Just a really quick reminder is that, I'm sticking close to a chill and fresh read. So please don't expect to intense actions or behind the scene schemes, etc. :D
And did you readers like the scenery of the Abyssal Woods? I'm not too sure I did a good job on sketching out that fairy tale-like scene.
9 Playtime & Necklace
「Wait a minute. Why are you acting like that?」
Still pouting, Gaea pointed at Ren's face and spoke with a strange tone
「'Cause it's vexing」
「What is?」
「I thought I was the first one to find an interesting human to play around with after such a long time since you're strong and seem like a fun guy. But in fact somebody already got you before me and you're just going with me to make something for somebody else. This beautiful dryad named Gaea refuses to help.」
Spitting all that in one breath, Gaea turned her face again. She actually had no idea that Ren is looking at her with an amused face grinning as if he saw a stubborn grade schooler.
She's really honest isn't she, thought Ren holding his laughter as this is the first time he saw a woman spitting everything in her mind out that easily.
The way women act in Ren's memory was something along 'realize that on your own', 'can't you figure it out yourself?', 'whatever don't ask me', and many more nerve wrecking situations.
「Ahem......well, rather than that, I'll play around with you until you're tired......」
「!!!」
Erasing his amused expressions, Ren spoke in a bright tone as if persuading a kid to go home if she's given candies.
Ren continued
「......but that's only when you help me find the string.
Ah!! I know. How about I make you one too? It'll glow even brighter at night」
「Wait!! R-Really!? You're gonna make Gaea a necklace with that glowing thing too!?」
Having her interests peaked, Gaea instantly closed the distance and stared straight into Ren's eyes with sparkling wonders.
Really she's so childish, thought Ren laughing quietly in his mind.
「Yeah, why not. If you want a specific color, tell me. It doesn't have to be changing colors all the time you know」
「Err, umm, g-green!! I want green!!」
Ren widened his eyes feeling surprised at the innocent face Gaea's showing to him.
He almost thought that the seduction just minutes ago was never there. She was stroking his penis while breathing erotic breaths into his ears like a succubus, yet right now she only looks like a little girl sulking to her brother.
「......okay, sure. Green is it? Then, deal?」
Holding out his pinky finger, Ren unconsciously showed the symbol of a promise humans use without realizing Gaea's a dryad.
She tilted her head and made a 'oh I know!' gesture then drew her face closer to his pinky.
「Uwaa!!」
「Hnnn......chuupa!!」
Pop. The sound of Gaea sucking Ren's pinky finger resounds the forest.
The texture of Gaea's mouth's insides and the warmth of her tongue, on top of all that the softness of her wet lips sent some chills down Ren's spine.
(Shiiiiit!! The way she moves her tongue around my finger is too erotic!!)
Thinking that he was wrong thinking that Gaea is pure and innocent for a second, Ren recollected himself and waited for her to let go of his finger.
「Ish dish wut yo wanted me to do?」
「......you're 10 thousand miles off......」
「Chuupa! Eh? You didn't tell me to lick your finger?」
「No, I did not, I meant to tell you to twine your finger with mine. But the point is that it felt good so it doesn't matter」
「Fufufu~ If you let Gaea lick the other rod it'll feel even better~」
「Let's leave that for later」
「Ohhh? You don't refuse it?」
「HAH!! Me? Declining a fellatio!? Ridiculous!!」
Puffing his chest in pride, Ren declared. Gaea looked at him with an "Ohhhh" expression admiring his determination of hopes and dreams.
This pair, from the outside, looks like an idiotic couple of hentai boyfriend and airhead girlfriend. They would surely attract some attention as laughingstocks depends on where they are.
「Anyway let's have a race to that river over there!! You cannot run on the ground!! 321start!!」
「OI!! You goddamn cheater!!」
Quickly increasing his Agility stats, Ren started jumping and swinging between trees chasing Gaea.
Gaea on the other hand, is a dryad, that's why she can easily move from trees to trees using her nature magic controlling the vines and branches. The two had fun running in the middle of the Abyssal Forest.
♦ ♦ ♦
「Whoa there」
Dodging the poison, Ren jumped to the side and looked at the Status of the monster.
《Elder Arach》
HP: 198/305
MP: 50/250
A poisonous type of spider that had evolved in size and reflexes.
Carries high quality threads.
Strength: 150
Agility: 290
Intelligence: 200
「Be careful~ It doesn't use up magical energy to spit out poisons~」
「Yeah I noticed......man this guy is troublesome if I'm not serious」
While the two were playing around, they ran into this gigantic silver-colored spider lurking at them from the shadows of a big tree nearby.
According to Gaea, this is what Ren's looking for because the threads it produces are stronger than common metal while it's easier to shape and control the thickness with a bit of magic applied to it.
In other words, a perfect material for making a good necklace.
That said, Ren is fighting it.
