“Wait, are you saying that they made you chieftain, give you this odd [Flesh] shard, and then leave you behind?” Liara questioned while holding onto her drink.
“Yeah, it didn’t make any sense to me either, maybe some odd tribe thing?” Ake replied.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” the small girl shrugged and sipped on her drink.
“But I’ve heard a lot about the tribal people who always do the craziest things. Some of them were obviously only overhyped wild rumors, but why would anyone travel by caravan for the rest of their lives? It is interesting because it doesn't make any sense at all.”
Ake chuckled. What Liara had just said reminded him of the hippies.
“At least this means, if everything goes well, we won’t need any healing potion today,” Liara added with a shrug.
She wasn’t trying to hide it and Ake could tell the girl was interested in anything new and strange to her. Maybe that was the main reason why she agreed to all of this.
Ake also noticed that other people were glancing at her a lot, but that might be because of his presence. He realized why when he finally noticed the slightly pointy ear as she pushed her hair over one of them.
The onlookers were probably envying him. Who would have thought that she was even more popular than anyone around? It made a whole lot of sense when her beauty was coupled with her, whatever, exotic race she was.
Of course, he had not forgotten that she had a girlfriend, and for her, this was just another quest to make money off. She was told to watch him twenty-four-seven in order to determine whether or not he was a threat to society, or could he have the potential to turn into one.
Ake sighed inside. He got to ‘enjoy’ being in her presence while she was deciding whether or not she should cut his head off his shoulders.
His whimsical luck couldn’t be more ironic than this.
The breakfast was local flatbreads dipped into some sort of meaty grey sauce. It was cheap, only eight stamped copper squares for a set of two. It was plain but not horrible and had a pretty excellent chew.
If anyone had asked him, those were already a great combination. He didn’t know what kind of ingredient the sour sauce was made of but it was definitely not tomato or anything remotely similar. Liara had devoured her portion of food like an unruly man but decided to carefully nurse her drink for whatever reason.
“You have to learn to eat quickly, young chieftain,” the petite woman said. “Monsters won’t wait for you to finish your food first.”
Ake smiled. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said and gulped down the drink in one long tip of the mug.
Liara scoffed and shook her head. She stood up to leave and he followed after her.
She was not wrong, of course.
His old-world great-grandparents had said the same thing about war.
But at least he didn’t need to think of how to avoid things that might make her fall head over heels for him. Ake knew her personality just enough to know that she wouldn’t fall for him as she already had someone.
‘No anti-harem countermeasures needed,’ Ake mused as he traced her steps.
Of course, he wasn’t even expecting anything of the sort to happen, but as a wise man had always said, safety first. Prevention was always better than cure in any situation.
Ake chuckled inside.
“Let’s find some cute monsters for you to murder,” Liara said as she marched on.
Ake was surprised by the sudden declaration. Did she want to get rid of him that fast?
“Are you sure about this?” He asked just to be sure, “I don’t have any weapon or armor with me if you didn’t notice.”
“Relax, chief,” Liara chuckled at his cowardice. “I mean it when I said cute monsters. It is something even a newbie like you can handle barehanded. I’m talking about young horned rabbits or goblin scouts if we are lucky.”
Liara led him away with a tiny spring on her steps. She waved at the gate guards almost amiably, and about twenty minutes later, he was facing a cute bunny with a red, short unicorn horn on its forehead.
A very pointed crimson-red unicorn horn was an obvious enough warning. The scene where the small monster was literally digging into another same-species bunny didn’t and wouldn’t ever help at all.
“Don’t let it stab you in the chest or your handsome face!” the girl said almost cheerfully before she backed away giggling.
Ake had no time to retort when the un-cute species killer, cannibal bunny, turned its attention towards him. His body fell into a simple defensive stance as if it had its own mind.
The monster disappeared from his sight.
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Oddly, no crippling fear came to him as he had expected. Instead, it felt like the world had suddenly almost frozen over.
Random leaves blown by the wind glide in super slow motion in the air.
His attention was pulled to the bunny which was already in mid-air, horn first, inching towards him.
Time resumed when Ake stepped aside and shearing pain slid across his chest down to his stomach. A long red scratch formed on it.
Chill ran down his spine, and he could figure out what was going on, the world froze over for the second time. The bunny was right in front of his face as he fell to his back.
