Translation: DarkHeartedAlchemist
Editor: Weasalopes

I arrive at the misty spring.

There are several tents scattered about.

Were those made by the other visiting players?

Looks like I was not the only one who came here to train.

Well, nothing I can do about it now.

I take my seat at the desk near the spring and prepare my ingredients.

The main ingredient is going to be tsurami, cheek meat, in other words.

This is going to be fun.

I summon Bunraku and call Obsidian back.

We"ll leave the process of the actual cooking to her.

I happily set out.

I"m going on a hunt for the claws of the Plains Lion and obsidian.

It"s for the sake of creating a Bagh Nakh.

Made of lion"s claws, obviously.

The process of creating one is actually very simple: all you have to do is to soften the obsidian with Lava Magic"s Shape Change spell and combine the lion"s claws with it.

The whole procedure takes only a few minutes from start to finish.

I check the finished product"s quality with 【Identify】.

【Weapon: Striking 】 Plains Lion"s Bagh Nakh  Quality C+ Rarity 4

Ap +3  Weight 0+  Durability 70

Ignore Defense 【Slight 】 Attribute Earth

A weapon effective at both slashing and striking, ineffective against armor and helmets.

Has a slight chance of ignoring defense while dealing damage.

Ahhh.

So it"s a defense ignoring weapon, huh?

I can definitely put it to good use, then.

Next, I decided to excavate Ancient Stones for a while.

By the time I was done, it looked like the cooking was finished.

Good timing, I daresay, perfect even.

And I even got a crystal as one of the drops.

【Material 】 Fume Crystal  Quality C+ Rarity 3 Weight 0+

Dark colored crystal, also known as Smoky Quartz. Often used in enchanting due to its high transparency and magic absorption capabilities.

Processing the crystals is quite difficult, so it"d be wise to just hold on to it for now until I"ve acc.u.mulated more of them.

I"m sure I"ll find some use for it eventually.

The thick sliced cheek meat is just as soft and juicy as it should be.

I eat that delicious meal with great pleasure.

I call Bunraku back after it finished cleaning up.

Initially I was going to summon Obsidian next, but in the end I decided on Heather instead.

She seems more than capable of coping for herself now.

Her MP Recovery coupled with Zangetsu"s support will make a nice combination.

What I need to be really wary of, is the presence of other players.

If I just train carelessly without minding my surroundings, I will just end up causing trouble for them.

I slowly made my way west while Helix observed the ground from the skies above me.

While on the way I happened upon a flock of Centaurs.

They were split into two smaller groups, ideal for the training of my spells.

Combining the taunt and multi-target skills, I shoot my spells towards enemies who are charging straight towards me.

After they crashed into two of my wall spells, almost 80% of them were killed in an instant.

Well, that"s one less threat to worry about.

But then again, they say that moderation is best, so from now on I"ll try my best to keep the monster genocide to a minimum.

After the battle was over, I began to loot and skin the corpses of the centaurs.

My spoils of war were quite satisfying.

I looted three more sirloins off of them, so my mood was quite good.

Is this enough for the time being?

So, what should I do now?

Let"s go further west.

Yes, west it is then!

I"ve come so far already that I just can"t resist the temptation of exploring as far as I can!

Maybe I should try a W4 map now?

Some distance away from there seemed to be a carrion raid going on, but I was not interested in it in the slightest.

If there is some new landscape that I have never seen before, then of course I"d like to see it with my own eyes.

According to the world map, I should be reaching the W4 section soon.

The gra.s.s under my feet becomes more and more dry with every step I take.

That"s right, the scenery around me is much like the one seen in Africa.

Glancing at the world map again, I have reached W4 now.

Compared to W3, this section of the world has a much more savage feeling to it.

And there are monsters I have never seen before in my life here.

b.l.o.o.d.y Tumbleweed Lv 3

Monster Target Subjugation Active

Battle position: ground  earth resistance wind resistance

It was that thing which you often see in westerns: A ball of rolling dried gra.s.s.

