Chapitre 11: Slimy Foe
Deciding to push forward, I let Ophelia kill the next creatures until she too hit 5th, hoping for her to develop a more effective healing spell.
"Hey Fionn, I broke through," she said, a smile plastered on her face as if the tiredness had never been there. "The new spells an offensive spell, sorry. Searing Ray. It seems to produce a beam of light so intense that it burns whatever it touches it."
Slightly worried about being blasted by this new spell in the back of the head, I say jokingly, "good thing you worked on your accuracy huh?" A snort came from the girl, displeased by my distrust.
As the two of us were 5th level, we decide to hunt some wolves, which although G-rank, and thus weak, travelled in packs and were quick. Making them a valid target to test our survivability in facing an F rank later. Between Ophelia's crossbow bolts, which although not an example of marksmanship, would pierce straight through the fur of the animals, and provided support for me, who took the brunt of the attacks.
*Current XP- 41/250*
The slaughter of 8 wolves proved our ability together, and so we moved to the F-rank border, chatting quietly about our plans for the time before the exam. The chatter suddenly stopped, silenced by the grunting noises of a small boar, seemingly a G-rank animal, which Ophelia put a bolt in before I could stop her.
*XP gained +5*
"Rreee!" A loud screech came from behind us, and without looking I push Ophelia to the side, rolling to the side myself to avoid standing too close to her. The boar in front of us, similar to the one we killed a few days ago, large and with long, sturdy tusks, screeched again, dead set on crushing Ophelia, who had scampered behind a rock. The animal, obviously a parent of the dead child moved to sidestep the rock, putting it only a few feet from me. Lunging out and slashing at the back leg, a thumping sound carries through the air as the boar's leg collapses, its knee tendons cut like the strings of a puppet. The boar, now focusing on the new threat, uses its three legs to lurch towards me.
"Searing Light," Ophelia calls, and with it, a blinding ray of light comes from her pointed finger, straight into the eyes of the boar. The now blind and crippled boar began winging its tusks at random, desperate to defend itself, however, we do not approach, simply letting it tire itself out. With its incredible stamina it took almost 3 minutes of its desperate attacks to tire the animal, after which I threw a rock in the opposite attention, and the moment it turned towards the sound, I swung my blade, cutting deeply into its neck.
*XP gained +25*
Taking the tusks and gallbladder, we move on, finding a spattering of blue in the forest of greens and brown. A lake expanded onwards, peaceful, quiet and calm, with birds flying down and drinking in the water. There was neither sight nor sound of an enemy, but the feeling of the tongue smacking me into the dirt was definitely noticed.
*HP lost -17*
Looking at the origin of the tongue I see the camouflaged frog, so large that now it wasn't hiding it couldn't be missed. Bigger than a horse-drawn carriage, its purple, bumpy skin glistened in a substance I assumed it secreted, both slimy and toxic. Ophelia responded to the attack, firing a bolt into the frog's front leg, however, the amphibious bastard was targeting me still as if having found the biggest fly for lunch. Readying myself for the next blow I swung at its flying tongue, smacking it away and freezing the edge of its tongue, limiting its flexibility. Approaching it cautiously, focused on parrying the rapidly striking tongue, I was suddenly in the shade, the creature having decided to crush me with its body as it leapt. Throwing myself to the side I manage to dodge the falling creature, but the movement, although saving me from being crushed, left me vulnerable to the frog's tongue, grabbing at me. The tongue, pinning my arms to my body tried to get a firm grasp on my squirming body.
*Breaker of Chains Activated*
The tongue, seemingly incapable of grip onto me firmly, slipped and slid over my body, coating me in spit and mucous. Stepping back and slicing down as my arms were released, I cut halfway through its tongue, freezing it further.
"Searing light," a brilliant light flew overhead, scorching the throat of the beast. The beast, having deemed the meal not worth its injuries, moved to flee.
"Oh no, you fucking don't!" I cry, charging at it like an enraged bull, and with a mighty two-handed blow, cutting from its left cheek to its right hip, the monster fell, leaving me wet, slimy and sore.
*XP gained +25*
Deciding to test my self-healing skill, the speed at which I healed was indeed monstrous.
*Barely a scratch activated*
My cracked ribs and sore muscles healing at a noticeable pace were comforting, but the drain of stamina was worrying, 50 points for the first 5%, then 20 per 5%. However, unlike what the skill described I had no issue moving around, and the skill continued despite my movement.
*Breaker of Chains Activation system notification will not appear when caused by the User's skills*
'Oh, well yeah I guess that makes sense.'
Ophelia walked up to me, her eyes pleading, "seeing as you're already covered in that stuff," she pointed towards the frog, the question fading from her lips as she smiled brightly at me.
"I don't understand what people want the mucous gland from a frog for anyway," I complain, having spent 10 minutes carefully extracting the gland without directly touching the dead frog's skin.
"It's used in alchemy as a binding agent, and in some moisturisers, therefore it's valuable."
Taking this time to eat the hearts of the frog, boar and 4 wolves I killed today, I split the points between Strength and Constitution.
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Strength- 19, Agility- 20, Stamina- 11, Constitution- 16, Charisma- 6
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On the way back through the woods, as the walled city appeared through the trees, Ophelia mentions that she will only be able to continue hunting for the rest of this week, meaning that in 3 days, I would have to continue alone. 'Seeing as I'll have to stop soon that's not much of a hassle, but not having a healer when I push for 7th is a little worrying.' Selling the materials, the frog scored us 15 gold each, the remainder only earning us 20 gold total, demonstrating the value of the frog's spit.
*Gold Remaining- 78*
Walking through my front door and unstrapping my gear, I see Benji sitting awkwardly on my couch, my father talking to him about Benji's dad's job. Looking up at me in relief at his escape he then looked away awkwardly, as if unsure to broach the subject. Saved by my mother inviting him to eat dinner with us, we tuck into some goose meat, reminding me of the bastard bird that headbutted me a few days ago. Looking over at Benji, a smirk appeared on his face, seemingly remembering the same monstrous piece of poultry.
"So do you think you boys will have reached 5th by next week?" Not even letting us answer she turns to Benji, "dear, I ask you to push our Fionn, he's not much of a fighter and he has always put things off till the last minute." Before Benji can question, or worse refute my mother I butt in.
"We're both level three mother, Benji's almost level 4 in fact," the lie slipped so easily from my mouth that it took Benji a few seconds to realise what I had said. His face was a mask of confusion, but my parents so busy glaring at me for interrupting didn't notice.
"Umm, yeah Ms Malkor, we're both at third, so we are ahead of most, in fact, some of the guys I saw today in the market were still level one."
My father Oliver, chuckled at their ineptitude, "as if it wasn't hard enough reaching 5th level in under 2 weeks, they want to try in almost 1? They must have been raised fools, " he said, adding under his breath, "or cowards."
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone