Chương 37

In a throwback I didn't really want, I was running away from a giant snake again. And this time, I knew distractions won't work as I was the one who had pissed the snake off; not that distractions were even present at the moment. It seemed like only I was foolish enough to come to the section of the forest the snake ruled. Everything else was smart enough to stay away. The sounds of the snake's rapid pursuit and the wind whistling in my ears were the only things I could hear.

Glancing behind me, I could see that the snake, despite damaged eyes, was having no trouble navigating the forest due to its ability to sense everything in a radius around it. It also kept its head high, about 8 or 9 feet above ground, allowing its sense to work below its head height. It was also alarmingly adept at keeping me within 15 feet of itself; I believe that was the reason why it had no trouble tracking me. I needed to find an opportunity to distance myself from it, and simply running away won't work.

Making a plan on the fly and praying that it would work, I suddenly sprinted forward at my top speed, increasing the distance from the snake for a split second. Right before the snake could increase its own pursuing speed, I increased the distance once again with quick step, finally feeling like I was outside of its range.

As soon as the skill ended, I activated it once again, moving in a slightly different direction while using my ability to make the grass flatten a bit in the direction I had been running from originally. I used quick step a third time, increasing the distance, and was relieved to see the plan had worked. The skill ended, and I tried to activate it once again, but it didn't work. I realized I was almost out of Stamina as I bent over, breathing quite heavily and gasping for air.

I went under concealed presence as I saw that the snake continued in pursuit in the direction it had last seen me moving. Tiredly and with shaking hands, I climbed the tree nearest to me, the snake's sounds moving further away. When I reached near the top, my body thanked me profusely as I stopped to rest. I stayed in place, allowing my weary body to rest and recover, dismissing concealed presence as well. I was arrogant.

Levelling up, getting to E Grade, and gaining a bunch of skills had allowed me to easily take care of the monsters around, making me believe I was strong enough to challenge this snake now. Instead, it had quite easily put me in my place, despite my opening attack going off as planned. Why hadn't it worked though? A dagger straight through the eye, and the other eye penetrated and blasted by a spell, and the snake had seemed just angry instead of in pain.

Its eyesight was gone, I was sure of that, otherwise it would have seen me turn instead of continuing in the direction I had been running from. Still, it had seemed perfectly capable of fighting despite the clearly debilitating injuries. I remembered the kobold elite had also started recovering quickly from the dagger strike to its ear. Are elite monsters just better at handling pain? I had believed that I could easily manage pain too before coming here.

I could easily ignore a twisted ankle, or my pinky toe crashing into a table, the normal kind of pain. Here, against monsters able to shrug off getting their eyes blown apart, I was completely outmatched. Even against that kobold, I had barely been able to hold off the pain, and I knew for a fact that I couldn't have gone on much longer. On the other hand, the kobold had been visibly improving with each passing second. My thoughts were cut short as a movement caught the corner of my eye.

I immediately re-activated concealed presence as I saw a massive shape slithering its way through the trees, this time with its head close to the ground, forked tongue slipping in and out at regular intervals. It slowly but surely made its way towards me, pausing every few seconds and adjusting its direction slightly before continuing. It's hunting me! How? I was under concealed presence, and had been before I started climbing this tree. But the longer I observed, the closer the snake came.

I looked around to see if I could travel through the trees to escape, but I was too high up for there to be any branches thick enough to support my quick step enhanced jump. I looked down to find the snake had reached the base of my tree, and was now eerily looking up, its damaged eyes seemingly glaring straight at me. A heartbeat later, its forked tongue slithered out again for a brief moment, and it started sliding upwards, its body encircling the tree.

I knew I couldn't stay here, and there was no escape around me, so I immediately started climbing down, ignoring my protesting instincts, which were screaming at me to move away from the snake instead of towards it. We moved closer to each other. Its right eye still had the remaining blade of my dagger sticking out, while the other was in a bloodied mess. I knew as soon as I reached any height below its head, it would be able to sense me, and I needed to damage that sense somehow so I could escape.

Unfortunately, I just had mana to attack with as I had no weapon now, and I knew it would probably immediately become aware of me as soon as I moved any mana within me. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Wait… I paused and opened my inventory, frantically searching before I saw what I had been looking for – the club I had taken from my first goblin kill! Taking it out and feeling its weight in my hand comforted me; I had an actual weapon now!

The huge snake slithered closer, its massive face just 10 feet below me now, and the club, which had just comforted me, felt like a small twig. A desperate plan formed in my mind, tactical insight giving it a shrug of acceptance, like it knew that I had basically no other option. The snake's face loomed ever closer, and I knew it was now or never.

