Chapter 6: Bug Crushers

  “So ya just…” Lily popped another beetle with her thumb, this was how she apparently reached level two within the first day, by avoiding all monsters and sticking to crushing smaller animals. Jason watched her intently, his fingers hadn't grown back despite Millie's potion, so he still couldn't grip his axe, meaning he had to resort to this tactic to get anywhere in life. Fay could tell that he was getting restless, he wanted to spear head into battle while riding a horse and instead was stuck doing... this...

  He popped a beetle as well, and she clapped for him, “good boy! Good job!” She patted his hair and while still crouching down, moved like a crab towards another bug scurrying.

  Fay was keeping watch while they did this, he was still incredibly tired but with the work of Millie he got back his health and MP. They were out “hunting” while Millie and Bark were in the cabin, she was teaching him the ropes on how to craft so he could also reach level two. Fay guessed that Millie was somewhere around level one still, if she started at the same point as everyone else. Though her potion making and crafting likely would make her close to level two by now.

  Yet again, he knew Millie had something off with her, and disregarded it for the safety of the group.

  The issue with Fay at the moment was that he wasn't sure on where to put his Input Points, he had an already valid source of wisdom and intelligence from his skill and profession so it would make sense to put some points into something more physical, and the two he came up with was defense and endurance. Defense because he was at 1 and could likely be one shotted by a bad slash or swipe, that whip attack from the rat put him out instantly so he was probably going to put two points into defense and then one into endurance, which will hopefully help with his exhaustion.

  Defense: 1 -> 3

  Endurance: 3 -> 4

  He felt his skin tighten, his muscles relax, and most importantly his teeth to stop aching, as he had a chip in his front tooth now. His bones became harder which was difficult to get used to, like growing pains, especially in his arms which felt more rigid before he stretched them out.

  He guessed he was probably nearing the average human muscle mass, he was not a physical person, especially before all this. So to even become average was a big accomplishment.

  Another rabbit came by, Fay clicked his tongue twice, something he found would get the attention of the small beast. It leapt up and Fay swung his arm out.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  He then brought the mole knife along the throat of the rabbit, killing it instantly and leaving it unharmed enough for Bark to use it for material. These rabbits were now very easy to dispose of, especially since he had a grasp on their movements and perception high enough to intercept them.

  [Slain Blood Rabbit (LVL 1)]

  +5 XP

  He didn't care much for XP at the moment, the next level had a requirement of 500 so most of his time should be spent on upgrading his skill and profession. That meant killing more snakes. He kind of wished he had the bug catcher profession that Lily had, which gave vitality and wisdom but could be leveled much easier and gave Lily a large +4 vitality boost at this point.

  Jason was planning to go for bug catcher as well, since apparently if you have a vitality high enough you could grow back harsher wounds, maybe even limbs at 50 or 60 vitality. It also increased the amount of damage you could take without falling, and how much blood you could lose and replenish, it worked well with endurance probably.

  “This feels so gross.” Jason laughed as he squished another bug, “urgh.”

  “You’re their god, and as we all know, from experience, gods hate their subjects.” She shifted and stood up, “hm, you look kinda very bored, like sad.” She pointed at him and then grew quite embarrassed for bringing it up, she began to neurotically stroke her own ginger hair and bite her lip.

  “Just babysitting…” Fay whispered, Jason caught it and laughed.

  “Yeah? Sorry ‘bout that.”

  Lily continued to stand and sway, the wind had picked up as afternoon blew over, the sun was at its 45 degree angle and everyone felt weary of another night. “That Millie girl is evil.” She just said aloud, Fay nodded while Jason shrugged.

  Fay played with some dirt in his pocket, he had a small idea but wasn't sure if it would injure him or not, but with his mana finally fully replenished, this time at 130, he decided to try it out. The plan was fairly simple: he would hold dirt above his head, stop it twice or three times, and be able to lift off the ground.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  He tried to pull himself up but the clump of dirt kept floating downwards.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  He tried again, this time with the skill stacked thrice, he pulled up with all his strength and managed to lift a foot off the ground before the skill deactivated. That was very promising, he thought, with enough mana he could potentially fly, or hang up in the air as a levitation spell.

  MP: (68/130)

  It ate up almost half of his mana though, “urghhhh…” he followed Jason further into the forest, they happened to not see him perform the skills, too focused on the ground beneath them for the scattering of bugs. As they crushed more bugs, Fay felt the prickle of someone behind him. Not wanting to seem alarmist, he slowly turned, revealing an average looking guy to his vision, standing atop a rock.

