Nathan grumbled as he looked up at the sky, which was fast changing to purple. As much as he wanted to continue clearing out dungeons, he had to admit that he'd done the most he could within the time period.

He'd managed to complete two other dungeons, both F-ranked, which meant he'd cleared out three dungeons in total today. The dungeoneering in F-ranked dungeons had become less... interesting. Not only that, it was now harder to level up in those dungeons than it had initially been.

Status

Name: Nathan Orion

Moniker: N/A

Level: 16

Archetype: Blood Berserker

Class: Blood Pawn

Imprints: Balls of Steel, Skull Crusher, Demon Slayer, Bronze-Dungeoneer.

Strength: 19

Dexterity: 12

Vitality: 11

Constitution: 14

Perception: 10

Dao: N/A

Faction: N/A

Ra'hal coins: 19,690

Free points: 3

Nathan had only managed to crank out two more levels, and even that was a close thing as the boss of his last dungeon was what gave him the last push to level sixteen. With level increase came the familiar free points; he'd gotten six from the three dungeons he'd hit today. Three points had been spent in his last two dungeons—he'd assigned a point each to his strength, dexterity, and constitution stats.

A decision he was satisfied with as his muscles became more defined, tougher, and easier to flex. Those weren't the only new things though; as usual, he'd gotten his normal loot from completing the dungeon. "Normal" might have been a stretch—"useless" was probably the word he'd have used to describe the loot the system had given him for completing his last two dungeons.

He'd gotten mundane items like the rope, probably the system's way of telling him he'd outgrown F-ranked dungeons and he should probably be getting ready to move on to a higher rank. He'd have to admit that it was a pretty damn good strategy from the damned thing if that was its end goal, as Nathan had already gotten tired of diving into dungeons that barely gave him a push forward.

The next dungeon he'd enter would probably have to be an E-ranked dungeon; anything lower would just be him bullying the weak monsters in the F-ranked dungeon.

Letting out a sigh, Nathan began trudging through the dirt, to his destination: Blood Rock. He had no idea what the monsters in the forest thought, but he wouldn't put it past them to instinctively know that nighttime was playtime.

And I'd rather not be the plaything.

His sword was sheathed, but Nathan kept his eyes on the lookout. He was a few minutes from his stronghold by his estimate—plenty of time for some random monster to pop up and challenge him, something that he was pretty much looking forward to.

A rustle alerted him to something trailing him; whatever it was was clumsy. Nathan could tell how fast it was and its location with ease. Facing the direction of the rustle, he let his perception get to work. The findings after discovering what had made the noise and analyzing the monster made Nathan's lips curl in a smile.

Well, hello there.

[Neran Rabbit

Level 15]

Nathan wasn't sure if it was the same rabbit that had bullied him earlier when he'd been trying to hunt food, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was.

God forbid we have a bunch of these hopping around.

The rabbit had figured out it had been found out as it came out from behind the tree it'd been hiding and stared at Nathan like a lost puppy. But he wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice. At the same time, he was really tempted to see how he'd fare against the bunny this time, so he reached out to pet it.

The bunny went for his wrist, its jaws opening up to show rows of sharpened teeth as it bit down on his exposed wrist. Nathan braced himself for a pain that never came. Looking closely, he let out a chuckle—the bunny's teeth had failed to puncture his wrist. His improved constitution neutralized its biggest advantage.

No more bullying for you.

The bunny still continued to bite on his wrist, which Nathan found hilarious. From what he could feel around that region, it was as if the bunny's teeth were blunt pencils trying to pierce his skin—annoying but nothing serious.

What was serious, though, was the fact that if this really was the same bunny as before, it'd gone up in level, which meant that monsters could level up as well.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

How?

If monsters could level up themselves, then it'd clearly explain why they were actively hunting him. This bunny was just a reminder that the majority of the real deals hadn't considered him a threat to them or even a worthwhile level-up source, just like the F-ranked dungeons he considered a waste of his time.

The rabbit's antics were getting annoying at this point, so Nathan simply pulled it off with his free hand. The bunny looked at him with what suspiciously seemed like smugness. His hand that had pulled the bunny off was now covered in a slimy, clear liquid.

Paralytic Slime (I):

You have become paralyzed for one minute.

All limbs will remain inert till the paralytic toxin has run its course.

Timer: 0:59

Shit!

Nathan couldn't even let out the curse with his mouth; his entire body seemed to have frozen up, going numb as he fell to the ground like a mannequin. He couldn't even move his eyes; they were left staring at a bunny that still looked at him like a lost puppy, which infuriated Nathan right about now.

He watched in horror as the bunny made its way to his head and saw from the corner of his vision as the bunny's mouth stretched unnaturally as it sought to fit his entire head in its mouth. It failed.

He felt the blunt pressure of its teeth vanish as it presumably unclamped its mouth from his head. If Nathan could've let out a sigh of relief, he was pretty sure that he would have. The bunny had tricked him but probably hadn't known that he had a thick skull. The bunny wasn't discouraged, though; it hopped to somewhere around his foot.

