Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)
Volume 1 - Ch 5.03

Even though the enemies had an overwhelming numbers advantage over me, avoiding their attacks was nothing difficult. I avoided the ones coming at me from the right by stepping to the side and pulling my right hand back, and then I raised Durandal in front o f me to block the attacks that were coming at me from the front. Then I spun around on my heel and sliced the monsters around me in half from top to bottom.

At one point I thought about using Dungeon Walker to get myself some more maneuvering space, but even with the complete chant the black portal on the wall did not appear. I suspected that something like that might happen. Looks like Dungeon walker cannot be used in the middle of combat. I should try that again when there will be only one enemy, but for now lets ditch the experiments and focus on the task at hand!

The number of enemies was much bigger than I have initially anticipated. How many does that make now? A dozen? More than a dozen? Anyway, there is just so many of them. Im lucky that I began to fall back towards the rooms entrance, otherwise I would have been surrounded in no time.

Maybe I should really consider escaping? Unfortunately, that does not look like a possibility here. With their numbers, even if I tried to make a run for it, they would just come right after me and swarmed all over me. Nah, if I have time to think about such what ifs, then I should just divert the energy spent for that towards cutting them all down.

I slashed at the Needlewood that came at me from the right. After that, another Needlewood attacked me from the left, but I failed to block its attack in time, which resulted in a sharp pain pulsating from my left shoulder.

The entrance to the cave was small, but it will be impossible for me to keep defending myself here all the time. If the battle goes any longer, then the Needlewoods in here might call for reinforcements, causing me to be attacked both from the front and the back. Maybe at the very least I should put my back against the wall to protect it from a surprise attack?

I ignored the monsters to the left and moved to the right. I was wondering if I should try using Overwhelming? No, I shouldnt do it just yet. If I end up using all of my MP on ordinary mobs, I wont be able to cast Skills when I will really need them.

I was beginning to get a little tired, but I did my best to push that feeling out of my mind and continued to slash at the Needlewoods that tried to approach me. I simply continued to hit the enemies before me with my Durandal. Next, with my right foot planted firmly forward I started two-handing Durandal, cutting down anything that dared to approach me, be it from the front, the sides or the back. To be honest, it felt as if the time around me had slowed down considerably.

As I continued to swing my arms I was moving fore=ward, step by step. All this time I delivered painful attacks to the Needlewoods while sustaining very little damage myself.

Finally I reached another small cavern. When I placed my back against the wall, I have effectively reduced the monsters range of attack to only 180 degrees instead of 360. If I could freely move between all four corners of the room that would allow me to reduce that range by another half, to 90 degrees, but in my current situation such greed was probably ill-advised.

For a moment, my sudden movements were enough to disrupt the swarm of enemies, but nothing I did was able to change the fact that they were still coming in after me.

Soon there will be so many of them that they will completely fill up the cave, leaving me no space to move myself.

I pulled back and fixed Durandals position in my hands and blocked the strike that was coming towards me from the left and whacked the Needlewood, but in return I was struck in my exposed right shoulder.

Guh!

Another slash took care of another two Needlewoods, but got me another hit, this time on the left shoulder.

Gwaah!

Another monster was split diagonally from the shoulder, but its needles pierced into my right side.

Damn this hurts like hell!

More and more of their attacks is hitting me. If this was still a one-on-one fight I would not have been hit even once, but this is one vs. many here, with me being at a clear disadvantage, so I do what I can, that is to say I swing Durandal left and right, up and down. Thankfully Durandal has the MP Absorption Skill, so if I wanted, I could have unleashed some of them just as long as Id have enough enemies left to replenish the MP I have spent. But that goes only for MP. If I continue to get randomly hit like that, at some point my HP is bound to get critically low to the point that not even HP Absorption is going to recover it fast enough, and that is something that I wanted to avoid at all costs.

*Sigh* Alright, I guess its time to pop Overwhelming. If using it can help me get out of this sticky situation, then so be it!

Instead of expending all of Overwhelmings power in one strike, I tried to suppress it so that I could use it continuously, and then slashed at the two monsters that were the closest to me. When the Skills effect ended, I have slammed my back against the wall again. This might be working, but I still have to be mindful of getting myself surrounded.

As I was moving along the wall to reach the rooms corner on the right I avoided another Needlewood that tried to slash me with its branches. Damn, just when the Overwhelmings effects stopped working! And just 1 Needlewood wont be enough to get back the MP that I just used. As a result, I could feel my head being gradually filled with negative thoughts. Urgh, I knew I should have used that damn Skill only when the MP bar has been completely filled! Now Ill start acting more and more like an emo, and I dont want that in the middle of the fucking combat! And the worst part here is that if the negative thoughts begin to accumulate, they will have a huge negative effect on my battle performance. On the other hand, even if it costs me the mood swings, I should be using Overwhelming as much as I can to cull the enemys numbers as much as possible. Everything to come out on top here.

Another attack came at me from the left so I deflected it, only to be struck in the right shoulder again. For now HP Absorption manages to keep me afloat, but I cannot feel relieved by that at all. If the barrage of enemy attacks continues like that, the total damage should be enough to put me in the red zone of my HP bar. I guess you could say that Im balancing on a really, reaaaally thin thread right now.

As it is now, the battle was going back and forth over and over again without any clear sign that the impasse I have found myself at is going to be broken.

A certain thought has popped into my head. What if I die in here? Even though this world is totally different from my old one, it is my new reality, so being felled by monsters would spell the absolute, unavoidable death for me.

Death.

Death is close at hand. Its so close that I can practically feel its icy embrace closing around me. Its scary, but at the same time it is not. Im not shaking in my boots, but Im also not laughing about it either. Maybe thats because I was in the middle of a battle? Is it always like that? Are warriors able to calmly stare death right in the face and not feel a single thing?

The next few Needlewoods that came closer to me got sliced into pieces. Even when some of their attacks manage to reach me and inflict damage Im letting it slide as long as I can reach them with my blade to get back the HP that I lost. Little by little, this back and forth were having is starting to create a path that I can use to advance and move forward as I continue to slice & dice the branches that aim for me and cut their owners with Durandal in return.

I guess thats all there really is to it. Even if death is literally knocking at my door, all I can do is to continue to fight. So as I continue for another corner of the room, Im trying to defeat as many monsters as possible. And before I knew it, the number of Needlewoods between me and the right corner of the room were reduced to only two.

That is my chance!