  He didn't look too threatening, he only had a stick that was pointed to an edge. His hair was a midnight black along with his clothes, leather, a quality leather too. “Oh!” He waved, “you saw me… oh.” He pointed the stick at Fay and a flame the size of a watermelon flew by at an arrow's speed.

  Fay could barely react, holding his hands up and using his skill instinctively.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  The flame disappeared despite charring Fay's hands. This was when Jason and Lily jolted backwards and upwards, trying to put up a defensive front despite their only weapons being short ranged mole knives.

  “Nullification…?” The boy took a step off the rock, tapping his chin which was growing a bit of stubble, he seemed to make a note, “okay bye!” He ran off with a dazzling speed, past the trees and into the forest without looking back. With those speeds it was clear that he could have killed Fay without issue, especially considering his defenses.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Probably a scout.” Jason said. A scout for whom they didn't know, but it was good Fay performed a niche of his skill, like shining a sparkling sword that was dull. He was a threat but also a deterrent for now.

  “My hands hurt…” Fay looked at his burns, they were red and would likely blister, he should have had gloves, “need gloves.” He turned back to the group. Them seeing yet another person who had surpassed them in levels was an annoyance, they were doing it all wrong obviously. The issue for them was that even a rabbit still could put up a fight, the moment they could get past that bottleneck, the moment they could just run across the forest and slice rabbits left and right would make getting 500 XP a breeze. They weren't there yet, and that boy they just met clearly was.

  “Okay.” Jason stretched and held his dagger in his non-dominant hand, “we need to try harder, Fay?”

  “Hm?”

  “We need to find stronger enemies. Boars, bears, rats, all of that.” He stretched down and touched his toes, reinvigorated.

  “How about snakes?” Fay asked, still wondering what was down in that cave, it was selfish but he needed strength just the same as anyone else, “let's go kill snakes.” Fay began to follow the path he took last time. Jason got a good look at the boar and rabbits he killed alone and gave an affirming nod.

  The cave entrance was the same but the surroundings weren't, there were snakes now guarding where Fay had sat and slaughtered countless of them. They had rattles on the edge and were striped red and black, signifying that they were venomous, likely. At the sight of Fay, who was between two tree trunks, they rattled accusatorially and slid forward in a surprisingly fast manner. But nothing compared to the rabbits frantic hopping, so he could easily just-

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  And slice them with the sharp mole knife, cutting their heads off cleanly, taking three at once while the other two stayed back, retreating now. Fay stepped forward, the snakes were just a little bigger from the green snakes so he could stomp his bare foot on the body of the snake and slice it cleanly. There was the worry that they might bite his foot, but again, they were slow. He cut the rattle off of the other retreating snake and then slid the knife on the underbelly until it was

  Lily found it very easy to slice the snakes, taking out two herself with incredible focus. Jason on the other hand used his guarded and leather plated foot to stomp on them, not risking his hands to get close to their maws, which worked just as well. The rattling stopped and the cave was open for entrance.

  [Slain x5 Tail Snakes (LVL 1)]

  +15 XP

  “Is this a goddamn dungeon?” Jason stepped on the already dead snake, making sure it was never going to move again, “maybe we should go get Millie and Bark?”

  Fay didn’t want Millie there, not one bit, knowing her, she would use that gas again and kill all of them, taking the XP for herself. “We’re fine.” He lied, “you wanted to get stronger, okay? This is how.” Fay was the first to reach the opening of the cave, peeking inside it seemed to have a glow of rocks implanted on the cave's sides. “Millie will want those mana crystals too.” He hopped down, Lily following without much care.

  The entrance slid down until they were about three meters underground, then it evened out into a flat open space full of tattered cloth and bones, there were a few snakes, green ones, that Fay got to methodically cutting apart.

  “Why’re you?” Jason watched, he didn't know about Fay’s profession just yet.

  [Slain x6 Green Snakes (LVL 1)]

  +12 XP

  [Profession Level up. Snake Catcher (lvl 2) (UNCOMMON)]

  +1 intelligence.

  +1 perception.

  +1 vitality.

  +2 strength against snakes.

