Chương 34: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 34 - Big Slap

Must be an illusion. Haruta Motono told himself that and almost believed it. The moment he stepped out of the safe zone, a chill ran straight through him, the kind you get when dozens of hostile eyes are locked onto you all at once. He spun around. Nothing. Just trees. A breeze moved through the leaves, a soft rustle in the settling dark. The shadows between the trunks bent and twisted in the fading light, the whole scene straight out of a horror movie.

"I'm a level five mage," he muttered, eyes still scanning.

"This whole area near the Starter Village is low-level trash mobs. Nothing to worry about." He was still muttering when he spotted something in the low shrubs nearby, a wooden treasure chest.

"Wait. Is the spawn rate seriously that high? Another one already?" He was pleased, then immediately suspicious. Half-opened chests in games had a way of producing unpleasant surprises. A slime popping out mid-loot was a classic. Whatever. It was just a slime. No key prompt appeared, so Haruta hooked his fingers under the lid and pried it up. A soft click, a flash of white light, and a chunk of cured beef sailed out and hit the dirt. [Obtained Food: Air-dried Copperhide Beef. First consumption of 500g or more grants +1 Strength. One-time effect.]"Nice. But what is that buzzing—" The fist-sized hornet hovering in front of his face was not a freebie.

"—is that a freebie?!" [King Hornet, Level 1] There were five of them.

"Fireball! Fireball, burn for me!" Haruta swung his staff in a wild arc, three Fireballs blasting off in rough directions. Two of them caught a pair of King Hornets that had drifted close together. [King Hornet slain. EXP gained: 5 x2] He checked his mana. Less than half left. He took a breath and forced himself to slow down.

"Okay," he said, with a cool confidence he'd earned on the spot.

"I didn't expect monsters in the chest. But you lot are nothing special." One Fireball to kill two. Three left. The math was easy. He leveled his staff and cast again, watching the Fireball track the hornet charging straight at him and detonate perfectly on contact. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"I, Haruta Motono, am not a coward! I'm going to be strong!" He was shouting now, and it felt good. He was an experienced gamer, virtual reality, strategy, all of it, and he slipped into the zone fast. Two more Fireballs. The last two King Hornets died. He stood there, mana nearly gone, and exhaled slowly.

"Well done, Motono-kun." He bent down with his rear in the air and started pawing through the shrubs for his dropped beef.

"Huh. It was right here..."

"Did something drag it off?" He dropped to his hands and knees and pushed aside a clump of grass, and came face-to-face with a pair of small, pink, furry rabbit feet. They were, he had to admit, extremely cute. [Blaze Rabbit Leader: Bugs, Level 5]"You nearly gave me a heart attack." He started to push himself up.

"It's just a rabbit." Then he got a good look at it. Normal rabbits ran on all fours. This one was standing upright on two legs, arms folded across its chest, half as tall as a person, with the faint suggestion of muscle visible under its fur. It had big white buck teeth, ears pointed straight up like javelins, and an expression that could only be described as contemptuous. Something is wrong with this rabbit. Still, killable. His Strength was at five.

He could beat a level five trash mob to death with his bare staff if he had to. The advantage was his. Haruta let out a vicious grin, raised his staff, and swung it straight at Bugs's head. Bugs caught it. One-handed. The Big Slap that followed came fast and hard. [-53]"PFFT—" A tooth left his mouth. Pain settings were off, so it just felt strange, but the tooth was definitely gone.

"Squeak. Squeak squeak squeak." If Haruta had spoken rabbit, he would have heard:"Hear the Way in the morning, die content at dusk."

"What, how does a level five rabbit hit that hard?!" He spat, blood in the foam, and his eyes went flat and mean.

"I will never be humiliated again. This is a game. This is my world." He stood up straight, staff forward, legs spread wide in a proper sumo stance.

"Come on, rabbit. Fight me like a man." Bugs looked up at him, the human who suddenly seemed quite a lot taller, and lightly clapped its hands. The shrubs rustled. Then they kept rustling. Over a thousand rabbits walked out from between the trees. Upright. Arms loose at their sides. Eyes sharp with that same flat, contemptuous look. They spread out in all directions, surrounding him completely. One rabbit stepped up to Bugs and tucked a rolled cigarette between its teeth.

Then it leaned in, pursed its lips, and puffed out a small tongue of flame to light it before stepping respectfully back into the crowd. Bugs raised one eyebrow, a move it had clearly learned from watching the Black Dragon, and blew a slow, perfect smoke ring. Its gaze settled on Haruta Motono like a sentence. Then it let out one sharp, high squeak. The signal to attack....

One minute later, Haruta Motono stumbled out of the respawn point looking like a man who had just been asked a question he would never recover from. He had been beaten to death. By rabbits. Each one delivering exactly one Big Slap before the next one stepped in. The humiliation was total. Worse, somehow, than being jumped in a bathroom by delinquents back in the real world. Am I just a coward even in a game? No. No, something was wrong. Not with him, with the rabbits. Their damage was absurd.

Completely out of proportion for level-three monsters near a starter area. The leader mob hitting him for fifty-plus HP per slap was one thing, leaders were supposed to hit hard. But the regular Blaze Rabbits? Thirty HP a slap, per rabbit, on average? That wasn't a game balance decision. That was a crime.

"Well, well. Isn't that Motono-kun?" Yamamoto Nanjiro was near the respawn point. He looked at Haruta with a lazy, contemptuous smile.

"Dead already? You managed to die near the safe zone." He shook his head slowly.

"You really are a coward. Even in here." Haruta said nothing. He looked at Yamamoto for exactly one second, long enough to make it count, then lowered his head and walked away. He wasn't going to say a word about the rabbits. Let Yamamoto find out on his own. This game wasn't what it looked like, and Haruta Motono was going to be watching when Yamamoto learned that lesson the hard way. Smile for the camera. ➤ Next: The Silver Treasure Chest Explosion Tragedy