Using the trees as cover, Shiro tried her best to duck and weave out of the Minotaurâs attacks. After all, if even one hit her, sheâd be as good as gone.
"Oi! Have you no care for the natural world? I know that youâre a monster but youâre a bovine first and foremost right?" Shiro shouted out while firing some arrows when she got the chance.
*Thuck thuck!
Embedding themselves into his thick skin, Shiroâs smile twitched at how little damage they did to him.
"Tsk."
Flipping her body over one of the roots, she watched as a giant wooden club rushed over the top of her.
Looking at the force of the club, she could already imagine her entire upper body getting torn off cleanly with a single hit.
"Oi Nyx, isnât this a bit unfair? I already need to complete five primordial trials with only one divinity and now youâre sending a Minotaur to face me? Oh great aunt, Iâm a level 1 right now and youâre telling me to face a level 100 cow demon." Shiro sighed before changing her position once more.
Twisting her body, she pulled back on her bow string and narrowed her gaze towards the Minotaurâs bloodshot eyes.
Since she couldnât harm his thick skin, the next best choice was going to be the orifices such as the eyes, nose, ears and mouth.
"Oi you oversized dinner!" Shiro shouted out, drawing the Minotaurâs attention towards her and fired the arrow immediately.
As the Minotaur didnât expect a pair of arrows to fly towards him, he couldnât close his eyes quickly enough.
*PUCHI!
"ARHHHHHHHGGGGGG!!!!" Crying out in pain, the Minotaur fell back and started to writhe around in pain.
Pulling the arrows out of his eyes, Shiro couldnât help but flinch slightly when she saw the pieces of eyeball on the tip of the arrow.
Red blood started to flow out from under his closed eyelid as the Minotaur started to swing his club around without care.
"Ooo.... Yikes, you know, it might have been easier if you just left that in there. At least you wouldnât need to feel the pain of having pieces of your eyeball ripped out." Shiro called out while trying her best to avoid his haphazard swings.
Pulling back on her bow, she fired her arrows just under his nails so that she could inflict more pain. As his skin was very tough, itâll be a futile effort for her to try to kill it with the brute force method.
Right now, she had two choices. Either try to find a chance to deal a crucial bow to his brain or another vital organ such as the heart. Or, she could try her best by bringing it pain and hope that itâll leave her alone because killing him was no easy task. Even with Artemisâ Bow, it seemed like it was still lacking a little due to the fact that her current self was weak. If she was stronger, she guessed that the bow would get stronger as well since it was similar to Athera in a way that it grew with the owner.
Tring her best not to die while littering the Minotaurâs body with arrows in the most painful places, Shiro was glad that Artemisâ Bow generated its own arrows. After all, if she had to purchase all the arrows used tonight then sheâd be dirt poor.
The worst part about everything is that her bow was already getting a power boost thanks to its passives!
[When you are in a forest, the power of your shots increase.]
[Your bowâs power is increased when you are under moonlight.]
Even with both of these abilities activated, her shots were still too weak to pierce through the monsterâs thick hide.
âIf the Minotaur is this annoying already, I donât even want to think about the other monsters. Some of them apparently give warriors with two divinities some trouble, nevermind me who has no divinities.
âHonestly, I should be grateful that Iâm even doing something to the Minotaur since this bow is something blessed by Artemis. If it was a normal bow, it would definitely do jack sh*t even if I was to hit him in the eyes.â She thought to herself.
Sighing softly, her eyes snapped open as she quickly rolled to the side.
"F*ck you! I canât even sigh!?!?" Shiro cursed out at the Minotaur and threw one of her common daggers at his eyes.
". . ."
Seeing the dagger bounce off his hide, Shiro stayed silent and focused on dodging.
Littering the Minotaurâs body with arrows, some were found in rather awkward spots such as the rear, under nails, on his n.i.p.p.l.es, eyes, nose, ears, mouth and so on. As she couldnât outright kill him, the best she could do was annoy him to death. Thankfully, it seemed to work as the Minotaurâs movements seemed to have dulled ever so slightly from her constant assault.
Glancing up at the sky, Shiro guessed that it had been a few hours as she was struggling to keep up with the fight now. Her entire body was drenched with sweat as her lungs felt like they were about to collapse.
"Christ can you either die or piss off already? This lady canât kill you and you canât kill this lady. Why donât we just call it a truce ah?" Shiro asked while firing more arrows.
Seemingly annoyed with her provocations, the Minotaur brought his arm back and hurled his club towards her location. Despite losing senses of sight, he was still able to pick out her location with his other senses. Even if they were filled with arrows.
"Holy!" Quickly jumping to the side, Shiro managed to dodge the club but not before the force of the wind caused a fracture in her left arm.
"Ssss!!" Taking a sharp breath in, Shiro gritting her teeth from the pain.
"Alright, if you donât want to leave, Iâll force you to f*cking leave!"
Ignoring the pain in her arm, Shiro dashed around the forest and continued to fire arrows in the most annoying places for the Minotaur. It had become a battle of attrition and if she lost, sheâll die.
###
In the dusk of the morning sun, Shiro sat on the branch of a tree while attending to her wounds. In the end, she managed to force the Minotaur to leave the place as he was going to have a hard time sitting down with all of the arrows that were embedded into his body.
Tearing some fabric from her skirt, Shiro made a cast of sorts so that she could let her arm heal. Thankfully, it was only fractures and she didnât break her bone completely. If she did, things would become rather annoying since sheâd need to try to find a healing spot with concentrated essence like what the dryad had shown her.
Sighing softly, she looked around her and was just glad that she was now out of the maze. Any longer and she would have lost her mind.
"Where am I on the map again..." She muttered.
Checking her mental map, she found herself to have gone back a few steps and by a few steps, she meant that she had wasted half a days worth of progress thanks to the Minotaur.
Clicking her tongue, she decided to rest up for now as she had been fighting for the entire night. Once she woke up, she was going to go for a quick bath in a nearby lake or something as her body was drenched with sweat.
###
Thankfully, after the small Minotaur problem, her travels were rather safe. The most dangerous monster she had met was on a level similar to the Terca as they hunted in packs to avoid the large monsters that owned the surrounding territories. Due to her limitations, she could only kill one monster every two days so fighting a pack was a no go so she was forced to trick them.
However, it wasnât too troublesome for her and she was able to lose them while running through the forest.
Continuing her travels, she finally arrived at the border of the Section of Life.
Seeing the cut off point of the forest, she glanced at the floating islands as well as the tunnels of wind that floated through the sky with a smile.
Travel in this Section was much easier as long as you knew which tunnel to take. If you didnât, you could accidentally find yourself at the other side of the world.
One would think that with air tunnels, the power of flight wouldnât be as useful but flight was actually highly valued. That was due to the fact that with the power of flight, one could cut the tunnel short and escape before reaching the end destination. This made travel much easier as tunnels werenât like buses on earth. They didnât have individual stops but rather a single stop from point A to B. Without the power of flight, efficient travel was tough.
Taking a deep breath, Shiro smiled.
She had finally arrived at the Section where sheâd obtain her first Divinity.