I slithered around for a little while, kind of aimlessly at some points, as I searched for anything I could face and kill to potentially gain exp and level up as quickly as I could. While I was still slightly terrified of facing other monsters in combat, especially on purpose and not for the reasons of simply defending myself anymore, I didn’t allow that fear to discourage me from the bigger picture. Seeing that troll I knew that I wasn’t going to be freeing anyone from anywhere at my current level. Seriously - who was I expecting to set free into the world if a troll, that was smaller and less intimidating than Arabor, was strong enough to make me look like a beginner enemy?
At least, I believe he made me look like that anyway… I am not a very knowledgeable person when it comes to RPG or MMO style games. As I wandered through the woods, I kept my guard up at all times. Death and danger could be lurking around every corner and I had to be careful to not let myself fall victim to some enemy who may be waiting for a chance to launch a sneak attack against me.
Eventually, I was startled by a small group of slimes hopping out of some bushes in front of me, causing me to back up a bit. Immediately, I narrowed my eyes on the other creatures, using ‘Inspector’ on them to see what their levels were.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Inferior Water Slime -
Level; 5
A Weak version of the common ‘Water Slime’. This creature possesses almost no intellect and is always relying on instinct. Not very durable nor very powerful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Inferior Water Slime -
Level; 3
A Weak version of the common ‘Water Slime’. This creature possesses almost no intellect and is always relying on instinct. Not very durable nor very powerful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Inferior Water Slime -
Level; 5
A Weak version of the common ‘Water Slime’. This creature possesses almost no intellect and is always relying on instinct. Not very durable nor very powerful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, that should be easy enough for me to handle. The highest level is 4 levels lower than me and the descriptions said that they aren’t super powerful. This should be good enough for me for the time being. Pestering up the courage to face the creatures, I slithered towards them with a determined expression and a serious glare directly aimed at them.
The low level creatures seemingly noticed me, before suddenly starting to charge at me - showing off their low intellect right off the bat, as they just charged at me with no regard for their own lives or if they could even beat me at all. Guess that is what ‘always relying on instinct’ means. As the slimes charged at me, I took in a bit of a deep breath, before coiling up my body and launching myself at the first slime like a spring. This was a neat trick I had learned to do while facing off against Direwolves for the past week.
As soon as I got on top of the first slime, I opened my mouth wide open, before sinking my fangs into the slimes soft and squishy body. The creature stopped, before shaking and then exploding into a small puddle of water - as well as launching me back against a tree. I hit the tree pretty hard, but got back up almost immediately. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt all that much, despite the tree barks rough and hard texture.
The other two slimes then changed their path and leapt at me one after the other. I swiftly dodged the first slime - the other Level 5 one - before retaliating and sinking my fangs into its body as well. Once again, the slime stopped moving before shaking and exploding into a puddle of water - however this time, it didn’t send me flying back. Then, the last slime came flying at me, however I simply coiled my body up and once again, like a spring, launched myself at the slime, opening my mouth wide open and sinking them into its body midair. As soon as I did that, the slime stopped moving and began shaking, and right as we hit the ground, it exploded into a water puddle as well - causing me to hit my head against the ground a bit hard.
I picked myself up, slightly dizzy from the impact, however shook my head, as well as the dizziness off almost instantly. That was all three of them defeated - I’d say that went pretty well. Then, I heard the same voice that I have heard up until now, announcing my level up.
Experience threshold has been reached.
You have risen to level 10.
Common Skill [Hunter] has evolved into the Rare Skill [Huntsman].
A skill evolved? And the same skill I gained after I killed that first Direwolf that I encountered after leaving the ruins that Arabor had been located inside of. I wonder what the whole evolution was about…
I’m sure I’ll figure it out later - the more important part of this announcement was my level up to level 10. I feel a lot better about myself now. Yes it was only 1 level, which I imagine wasn’t anything impressive by RPG standards, but to me this one level showed my slow progress. It took me around 2 days previously to raise my level by a single digit due to my hesitance to fight other monsters, but this time, not only did I take out 3 of them, I managed to push out a level in less than 2 minutes.
