Haruto woke up feeling parched, but on the bright side, he no longer felt mentally fatigued. I'm no astronomer, but from where the sun is and knowing my natural body clock, it is around noon. Haruto dunked his head in the swamp and gulped down some gamer juice. First thing's first sleeping on the wet swamp floor other than being a drowning hazard, really puts a creak in the ole neck. With a quick hand motion, Haruto popped his neck, causing a loud crack to resound. Lucky for me, I always did morning exercises when the radio played the broadcast, even though it was a rebroadcast played around noon for the Neets who just woke up. I still did it. As Haruto went through each of the memorized exercises, he took mental notes of his current situation.
Maybe I can make a tent or a stick bed or something, I've played enough games to know all one needed was some wood and fur. Hmm, but all I see around here is slime and more slime. Maybe I can use the slime as a pillow. Haruto bent over and plucked a slime from the swamp. "Calm down little fellow" The slime struggled as if Haruto was in the midst of killing its entire family. The constant soothing from Haruto did little to calm the slime, and in the end, with no choice, Haruto punched it to death for exp.
Welp, the slime pillow is out of the running, though even if it didn't squirm so much, I'd be afraid it would enter my ear and devour my brain or something. One swing from his katana could one-shot the slimes. However, the slimes merely divided in half after being hit. The pitiful exp from them made the task even more unsavory.
During his time here, Haruto had a rudimentary understanding of this swamp's ecosystem. At the lowest ladder of the food chain were the slime at level one. The slimes were monstrous fellows more giant than a German shepherd with a deep green hue. They slid around the surface of the lake lazily and appeared to feed on vegetation.
Next were the toads who were level two, Haruto had seen them hopping in the distance, but unlike the slow-moving slime, the toads were quick and could jump far. The only time he caught hold of one, it easily slid out of his grasp, the slimy bugger.
Haruto had no clue where these animals came from, apart from a few super crocs who ranked lvl 20, no other creature had been seen entering the swamp. Though these crocs were present, they were rarer than the skeletons, and merely sat at the boundary of the swamp near a dense fog. The slimes steered clear of them, and that made it easier for Haruto to hunt.
Haruto doubted a croc pillow would be too much better, and the only vegetation was moss, vines, and soggy decrepit trees. Maybe I could use the soggy tree to make a wooden mattress. Haruto grabbed a piece of the submerged tree, the piece came off with ease, and felt like puddy, in his hands. He placed his head to the wood. It felt cold and soft, which greatly pleased Haruto until he attempted to pull the wood away from his head. You're kidding right, it can't be stuck, please come off. Pulling with more force, Haruto felt the wood stubbornly sticking to his hair. Well, frick, this is mighty unlucky. Ok, ok, just gotta pull it hard and fast. Taking a deep breath, Haruto yanked with all his might, ripping the wood from his head and a chunk of his hair. "Mother May I, that hurt" Haruto rolled on the swamp in pain and threw the piece of wood into the distance. That's gonna be a no from me dog.
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Let's try the vines, I guess. For the next two hours, Haruto went about snagging vines and killing slimes. After all his searching, he ended up with a small bundle of vines. Guess I'll just tie them together here, here, and here. Another hour passed as Haruto pushed his innovativeness to the extremes. Voilà, allow me to introduce the shoddy hammock, by randomly tying the vines together, I have created a worthless item. Screw this, I'll just clump some mud above swamp level, then use this vine as a blanket. I'm wasting valuable grinding time.
From noon to around sunset, Haruto swung his sword almost 1000 times and had moved forward one level. The swamp was looking a bit cleaner without so many mobs running about. Haruto was sure mother nature was grateful that an EXP predator such as himself had come into this ecosystem. I shall vigorously suppress the population of these prey, so the swamp may regain her beauty. To do so tomorrow, I must focus wholeheartedly on the grind, not the nonsense of comfort or complaining about waking up with a creak in my neck.
Haruto had found out, after his hunger kicked in from swinging so much, that the slimes tasted like lime jello, no adverse effects had been noted so far. I wonder if their flavor depends on the color, I should try to find slimes that aren't green when I have free time. With the amount of slimes Haruto needed to kill for exp, food would never be an issue, but diabetes might be. Why has everything I eaten tasted like it has so much sugar? It's like a child was put in charge of the flavoring system, for a god sadist sama has some weird tendencies, or perhaps all gods are like this. I can only hope this is not the case. At least the sugary taste gives me short bursts of energy, wait I don't have a toothbrush, gingivitis we meet again. This is gonna be worse than my first Halloween.
Even after eating, Haruto felt his mind becoming fatigued, his poor brain wasn't born to do so much manual labor. Haruto feared that grinding when feeling this tired would make it a near-impossible task, causing his lazy nature to make him stop grinding in full. The skin on his hands had been tenderized like chicken, and just flexing them caused acute pain. I have no idea how to start a fire, I should have watched more survival YouTube videos. Even if I did, there is way too much water here to get one going without the risk of it being accidentally put out. With the sun no longer being up, the darkness caused Haruto to feel weary. I shall lie my head down for a wittle nap.
He gulped down as much swamp water as needed to fill his stomach. A little bit of exp was always dispensed when he drank a lot of swamp water. The sooner he finished grinding up levels, the sooner he could get out of this godforsaken swamp. Cold and wet, only the sweet dreams of Rem-sama gave him solace. A ding resounded as Haruto lost consciousness. His level had risen to a lowly seven after this long hard day. Congrats on leveling up. Three unassigned skill points added. 1 free point for every skill