Nathan couldn't see that part of his body, but he could very much feel it when the bunny tried to bite off his left foot, having the same level of success that it'd had with his head.

Eventually, the bunny seemed to have conceded the point that it couldn't eat Nathan and so it just hopped within his field of vision and waited—an act that made him realize that there was an actual timer on the paralytic toxin running through him.

Timer

[Timer: 0:13]

Thirteen awkward seconds—that's how much time Nathan had to spend looking at a bunny that had just tried to kill him. The bunny itself was looking at him like it'd done nothing wrong—something that he'd make sure the bunny realized when the paralysis wore off.

[Timer: 0:00

Paralytic Slime Neutralized]

Nathan let out a gasp as he felt the connection to his limbs returning to him—his hands, his legs, his everything coming back slowly to him. He'd never been happier to have control of his limbs.

He pushed off from the floor as soon as he could, glaring at the bunny on his way up and even when he stood straight completely. The bunny, on the other hand, looked at him with innocent eyes—an act for sure, but one that was certainly working on Nathan as his glare began to falter.

Nathan thought it was quite unfair how the bunny could just use that look, and he'd immediately feel bad that the bunny hadn't been able to eat him. It wasn't like he could've done the same to the now-dead Master Imps, and they would've let him go.

But Nathan wasn't the Master Imps; he was human and he was reasonable. He'd let the darned bunny live, for now. Giving the bunny his best impression of the mother of all glares, he turned to walk away. He'd made it a couple of steps before he heard the bunny move, hopping in tow.

You've got to be kidding me.

Nathan whipped around so fast he wasn't sure how his spine was still connected to his body.

"What do you want from me?" Nathan growled. "You lost, scram!"

The bunny looked at Nathan like he'd just told it to pose for a picture; its innocent-looking gimmick had started to get on his nerves. Hoping that his point had been passed across, he turned around to continue walking towards Blood Rock when the bunny repeated its action—it hopped after him.

Nathan seethed inwardly but pretended not to notice the killer bunny trudging after him as he headed to camp. His anger began to seep out of him as rational thinking got back into his head.

Was he really about to lead a rabbit that had tried to kill him twice to his stronghold? It sure seemed like it. A part of Nathan realized that he might as well let the rabbit head up to Blood Rock—rabbit roast would pretty much be good for him right about now. Shaking his head, he dislodged the thought. For one, Nathan wasn't a monster, and two, the bunny was. If it was anything like the Imps, he didn't want to know what would happen when he did kill it. Would it start decaying while he roasted it?

It was certainly a possibility; the system seemed to hasten the degradation process of corpses. Besides that, it was a monster, and he didn't know what eating something as foreign as that would do to his body. At this moment, he wasn't desperate enough to risk finding out—he still had a lot of fruits on him.

Fruits.

Nathan almost facepalmed at the easy fix to the bunny that had been following him as he made his way back to Blood Rock. Turning around, he faced his innocent-looking stalker.

Hating himself for even wanting to share his fruits with this monster that had almost killed him, he pulled out his bag of holding and took out four weird fruits, chucking them at the bunny.

It didn't even sniff the fruit; just consumed them all at once by spreading its jaws in an unnatural way that made Nathan wince. The act of not sniffing before eating the fruit pretty much confirmed the fact that this was the rabbit he'd seen before, or at least one that had eaten the weird fruit before. He'd stick to his initial assumption, though. He stared at the bunny after it'd finished munching on the fruits, expecting it to turn away and leave, but it looked at him as though he owed it something.

Alright, one more.

Nathan took out another fruit from his bag of holding and chucked it at the bunny as an acknowledgment of its new level. The bunny's mouth stretched unnaturally as it caught the fruit before it could even hit the ground. When the bunny was done, it gave Nathan a once-over before turning and hopping away.

"You could've at least said thank you," Nathan muttered.

It was irrational, but Nathan believed he deserved that much, considering all the options he had at his disposal when it came to the bunny itself. It was over now, though, and it was best to get home before an actual monster met him out here.

He got into Blood Rock through the northern gate and made his way to the single building located at the center of the stronghold—his cabin. He immediately noticed something off in the sands that surrounded his cabin: there were paw prints.

Nathan crouched down to inspect the paw print. A single paw print was the size of both his hands with a little space left, which meant whatever had gotten into Blood Rock was going to be massive.

He unsheathed his sword as he went up to the porch, alert to battle whatever this was. After a brief search of the cabin, he came to the conclusion that the porch was clear and so was the cabin.

Whatever had visited Blood Rock hadn't bothered to get into the cabin itself, so Nathan got back outside where it had been to track the paw prints to where they'd started from in the stronghold—the southern gate.

The monster had probably jumped over the walls, and the possibility of it doing it again was high, which meant that Nathan wasn't that safe in his stronghold right at this moment. He needed to do something about this intrusion, and he had an idea on how to solve this... problem.

Traps.