Hana 11: Go Fish

Demon Lord: Hana Lv. 1

Health Points(HP):       2/2(20)	Strength:                    1/1(10)
Mana Points(MP):        2/2(20)	Intelligence:                1/1(10)
Stamina Points(SP):     2/2(20)	Agility:                        1/1(10)
Willpower Points(WP): 2/2(20)	Resistance:                10%(100%)
Skill Points: 1
Skills: Mana Capacitator; Arachnophobia Lv. MAX; Vulka Lv.1; Intuition Lv. 1; Strong Will Lv. 1; Cornered Animal Lv. 1; Analysis Lv. 3
Statuses: Divine Retribution

 

Aaaagh. I couldn’t do it. Does that make me a coward? They saved me, but now I’m planning to use them as training fodder. I was going to kill them so that I could level up.

Isn’t that kind of messed up?

I put the slime back down as I began to slowly feel sick. Sick of myself, and sick of everything. It was like the world was working to dredge up the worst parts out of me, twist and knot it up, then cram it back in. What even was the point, I began to wonder? If I conquered the world, I would be reunited with my mother. But if I didn’t, then my mother would die again. Does that really matter though? Focker said it himself, didn’t he?

“Dying a second time can’t be that painful right?”

Is this living hell worth it? My body hurts, my mind bends, and my soul aches. Nothing in this place is hospitable. Is my mother even wor-

Stop. STOP. How could I think that? I’m… just a terrible person. I realized early on this was no fairy tale. Everything has been setbacks after setbacks. Time and again, I’d been holding out for a miracle. A silver knight, a legendary sword, blessings of a god, or even cheat-like abilities. Yet, none of these happened. I can’t stop reminding myself, this isn’t a fantasy-like novel where the protagonist’s underdog strength lets them save the day. It’s taken a toll on me, I realized. Subconsciously waiting for some abnormal power to be granted to me.

While there are god-like beings such as Focker, I can’t expect anything from them. I’ll stop waiting for a miracle. I don’t believe in them.

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Haaaaaaah. I’m such an emotional train wreck. I let loose too much there. Focus up, me! There’s work to be done!

Curiously, the slime I put down hadn’t gone back to join the pile, but remained where I left it. If the slimes had no way of leveling up, then wouldn’t they still be level 1? That can’t be the case though. If it was, <<Analyze>> should have worked to scan them. Where then, did the slimes get their exp from?

Although it somewhat disgusts me to think on this again, but it shouldn’t be possible for the slimes to cannibalize each other for exp, like how I’d been planning to use them to level up. If they were to do that, there wouldn’t be such a large pile of slimes before me now.

This leads me to the conclusion that, the slimes must therefore work as a pack to dominate other-wise stronger creatures. The reason they didn’t fight the rat-man earlier was not because they weren’t capable, but because it would put me in danger. This makes some sense, since I don’t think the rat-man’s dagger would hurt a slime very much. They probably could have swallowed it up and suffocated the rat-man if I wasn’t already being carried inside them.

The furry crocodile had probably been tracking the rat-man, and seized the moment of weakness when it attacked us to snap its jaws shut on it. I suppose a meal of meat is much more appetizing than a pile of goop. I can only assume the crocodile didn’t see me as meat, but as goop when I was inside the slimes.

In the end however, this doesn’t actually help me that much. For all the time that I’ve been wandering in this tunnel, there hasn’t been signs of anything. Not that I know how much time has passed. It’s not like I could just ask the slimes what time it is, or even more conveniently, what level they are.

I picked up the solitary slime from the ground again and stared at it. No response.

It’s just a slime.

There’s more than likely an actual communication skill that I can learn that will let me understand what they’re thinking. Some options would be <<Sharp Mind>>, which in AUO was just a skill to let you identify what skills your teammates were using, or <<Monster Language>>, which was just a success booster towards the <<Taming>> skill. I’m assuming their actual usage differs from AUO like how <<Perception>> was morphed into <<Analyze>>.

Although it might seem important to get one of these skills, I only have 1 skill point right now, and no idea when I’ll get the next. It’s downright reckless for me to spend that point right now.

I stretched the slime apart until it was a drooping band hanging between my arms. Still no apparent reaction from it, so I let it return to its normal blob-like form. Talking with the slimes will have to wait for some time I suppose. I decided to hold on to the slime I picked up though.

Maybe it’ll figure out some way to speak by hanging around. And so, I resumed walking down this endless waterway where there’s nothing that can be killed for exp.

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Hey, wait a second, when were there fish in the sewer water? At some point, the murky water had started to gradually get cleaner and less filled with debris. Is that why the fish are here, because it’s cleaner? It was different than the clumps of dirty algae that crowded the sides of fish tanks, I guess. Even fish desire a minimum amount of cleanliness when choosing where to live. But they didn’t look much different from garbage with their mud-like skin and large black eyes.

The water is still rather filthy and smells horrendous though. But that didn’t deter my stomach from causing me pain with hunger pangs, as if yelling at me like a child, “I want fish!” I wasn’t born as some super athletic caveman hunter! I can’t catch fish with my bare hands!

I don’t even know if its safe to try and catch the fish. There might be something lurking beneath the surface like the furry crocodile. Or maybe even the fish are stronger than me? I wouldn’t even be surprised.

