Chapter 20
「Uncle, look over there!」
「Oh! Alright. Rapid Thrust!」
Isamu fires off his special move towards the golden rabbit-shaped monster known as a Golden Almirage.
He closes in at a surprising speed and unleashes a flurry of consecutive stabs, but――
「Dammit! Not again!」
His sword only pierces empty space.
The golden shiny rabbit is already nowhere to be seen.
This makes five times now.
「It escaped again… That rabbit is way too fast, it’s not fair!」
「Yeah. But I’m sure it’ll pop out again soon, so let’s get it next time for sure!」
Although Golden Almirages are rare monsters, apparently their spawn rate isn’t that low, allowing encounters roughly every 5 minutes or so.
However, they are exceptionally quick on their feet. You can run into them, but can’t seem to defeat them.
This was something Isamu had heard from Kaito and the others, but he never imagined it would be to this extent.
It seems their only hope is to luckily come across the specific monster they mentioned.
「Are there really ones that don’t run away? So far they’ve all escaped…」
「Yeah. My friends told me before that they do exist.」
Golden Almirages generally flee at speeds so fast you’d think they teleported. However, there are apparently some brave individuals that go on the offensive.
Those are the only ones you can defeat.
In other words, to gain an immense amount of experience points, you need to encounter an even rarer monster among the already rare ones.
「I see… Alright then, Shuka! Want to keep at it a bit longer?」
「Mhm! Shuka will do her best!」
「Okay, in that case, let’s head over this way――」
Isamu and Shuka continued roaming around the Red Jungle for a time.
「Ah, there’s one!」
Nana spotted a new Golden Almirage.
「Got it. Let’s go, Shuka!」
「Okay! Here we go!」
「「Rapid Thrust! 」」
Isamu and Shuka activate their special moves simultaneously and close in on their target.
(Oh!)
Unexpectedly, this Golden Almirage doesn’t flee and instead charges towards them.
Thanks to that, the two crimson swords beautifully strike its golden body.
＜Your level has increased to 16＞
After repeatedly stabbing it, the valiant golden shiny rabbit soon vanishes and a system message pops up.
(Woohoo! We did it!)
Isamu’s level, which hadn’t risen after defeating nearly 10 regular Almirages, suddenly jumped up by 3 levels all at once.
「Yay!」
「We did it, Shuka!」
Isamu and Shuka high five each other, sharing in the joy.
Nana runs over to them and speaks.
「Nice job! My level shot up to 17 all at once!」
「Shuka’s at level 16 now too!」
「Same here, level 16! Whew, that was definitely worthwhile.」
「Totally! At this rate, if we can get one more… Oh shoot! I need to log off soon.」
Prompted by Nana’s words, Isamu checks the time on his menu window and sees it’s just before 11 PM.
More time had passed than he realized.
「Oh wow, you’re right. Shuka, you should wrap up the game for today too.」
「Aw, but Shuka’s not sleepy yet!」
「Shuka, don’t you have school tomorrow? And remember, didn’t your dad say before that you’re only allowed to play games ‘until 11 PM’?」
「Mrgh… Then I guess I’ll stop for today…」
「Good girl! Okay, let’s head back to town and call it a day. What about you, Tutorial Guy?」
Nana pets Shuka’s head while asking Isamu.
Normally this would be about the time for him to log off too, but he started late today so he’s not tired yet.
He also wants to raise his level a bit more.
With that in mind, Isamu decides to stay in the Red Jungle and continue hunting Golden Almirages.
「I’ll stick around here a bit longer. Thanks for playing with me today, you two!」
「Is that so? No, thank you for joining us!」
「Uncle, let’s play together again sometime!」
「Sure thing! See you later, Shuka!」
「Alright then, we’ll be heading out. Good night!」
With that, the two of them left.
(Playing together with others really is fun. Okay, time for one more push… But first――)
Isamu opens his menu window again, first disbanding the party.
Then he navigates to the Skill Point Allocation page, intending to allocate the points he gained.
「This should work for now.」
Mumbling to himself, he puts all his points into one-handed swords.
＜You have learned the One-Handed Sword skill: Flying Edge＞
(Oh! I learned something new!)
He hadn’t allocated points this far in the beta test, so this skill was still unseen.
(Let’s see here…? Whoa, a flying slash! Well, that’s a staple move.)
「Alright! Flying Edge!」
Isamu immediately activates the newly learned skill. His body moves as if swinging the sword upwards from below.
At the same time, the sword’s trajectory materializes into a crescent shape that flies out at incredible speed.
(I see, so this lets me attack enemies at a distance. Handy, but it overlaps a bit with Fireball’s role. Oh well, it’s fine.)
He intends to reallocate his skill points again after raising his level a bit more anyway.
So for now, Isamu decides not to worry too much about his skill composition and resumes his Golden Almirage hunt.
☆
「Hmm… None around.」
Due to the poor visibility, it’s hard for him to find his target golden shiny rabbits on his own.
Even if the experience gets split, having multiple people seems more efficient after all.
「And so, I swung my sword down like whoosh!」
「Yeah yeah, I heard that earlier―― Oh! Isn’t that Tu-Guy over there?」
「Ah, you’re right! Hey, Tutorial Guy!」
Suddenly addressed by voices from behind, Isamu turns around to see three familiar faces.
It’s the players he gave guidance to before.
「Oh, you guys are the ones from last time…」
「Yep, thanks a bunch for that! So, Tu-Guy hunting Gol-Rages too?」
(I guess they do abbreviate it to Gol-Rage…)
「Yeah, I am.」
「Cool! Say, wanna join our party then? It’s easier to find them with more people, right?」
「Huh? Are you sure?」
「’Course! We’d be happy to have you, Tutorial Guy.」
「In that case, I’d love to!」
「Great, I’ll send ya an invite right now――」
Afterwards, Isamu hunted Golden Almirages together with his former students, bantering cheerfully all the while.
As a result, they were lucky enough to take one down. Once Isamu’s level reached 18, he ended the game session along with them.
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