I am quite proud of myself.
However, I mustn’t let this single level distract me. I had to find and fight more monsters as fast as possible - the grind cannot stop yet for today. And so, without much more hesitation or fear, I immediately moved out again, continuing to slither farther into the forest.
As I dove deeper and deeper, I encountered more and more monsters. I encountered some familiar ones such as Direwolves and different types of Slimes, but also new ones, such as ‘Unintelligent Goblins’ or ‘Poison Lizards’. Fighting against these creatures I managed to quickly raise my level from 10 all the way up to level 15 - with not too much effort. However, at the same time, I did grow a bit tired from all the searching and fighting, and so decided to take a rest for now.
I was underneath a tree, coiled up with my head slightly sunken into my body. I’d say my progress so far was decent. I mean, compared to the last week where I only managed to grow by 9 levels over the course of 7 days, I had now grown by a whole 6 levels in less than an hour - which I’d consider to be quite an achievement and accomplishment for myself. As I laid there with my head in my body, I continued my thought process that I had before I had encountered the level 21 Troll - the possibility of some kind of ‘stat’ menu existing and a way for me to access it. Growing in levels was my main priority right now, however at the same time, I desperately wanted to know if there was some kind of menu that told all the information about my level, skills and perhaps even some kind of stats - as that would, I imagine, make my time levelling up even easier, as I would be able to keep track of my progress more easily.
As I silently pondered, I suddenly picked up on the sound of voices in the distance - although, I was unable to make out what the voices were saying due to how faint and quiet they were, as well as them sounding like they were in a language that was foreign to me. I opened my eyes and lifted my head up, listening for the faint voices a bit more carefully, before figuring out the direction they were coming from.
This was the first time since I met Arabor that I had heard other individuals talking… Could there be humans or other creatures capable of speech in the direction of the faint voices? Well… only one way to find out.
I uncoiled my body, before beginning to quickly slither in the direction that the voices were coming from. As they got louder and louder, I also began to hear a lot more individuals speaking - all of them doing so in a language I definitely did not understand. Eventually, after moving through some bushes, I came across a slightly large open field that had a lot of the trees of the dense forest sort of missing. Looking around, I spotted what looked like multiple white tents in the field as well as individuals wearing cloaks and strange uniform type outfits walking around the camp, talking to one another and laughing.
They sort of looked like… students. Could this be a class of students out in the forest? I mean, they were humans - or at least, looked like humans - and they wore actual clothing compared to the tattered and clearly used leather and pelts that Goblins and that Troll tied around their waist. Did I stumble upon a possible class?
As I pondered, I heard an older sounding voice call together all the other individuals. Looking over to him, I could definitely tell that this older individual was their supervisor in some way. He wore a similar cloak to them, however his outfit underneath was in a deep red colour and looked a lot more distinguished compared to the younger people. Perhaps he was their teacher. The older man began to explain something to the large group, however due to my inability to understand their language, everything they said sounded like inaudible gobble to me. However, one thing did catch my eye as I observed them from a distance.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
One of the supposed students, who was sitting farther away than everyone else and clearly only paying half of the attention he should be, muttered words that I did somewhat understand; ‘Sthrasus Ohpein’.
It is a bit of a stretch, however it sounded a bit similar to the word combination of ‘Status Open’ in the language I spoke. Another thing that stood out to me is that after he said that, I could see a small window of information appear in front of him, which caused me to gasp slightly. Was that potentially the status menu I was thinking about and searching for a way to access? If so, then I might have just witnessed a way to access it. Immediately, I slithered behind some cover - being a tree next to me - before pressing my body up against it. Afterwards, I shed a small sweat and exhaled.