  Just as he thought, professions were much easier to level up than base levels. “Free XP.” He smiled, letting Jason kill the remaining snakes and finally get his level to two, in which he puts all his points into strength. Which apparently made it 12 despite his small stature. He was strong, and with that knife he couldn't do anything with all that strength. A kick might knock the wind out of Fay but probably not do anything to boars or bears. He stomped down on another snake and they went down a curve in the cave, where the rugged rocks and glowing crystals pushed inwards and made it so only one person could get through at a time. The ground below, what was maybe sandstone, was eroded with the trails of snakes.

  —

  “Bark?” Millie was teaching him on how to turn those rabbit pelts into arm braces, he had trouble with some of the technical parts, especially applying a detaching and attaching rope that held everything together.

  “Mhm?” He worked on his second pelt, the things were common so there was no stat increase, but they would be useful in certain fights. They planned to use some of the boar skin as well, since it had a flame resistance to it that may be useful.

  “There will be something happening tonight and tomorrow night.” She told him as she started forcefully extracting the green snakes venom that Fay had brought back. She pressed the head of the snake to the side of a bowl and pushed on it until the watery liquid came through.

  “An event?” He picked up on the solemn expression she was trying her hardest not to show, “how do you know?”

  “I just do.” She threw away a snake and started to extract the next one. “It’ll be bad, do you understand?”

  Bark finished his next brace.

  [Crafted White Rabbit Brace (COMMON)]

  +4 XP

  [Profession Level up. Crafting (lvl 2) (COMMON)]

  +2 defence.

  +1 endurance.

  “I got a level!” He laughed and put on the next brace, “uh, yeah I understand, I guess.” He decided to put the worry to the back of his mind, much like Fay, and ever since he watched a bear eat a person in front of him, he had accepted that he was going to be next very soon. He just hoped that next time he will have a purpose.

  “Good job.” She held her hand up and gave him a high five. He missed and accidentally palmed her wrist, which she surprisingly got a good laugh out of. “But, I’ll protect you, of course.”

  “Of course.” Bark mocked, getting back to his work, “can the rat be used for anything?”

  “Its tail could be used to make a whip of sorts, but Fay cut it too short so we can't style it at a good length.”

  Bark groaned, not happy at all. He wanted to make Fay some shoes finally as well, but that would need some tougher leather, “can we go find a boar?”

  “Certainly, almost certainly.”

  —

  “Guess what!” The scout finally returned and dusted off his feet. His group were mostly out hunting, except for his leader, Joey. Now Joey wasn’t strong, nor was his skill any good, but what he was good at was leading, and with that he saved his group of five from an early death.

  “Hm? Yeah?” Joey was by the fire cooking up some boar for the group to eat, he had become a chef, making plenty of dishes for people that were mostly left uneaten unless they gave a mana regen. His cooking profession had reached up to level 5 by now and with that he gained a new skill, which he told nobody of.

  The scout, Marx, did not mind at all, he respected the game and its rules. “Found a strongie, small but annoying, can nullificate… nullify? Nullificate? Which one?”

  “Nullify.”

  “Nullify, he can nullify magic, I think.” Marx hopped over to the fire and made it flame hotter, feeling the warmth against his skin. He was unlucky when he got here, he was attacked by a magical deer that could shoot magic beams, so naturally he tried to flee all the while his coat was on fire from a spark that caught, burning him completely for the first day.

  That was then, as he was struggling to survive with his body covered in burns, was he given a class. A fire mage, it was ironic at the time but he considered that maybe classes had something to do with a strong connection, a person who had a strong experience with water, as in drowning, may get a water class. That class quickly made him able to surpass most others. Except for that one girl on their squad, but she didn’t matter right now to him.

  “Whats his name?” Joey moved away from the flame.

  “Ohhhh I forgot! Or didn’t ask, really, it was scary, he looked completely unphased, like stone faced.”

  Joey nodded, “make him a friend, we don't need any more enemies with that blondie around.” The fire spoke a warm tune again, feeling pleasant as the sky turned red for the night, not yellow like before. Blondie had become a big problem for the “Masons” as they were called. He came by on the first day when they got their bearings and kept demanding a duel against Joey to merge groups. Beforehand they asked what level they were, and since Joey was honest to a fault he said level one.

  They got in a fight, not a real one, verbal, and then left on bad terms. That blonde boy was level three already, on the first day, that was what Jacky said at least, with her inspection skill. He needed more people just in case blondie attacked them, as even Marx with his level three probably couldn't take the man down due to his expensive armor and equipment.