My stomach continued to cramp up and grow smaller and smaller as I ignored the fish and continued walking on. Better a death by slow starvation than being beaten down by fish.

Hana 10: Where’s my Trash Mobs?

Demon Lord: Hana Lv. 1

Health Points(HP):       2/2(20)	Strength:                    1/1(10)
Mana Points(MP):        2/2(20)	Intelligence:                1/1(10)
Stamina Points(SP):     2/2(20)	Agility:                        1/1(10)
Resistance:                10%(100%)	Willpower Points(WP): 2/2(20)
Skill Points: 1
Skills: Mana Capacitator; Arachnophobia Lv. MAX; Vulka Lv.1; Intuition Lv. 1; Strong Will Lv. 1; Cornered Animal Lv. 1; Analysis Lv. 3
Statuses: Divine Retribution

 

Looking at my character screen makes me depressed. They say that there’s seven stages of grief, but it’s like I skipped all the steps and went straight to the final phase, acceptance. This is me. This is what I am. That’s okay.

What’s not okay is how I’m going to be totally crushed by anything that even sniffles in my direction. Ya nai. Whether by good or bad fortune, the waterway path I had chosen to go down had absolutely nothing in it. It was a remarkably uneventful trip with the lazy, wispy light of Vulca lighting my way while the slimes followed close behind me.

Given so much free time, my thoughts began to hopelessly drift apart. However, if it had to do with my mother or Focker, I immediately cut off the recollection. That situation was… something I can’t handle right now. As a result, I ended up mostly thinking about how exactly levelling up works.

The miraculous system that can make you stronger, smarter, and faster by accumulating experience points. Or to put it more bluntly, you gained power by killing things. Well, that isn’t always the case though. In AUO, experience could be earned from a variety of activities, mostly in the area of arts and crafts. But the amount earned from that is minuscule at best. It would take 10 or so hours of crafting to level up as opposed to 1 or 2 hours adventuring. Crafting professions were still rather important for making customized gear and it’s not like everyone is a battle nerd. Even if the introduction to the game is steep, the population is still mostly laidback.

If you really wanted to level up, you would join a party that would be running quests or a dungeon at your level range, so you could rack up monster kills, exp, and loot. The only exception would be if you’re a new player, as you were largely on your own up until you reached the Newbie-killer spider. It was impossible to explore new regions until you defeat that boss.

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Was that giant spider from back then the Newbie-killer? I stopped in my tracks. You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way in hell I’m even going near that thing again. But assuming I did need to, there would be low-level mobs for me to farm around here. Not monstrous things like the furry crocodile, or equipped beasts like the rat-man. Therefore, I can conclude that since there are no trash mobs, there is no need to kill the Newbie-killer.

I turned around to find my new faithful pack of slimes still following me. No trash mobs, right?

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The <<Perception>> skill allows you to see the stats of an enemy, such as health points, strength, or even its skills. At least that’s how the skill worked in AUO. It was a staple in all builds and it was recommended that at least half the players in a party have it. Information was the key to winning at anything.

But Focker took that skill away from me and replaced it with <<Analyze>>. Something about it being deprecated? If I had to guess, the skill must have changed in this new world. The <<Perception>> skill will increase the sensitivity of the 5 senses, allowing you to detect things better, whereas the newly developed skill <<Analyze>> does what the old <<Perception>> skill did, and retrieves data on a target. That’s probably why I developed <<Arachnophobia>>, since my existing fear of spiders was transformed into a traumatic experience. Sensory overload you might say. It somewhat puzzles me as to why two wholly different effects would be tied together as an old, deprecated skill and a newer one though.

Anyhow, the important thing is to <<Analyze>> the slimes and see if they’re trash mobs. I fully expect that to be the case. They’re slimes after all.

???: ??? Lv. ???

Stats: ???

Status: ???

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I covered my face with the palm of my hand. Am I an idiot? I’m an idiot. I’m weaker than even a slime right now. The conditions to use <<Analyze>> are that you must be equal to or higher level than them, but I’m level 1 so it obviously wont work no matter what I use the skill on.

In order to determine what level they are, I’d have to be higher level than them to begin with. But that means having to beat down monsters to get exp, of which there are none. It’s a rather contradictory situation. Unless..

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I crouched down to pick up one of the slimes while holding the rusty dagger in my other hand. Thankfully, it seemed to realize that I wanted to pick it up, so my hand didn’t phase through it. Either that or it’s afraid of me touching its core. A terrifying experience for both of us. It really is just a blob of basically gel-like liquid. There’s no eyes or mouth, and you can only barely see the transparent core hidden in its bodies. No doubt if I had a marker, I would draw a face on. Not that slimes have faces. There had to be some secret to this creature in how it was able to survive and level up.

The question is, how? There’s nothing that can obviously be hunted by slimes down here. The only things I had seen were spiders, a rat-man, and a furry crocodile, which were all way out of a slime’s league.

If there’s nothing to kill for exp, then you can’t level up. And if you can’t level up, then there is a major issue. There’s no doubt that this world is centered around the concept of “levels”. Levels dictate your health, strength, and most importantly, skill points. If you don’t have a sufficient level or good skills, you’d simply be killed off by monsters or other people. Without power, you cannot attain your goals.

There’s already a source of exp within reach right now. The slime continued to wiggle around on my hand, seemingly oblivious to the situation.