Achylys pondered over his next move. The thought of leveling up and restoring his strength was tempting, and the chance to roll for a random skill made it even more enticing. He knew that his current body was not up to par with his expectations. It lacked the vigor and strength that he once had, and getting even some of it back would make things a lot easier.

"So, killing five slimes will do the trick, huh?" Achylys muttered to himself, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "That doesn't seem too hard. Rather, it’s only a matter of effort.”

But as he was about to get up, a sudden thought struck him. "Wait a minute, if I go through time reversal, will my Experience stay the same, or will it reset back to what it was before?"

Naturally, anything that you have earned up to that point will reset to their previous state. This means that if you were to reverse time, your Experience would also be reset.

Achylys bit down on his lower lip. He had seriously been considering jumping down and attempting to stab the slime, but it would be a fool's errand. The consequences of such an action could be catastrophic.

He pictured himself hurtling towards the ground, his limbs flailing wildly as he fell. The sound of bones snapping echoed in his mind. He'd definitely break his arms and knees, with how high the trees were. His spine too. A time reversal would be but a matter of time at that point, eliminating the Experience he might get by being able to kill the slime that way. And hey. Even for him, breaking spines wasn’t a fun experience. Well, breaking his own spine, that was.

Achylys weighed his options carefully, scratching his chin. Digging through the ground sounded like a tedious and time-consuming task, but the prospect of exploring the depths of the earth filled him with a sense of excitement and adventure. Tunneling through the dirt, uncovering secrets buried deep beneath the forest floor along the way sounded fun, after all.

He’d always wanted to be a researcher, but the Department began fucking him deep in the ass, sending him on one high profile, impossible-to-complete task after another, before he could even try his hand. And this forest stroked the deepest parts of his researcher heart.

On the other hand, getting information about the slime was a daunting task that would likely require him to face the creature head-on multiple times. The thought of dying repeatedly was not a pleasant one, but the potential rewards were great. If he could find a weakness in the slime's defenses, he could exploit it to defeat the creature repeatedly and easily in the future.

Achylys wasn’t against the second idea, but the first idea did appeal to him. He wanted to keep suicide runs only for times when he could see no other choice. He preferred being a clever puzzle solver over a brute forcer. However, just when he was about to settle for digging, he remembered the tree tops.

If he were to climb on top of those treetops before somehow making the slime aware he was there, the slime would definitely pop up there, wouldn't it? And then, if he peeked out of the leaves just in time—bang. Slime dead. Experience gained.

But… that was more food for thought. Since in the end, that was a suicide run too, unless he had thunder resistance. It couldn’t be possible that his attributes could carry over to the past when Experience did not, after all.

However, he still turned to the system for an answer, his eyes glinting with curiosity. "Could my attributes, like thunder resistance, remain despite the time reversal?"

The system remained silent for a few moments, causing Achylys to fidget on the ground in an attempt to get up. Finally, the text shifted and the system responded,

Well… yes. The goddess does not want to see you die to the same thing over and over again. And it takes a much less toll on divinity to edit your body minorly bit by bit.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Achylys furrowed his brow in confusion, feeling as though he was missing something crucial. "Then why doesn't Experience carry over to the past?"

That's different!

The system protested, the words appearing on the screen in its usual red.

That'd be against providence! The attributes are more of a… loophole...

The text emoji gif next to the words was of a cute little cat shaking its head. Achylys's ears perked up. "Ah, so it's a loophole," he said, nodding his head. "So that definitely does leave me a route to him, even if all of the other routes failed."

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, mulling over the possibilities. "Sure, it'd be awfully boring to die over and over again due to thunder, but it is what it is," he said with a shrug. "Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do."

However, before all that, the ground. He had to explore the ground and potentially get some slimes killed with a trap from the ground. But even before that, he needed branches. Lots of them. Thick ones, thin ones, and everything in between. Without the right tools, he wouldn't be able to make the traps he needed to kill a slime, let alone five. Maybe he wouldn’t even be able to dig the ground. And the right tools, in this case, were branches.

So get some branches, he will!

He climbed up the tree with all the agility he could muster. Climbing slowly was for the unadventurous, and he had a mean streak of being too adventurous for his own good. Especially now that he had the ability to return back to the past if he died? Oh-ho ho. He was going to do everything and anything to his heart's satisfaction.

The bark scraped against his calloused palms as he hoisted himself up, inch by inch, scaling it relatively quick. To his surprise, the tree was sturdy as a rock, even with his extreme maneuvers up it. To be fair, his body could only go ‘extreme’ to an extent, so his aerobatics were probably quite tame.

As he finally reached the network of branches once more, he paused to catch his breath, his heart pounding due to the exertion he’d put it through. He had always loved the thrill of climbing trees. Then again, he loved everything and anything to not do with the Department.

However, despite his antics, his focus did not fully leave the mission he had to complete, and he knew he could not afford to dally for too long right now. Not until he reunited with Neveah. He scanned the branches around him, searching for a weak spot that would allow him to break off a branch without too much effort.

At first, all he saw were thick, sturdy limbs that looked like they could support the weight of an elephant. While they looked extremely tempting to break, he might need some branches to act as foundations to prevent his makeshift tunnel from breaking, they just didn’t break. No matter what he tried. And he did try everything he could think off for a solid hour. He tried breaking them by exerting force, using his body’s weight, despite it being a risky method. He tried scratching it with his nails; tried biting it; tried praying to the eldritch gods hoping they’d show sympathy on him; tried praying to the goddess, hoping she showed sympathy on him; tried bonking it—

Anyway, he was getting off track. Once he realized he’d be unable to break those with his current methods, he shifted his sight to those at the very edges of the canopy, where he spotted a few rather thin-looking branches that seemed quite easy to break.

He crawled his way towards one of the weaker looking ones and stretched out his arm, fingers reaching for the twig-like branches, his eyes fixed on the spot where he would break them off. He could feel the strain in his muscles as he applied just the right amount of pressure, knowing that too much force would send him tumbling to the ground far below. Spine breaking was not fun, he had to remind himself.

At last, with a satisfying crack, the branch gave way, and he held it triumphantly in his hand. It was a small victory, but it was a step closer to achieving his goal. He was making progress, progress!

Eventually, once he had enough branches to hold in his palm, he descended from the tree. He quite felt like a monkey, doing so with one hand. Before he knew it, he already had one foot on the ground.

Once he had his feet firmly on the ground, he looked around to survey his surroundings. The moist soil beneath his feet squelched if he stepped while applying too much force, and the earthy scent of the forest filled his nostrils once more.

As he looked at the somewhat soft ground, a single thought was all that filled his mind: it was finally time to get down and dirty.