A blue gelatinous ball flew towards Will’s face. He struck it with the flat of his blade, knocking it to the ground.

[Slime- Level 3]

The slime’s health only went down a small amount from the strike, but that wasn’t the purpose of the attack. The sudden impact with the ground caused the slime to become stunned for a moment. That moment was all that Alice needed to act. Will’s rabbit companion charged forward, skewering the slime with her horn. It was a critical hit directly into the slimes core, shattering it. Will watched as the monster's health bar drained away to nothing in seconds.

This was the sixth slime that they had come across in their journey and defeated. They had quickly worked out how to fight together. Will would hold the monster's attention while Alice performed her charge attack. Will also had to be careful to not damage the monster too much. When they were fighting the second slime. Will had damaged it enough to cause it to “faint”. They ended up having to wait half an hour for the “Fainted” debuff to go away so they could defeat it. After that they continued to refine their teamwork and were starting to get used to working together.

Something shiny caught Will’s eye. The slime that they had just defeated was dissolving into the ground. The other slimes they fought had done this too, but this time a small clear crystal lay on the ground. Will walked over and picked it up.

[Mana Crystal

Grade: F

Affinity: None

Charge: 2/2

Value: 2 Silver]

[Mana crystals are a rare stone that sometimes form in monsters as they age. They are commonly used in enchanting magic items or as spell components.]

“Enchanting items huh?”

Will got an idea and touched the crystal to his sword. It seemed to do nothing. No glowing magic rushing down the blade, no fire springing to life along the edge. Will decided to examine the sword just in case.

[Adventurer's Short Sword (Common)- A well crafted sword. Attack +5(10 - 50%)]

He sighed, “You probably need a special class to enchant or something.”

Alice nudged his leg with her front paw to get his attention. Will looked at her, and then the direction she was looking in. In that direction on his mini map was another dot, it was already red and heading in their direction. It was moving faster than the slimes they had been fighting. Will tossed the mana crystal in his inventory, and readied himself to fight.

Will held his sword in front of him in a guarded form, and sent a mental command to Alice to have her strike from the side. The creature burst from the bushes and Will was surprised to see the familiar form.

[Horned Rabbit- Level 4]

In the time that they had been walking, they hadn’t spotted another horned rabbit like Alice. Will wasn’t entirely sure that Alice would attack another of her kind.

Will’s momentary distraction almost cost him dearly as the rabbit used its charge attack. Thanks to his form, Will was able to reposition his blade to catch the rabbit's horn before it pierced his chest. He used the momentum of the rabbit’s attack to knock it off to the side. This caused the rabbit to sprawl across the ground. Will wasted no time and struck out at the rabbit with all the strength he could muster. When his strike hit the prone rabbit, it lost more health than he expected, but he also felt a physical drain on himself.

As Will caught his breath, the injured rabbit got itself to its feet. He could tell it was about to charge again, but before it could, Alice struck first. She used her own attack on it to great effect, her horn piercing through the other rabbit’s neck. When she pulled out her horn, the rabbit's HP dropped by half, and a symbol appeared next to the rabbit’s health bar. It looked like a drop of blood, and had a timer next to it. It started at thirty seconds and started counting down.

Will could see its health continue to decrease as the rabbit tries to stand straight. As it struggled to stand, he focused on the symbol.

[Status Effect: Bleed (Minor)

Effects: Cause target to lose 1 HP per second until effect ends, or wound is treated.]

It was a bleed effect as Will had guessed, but at the rate the rabbit's HP was decreasing, it wouldn’t die before the timer ran out. The rabbit wasn’t giving up just yet either. As it stood upright , it launched another charge attack at Will. Fortunately he was ready this time, and sidestepped before the rabbit got close. The rabbit landed in a sprawl and Will chased after it. He stuck like he had before, funneling his strength into his strike. The blow landed true, bringing the rabbit to the last vestiges of its health. Alice, having had time to reposition, charged again and struck true. This blow was the final one needed to fell the enemy horned rabbit.

[Congratulations! Due to repeated actions you have learned a new skill, ”Heavy Strike”.]

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

[This skill is not supported by your class. Skill cost doubled.]

[Heavy Strike- Level 1

Skill Type- Melee

Cost- 10(5x2) SP

Effects-Deliver a powerful blow with your weapon. Weapon does double physical damage.]

Will pulled up his status to check his skill list.

[Name: William Warren

Level: 2

Age: 22

Class: Tamer

Race: Human

HP: 120/120

MP: 65/70

SP: 37/70

Strength: 7

Dexterity: 10

Constitution: 12

Intelligence: 7

Wisdom: 5

Charisma: 15

Free Points: 3

(Active Skills)

Tame- Level 1

Command- Level 1

Share Senses- Level 1

Item box- Level 1

Heavy Strike- Level 1

(Passive Skills)

Empathy Link- Level 1

Danger Sense- Level 1

(Titles)

Explorer, Keen Eyed, Pacifist, Lone Wolf]

Sure enough it was there. Will wondered what other skills he could learn. Maybe he could learn magic? But he stopped himself. He remembered what low mana felt like, if the mana skills also cost double, it wouldn’t be worth it.

A loud ‘snap’ drew Will’s attention to Alice. She stood over the body of the fallen rabbit with its horn in her mouth. She hopped over to Will and dropped it in front of him. He reached down and picked it up.

