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CHAPTER 60: The new information
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I trained everyone showing them how to hit the snakes based on critical strikes. But even with the normal attacks, they managed to deal a decent amount of damage killing the snake in a shorter amount of time. While everyone kept busy with the snakes along with the help of Suyeon, I decided to prepare dinner. I approached one of the giant snakes quickly beheading it. I glance back towards where they are and the girls seem to get a system going where Suyeon would attract one of the snakes towards an area they can ambush. I was going to put the snakes to sleep for them to kill but this is a lot better as they get trained on increasing their reflexes. As long as Suyeon is with them, she can prevent any critical damage.
I dragged the headless snake away from the group. Using dried leaves and twigs, I quickly got a fire going thanks to the stalactites I have in my bag. I sat down near the fire and inspected the stalactite in my hand. Reminiscing about my time in the dungeon has brought up the sadness I couldn't shake away. The fear of being eaten alive still lingers and even after a year, I can still experience it in my mind as if it happened yesterday.
“I’m normal now. Yeah.” I whisper to myself as I store the stalactite in my bag.
I felt calmer compared to before when I wanted to destroy everything in my path. But one thing never went back is the thrill I get fighting. Even when killing the snake, I felt excited beheading it. Is as if killing my enemies became a drug that I can be easily addicted to. I look back towards where they are and I see they just finished on another snake as its body turns into dust.
I quickly got up and started working on the giant headless snake in front of me. Skinning it was easy as the skin peeled off like a banana. With one pull, I got the skin off exposing light pink meat. The amount of meat it had is probably enough to feed us for a couple of weeks. Without waiting, I used one of the daggers Daikichi gave us and cut an opening from one end all the way to its tail. I pulled it apart from the opening and it's inside come out spilling onto the ground. I carefully carved it and threw it to the side. Luckily, these are like anacondas and I didn't have to worry about any venomous sack. Yet, I try to find anything that seemed abnormal.
Using a sword encased with my sharpen skill; I decided to cut it into smaller pieces throwing it in my bag as I go along. It doesn’t have any bones making it easier but the sheer size of the snake would probably take me a while to finish storing it in my bag. I worked non-stop only taking a break to cook a few snake meat using a frying pan. It sizzled and the small was similar to chicken. I added a few spices and I wished I had the ingredients to make some snake teriyaki. The sun started setting and I noticed everyone walking towards my way. They were all out of breath except Suyeon who followed behind them.
“What’s for dinner?” Kana asked as she slumps down near the fire. “Ugh, I got snake blood on me. I wish Lisa was here.”
“We’re eating the snake. I have never tasted snake from this world so I don’t know how they will taste like.” I tell her as I flip the snake meat exposing the golden brown surface of the other side.
“That smells so good.” Ms. Sam inhaled the aroma and even I’m starting to get hungry.
I told everyone to take out the plate as I felt the snake was good enough to eat. As they got busy going through their bag, a portal appeared close to the snake carcass near our campfire. Daikichi appeared only to come face to face with the skinless, headless, half cut up snake.
“Oh, snake for dinner. Nice.” He says as he walked towards us sitting beside Kana as she gets her plate out her bag. I placed the cooked snake on top the plate and Daikichi quickly got his out as everyone else come out of the portal.
"Oh, Lisa!" Kana stands up handing her plate to Daikichi who started eating without caring if it's burning his mouth. "Please, can you create a pool of water here?"
"I was about to, I wondered if you guys had any," Lisa says as she walked towards the other side of the campfire. She took out staff from her bag and chanted something. A blue light appeared from the bottom of her staff and it traveled on the ground forming a rectangle. In an instant, the dirt turned into water. This was a lot different than before where she would dig out the ground and then create ice.
It seems like they got stronger, I say in my mind as I see her drop a couple of ice on the water. I walked towards her and called out my bag. I took out the biggest stalactites I had in my bag and threw it down the pool of water. Everyone was quick to place torches around illuminating our area while Takumi quickly started creating a table and few chairs using the trees around the area. I walked back the fire and since everyone is here, I started cooking more snake meat. As soon as the sun set into the horizon, the snakes started curling up around one area and have stopped moving altogether.
