In the jungle,
Aaron trudged eastward, his steps uneven on the forest floor. Perhaps because he was still in the outermost area, after walking for quite some time he had not run into any beasts, let alone monsters.
Bzzz—
A faint flutter of wings sounded as something lifted off from a branch.
It was a strange insect about the length of a thumb, bright green like a caterpillar but with a pair of thin, translucent wings.
The winged caterpillar slid off a green leaf and drifted slowly downward toward Aaron.
Just as it reached the air above his head,
his iron sword traced an arc, cutting the creature cleanly in two. The two halves dropped to the ground.
"EXP +1."
A faint, fishy smell spread in the air.
Poisonous?
Aaron gave it a casual glance, not even slowing his pace as he moved on.
Unfortunately,
without any detection spells, he had to judge everything with his own senses.
Right now, his HP, physical attack, and agility were all at 73 points.
HP aside,
he had recently tested his 73 physical attack. With a full-force swing of his iron sword, it took only three strikes to chop through a tree as thick as a man's chest.
Barehanded,
a full-power punch left a fist mark sunk half a fist deep in the trunk.
As for Agility, the numbers were less intuitive, but Aaron knew his five senses and overall perception had sharpened dramatically.
With 63 Agility a short while back, when he'd faced that thief who had to be at least level 8, what would have looked blindingly fast to a normal person had seemed merely "normal" to him—if anything, a bit slow.
The Rock party was the group of adventurers he knew best, and among them, Captain Dosari was clearly the strongest.
Now, Aaron felt he should be stronger than Dosari.
On top of that,
he did not just have Martial Arts; he also had skills and spells.
In a straight-up fight, he had no absolute confidence. But in an ambush, he was fairly sure he could wipe out the entire Rock party—though he would almost certainly get hurt in the process.
Going from total weakling to someone with strength comparable to a Silver-ranked party, Aaron could not help but marvel at how terrifying the innate [Player] ability really was.
Two hundred years ago, during the age of the Thirteen Heroes, it was precisely because the player leading them had grown so strong so quickly that the Platinum Dragon Lord had begun to fear him.
He pressed on.
The truly troublesome part of the forest was not the obvious beasts and monsters, but the brightly colored insects, most of which were highly venomous.
With his agility, Aaron did not really fear surprise attacks from bugs, but dealing with them was still annoying, and the EXP they gave was always in the single digits.
It seriously slowed his progress.
Crack.
A fallen branch snapped under his boot with a clear, crisp sound.
In the outer forest full of insect chirps and rustling leaves, it was not especially loud, but Aaron stopped anyway.
"Finally, a decent piece of prey. This is your territory, isn't it?" he said, turning his head to look to his left.
There,
where a few thick branches from several trees crossed, a creature with pure black scales dappled with pale green spots lay coiled in the leaves, motionless.
Thankfully, it was daytime.
Even hidden among the foliage, its long, slender outline was still faintly visible. At night, Aaron doubted he would have noticed it at all.
Earlier,
he had already sensed something was off. Though this was still the forest's edge, he had run into far fewer beasts than expected as he advanced.
There was really only one likely explanation.
This was the territory of a relatively powerful beast or monster.
And sure enough, it looked like he had guessed right.
He swept his gaze over the black shape in the leaves. Its body had to be at least a meter thick.
But what was it, exactly?
Narrowing his eyes, Aaron raised his iron sword in front of his chest.
Rustle, rustle—
Leaves scraped against each other in a sound like wind in the trees.
The hidden creature had clearly realized it had been spotted. A red, forked tongue flicked out of its mouth as it stared at the human trespassing in its territory.
An instant later,
its black-green body shot out of the foliage like a spring released, maw gaping as it lunged down toward Aaron.
Under the dappled sunlight, its black-green scales gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen.
At that moment, Aaron finally identified it.
A snake.
And not just any snake—a massive serpent more than six meters long, as thick as two human thighs together.
The black-green serpent launched itself at him, its reeking jaws snapping down at his head.
Aaron quickly swung his iron sword with all his strength, chopping toward its skull.
Thud!
The blade slammed into the open mouth with a dull impact. Sparks flew as steel met the black scales.
Hard.
Aaron's eyes narrowed.
"Hissss!"
The serpent hissed in pain, its six-meter body twisting as its thick tail whipped around from behind.
The whipping tail cut the air with a sharp, humming whine.
At the sight,
Aaron pressed his right-hand sword harder against the serpent's head to keep it from biting him, while his left hand snatched another iron sword from his Item Box and slashed toward the incoming tail.
Thud!
Another heavy impact rang out.
The force of the blow drove Aaron a step back, his left shoulder rolling with it, but he managed to block the tail strike.
"Hissss!"
With the middle of its length braced against the ground, the serpent coiled its entire front half and tail around him, its body writhing.
It seemed intent on wrapping around and crushing him, using the classic constricting attack snakes were so good at to kill its prey.
But Aaron leveraged his superior agility, dual-wielding swords to hold off its head and tail while steadily giving ground.
"Its scales are tough, and its body is slick. Brute force alone won't be enough to break it."
He kept hacking at the serpent's body, but the results were minimal.
If it were just hard, that would be one thing. But the slickness of its scales meant his blows lost a lot of force on contact.
He had thought it was just an oversized snake-like beast. Now it was clear this was a full-fledged monster.
In this world, the difference between beasts and monsters was fairly straightforward: anything with special abilities counted as a monster.
Seeing the human in front of it fail to pierce its scales, the black-green serpent's amber eyes lost some of their earlier caution.
It began to abandon parts of its defense, attacking more wildly.
Thump!
Its thick tail smashed into Aaron's iron sword again, the force even stronger than before.
"That should be enough."
Aaron's expression did not change. He had more or less figured out the serpent's attack patterns.
With his speed, it would not be hard to break away from it.
But this was an excellent pile of EXP.
Thud!
He stomped heavily on the ground and sprang backward in a quick leap, deliberately making it look like he was trying to run.
______
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