Suicide And Poison

Since then, I had been relentlessly repeating the cycle of killing myself and defeating the dungeon boss, continuously accumulating SP (Status Points).

Every time I plunged the dagger into my heart, I felt that horribly vivid sensation traveling through both hands.

And no matter how many times I repeated the process, I could never grow accustomed to the searing pain that surged through my body, as though threatening to burn me alive from within.

The only reason I could endure it was probably because the hatred and desire for revenge burning within me were even more intense.

During this time, I had discovered something new.

First, it took approximately 100 minutes for the dungeon boss to respawn.

That was an estimate based on the 60-minute cooldown of [Infinite Regeneration], but I doubted it was too far off.

And so, while thinking about such things, I continued killing myself and defeating the boss until the fifth day.

By then, my status had already reached levels I could never have imagined before.

Thanks to enduring all that suffering, my attributes had increased to levels incomparable to what they had been just a few days earlier.

My Intelligence and Luck had more than doubled, while my Attack, Defense, and Agility, which I had invested more SP into, had grown to more than three times their original values.

However, even after seeing those improvements, I felt no joy. My mind remained perfectly calm.

“…It’s still nowhere near enough. At this level, I can’t even come close to Alto and the others, much less Necro Demon.”

How many more times would I have to endure that pain before I could surpass them?

Just thinking about it was depressing.

That was when I suddenly noticed a certain sensation.

“…I’m hungry.”

Well, that was only natural.

Thinking back, I hadn’t eaten anything during the past five days, having spent all my time repeatedly killing myself and defeating the boss.

Actually, I’d assumed that problems like hunger would be reset whenever I regenerated from death…

But apparently, I’d been mistaken.

It seemed I would have to eat something to satisfy this hunger.

“But even so, Alto took the luggage containing all our food…”

Just before I activated the ‘Escape Teleportation Crystal,’ Alto had told me to hand over the luggage bag.

Since it contained several magic items in addition to our food supplies, he’d probably wanted to make sure he took everything valuable with him.

I never imagined that exchange would come back to haunt me like this.

Still, I couldn’t afford to spend all my time feeling sorry for myself.

I had to find some way to satisfy my hunger.

“I don’t even know whether [Infinite Regeneration] would activate properly if I died of starvation. Based on what I’ve experienced so far, it does seem to restore my physical condition to some extent, but… if I ended up dying again within 60 minutes of reviving, I’d be in serious trouble.”

Muttering to myself, I looked around.

However, I was in the deepest part of a dungeon. There was no way I would conveniently find food lying around…

At that moment, my gaze fell upon Black Fang’s corpse.

“…Monster meat, huh?”

I couldn’t help but frown.

There was a good reason for that.

Under normal circumstances, monster meat was never sold for human consumption.

The magical energy contained within monsters was poisonous to humans, and eating their flesh could cause various harmful effects, potentially even resulting in death.

However, given my current circumstances, I had little choice.

There simply weren’t any other options.

“…Phew. I guess it can’t be helped.”

I took a single deep breath and steeled myself.

Even if I could endure the hunger for now, this was a problem I would inevitably have to solve sooner or later.

In that case, the sooner I dealt with it, the better.

Besides, even if the poison ended up killing me—unlike starvation, it should still trigger [Infinite Regeneration] properly.

Using my dagger, I butchered Black Fang’s corpse and drained only the bare minimum amount of blood.

Since I didn’t have any fire-producing magic items, I naturally had to eat the meat raw.

“All right, here goes.”

After swallowing nervously, I took a bite of the meat, fully prepared to risk my life.

Naturally, it wasn’t appetizing in the slightest, and a strong, gamey odor filled my mouth.

Nevertheless, I desperately endured the unpleasant taste and forced the meat down my throat.

Then, I took another deep breath.

“Phew. It doesn’t taste good at all, but… well, I guess it’s not completely unbearable?”

Besides, perhaps I’d gotten lucky, because the poison didn’t seem to be affecting me—

“————!?!?!?”

—That was when it happened.

Suddenly, chills and pain surged throughout my entire body.

Unable to withstand the agony, I collapsed on the spot.

“Kh… Guh… Uuugh…!”

It felt as though a small animal were running wildly around inside my body.

If the pain of stabbing myself in the heart was like being scorched all at once over a blazing fire, this felt more like being slowly melted from the inside over a moderate flame.

Either way, there was no doubt that this pain would eventually lead to my death.

As a result, after approximately five minutes of my strength gradually being drained away—I lost my life once again.

‘Soul regeneration commencing.’

When I heard that system notification, what occupied my thoughts wasn’t resentment toward the unbearable pain I’d just suffered—

(Haha, so that’s how it is… Turns out there are other ways to die besides stabbing myself in the heart.)

—Instead, I found myself thinking something so absurdly carefree that it hardly seemed appropriate for someone on the verge of death.

Perhaps my mind had already begun to break.