The only difference was that it was a sentient one, and it rolled towards me with a clear intent of ending my life.

Looking at it up close, it was actually pretty big for a tumbleweed.

Kind of like a s...o...b..ll rolling from the top of the hill, but with gra.s.s.

And it"s fast.

So fast in fact that Zangetsu had to save me from being squashed flat.

I tried to attack it with my rod, using its length to my advantage, but it was like stabbing a cushion with a toothpick.

In other words, not very effective.

That"s why I used a spell.

I had no other choice but to use it.

In order to burn the gra.s.s away.

「Fire Shot!」

Just as you"d expect from a pile of dry gra.s.s, it burned quite nicely.

But it was not over. The monster was still alive, and now I was chased by a rolling ball of fire!

Its appearance scarred me. It"s just too scary! And even scarier was the fact that it was perfectly logical!

So I had no choice but to run like h.e.l.l until the monster"s HP bar dropped to 0.

A pity it had to end like this, but that"s just how it works. And that terrifies me.

Like every other human being, I"m terrified of the things that I do not know.

What should I do now?

I think I"ll have to use fire magic after all.

I wonder if I"ll get used to it.

Oh and by the way, the monster that chased me dropped nothing.

This first encounter with the local wildlife turned out to be a complete and utter failure.

I found a place that looked like a dried river.

So apparently this place had a rainy season and a dry season just like any other regions?

The surrounding area was also filled with greenery.

And I also saw a familiar-looking monster from the W3 region: A Steppe Lion. A whole pack of them.

The females were all grouped together while the males kept a watchful eye on them from the distance.

This whole scene looked so… pa.s.sive.

So I did not start a battle.

Why, you ask? I thought it was obvious.

Because of how beautiful this is.

Almost like… like it"s a safari.

And speaking of safari, are there any old-school rhino"s around here?

Panzer Rein Lv2

Monster Target Subjugation Active

Battle position: ground

Is that a rhino?

It"s so cool!

Although I think that it"s name has been poorly translated, but now"s not the time to dwell on the small details!

Oh no, I"m getting swept up by the tension.

I have no time for aimless sightseeing.

I have to rush.

Because it"s active.

What kind of opponent is he.

Terrific, to describe him in a single word.

None of my normal attacks could even graze his thick armor, even as I tried to harm it over and over again.

As a result, both my arms were totally numb from the numerous failed strikes with the Rod of Torture.

Should I use a spell?

It might just work.

Unlike my physical attacks, a magical one will probably hit him for sure, but if his magic resistance is also as tough as his physical one, then I don"t even want to think about how many spells I"d be forced to waste on him.

Maybe I should try to stop him?

But he just powered through Root Snare.

Paralysis was not very effective either, just like darkness which I tried using next.

Then maybe confusion?

Nah, it looks like his current status is enraged, so that probably won"t work either.

All that delay did was lowering his AGI and DEF values.

What in the h.e.l.l is this?

Of course, my summons were also attacking him.

But no matter what they did to him, he looked like he gave no f*cks about it.

As if he was bored with my monster team, he continued to aim for me.

This guy is seriously terrifying!

Finally, I used my wall spells in a desperate attempt to bring his HP down, and I succeeded, but barely. That was the biggest close call I ever had.

I used way too many spells on him.

And my MP bar is now half empty.

《Due to a victory in a recent battle 【Mental Reinforcement 】 skill has leveled up!》

《Due to a victory in a recent battle summoned monster Helix has leveled up. Please add one point to any stat value of your choosing.》

Helix has leveled up after that tough battle.

I couldn"t have done that without him.

He"s becoming more and more reliable as time goes on.

His SPI stat was increased with the level up, so I think I"m going to add that one point to his STR.