Even though if he took the poison head-on, Ren wouldn't even get injured a bit because of his defense, but as expected, it's unpleasant to have that green gooey stuff on him.
「Well......let's stop joking around then」
Saying so, Ren prepared his fire attribute sword and increased his stats.
Applying a martial-art system skill to himself, Ren dashed forward straight into the spider.
With class 『Sword God』, Ren easily chopped down all its legs while dancing around dodging the poisons the spider discharged.
「Now for the main dish」
Using his momentum, Ren stepped on the branch of a tree and jumped up high.
On the way back down he turned his sword upside down pointing the tip towards the spider's back as it had been rendered immobile with all its limbs being cut off.
The single round body of the creature squirming on the ground makes Gaea frown while averting her gaze from it.
Landing, Ren dug his sword deep into the body of the spider, then turned his wrists and twisted the spot where the sword and the spider were connected.
「Flame Burst」
POOF, the upper half of the spider's body blew up from a raging flame bursting out from within. However, the lower half of the spider where it keeps the threads was intact.
Seeing the scene, Gaea leaked an amazed voice.
「That's amazing......are you really a human?」
「Yes I am......for now at least......」
The latter half wasn't audible to Gaea since Ren murmured it to himself. He certainly also wants to turn into other races to mess around with people.
「I've never seen human using that kind of combined skills before」
「Hm? What do you mean?」
「You invoked that big fire from the blade of your sword right? Humans can't do that, though they can use fireballs they can't combine with martial art skills to burst flames from their weapons」
What Ren just did was indeed a combination of magic and a skill.
By making use of the martial-art skill 『Spiral Twist』, which releases a strong force of physical damage, Ren combined it with the spell 『Flame Burst』 to send out a horizontal wave of flame together with the release of physical force from the skill.
Thus the spider's head was completely blown off because of the reinforced shock wave of flames.
「Oh. I see, so that's how it is」
Ren never realized that humans can't do these kinds of combination because of their lack of thorough understanding regarding their skills and spells.
The reason for this is because humans are born with one or two skills or spells and they'll have to train and hone them on their own while Ren receives full understanding regarding the things he puts into his status and makes full use of the combination system.
Of course, there are skills and spells that can be obtained by studying and training, but that's a different story when it comes to learning skills manually.
「Seriously, you're such a strange creature, I can't grasp your overall ability」
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Tilting her head, Gaea spoke in an insecure voice since Ren kept showing her new things one after another. Somehow she doesn't look as playful as earlier anymore.
Ren on the other hand, is now nodding in satisfaction since he learned something new again. He quickly turned back to the half body of the spider lying on the ground.
「Let's see what's inside this thing」
Using the tip of his sword with fire attribute, Ren easily cut a shallow crack along the length of the round-looking object. It was as big as a grown man's torso.
「Here, the threads are under this......」
Under Gaea's instructions Ren quickly got rid of the unrelated organs and got to where the threads are made and stored.
The organ in charge of this is an oval-shaped object that was soft like a pillow.
「Uhh......there's a thick membrane around it」
「Yeah just get rid of it」
Tearing the white-ish membrane apart, the biggest woolen ball Ren ever seen in his life came into view.
Separating one thread, Ren pulled it out and tried to cut off a sample, but he couldn't cut it normally with just his sword.
Surprised Ren looked at Gaea
「See? I told you it's really strong. Your sword isn't normal but this thing isn't just any kind of thread too~」
「I see. That wasn't a bluff huh」
「Hey!! You're so mean!!」
She hit him on the back.
Ren didn't feel anything other than just a joking strike between friends, but when he glanced at his Status, Ren was stunned.
HP: 42,156/60,000
(What the fuck? I had full 60,000 just now!?)
Due to his absurd defense, Ren took that hit casually just like he usually did back in high school when he was hanging around with his male friends.
But the sudden drop in HP despite his defense made Ren curious and called up Gaea's Status while staring at her.
「He? What...is it?」
《No Name》
Race: Gaea
Level: SSS
Type: Racial Guardian
HP: 3,500,000/3,500,000
MP: 2,200,000/2,200,000
An ancient spirit of the forest born from a special individual among dryads and nymphs.
Strength: 5300
Agility: 5900
Intelligence: 6200
A freezing chill instantly went down Ren's spine. He instinctively jumped a big step back breaking cold sweat all over his body.
Ren hurriedly put his stats on 10,000. A big surge of magical energy escaped his body.
「Uwhoaa!! W-What are you doing!?」
Ren cursed himself for being too careless.
Because of the sudden events, Ren didn't look at her status from the beginning, resulting in that situation where she could've killed him easily even with his equipment on.
Certainly, all of Ren's equipment was A+, but against an SSS creature that is on par with an Elder Dragon, he is nothing without tuning his stats up. Just a serious skill from Gaea could've sent Ren straight back to the God wearing butler suit while he wasn't being on guard about his status.