I felt excitement and nervousness run through my body in the shape of shivers. I don’t know why, but the idea of seeing a stat menu with information about me made me so unbelievably excited that I was barely able to remain still. I had never played any RPGs in my past life and so had no idea how they worked, but at the same time, loved the idea of actually exploring them and seeing how they could have potentially worked in this world, as so far, this world is seemingly very similar to them - or at least, similar to the limited information I had about them, from hearing about them from my co-workers, the news or reading about them in some articles.
I gulped, before opening my mouth - about to say the words, only to freeze up and not say a thing. I was so nervous that it felt like I wasn’t able to speak. After shaking my head, I gathered up the courage and looked down before saying the following sentence out loud.
“Status Open.” {Primal Language Translation; ‘Graifrius Hasil.’}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Faofa Shin
Species: Inferior Serpentine
Level: 15
Rank: F
Stats:
Health; 4000
Strength; 500
Defence; 400
Magical Energy; 1200
Stamina; 500
Intelligence; 190
- Overall Power; 1450
Skills:
-Speech; Active Skill
-Inspector; Common Skill
-Devourer; Individual Skill
-Huntsman; Rare Skill
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like magic, in front of me, a small, light blue coloured menu with white text on it appeared, showing information that I had longed to see. As soon as I saw it, my face lit up with excitement and joy - so much so, that I began to just up and down with my small snake body out of excitement and joy. This was the coolest thing! I had stats just like those RPGs I had heard so much about in my previous life!
And they were pretty detailed. It showed my name, my species, my level… My rank? What does ‘Rank’ mean? I don’t know, but it shows an ‘F’ which I imagine wasn’t very high, so I will guess that rank is to show how powerful I am. Looking at my stats, they looked decent. 4000 health, which I imagine refers to how much damage I can take before I die, 500 strength and stamina which I imagine refers to my physical power and maybe for how long I can do intense acts for before needing a rest, 400 defence, which I didn’t quite understand, but I will guess refers to my durability or ability to withstand and resist attacks? I’m not sure. Intelligence was pretty self explanatory and then lastly…
Magical Energy… Huh, so I did have something like that. I had been wondering about whether I had that or not - although, I suppose it isn’t super surprising that I did, considering that the strange voice did say that I absorbed ‘large amounts of Magical Energy’ after Arabors soul and power entered my body.
After I was done admiring my stats, I looked a bit lower, seeing a list of ‘skills’. The voice had mentioned these things earlier at multiple points - with the ‘Speech’, ‘Inspector’ and ‘Devourer’ all being acquired in the ruins where I met Arabor. But there also was the ‘Huntsman’ skill that had evolved from ‘Hunter’ earlier as well, which made me wonder what it did. In fact, I was curious about what ‘Devourer’ also did, as I had not tried using it so far. How do I even use it in the first place? Well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out with time.
After seeing everything I wanted, I happily slid back into a coil and let my head sink into my body - with the menu closing itself automatically. It felt so cool to know that I can access such a convenient tool at all times by simply saying a simple sentence. It also made my mind at ease, knowing that I now had an easy and effective way to keep track of my progress as I continued hunting monsters and other creatures.
I was tempted to slide off into sleep after seeing my menu, however I was thrown out of my state of peace by a loud call from the camp I had observed earlier, which caused me to sneakily look around the tree towards the campers. The group had now split off into several ‘teams’ and seemed to be preparing for something. They were picking up weapons, staffs, bows… wait, were they preparing to go out and hunt or kill stuff? If so, I probably shouldn’t be so close to them. I turned around, about to slither past this open field and farther into the forest - only to be stopped by catching glimpses of something more interesting at the corner of my left eye.
Looking back over at the field, I spotted a large rock formation, with a fancy entrance on the front - one that was a bit similar to the entrance at Arabors ruins. This piqued my interest, with the temptation to head over there and see what it was about rising, however I was thrown off by the fact that the camp for those humans wasn’t all that far from this rock formation. Could it be that they were preparing to enter this strange structure? Could be…
But if they were preparing for that, by arming themselves… That meant that this structure could be home to some enemies for me to face.