Time unfreezed as instinct took over and the red bloody horn had lodged into his hand. The clumsy natural instinct must have moved his hand to block the lunge to his face
He spun on the ground and got up almost immediately.
His teeth gritted when his bones were grinding with the horn.
The tip even poked out on the other side.
He had to continue to grit his teeth as the little kin-murderer kicked and shook its body around as it tried to dislodge itself. Somehow the horn had stuck firmly between his bones and continued to grind.
Ake panicked.
He reeled and flapped his injured hand as he tried to swing the creature off.
A tiny crack echoed and he saw the bunny fly off without its horn. The horribly cute creature then scurried away and disappeared into the thick meadow.
“Lesson one, chief, try to keep up with your [Intuition], I’m talking about the time freeze you no doubt experienced, and lesson two, potion or no potion, this kind of wound will never heal when something is on the way and the wound not bandaged,” Liara chimed in from behind.
‘The frozen world is caused by my [Intuition]?’ he mused in disbelief.
Ake thought he was probably still high in adrenaline when he grabbed the horn, twisted it a little, and pulled it out of his hand. Ake effortlessly caught the bandage when Liara threw it at him. He quickly bandaged his hand while his teeth continued to grind on itself.
The bleeding soon stopped and the pain went away almost too fast for him. It felt like he could continue fighting sooner rather than later.
[Healing Point recovery detected.]
[HP unlocked, calculating…]
[...]
[...]
[Error, total HP mismatch]
[Scanning for unknown effects]
[Effects found, recalculating total HP]
[...]
[Effects Unlocked]
[Flesh IV shard, [Life Lease], [+500 HP, +100 Mana]
[Warning: Unknown negative effect detected]
[Negative effect irrelevant to survival]
[..]
[Total HP: 510]
[Current HP: 504/510]
[Total Mana: 110]
[Current Mana: 110/110]
He checked, and surely enough, the gaping wound was reduced to a thin red line.
For a mix of a few reasons, Ake fell onto his butt when he was back to reality.
First of all, he now understood what the scary demonic woman meant last night. She had leased this life to him so he couldn’t die unless he did something really stupid. He didn’t know for sure but he shouldn’t die unless he foolishly fought a huge monster or something.
He hated to say it, but thanks to her, he got something close to a plot shield even when it came with a cost of whatever negative effect. Five hundred extra [Healing Point] was not something to scoff at if compared to how little he started with.
Secondly, he had fallen onto his butt because Liara’s face was right in front of his face before he realized it. She was looking into his eyes as if she was trying to find something for whatever reason.
“Wha- what are you doing?” Ake asked a little flushed himself.
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to kiss you or something,” Liara smiled playfully. “I was trying to read what you saw in your eyes as your HP unlocked, but I can’t see anything,” she pouted and backed up.
Ake breathed in relief before a question popped inside his head. Unlike the alien language he somehow spoke, the interface was in English rather than the native.
“But what happens if the horn stabs through my heart or head?”
She huffed and stood up on her feet, “I would have stopped that from happening, but to answer your question, critical or over damage will occur and it is usually fatal at level zero.”
Liara offered her hand and pulled him up easily.
She was a lot stronger than she looked.
“Can I know how high the damage will be?” Ake asked while he patted the dirt off himself. “Just curious, you know.”
“Around three to five times the normal damage,” Liara shrugged. “It is based on the attacker’s and the target’s intent and ability level.”
“You mean I would have died instantly?”
“No, you silly, when your HP runs out, you just won’t heal anymore and pass out, obviously,” Liara replied. “But you’ll die if there is no one to help you to administer a healing potion to the wound in time. Adventurers work mostly in pairs for this reason.”
“What if someone is cut in half, for example?”
“Why do you ask this crazy question? Do you want to jinx yourself?”
“Sorry,” Ake scratched the back of his head like an idiot, “but I'd rather be prepared for the worst, you know?”
“Ugh, fine,” Liara said as she turned around. “If you insist, the answer is, no, I don’t know what will happen.”
Ake chuckled when he noticed the red cheeks just before she turned around. The oddly small girl was embarrassed by the weirdest things. Who in the world would blush at the thought of being cut in half, obviously, Liara would.
“Don’t throw the horn away, that is your ticket to get into the Guild,” she said after a few steps ahead of him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ake replied and jogged after her.
He had never thought of throwing his first trophy away for whatever reason.