“Should we attack them while they’re sleeping?” Kana asked me as she ate her dinner glancing at the group of sleeping snakes.
"It's better when its morning. When it's night, it' harder to spot things. Any tiny mistakes can get you guys killed." I explain to her as I place more snake meat on the table. Everyone sat around it quickly eating. "Besides, it's better to fight them head-on. It gives you guys the experience of actual battle."
“How about you guys? How those rat things you’re talking about?” Miki-sensei asked as she looks at Takumi and the others who seemed like they were starved as they gobble up one snake meat after another.
"They're easy if they're alone but their teamwork is making it hard to deal with," Lisa replied as she cut up the snake meat with a knife. I noticed Suyeon sitting next to her as she shows her what to do. Looking at her act feminine doesn’t seem bad at all.
“Yeah, they almost cornered us.” Amaguchi continued on as he grabs another meat with his bare hands. “Ah, hot hot hot.”
Everyone shared their experience and it seems like they got a few new skills while our group only kept leveling up the healing skills. I asked Takumi when did the healer from his old team got her holy attack, but he wasn’t sure as she just came up one day using it on a group of ghouls they encountered. I had no choice but to keep leveling them using the snakes, but I hope they get the skill before they completely annihilate everything.
Everyone decided to stay with us since the kobolds are quite smart. Setting up a night raid can be easily done by them which makes it dangerous for Daikichi and the rest of them. Daytime quickly came and everyone continued with their task as I helped my group level up with the help of Suyeon. I cut up the rest of the snake during night watch and gave half of the cooked portion to Daikichi and the rest of the group while I told Kana that we’ll kill everything from now on since we have enough food to last for a few days. I can't take the chance of running out of monsters before they unlock the skill. I rather run out of food and rely on wandering boars that lose the way for them to gain experience.
I can see Kana is starting to become comfortable dealing with the snakes while Miki-sensei and Ms. Sam movements are becoming more fluid. Having three healers heal each other made me worry less but I still told Suyeon to keep a close eye on them and prevent anything from attacking their backs. To be honest, if I told her to kill everything, she probably could do it on a couple of kicks obliterating all of the giant snakes in the area. I wondered if her strength has a limit. If she keeps leveling up and increasing the strength of her kicks, she probably can change landscapes or erase mountains within a couple of years from now.
Night-time quickly came and they’re still fighting and the rest on the other side still hasn’t come back. Not fighting or doing anything bored me. It seems like they’re going to be done soon so I decided to figure out what to do with the raw snake meat I have left in my bag. I looked at my skill list and it still irks me, for a legendary cooking class, I have no skill that shows recipes. "This is just stupid," I whisper while browsing through my skills.
“What’s stupid?” Daikichi asked as he approached me.
“Welcome back.” I nod to him as he sat on a log near the fire. “I’m a cook yet, I have never seen a skill that shows me a recipe.”
“Oh, that's a passive class. Hiroko took that class and it showed her recipes. Ah, sorry didn't mean to mention the name.” Takumi says as he quickly stopped himself. I didn't mind and to be honest, I wanted to find out more about the recipe skill.
"It's fine, tell me what you know about that passive skill?" I asked him as he sat down at the log.
"Well, in the beginning, it only will show you basic recipes I think like boiling water and stuff. But after you level the skill up, more recipes will appear and the higher the skill level gets, the more difficult recipe will appear." He explains to me and somehow I felt excited thinking about it.
“Well, I’m a cook, why not go full on out and be as useless as ever.” I joke around but deep down inside I’m serious on just going blindly gung ho on cooking.
“Say Yasu I'm still confused on how you can kill these things. From what I heard, your regular attack power is similar to your level." Takumi asked as he throws some sticks into the fire. "I know your skill is overpowered but there should be a limit. All of us have a limit because I can't level up my skill to a certain point until I level up myself.