「You. You lied, you said you couldn't do anything to me but in fact you could've killed me」
「......so you found out. I don't know how, but this is interesting......」
「Why did you do that?」
「Err......I simply just wanna play......it's lonely being the strongest one around you know? Besides, just now you also showed your true self. You're two times stronger than me, so isn't it all good?」
Gulping his saliva, Ren cursed himself the second time for being too careless.
While it's true that he wouldn't be scared of her even if he checked her Status since the beginning, but this kind of mistake could've gotten him killed if it was someone other than Gaea.
(This is my fault for letting my guards down......I don't think I can blame everything on her......)
Exhaling, Ren calmed himself down while adding a new skill to his Status.
It's a skill to conceal his gigantic presence at the moment. Gaea is also using a technique with the same concept to not scare off all the creatures inhabiting the forest.
「Yeah...I guess it's fine since you never did anything...」
「See? Gaea is a good girl~」
Putting out her tongue Gaea winked at Ren with a playful expression, her tone seemed joyous.
「But one more thing」
「Hm? What is it?」
「Gaea isn't your name. That's your Race isn't it?」
「Ohhhh you even found that out. You're really amazing!!」
Clapping her hands, Gaea's eyes shone with admiration as this is the first time she encountered someone who can tell her race apart from her name.
She continued
「Yeah I don't have a name~ Actually all dryads and nymphs don't. We don't have parents, we were born from forest spirits......but since I'm the only Gaea in this forest you can call me by that as my name~」
「Hm hm. I see I see. I learned something new again」
Returning to the bag of spider threads, Ren crouched down and invoked a fire-attribute spell on his sword's blade. This time, the thread was cut easily.
Then he spoke to Gaea without looking up
「Tell me more about you」
「Hm? Me? I'm not an adventurer, I don't have any tales」
「No not your journey, but yourself, who you are, the reason of your existence......」
「Oh I see. But it's not fun」
Not stopping his hand on playing around with the thread, Ren continued speaking to her without looking up
「That's fine. I find it interesting」
「Okay then~」
The two sat down flatly on the roots of a giant tree. Gaea sat in front of Ren face to face and started telling about her story.
Ren, facing her, used magic to mess around with the thread and the gemstone pendant while nodding with a serious face listening to her.
The roles were reversed from a young girl sulking her older brother to an elder sister telling stories to her younger brother.
「......then after I was left out from the dryads......」
「What? Did you really meet with Mother Nature?」
「Yeah yeah!! I was sooooo surprised too!」
Giving himself job 『Craftsman』, Ren gained access to the skill set 『Craftsmanship』.
Within the branches of this skill set there are skills for 『Jewelers』 to process jewelries and accessories.
Using these skills, Ren manipulated the shape of the 7-colored gemstone.
「Then then, I met with this huuuuuuge Treant and he let me stay inside him to maintain my life force」
「What!? No way. There's no way can a tree become that big」
「I'm tellin' the truth!! He was thiiiiiiiiis biiiiiig!! And he believed that I'm a Gaea too」
The final product of Ren messing around with the stone while chatting lively with Gaea is a pendant the size of 2/3 of a person's index finger shaped like a leaf with details carvings of the lines on its surface. A tiny ring was put in as replacement for the leaf's petiole. This is where the string goes through to make it into a simple necklace.
The excited talk of the two carefree people in he middle of the Abyssal Wood carried on as Ren did a final touch by calling up the pendant's status.
Setting its color to a fixed green, the pendant on Ren's palm shone a refreshing shade of transparent green.
Putting it into the silver-colored string that Ren made from the thick thread of the spider, the simple but beautiful necklace was completed.
「DONE!!」
「YAY!!」
Not wasting any moment, Ren leaned forward and put it on Gaea.
The beautiful dryad herself closed her eyes and held out her neck with a warm smile.
Running his hand through her smooth and cool green hair, Ren connected the clasps and the necklace was put on Gaea.
It was a perfect match to her features as a dryad.
「Hm hm. Fufufu it looks super good on you」
Giving a thumbs up, Ren smiled broadly and nodded in satisfaction at his first simple creation.
Staring at the glowing pendant hanging on her neck, Gaea's eyes got a tiny bit moistened but Ren didn't notice this.
Gaea slowly drew closer to him
「Hm? What is—uwaa!!」
She pushed him down and stared at Ren in his eyes with a beautiful smile.
Gaea whispered into Ren's ear
「Now then, it's time for the main dish of "playtime"♥」
「W-What? Main dish?」
Now that Ren tuned his stats up, he's not scared of fighting Gaea, and Gaea herself also knows that she'll lose...
And yet she's still attacking Ren, this makes him feel a bit uneasy.
But in reality,
「Let's begin♥」
Gaea reached for Ren's pants zipper and pulled it down.
The real "fun time" will now begin as the Sun slowly went down the horizon.