After whatever that nonsense was, Jason was a tad bit fed up with things for the moment. Good thing the plan at the moment was to leave everything up to Lily. A task that might seem out of place. After all, a rabbit versus a bear? Though as she had already proven, once she gets on the bear, the equation changes.
A fact she is soon enough able to prove wasn’t because of Jason’s help. Sure, when he threw her on that one hindbear helped. It wasn’t necessary though.
Next fight, even if Lily did forget to even try stealth, went quickly. In the end it was a simple matter of her hopping over and barreling into the hindbear’s gut. Like a cannonball covered in needles Lily is more than able to use the impressive strength of her legs to burst the hindbears gut.
The hindbear didn’t die the quickest of deaths, but after that shot, it wasn’t living. This scene would repeat itself over the next few days as Jason tries to get her to be just a bit stealthier. Not that she needs to. With how the hindbears view her, Lily’s assassin title is basically always active.
It kind of hurts Jason’s head. If he tried something similar with spiked brass knuckles it wouldn’t work half as well. The hindbear’s hide would work a lot harder to redistribute the force and prevent some of the piercing damage.
Still, Jason continues to coach Lily in how to sneak and as they are almost finished with hindbear area, she gets it. And let me tell you, Lily doing a little crawl along the ground is the cutest thing. Jason however realizes one small problem that tanks the whole plan. Lily is stark white. Just a pair of red eyes away from being albino.
While it is possible to be stealth in white, that takes years of training or snow. Neither of which Lily can currently take advantage of. Not that she minds, playing around with Jason was fun enough.
Jason on the other hand is just a little bit frustrated at being so blind. That however was easily taken care of through wrestling with the last couple hindbears they met. Of course he didn’t let them get a bearhug on him. He might be tough, but he isn’t that tough.
Instead, Jason took them down through judicious use of chokeholds. A difficult proposition with how thick a bear’s neck is, but he managed it. Not through choking them out mind you. Rather, he made sure to focus on the veins and restricting the blood flow to the brain. Even that was difficult though. At least until he started to cheat.
The System was a little loose with the assassination titles. This likely came from needing to account for poisons and stuff, but the first attack kept the killshot bonus as long as they were ongoing. So all Jason had to do was land the chokehold on the bear as the first attack. With that, suddenly all the resistance vanishes.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
This little quirk is almost enough to drop Jason back into his irritation. When he checks the stat growth for the both of them though, it all feels worth it.
{+7 Strength
+3 Toughness
Lily: +3 Strength
Lily: 4[SP] Strength converted to 4[Base] Strength
Lily: +2 Toughness
Lily: 2[SP] Toughness converted to 2[Base] Toughness
Lily: +7 Agility
Lily: 9[SP] Agility converted to 9[Base] Agility}
Jason’s own growth was decent with most of the Strength coming from his bear wrestling stunt. Lily, though, showed the greatest growth. Of course, her Agility, as always, grew by a significant amount. With the rest growing though, it felt amazing. More important though, is how many of the System based stats got converted into her own power.
Lily’s stats had been converting slowly with each level of course. The problem was it had been doing so much too slowly. Strength and Toughness at the rate of about one every other level and Agility double that. Those stats however had been growing at the rate of one a level and three a level respectively.
So basically she was slowly digging a hole she might never get out of. Jason wasn’t happy with that but until now hadn’t really seen a way out. Now though it seems that there was a way. This was especially true with Agility.
Lily’s natural leaning towards the stat combined with the stealth training had provided just the right amount of oumph. Despite this Jason didn’t have any plans to continue down that specific path. Good thing there were more than enough ways to train Agility.
With that tucked away for later, Jason continues onward at a relaxed pace. While it wasn’t exactly stressful to fight the hindbears, the area behind them just had way too many of them. Couldn’t go a day without at least a few of the things popping out, sometimes more. Not that the main road didn’t have its own troubles, but there was some variety there to play with.
Though Lily was a little disappointed at having to go back in the harness. Jason had felt alright with her staying out in the hindbear’s territory as not much else was there to worry them. On the main road though, who knows what might pop out? He trusted her to be safe as possible, but that didn’t cover as much as he was willing to risk.
In the end this precaution proved more than worth it. Not because of an encounter, but rather an encounter missed. Jason only caught a glimpse of the monster off to the side of the road but it was more than enough to justify his worries. The creature was a worrying mix of a fox, snake, and praying mantis. Small enough that it didn’t want to bother with Jason, but the thing was only just below his worries about birds of prey grabbing Lily. While she might be much better off when facing natural predators than most rabbits, a quick grab or grapple before she can straighten and Energize her fur would be devastating.