Now that he mentioned it, it looks like my skill can endlessly level up without myself leveling up. But then again, I cooked everything I killed making it easier to keep my level increasing right behind my skills.
"I don't know but I guess, I have a bigger window," I tell him and I can see him in deep thought.
"How do you get critical hits so fast? It's hard for me to get it even when I attack them at critical points as you do." Daikichi asked and I was confused.
“His critical attack percentage must be higher than ours," Takumi says. My eyes went wide as I look at him. He looked back confused and in a few seconds he figured out that I didn't even know there was a percentage. "Wow, that's amazing. Say the command, crit percent.”
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“Crit percent.” Dakichi and I said in unison and another window appeared.
Critical-Hit %
80%
"Aw no wonder, mine is thirty percent. How about you Yasu?” Daikichi asked me.
“It’s eighty percent," I tell him and I noticed Takumi looked at me with surprise.
“You serious?” He asked and I nod at him. “Jesus that overpowered.”
“Damn, no wonder you get so much critical hit. How do I increase mine?” Daikichi asked.
"You can't. Critical hit is based on class and almost all adventurers with the dual class have a critical-hit percentage of thirty percent." Takumi asked and I notice everyone started walking towards us after finishing a snake. Everyone from the other side has gathered around the water to wash. The girls made their own area to wash and Takumi built walls around it last night so that they can clean themselves in private.
"That's sucks," Daikichi says looking defeated.
“Well I did say almost everyone, there are those who managed to increase the percentage by wearing accessories and armor enchanted with critical-hit buff. But I don't think anyone has ever gone past beyond sixty percent. This is the first I hear about eighty percent and without accessories.” Takumi says looking amazed as I gave him a shrug.
"I always thought that if I hit them in certain spots, it would appear. Who knew there was an actual mechanism behind it." I say and remembering Suyeon made me curious what’s her critical hit. So far, every time I watch her fight, her critical hit appears more often than mine.
"Well, based on what I read and heard, the critical hit is based on the class," Takumi explained. "If you have a class that specializes less on fighting the front line, the higher the critical hit for them. Ms. Sam and the rest probably have a higher critical hit than me."
“Well that's just unfair, Yasu’s class is super overpowered, how does he such a high critical hit percentage?” Daikichi asked.
“Well, his class is probably meant literally for cooking.” Takumi says as he takes out a water container and started drinking from it before continuing to explain, “His abilities are probably meant for something else rather than fighting. The less fighting abilities a class has, the higher their critical-hit becomes due to the fact that if they need to protect themselves against an incoming enemy at close quarters, they have a chance to do so.”
“Well that’s true, still, it would be hard to deal with an enemy close combat if you have no skills for it. Is that’s why you guys went with them so you can immobilize the snakes while they attack it?” Daikichi asked and I shook my head.
"I didn't even know about the critical hit up until now," I tell him. "In my mind, they need our help more than you guys need ours."
“Well that’s true, no wonder they can kill those things so easily. We’re having a hard time with the kobolds as it is.” Daikichi looked sullen again.
"What happened?" I asked him and he explained to me that the less the number kobold are left alive, the more cunning they become as they started setting up traps mid-fight. Daikichi almost fell into a spike pit as two of the kobolds was able to cast magic on the ground while the other created spikes under the hole. Luckily Lisa was there to destroyed the spikes before he reached it.
They told me stories on how the enemies would actually fool them as they tried to isolate the weakest out of the group. They would gang up on Takumi keeping him busy while some would try to attack Mamoru forcing him to retreat away from everyone. Luckily he was able to create portals directing the attack to his enemies but he didn't get any experience points unless he killed them in close quarters with his weapons. Dinner quickly finished and everyone went to sleep while I stayed awake as the vanguard. As usual, the remaining snakes would curl up on one area like a millipede. I didn’t notice it in the first night but I saw a faint blue aura covering their bodies probably for protection from any attacks as they slept.