I launched myself towards it with a quick step enhanced jump, lifting the club and using both hands to swing it with all my strength, I smashed it into the dagger blade in its eye while at the same time crashing into it. It recoiled and hissed in pain, and I knew what was about to happen next. I let go of the remains of the ruined club, and making a hastily prepared wind bullet, I immediately launched it as soon as it opened its mouth, then turned and used quick step to move down the tree.

I heard a sudden gurgle sound followed by an angry hiss as soon as quick step ended. I jumped the last few feet to the ground and used quick step again, anticipating another tail strike. However, it didn't come. My skill ended, and I could hear the snake thrashing about at the top of the tree. I turned to see branches and leaves falling to the ground as the massive body kept moving about randomly. Stepping back till I was confident I was outside the snakes' detection range; I continued to watch.

The snake's body was waving about, crashing into different trees. Its face was obscured within the canopy and the falling leaves. It seemed like this time I had managed to actually hurt it. The snake started to slow down. Its hissing also decreased in volume, and soon the massive body started sliding towards the ground. I backed away as the body kept falling, picking up speed, before a loud thud sounded out as the snake crashed to the ground.

As the dust settled, I could see the snake's mouth had been destroyed by a combination of my wind bullet and the snake's own poison cloud. Its mouth was hanging open, leaking green blood that hissed as it touched the ground. A bit of green smoke was still curling around its mouth. Two massive fangs were visible, extended halfway. The eye with the dagger was now gone, leaving a gaping, bloody red hole. Red…?

I looked at the mouth again, and surely the blood leaking out of its mouth was green; however, both eyes, or at least where an eye used to be, were filled with red blood. Perhaps the poison cloud had changed the colour of the blood dropping from its mouth. The snake, for all intents and purposes, looked dead, but I wasn't taking any chances.

Climbing a tree yet again and making my way near its face, I prepared a highly compressed wind bullet to the best of my ability, and shot it down into the hole where its eye had been. A massive impact rocked the snake's face, but other than that, it had no outward effect. Wanting to make absolutely sure, I shot down another wind bullet at its other eye, and then yet another one into its empty eye socket for good measure, before I was satisfied. The snake was dead, and I had absolutely no idea how I managed it.

I had planned to attack its open mouth with a wind bullet, figuring its insides would be more vulnerable, and thus I had taken the shot as soon as it had opened its mouth. But perhaps more than my own spell, I believe its own poison cloud had somehow detonated inside its mouth, causing massive internal damage. Can snakes even be poisoned by their own venom? I had no idea, and even if I did, that knowledge was limited to back on Earth. There was no telling how magic and skills affected everything here.

In any case, I was jubilant, and mostly relieved, that I had survived. Turning around and leaving the body, I started making my way back, when I thought of something. Those fangs… I turned back around, but was halted in my tracks by the sound of the System. Ding! You have levelled up! Class stats distributed. My first level in E Grade! I excitedly opened my status, and saw that the exp requirement had now jumped by a hundred once again, needing 400 exp to get to level 12.

I looked over the stats, noting that the same 2 points to agility and 1 to dexterity had been added. And almost closed my screen before doing a double-take. If my memory was right, I had 4 free stat points remaining. A level up granted me 2 more, so I should have 6 now. However, I instead had 9 free stat points. The only thing that had changed was my reaching E Grade, and I had theorized earlier that the free stat points were based either on Race or Grade, and now I believe I had the answer.

Looks like I get 5 stat points with every level up in E Grade. Still, having received only 1 level from fighting this massive beast was the system being even stingier than before. I closed my status and immediately made my way to the top of a tree to once again hide. Once I was sure I was hidden away, I opened my inventory. I saw the stacks of wooden pieces and thanked the system for allowing stacks till 100 in a slot, before moving towards the reason I had opened the inventory.

Last time I hadn't known that the system does not inform about loot boxes, and instead deposits them straight to our inventories. This time; however, I knew. I was pleased to see that my thinking had been true – there was a small, blue chest, once again, in one of the inventory slots. Taking it out, I excitedly communicated my intent to the system. Would you like to open Elite Loot Box (Rare)? Yes! Much like before, the chest opened and disappeared.

I opened the inventory and my eyes were immediately drawn in one direction. Taking a deep breath and calming myself down, I instead took out an ordinary looking silver ring. A system screen popped up. Ring of Perception +4 Perception Simple and straightforward. I immediately wore the ring, which was completely plain and had no markings on it. The ring slid onto my ring finger beautifully, and I knew I would have to get used to the feeling of wearing it; the bonus stats being too good to pass on.

Done with the appetizer, I looked back at the inventory for the main course.