This thought immediately intrigued me, as it meant that I could potentially have an easier way to hunt down and kill other creatures if this structure indeed housed them. Even with how large the forest was, finding creatures to fight and kill was easier said than done - as they seemed to be few and far between. I debated for a bit about seeing what the rock structure was all about, before deciding to simply take the risk and slithered swiftly out of the safe cavity of the trees and quickly towards the structure. Up close, it looked a LOT bigger than from the side, which did intimidate me at first, however I kept a confident expression on face, as I narrowed my eyes and used ‘Inspector’ on the structure.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Structure; Dungeon
Rank; E
A Structure that may appear at random in areas with dense magic formation. These structures are filled with Monsters to fight and rewards for challengers to claim.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A dungeon… I have no idea what a ‘dungeon’ was, however I imagine it was another core thing of RPG games. The thing that caught my attention more was the mention of how it is filled with monsters to fight. This immediately tantalised me, as I grew even more tempted to enter it and see what it held inside. Call me crazy, but I wanted to level up as quickly as possible and raiding something that is said to be ‘filled with monsters to fight’ sounded too intriguing for me to pass up.
I deactivated my skill, before throwing a look back at the camp behind me, seeing the students slowly finish their preparations. If they indeed intended on coming to this ‘dungeon’, then I had to ensure that I raided this place first and claimed its riches for myself. Failing that, I needed to make sure that I killed all of the monsters inside to maximise my exp gain. With little time to think any further, I slithered up to the entrance and gazed into it. There was a lone staircase leading down - lit up my torches.
It kind of reminded me of Arabors ruins when I first came close to them… However, the staircase seemed to not lead as deep as those ruins did. With one final quick breath, I leapt down onto the first step on the staircase, before quickly making my way down and reaching the inside of this ‘dungeon’. At the bottom of the staircase, I was met with a long hallway, at the end of which, I could spot what looked to be a room.
‘My curiosity will one day be the death of me.’
I thought, before immediately beginning to swiftly slither down the hall and towards the room at its end. I was willing to take a guess that the aforementioned monsters were located in the room at the end of this hall - and if that indeed was the case, I most definitely wanted to go towards it.
Now, was I potentially waltzing into someplace filled with strong monsters I couldn’t handle? Possibly. However, at the same time, the ‘dungeon’ was said to be E rank. While I do not understand how the rankings work, E felt like a rank to be just above F and so not so much more dangerous. And besides - if this place was safe enough for them to have students raid it, it was safe enough for me to raid it.
As I made my way down the hall, the sound of screeches, scratches and hisses echoed from the room up ahead. Various foul smells also began to hit my nostrils pretty badly - smelling a lot like rotting corpses and the stench of blood. There was no doubt about it, up ahead, it was filled with monsters for me to fight and kill for exp - which was all the more reason to keep moving.
Eventually I reached the end of the hall and entered the room, coming to terms with its contents. Inside it, there were around 14 monsters - all of them being ones that I recognised. There were 7 Direwolves, 3 Poison Lizards, 1 Water Slime and 3 Poison Slimes. I quickly used my ‘Inspector’ skill on all of them to get some information. The highest level among them was the Poison Lizards at level 12 while the lowest was the Water Slime at 9. All of them were below my level and thus, weaker than me.
I put on a mischievous and malicious grin, before hissing loudly myself, bringing all of their attentions to me as well as causing them to turn aggressive almost immediately, with the Direwolves charging at me, the Poison Lizards to begin preparing to shoot their darts at me and the 4 slimes… honestly, I wasn’t sure what they were doing.
With the Direwolves approaching, I shed a slight sweat, before coiling my body up and propelling myself up into the air and towards the group of Direwolves, with my mouth wide open.
All of you were about to become my exp.