Suyeon stayed up with me and we sat near the fire looking at the stars above us. It was quite a scene every time I look at it. I remembered earth how polluted the planet has become making it impossible to see starts unless you’re dab smack in the middle of the forest. Suyeon quickly fell asleep beside me and I cover her with Mole's blanket as it gets chilly during the night.
Tomorrow’s the day, I hope they get the skill or else, we’ll need to keep looking for more enemies to kill. I whisper in my mind as I fed the fire with more sticks.
Everyone was fast asleep and the night somehow felt slower than before. The moon never moved a spot and everything seems to move slower even the flicker of the fire.
"Item bag," I whispered and slowly took out a sword from my bag that Daikichi gave me earlier. I tried to control my breathing to listen to any abnormalities around the forest.
“You’re always ready to fight.” I hear a voice in my head making it hard to even find where it’s coming from as I look around our camp. “I’m not there, come here.”
The voice somehow echoed throughout the forest helping me pinpoint where it's coming from. "You fucker," I whisper as I watch him sit on top one of the sleeping snakes. The moon shone down on him illuminating him briefly.
“Hiyo~” Luro sang as he waved at me like we were friends. “Making any progress? I see that you’re still alive and kicking.”
Luro jumps down the snake and walked towards us. Everything is still in slow motion and only us two are moving at normal speed. I didn't move out of my spot since it will be a lot easier to protect anyone if they’re at arms reach. He stopped near the fire and flicked his finger. The campfire flickered normally while everything else around us seems to pause. He sat on one of the chairs near the campfire and flicked his finger again making a basket full of fish appear. I sat back down but never let go of my sword keeping myself alert.
"Relax~ I'm not here to attack you," Luro says as he grabs one of the sticks on the ground and in an instant without him doing anything, it turned into a skewer. Like before, he grabbed one of the fishes and flicked his finger gutting it in an instant. "I'm just here to eat some nice fish, my friend."
“Friends? You talking about your shadow?” I say grabbing the fish he handed to me and I placed it over the fire.
"Oh come on now, we've known each other for a year, we are best of friends now," Luro says as he stabs another fish on a stick and places it over the fire.
“So what do you really want huh?” I asked him and he snaps his fingers materializing a rolled up paper. He hands it to me and I hesitated to take it. “What the fuck is that?”
“You’ll see. Just take it. It’s a gift from me.” He replied and I grab the paper out of his hand and unrolled it.
“What the hell you want me to do with this?” I asked him while I look at its contents.
“It’s a gift, it's useless to me.” He says as he bites onto his fish and I did the same after I got a notification in my mind that the fish is ready.
“What the hell do I get following that?” I asked him after I ate the fish and he hands me the basket. I stab another fish and placed it over the fire.
“You get, meat.” I can see a smirk on his face making me want to punch it.
"Fucking weirdo," I tell him and suddenly I remembered what my dad told me to tell Luro. “Hey fuckface, guess what?”
“What ass wipe?” He says keeping a smile on his face.
I kept a smile on mine before stopping myself from uttering the words. If I anger him now, it might put everyone in danger and in my mind, a picture of my mom appeared.
I can’t be careless now. I’m not alone anymore. I whisper in my mind before uttering the words, “You have a tiny dick.”
I still remember ‘gio tou keres’, the words my dad told me to tell him. I still yet to know the capacity of his powers and angering him without any clue is suicide.
“Ha, at least I'm not the one waking up naked," Luro says as he stands up and walked towards the dark side of the forest. “Well, good luck. Again, do what you want with that information.”
He waved off and disappeared in the dark. I turn towards the rolled up paper beside me and I notice the surrounding area went back to normal as the wind swayed the trees at a regular pace. I looked at the paper one more time and its contents trying to figure it out. I didn't want to wake anyone up, so I decided to store it in my bag along with the raw fish that filled up the basket to the brim. “At least I got fish.”
