masks that were not flat – the eye part had round lenses, the nose part was sharp and prominent, taking up two-thirds of the face with a slightly downturned tip, resembling a giant bird beak. At a glance, they looked like they were wearing crow costumes.

Tasha vaguely remembered seeing people like this somewhere, but couldn’t recall. Could they be remnants of a dungeon legacy? She asked Victor if these people were Necromancers, or something similar, and Victor said no, they were just living people, possibly some kind of Raven worshiping wizard – wizards are hard to kill, so don’t hesitate to use arrows.

Living people can be killed.

In an instant, the Amazonian arrows took the lives of half of the people, the feathered arrows easily pierced through the leather coats, their defenses were not as strong as leather armor, and no fancy magic circles rose from them. They fell down like ordinary people, and the remaining three people looked a bit panicky. The Amazon archers shot their feet, ran towards them, ready to capture a living captive.

"For Aryan!" one of them suddenly shouted.

This person was close to the carriage, he jumped forward, pulling the pole behind the carriage. The other two followed suit, even though one of them quickly got shot in the hand and couldn’t reach the third carriage. A gust of wind burst out from the crossbar behind the carriage, blowing so fiercely that people couldn’t keep their eyes open. The Amazonians instinctively lay down, avoiding the wind and crawling forward. The fastest person grabbed one of the living ones, tore off their mask in the scuffle.

The person screamed, drew a sword from their waist, and struggled to rush towards the carriage behind them.

It was at this moment that Tasha remembered where she had seen this type of crow mask before.

In some historical illustrations, medieval plague doctors wore this basic type of gas mask.

She quickly made the ground open and close again, trapping the Amazonians who hadn’t run into the dungeon, watching in confusion as the ceiling above them closed. On the ground, the unmasked people went mad and attacked the carriage. After a few strikes, the back of the carriage burst open like a punctured balloon, exploding entirely.

Inside there was only gas.