Looking at the massive monster, Ash was having second thoughts. Still he decided to follow through.
In the next second he was spotted by the monster. It let out its deafening cry and charged at Ash.
A bit more prepared Ash held out his sword, im a way so it would pierce the enemy if it charged directly at him.
The monster didn't seem to care for his action and kept charging at him, and was eventually impaled by his sword.
But it didn't do much damage to it and Ash still found himself pushed back to the barrier, this time without any broken bones.
Thanks to the belt his sword didn't get stuck so he still had it with him.
The distance between him and the monster was long enough for him to catch his breath.
He once again gripped his sword, and the monster once again charged at him.
This time instead of trying to impale it, he instead chose to slash at it.
As the monster charged, he tried to side step in a way that would allow him to slash at it's side.
But alas he was too slow and missed his window to do it and was sent flying in a fashion similiar to what happened during their first encounter.
He once again found himself in a state where he was barely functional.
Thanks to the belt his sword was still with him.
First he looked at the monster approaching, then he looked at his sword with a grim expression.
'Fuck me...'
With the last of his strength he took his sword and with a quick action cut his own throat.
"Au..g.h.."
With blood oozing out from his neck he couldn't scream, even if he wanted to.
In that moment he felt this was his quickest least painful path to death, but now he wasn't too sure.
...
Death came once more, just as his awakening.
Instinctively reaching for his throat, he soon stopped as he realised he was fine.
While he was still not used to dying, he felt that he was slowly getting there.
With the scream and the screen appearing as scheduled, he knew it was once again time for him to leave.
But before he did, he sat down for a moment to think, think about the most efficient way he could kill himself as he felt there had to be a quicker way than what he just did.
In the end the only alternative he could come to was to pierce his own heart, it seemed his options were limited in this field. Death would always be painful.
Stepping out he was once more face to face with the monster. His sword was still fixed to his hand with the belt as keeping his sword was still more important than his ability to move it around more freely.
The monster was once again charging at him, this time his first action was to dodge to the side.
Thanks to its size the creature had no time to change its course and missed its target.
Seizing the opportunity Ash slashed at its side with his full power.
After his slash he distanced himself from the beast quickly.
He knew he couldn't get too cocky, as it would spell his demise.
Trying to distance himself he jumped back, but slipped on the mud and fell.
He was simply unlucky.
This was enough time for the monster to once again catch up to him and push back with great force.
This time what he hit was one of the buildings, breaking some of his bones.
Sensing his doom he plunged his sword into his heart and bled out.
...
Waking up he felt annoyed more than anything, as his death this time was entirely coincidental, out of his control.
'There's nothing I could have done there.'
There was another thing he needed to look at.
'The heart...'
His new method had its pros and cons.
It was indeed less painful than the throat cut, but it was also a slower death.
This possed many problems as the point of doing it himself was to quicken up the process, and also to avoid receiving more damage from the monsters before he died. Also while it was less painful, it was still one of the worst pains he felt.
In the end he decided to use his throat cutting method, for quicker more reliable results.
Walking out he was once again faced with the monster.
This time he did just as he did last time side stepping, then slashing. The results were very similiar too.
This time he made sure not to slip and walked onto the pavement to make sure he wouldn't slip again.
His strategy for taking down the monster was simple, he would avoid it and slash at it, slowly killing it.
The monster charged, he dodged then slashed repeat.
He did this for a good 5 minutes before he could see the monster slowing down, its wounds finally catching up to it.
Seeing this he became more confident, and started to sneak in more slashes, but this mistake was fatal as he soon found himself fatally wounded once more.
With a slashing motion he ended his life once more.
...
Waking up he picked up his sword and headed out while noting his mistake.
The fight went in a similiar way to last time, with him dealing enough damage to make the monster sluggish, but this time he remained vigilant and continued his onslaught of attacks.
By now the fight had been going for about ten minutes and the monster was close to being killed, when a familiar sound enterred Ash's ears.
"Beraughhh!"
'Another one?'
Coming out from one of the streets was another monster, much similiar to this one.
'Fuck me...'
Just as Ash was to kill it another one appeared, but before he could be surprised, the sound came from another direction.
"Breaughh!"
Looking in the direction where the sound came from was another monster, but this one was oven bigger than the one he had been fighting so far.
Ash realised what happened, it seemes that the shouts of the monster have alerted the other monsters in the area.
Ash felt hopeless, he knew there was no way for him to survive an assault by this many monsters, as even just one was barely manageable.
Next with a swift motion he ended this attempt of his.
...
Waking up, he felt perturbed as he hadn't expected for more to show up.
Of course it made sense, it did seem to be signalling, but it took too long for them to show up so he expected them to simply not show up at all.
Then a slight grin appeared on his face.
'So it's a challange then.'
He realised that the monsters were slow to respond, and as such he had about ten minutes to deal with the first one.
He just had to become better, more efficient.
Noticing the grin on his face Ash was shocked to find himself enjoying this.
He didn't want to admit it, but he was starting to enjoy this.
Even he found it strange how quickly he was getting used to it, as just about a day ago he was still shaking from his first death.
It might have just been the adrenalin, but the source of his bravery didn't matter.
All that was important to him in this moment was to get through this enemy.
He once more stepped out of his cave, this time foregoing using the belt, as he felt he needed to use his sword properly to see actual improvement.
Gripping his sword, he was once again face to face with the monster.
This time he already knew how to do things so he was able to quickly dodge and slash at the monster a good few times.
While doing so he realised, just how much he had been holding himself back by fixing the sword to his hand.
His control over the sword became much more delicate, he was able to strike much more precisely.
This time he felt confident he could defeat the monster.
This wasn't simple cockyness, no this was experience.
Seizing every opportunity, he started sneaking in extra slices, slicing twice and sometimes even thrice.
He was on schedule to kill it in around eight minutes.
But before he did so, he wished to experiment a little.
His way of attacking it was consistent, but somewhat slow. He wanted to know if there was a way for him to kill the thing quicker.
After dodging another one of its now sluggish moves, he struck at one of the heads of the creature instead of just at its side.
Upon doing so he was able to cut the head off with a quick action. And the creature fell to the ground with a thud.
It was dead.
Ash was flustered as he realised, his experiment started a bit late, as this one move finished the monster off.
Ash couldn't tell whether its head was an actual weak point or if it would have died regardless of whatever he struck.
Nonetheless looking at the creature laying on the ground filled him with a great sense of satisfaction.
He got stronger.
Soon the sounds from the streets came once more and the other monsters started appearing.
Ash looked in their direction with slight smile.
'My new guinea pigs.'