Helix　Fighting Falcon Lv1→Lv2 (↑1)

DEX　12

AGI　26

INT　23

STR　13 (↑1)

VIT　12

SPI　14 (↑1)

Skills

a.s.sault Flight Feint  Farsight Wide Area Exploration Surprise Attack Detect Danger Aerial Mobile

During this battle Helix did some kind of strange feint attack.

He used his wings to create a gust of wind blades.

Even though I have never invested in teaching him feint attacks.

It was just like with the other monsters where they had an attribute or spell that they have never used before.

For example, Mumyo has a Dark attribute, but has no skills or attacks that utilize it.

Whereas Jean, who also has Dark attribute can do quite a lot with it.

What"s that about and how does that work, exactly?

Well, for now let"s see what kind of drop will I get from Mister Troublesome over here. A part of me was counting on some rare loot, but I got a standard one instead. Like always.

【Material】 Heavy Horn  Quality C+ Rarity 4 Weight 1

A slightly bent Panzer Rein"s horn. Very light for its large size.

What is it used for, I wonder?

For now I should give priority to moving forward.

I used Call Monster to summon more of my allies, but not because of Steppe Lions or Panzer Reins.

There is something that can prove to be a much bigger concern here.

And it"s in the air.

Minor Griffon Lv4

Monster  Target Subjugation Pa.s.sive

Battle position: air

Is he the reason why Helix has spontaneously returned back on my shoulder?

Minor, does that mean that it"s weaker than Lesser type enemy? Because he looks everything but weak.

Basically, he"s like a mix between an eagle and a lion.

It might be wiser if we just try to avoid drawing his attention altogether, so we just move along and pa.s.s him by.

Hmm.

Are we safe now?

The further we go, the stronger the enemies become.

What kind of powerful monsters are we going to happen upon now?

This trip is getting more fun by the second.

We head even further to the west.

Of course, we encounter more Panzer Reins.

Thankfully, many of them are pa.s.sive.

But some of them were active and we had to fight them, even though it was really hard at times.

But what saved our hides was an unexpected spell.

Tree Magic Wall spell, Thorn Fence.

Contrary to Root Snare, it worked like a charm, as strange as it may sound.

It was very simple, but deadly effective.

Once the enemy slammed itself into the wall made of th.o.r.n.y vines he was soon so entwined in them that he wasn"t even able to put its ma.s.sive feet on the ground, giving us all the time in the world to bring it down.

Unfortunately, Panzer Reins are quite tanky, so it took some time.

But my newest weapon, The Plains Lion"s Bagh Nakh proved invaluable here with its bonus effect.

The defense ignoring does wonders to my DPS.

The probability of effect occurrence is like a 1 out of 10 chance.

Slight indeed.

But that demerit is negated by the speed and the number of my attacks.

I get off of Zangetsu and used Reduction Touch.

The damage I was doing that way was truly unreal.

And the monster could do nothing about it, since his feet were dangling above the ground, rendering him unable to move at all.

There was one tiny problem though.

Thorn Fence itself was getting in the way of my attacks.

Taking this one down took me almost twenty minutes.

Although I was using Thorn Fence now, the consumption of my MP was undoubtedly smaller than it was when I first fought this guy.

And to think that I had so many problems with just this enemy alone because I didn"t know what was effective against him.

If I didn"t figure out a way to fight him I would have been really screwed.

《Due to the recent victory in battle your 【Tree Magic 】 has been upgraded. 》

All right, with this, we"re good to go.

I collect another horn that dropped from the defeated Panzer Rein and continue onward.

What am I aiming for?

Area Portal of course!

The current time is 5:30 pm.

I found it.

I found a very suspicious place.

Up until now I had to dispose of two more Rhino"s, so my discovery was a little delayed.

It"s good that I found it before the sun went down.

In the slowly dying light I could see a structure that was clearly raised by human hand on top of the hill overlooking the dried river.

Is that a castle?

And an old one at that.

According to Helix"s reconnaissance, the place has been long abandoned.

So these are actually ruins.

And if they are ruins…

… Then it means that the Area Portal"s Guardian should be nearby.