2.2

After finishing my meal I put back the Bandits' Intelligence Cards, equip the Copper Sword and slowly make my way into the woods near the village. Strangely enough, not a single monster appeared even after I've been heading straight ahead for about 10 minutes. Normally when it comes to games, I'd have been attacked as soon as taking less than 10 paces outside the village, which should be considered as a safe zone for the players (in this particular case, myself), but no, there wasn't even one random encounter yet. I was honestly kinda disappointed, but at the same time some part of me felt relieved that I didn't have to fight anything yet. Oh, while we're at it, I also wondered why would anyone build a village in a spot full of monsters that were too tough for ordinary people to defeat by themselves? Seems needlessly hazardous and counterproductive to me. Also, since I am finally alone with myself, there's something I want to try.

「Intelligence Card, open!」

You know what happened? Yah, that's right, you guessed it: big fat nothing happened. But it's okay, this time I knew it would happen because the spell was not the same as when the Village Chief did it and I am not the kind of person who would memorize an entire spell after only listening to it once. So now I know that even for my own Intelligence Card this funky incantation is a must. And since I have firmly established that now, I can proceed forward without worrying about it too much.

Not long after I reached the thicker part of the woods I finally stumbled upon some strange animal, covered with white fur, about 50 cm long in total. Could this be the Slow Rabbit? I focused my gaze on it and used Identify and this is what came up:

「Slow Rabbit, Lv1」

Okay, so Identify works on other things than myself and the NPC's without any problems. Thankfully this guy is just Lv1. But then, why would the villagers have difficulties fighting something that has to basically be this world's equivalent of a Slime from other RPG's, meaning the weakest monster possible? I better remain cautious not to have my ass handed to me on a silver platter. I mean how big of a laughingstock would I be if something like that defeated me after I slew so many higher-leveled Bandits essentially by myself? I don't know how big of a wallop this guy actually packs, so I think it would be better for me to use Durandal here instead of a simple Copper Sword.

I opened up my Status screen and went through another Character Reset, switching back to my original settings where I had 64 Bonus Points to use by returning to the 1/5 EXP Required and Obtained EXP x5 and putting them all into Bonus Weapon 6 and since that upgrade cost 63 Bonus Points total, I had 1 Point remaining. Now what should I use it for?

Maybe… Meteor Crash? The description says that it is a very powerful offensive magic, so having it around might prove useful if I ever find myself to be in a tight spot. I confirmed the selection of Meteor Crash and ended the Character Reset there. Durandal appeared in my left hand on its own.

Initially I thought that if I used magic I wouldn't have to resort to using Durandal, but just in case I won't be able to finish that monster off with a single blow it will be my backup plan. I placed it at my waist, but moving around with two swords equipped on me proved to be more than a little difficult, probably because I was not used to it, so I decided to just leave the Copper Sword leaning against a nearby tree. Now I unsheathed Durandal and grabbed it firmly with both my hands.

Looks like the Slow Rabbit hasn't noticed me yet. This might be my chance to one shot it with a surprise attack! Here it goes!

「Meteor Crash!」

I yelled that out loud at the top of my lungs.

But nothing happened. And nothing changed. I just stood there, staring at the rabbit like an idiot while he also looked at me with a question mark above its head. Really now, all that I need now to complete this scene are the cricket noises and some tumbleweed rolling in the background. Thank God we are so deep in the forest where no one could witness that epic fail of mine!

The spell! I didn't chant the spell's formula, that's probably why it didn't work!

As soon as I thought about that, the chant for Meteor Crash appeared in my mind. Okay, all right, sounds easy enough. Let's try using it now, hopefully to good effect.

「From beyond the infinite universe, the will of the sky is to diminish, destroy! METEOR CRASH!!!!」

I thought I nailed the incantation on the head this time, but once again nothing happened. But I finally noticed why. I didn't have enough MP to cast the spell. Strange. I have eaten more than enough and I am definitely not tired. Moreover, my MP that I lost after using the Fire Rapier should have also been replenished already. But if the spell refused to activate even after all of that, then there is only one possible explanation for this: the Villager's Job MP total at Lv2 was simply too low to use a spell such as Meteor Crash.

All this time, the Slow Rabbit just stood there and did nothing, looking at me as if I was some kinda exotic peculiarity. Oi, if you really are a monster, shouldn't you be running away from humans as soon as you see one?! Or maybe it wasn't afraid because it was actually so strong that it thought a single person wasn't enough to even scratch it after it learned that the villagers needed to hunt them down in groups? Well, guess what, buddy, here's some Holy Sword for you to taste! Let's see how tough you will be after I give you a good old stabby-stab where the sun doesn't shine!

With that I rushed at the monster and slashed it diagonally from top down. The sword digs into the rabbit's flesh as if it was cutting through butter, shredding him almost in half without any difficulties. The Slow Rabbit, a monstrosity that required a group of villagers to defeat just a single one, fell to the ground, lifeless. All it took was literally one blow and it was over. After a few seconds its body began to emit puffs of green smoke before it melted away into nothingness. All that was left of it after the smoke cleared was a tuft of white, soft fur. Upon closer examination, it was the supposed drop item, The Rabbit's Fur. So that's what Chief was talking about when he was saying that they were able to salvage the fur out of the one rabbit they managed to slay. I took the fur and placed it in my inventory and returned to the place where I have left the Copper Sword. Using Durandal honestly felt like too much of an overkill for the opponents of such a low caliber, but there was always a possibility that I can bump into much stronger monsters while casually strolling through the woods or that only this particular Slow Rabbit happened to be weak as shit. With that thought in mind, I decided to explore the depths of the forest for a little while longer.

Not long after that first encounter I happened upon two more Slow Rabbits, but they were much the same as the first one: one-shotted with Durandal's single slash, so yeah, using the Holy Sword to fight them definitely felt like I was cheating, but on the other hand I now had 3 pieces of Rabbit's Fur instead of one, so I guess I wasn't really in the position to complain or anything. But when the next battle comes around, maybe I will try using the Copper Sword instead of Durandal, just to give those poor mobs an actual fighting chance, or maybe reset my character entirely again …

Huh? What's this?

I should have no Bonus Points remaining, but for some reason my status screen says that I have 1 more point to use. Could it be that you automatically get Bonus Points over time? That's pretty neat. Okay, but for now I will discard Bonus Weapon 6 and put my Bonus Points between 1/20 EXP Required and Obtained EXP x10. The Bonus Points are now 0. With Meteor Crash still marked as checked, it is much better usage of the points than before. With my preparations finished, it's time to go look for another Slow Rabbit to check how the current settings I am rocking will fare in actual combat.

The Copper Sword's performance was obviously not as good as Durandal's, but all things considered it wasn't that bad either. At least I didn't one-shot the like before, but it didn't change the fact that even such a basic sword tore through their flesh without any major difficulties, maybe not cleaving them cleanly in half but digging pretty deeply into them.

But I have to tell you, the Slow Rabbit I'm fighting now is pretty tanky. It withstood not only my first attack, but also a second slash that came right after the first one, and it even managed to strike me with a counterattack. Or it would have if I didn't manage to avoid it in the nick of time. We exchanged two blows. This time its hits connected, but the resulting damage wasn't all that impressive. Nevertheless, I have to remain cautious at all times. Even the most insignificant of hits can turn lethal if they'd be allowed to pile up. The one saving grace here was that my enemy wasn't able to move very fast. It was a rabbit, after all. But just when I thought that, it did something totally unexpected which caught me totally off guard.

It jumped towards my throat with its bared teeth!