[Horned Rabbits Horn

Crafting Material

Value: 1 Large Copper]

He was surprised that she was willing to take something from a corpse of the same species as herself, but maybe monsters worked differently? Alice hopped back over to the body, placed a paw on it looking at Will expectantly. He had no idea what she was doing. But then a thought came to him. Some games had a mechanic where you break down monsters for parts. Maybe it just hadn't come up yet because there wasn’t anything to take from the slimes?

“Do you want me to harvest it?” he asked Alice.

He sensed a feeling of affirmation from his companion. Will sighed and walked over to the body deciding how best to proceed. He had never stripped down a body before, so he wasn’t sure where to start. He tried to recall the few things he knew about it from books and other media.

“First cut the throat to drain the blood.”

He looked at the holes that Alice had made in the throat already, blood was no longer flowing, so he guessed that step was already taken care of.

“Next cut along the belly and legs, being careful not to pierce the guts and ruin the meat.”

Will tried to figure out how to best dissect the beast. It was large for a rabbit, but not large enough to use his sword for the job. Then he looked at the rabbit's horn he held, it was just about the right size for a knife, but the only pointy part was the tip. It wasn’t perfect but it would have to do.

Committing to it fully, Will started cutting. It was actually easier to work with the horn than Will expected. He was able to open it up without much trouble, but removing the insides did make him a bit squeamish. Next he went for the skin, which was a lot harder than he thought. Unlike in cartoons, it did not slide right off, there was a bunch of connective tissue holding it in place. Will nicked the skin a few times getting it off, but eventually it separated. Last was the meat. Will looked over at Alice to see if any of this upset her, but he got the feeling that she was just waiting for him to finish. Will butchered the meat as well as he could and examined his haul.

[Horned Rabbit Hide

Quality: Poor

Value: 5 Copper]

[Horned Rabbit Meat

10 Kilograms

Value: 2 Large Copper]

Satisfied for his first attempt, Will put them all in storage. Luckily for him the meat counted as one item, otherwise he would have run out of MP again. Will buried the rest of the remains as well as he could and stood. He pulled up his Map to check their progress. They had moved a decent distance from where they had started considering all the fights they had gotten in. They were about two thirds of the way to the main road.

Will looked up. The sun had well passed its peak already, which made Will realized that he hadn’t eaten since his lunch at work, before he appeared in the dungeon. That combined with the sudden dryness of his throat, he needed a drink as well. He also looked over Alice and himself, they were both covered in blood and slime from their fights, and in desperate need of a bath. After a quick look over his map revealed a stream not too far from where they were Will decided to go in that direction.

It took about an hour to reach the location of the stream, and they were fortunate enough to not encounter any more monsters along the way. The steam stream itself was very picturesque, stony banks, crystal clear waters, and a light trickling creating a relaxing atmosphere. Will ran over and dunked his hands in scrubbing them down and splashing water into his face to clean it off. He then dunked his head in and drank deeply.

After filling his stomach with water, Will stripped down to his skivvies and jumped in. It was deep enough to go to his waist and only a little cool. After he had cleaned himself to his satisfaction, he went to grab his clothes to clean them, but then saw Alice watching him. She seemed curious as to what he was doing. Like most animals, she had used her tongue to clean herself off, so the act of bathing in water must have been a curious sight for her.

Will patted her head as he grabbed his clothes and got to work cleaning them off. Interestingly he noticed that some of the holes in his clothing had gotten smaller, and some were like they had never happened. Will himself had been subject to some accelerated healing as well. A nasty cut on his ribs from his fight with Alice was just a pink line of skin now, all his other injuries were in a similar state.

“Well this should be handy in the future. It’s not a mutant healing factor level of healing, but it's definitely at super hero levels. Plus I should be able to save on my clothes budget.”

While his clothes dried out on the bank, Will searched for food, unfortunately he didn’t find any. He even tried plucking a few random plants to see if he could identify if they were edible that way, but nothing popped up. Alice seemed more than happy to munch on them though. He did find a mushroom, but that wasn’t edible either.

[Paralysis Mushroom

Effect: Eating this mushroom will give the “Paralyzed” status effect.]

[Paralyzed

Status Effect: Subject is unable to move for 10 minutes]

Finally Will gave up and decided to go hungry. He had the rabbit meat, but without fire, he didn’t want to risk eating it. He put on his clothes once they had dried, and set out to find a decent place to rest. From the position of the sun he still had a few hours until dark, but according to the survival shows he had seen, that was too late to set up camp.

Will found a spot not too far from the stream that Alice seemed comfortable with. He was heavily relying on her instincts here, as there was no place to hide on the plains, and nothing to build a shelter with other than grass. Will tried anyways, he grabbed bundles of the tall grass and tied the ends off, making them look like little logs. When he had a fair amount of them, he leaned them together to form an upside down “V”. When he had enough stacked together, he wove more grass though them to make the structure more solid. To finish it off he added some loose grass inside for some bedding. By the time he was dove, the plains has a good chunk less grass.

Taking a step back, Will admired his handiwork. It was a fairly simple shelter, but it would do. It had taken long enough to build that the sun was hitting the horizon, and it was growing noticeably colder. Will crawled inside his small shelter and Alice followed him in. She cuddled up in his arms and Will was thankful for the warmth and softness of her fur.

“Tomorrow, Tomorrow I’ll find civilization.” he thought as he drifted off to sleep.