Morning came and I didn't tell them about Luro. I kept quiet about the paper also since I wanted them to focus on the present. Everyone left and I watched Suyeon helped Ms. Sam, Kana, and Miki-sensei kill the remaining snakes. It didn't take them long till they finished the last one. I hoped for a giant snake to appear as the final boss but nothing happened after the last snake turned into dust. Yet, I see smiles on their faces and I hoped it’s the news I wanted to hear as they approached me.
“Yasu guess what," Kana says as she stopped in front of me.
"Please tell me you got it?" I asked her and she nodded happily. I felt relieved that we didn't have to waste any more time looking for more monsters to kill.
"So, now what? We all got it the minute we leveled up after killing the last snake. The skill is called Holy light." Kana says and all of a sudden, her staff started materializing white orbs around it as it slowly sucked it up on the giant gem on top the stave. "W-w-wwha- oh my god!”
“Oh shit, you activated it!” I laughed seeing her frantically look at her stave. As she was about to let go, I help her hand shaking my head. “Don't worry, we aren’t undead, go see what it does. Everyone get away from her!”
We all ran towards a distance and waited for something to happen but nothing. It kept collecting orbs making her weapon glow brighter and brighter at the passing minute. It practically took thirty minutes in my mind when a white light similar to a flashbang erupted from her staff and it traveled throughout the forest extending as far as I noticed before it got to me and I had to close my eyes due to the brightness it emitted. It felt a bit cool and somehow I felt more energizing than ever.
“Guys I’m ok! You guys alright?!” I hear Kana’s voice and as I open my eyes, everything around us seems to be glowing and it slowly subsided until the forest went back to normal.
"Holy shit that was bright," I whisper rubbing my eyes and I notice her running towards us.
“You guys alright? I didn't think it would reach you. You’re not hurt are you?” Kana asked me and I gave her a friendly glare.
“Do I look like an undead to you?” I asked her and she chuckled a bit. “Ms. Sam and Miki-sensei, do both of you have the skill also?”
They both nodded and I tried to create the next plan in my mind. I didn’t want to rush in blindly especially when the skill has a roughly thirty-minute casting time. I wanted to know how much damage it can make but there aren’t any undead for us to test it on.
"Do you think this will be effective? It looks more like a protection skill than an attack one." Kana asked as she studies her stave.
“For the undead, it should kill them, but I don’t know what damage it deals. What does the skill say?” I asked her and she called out her skill window.
“Well, it says here it revitalize the surrounding area and heal minor cuts and wound along with revitalizing a bit of stamina. It is lethal to the undead, but it doesn’t show anything about the damage output. It also cast a holy buff that lasts for five minutes. The holy buff increase stamina regeneration by five percent.” Kana explained.
“Lethal, it might mean it can kill them in an instant.” I whisper and we all walked back to camp sitting around the table. “let’s wait for everyone first and see if they finished. Kana, go with me and Mamoru after they come back so we can test it out.”
“Sure.” She nods to me and I looked at where her skill reached. The surrounding grass got a bit greener and flowers on the ground somehow bloomed.
"Can you activate the skill again? I want to properly time it. We need to know it's cast time." I tell her since she never mentioned about the cast time of her skill. I don't think she knows either since she tried calling out her skill window and looked confused for a few seconds.
“Ok, give me a minute, let me go a bit further out.” She says walking towards a distance. “Holy light!”
Even when she shouted nothing happened and she ran back to us. “What happened?” I asked her.
“Well this is bad; I can only cast it every twelve hours. There’s a cooldown on it.” Kana explained.
“Oh damn,” I whisper trying to calculate it in my head. “Shit, this means we need the skill to be strong enough to kill the skeleton king with one hit.”
I looked at Ms. Sam and Miki-sensei and they can't help giving me a worried look. I can't blame them. After all, we have no choice but to rely on the three to kill the skeleton king or else, we'll never get the second crystal ball.