Chapter 9 – Night Bats Hunt

With a ferocious grin unbefitting her beautiful face, Ferin swung her swords many times and cut a few Night Bats' wings, rendering them struggling to the floor. They hadn't died yet, but it was just a matter of time.

The rush of the bat hadn't ended. Atlas protected Ferin's back and shot [Mana Bolt] every time the cooldown reset.

As for the girl herself…

"Dadadada!"

Due to her nature as a model, she was quite expressive. She was too spirited and killed as many bats as possible while screaming strangely. 

The notification after the battle was over would be wild. 

After a while, the rush was over. The bats group had already flown away, leaving a few wriggling on the ground without their wings. Ferin ended them with a good stab in the head.

[Ding! 21x Level 4 Night Bats have been defeated!]

[14x Bat Wings obtained.]

[19x Bat Fangs obtained.]

They obtained a lot of EXP from killing them. It was a nice haul, faster than finding and killing Black Wolves. If there was something they didn't like about Bat Cave, it was that the Night Bats were pretty much hiding in the daytime.

"Phew, that was a good workout. Shall we check the trap and proceed to the next place?"

"I hope there are many bats getting caught in the sticky ball." Atlas chuckled as he turned around and began to walk. "If there are more than 6, it will be great. More than that is a bonus."

"Hmm, you set up 3 traps, right? We will certainly get 6 of them, but… Why don't you set up more? That would get us more bats. We're close to level 8." Ferin asked curiously, putting her finger on her lips.

"I just want to keep the other as a precaution in case we encounter the rare monster. I will need at least 5 or 6 of the stickies to slow it down." He answered with an explanation.

The lantern in his hand still glowed brightly, showing them their way out. He extended his hand to make the light reach farther, but it was of no use.

"Well, I don't think we will encounter a rare monster soon, but… You know me."

"The ever so cautious Atlas, I know. Leaving no room for failure, are we?" Ferin giggled cutely.

They had arrived at the spot where Atlas set up the trap soon. With the light from the lantern, they could easily see 8 bats got caught in the sticky balls, unable to fly away.

Without hesitation, Ferin killed them all, putting them just a little bit of EXP away from reaching level 8. Even without looking, Atlas just knew about when to level up from his experience. 

He left everything to Ferin because he wanted to recover the Mana he lost from killing bats earlier.

"Woah, we got lucky." She exclaimed and sheathed her sword. "Three sticky balls for 8 bats? I said that's a fortune!"

"You're right." He nodded in agreement and looked at the corpse disappearing into dozens of hexagons. Then, he looked at the sticky ball that was already ruined. "I don't think we can use them anymore. Let's proceed to the next room."

"Yeah!"

Following that was an extermination. The other rooms weren't as big as the first one, so Atlas only set one trap for an extra bonus monster. He purposely left 5 unused in his inventory as preparation in case they met with the rare monster.

Atlas hardly did any work and only used [Mana Bolt] every now and then. 

It wasn't particularly good when used against small monsters like Night Bats. The efficiency decreased a lot compared to if it was used against a normal monster with a thick defense or strong attack. Only then would it do better than swords.

And after grinding for what seemed like 2 hours, they finally reached it.

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

"Warrior level 9! Finally!" Ferin exclaimed and raised her sword, "With this, we're unbeatable! Hey, do you think that we will get the first world announcement too, At? We totally will get it, right?"

"Obviously." Atlas grinned as he checked his status.

[Mana Bolt] now has increased to level 5. The first, often called basic skill, would keep leveling up every time his class leveled by two until it reached level 10, which was the maximum level. Being level 9 meant he had gained 8 levels, which increased his [Mana Bolt] by 4 levels.

Mostly other skills would need to be used to increase their proficiency to level them up. Some were exceptions, but those were the thoughts for the future.

'We're doing pretty good.' 

He nodded in satisfaction. 

===

Name: Atlas

Race: Archdevil

Class: Mage [9]

Reputation: 10 [Neutral]

HP: 100%

MP: 320

Stats: [STR: 11] [AGI: 11] [MAG: 32] [VIT: 11]

Free Stat Points: 0

Skills:

– Mana Bolt (Lv 5): Launch a bolt of pure mana at a target. Damage scales with MAG x 1.5 [2 MP, 2.6 seconds cooldown]

Attribute:

– Archdevil: You are the Archdevil, born from the deepest of Hell, to experience the world's pleasure. Being a spawn of magic, you can handle magic better than anyone.

Effect: Magic Effectiveness +5%

Title:

– None

===

'If I am not wrong, we killed around 86 Night Bats. After dumping all my free stat points into MAG, it has now reached 32. I will keep dumping the extra free points to MAG as planned until I reach level 20. Then I can buy or learn skills in the next city. Our progress is pretty good.'

"I think it's time to search for that monster. We have finished our preparation."

"About time." She jumped in happiness, her ears moved to show her feelings. "I have been waiting for this."

"Don't rush too much." Atlas smiled softly as he watched Ferin jump up and down in happiness.

Well, maybe letting her act like that was good to ease the tension. Still…

"Fer, let's get going. We don't have a lot of time before the next day's cycle arrives. We need to fill our IRL stomach too, in case you forget."

"Ah!" Ferin stopped moving and turned to him. "You're right. We have to finish this fast. I ordered delivery and it will arrive in an hour. We've spent 7 hours inside the game already, that's why I feel hungry!"

"Yeah, we mustn't spend more than 8 hours on our first day."

His body wasn't used to VR Games yet. These weren't his old ones, which he pushed without thinking of anything. Even then, his old body was a mess because of that. That was why he wanted to take care of himself now that he had a chance. Not just for the sake of the game but also for Ferin's sake.

"But, At. Shouldn't we take care of that first before we're going to find a rare monster?" Ferin turned serious as she glanced at an unassuming dark corridor different from the one they came from.