006 Level Up

SHIIING! SSHHIIINNGG!

Death's Favor whistled through the air as it cleanly sliced another Afos.

"How many of these things are there?"

One after another the Afos kept jumping or running towards me to attack. Just as fast as they moved they also fell to my sword. Swinging left and right, drawing impressive and frightening arcs in the air, the onslaught continued. It was beautiful well practiced swordsmanship called Light Of Luna. I had spent one whole year mastering it on the 50th floor. Thanks to that there were almost none who could match me with the sword. That's how powerful this style was.

Unfortunately due to the lack of my stats it couldn't live up to its true potential.

As the mass genocide of the Afos continued, I was soon rewarded with a delightful sound.

PING! PING!

[Level Up]

Trying to catch my breath I looked around and just saw a mountain of Afos corpses strewn about.

"I think that's it. What do you think Sir Blob?"

BLOOP BLOOP, BLOBLOBLOBLOOOOOOP!

"You've been saying that for the past hour! I still don't know what it means!"

It came out harsher than I intended to.

BLOOP

It's latest sound also came with a twist of its body. In this Manner Sir Blob forced me to turn.

As I turned around a final Afos was sneaking up on my side to attack me. A simple swing of the sword and it was no more.

PING! PING! PING!

Instantly several messages popped up.

[Deaths Favor grows with each soul it's consumed]

[Consume more souls to unlock its true ability]

[Level Up]

[Level Up- Sir Blob]

This is great we leveled up several times. It still doesn't remove this mental exhaustion though. Extremely fatigued I finally collapsed to the ground.

I've been walking well into the night now looking for this hidden area in the plains Autumn had mentioned, when out of nowhere a herd of Afos attacked. Now the only thing I have to show for the past several hours is hundreds of these slaughtered miniature lizard monsters.

The Afos were scaled creatures, no more than one foot tall. They were the weakest monster in the plains, no maybe all of Luna. The only thing they had going for them was their razor sharp claws which could be harvested to make rarity F weapons, and their tendency to hunt in groups of ten at a time.

Pulling me away from my thought, Sir Blob got off my head and plopped itself next to me.

"Let's check our progress SB, what do you say?"

Opening up my status menu I was happy with the progress that had been made.

[Player Name- Em]

[Status- Sealed]

[Title- None]

[Level- 7]

[Health- 85 + (1000)]

[Strength- 21 + (600)]

[Defense- 17 + (100)]

[Mana- 27 + (600)]

[Dexterity- 16]

[Allocatable Stat Points- 14]

[Equip- Deathly Touch: Deaths Favor]

[Skills/Abilities- None]

I smiled as I saw these numbers, it hadn't taken too long at all if I'm being honest to level up. Of course the equipment that Autumn gave me has been massively helpful. It almost felt like cheating however, given the circumstances I was in, overlooking this advantage seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

As I saw the numbers on the status screen I thought to myself.

"If I was really starting from the beginning I would have needed a hunting party of four to help get to level seven this fast."

It didn't seem like much but the difficulty curve shot up at a stupid rate. If one didn't do their best to stay ahead of it, they wouldn't survive long in Luna at all.

Speaking of staying ahead, I took another glance at my stats and decided to go ahead and drop all my allocatable stat points into dexterity. At the moment I had nothing to boost it and if I want to reach the true form of Light Of Luna I need A lot of speed.

[Dexterity- 30]

Letting out a sigh I scrolled over to check Sir Blob's status information.

[Pet- Sir Blob]

[Class- Slime]

[Rarity- F]

[Level- 5]

[Increase Bonding Level to View Physical Stats]

[Bond Level - 4.77% ]

I immediately sat up and turned to SB who was rolling around in the grass.

"After all the grass I gave you, you still haven't bonded with me!?"

BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP

SB's eyes turned into massive black voids as I was met the the coldest Bloop. I'm pretty sure I somehow took frost damage from how cold it's response to me was.

Guilt quickly crawled up to my throat. It seemed that almost every time I spoke to SB it was always yelling at him. Quickly I came back to my senses and went over and hugged SB.

"It's you and me buddy, I've never had a pet before so I don't know what to do, I'm sorry if I suck at taking care of you."

I started to gently pet him with one hand. The other I was using to reach for grass and feed it to him.

Falling quickly into an almost meditative state by doing this, I started thinking about what my next move should be after I find and clear this hidden area.

I need information. I'm going to have to go to the town on the first floor and ask around. What is currently going on? How many players are still left in Luna? Any major guilds or were they all destroyed? I'm sure there must have been rebellions opposing those who betrayed me, did any of them survive? Are my old comrades still around? How do I remain hidden as I progress through the floors?

Question after question kept popping up into my my head and before I realized it, I had stood up and walked around holding SB feeding him DEAD AFOS!!!

Bloop

"Ahhhhhhhh!! I'm so sorry I wasn't paying attention, do you even eat other monsters?"

SB had a strange look in his emotionless face. Even though his cute green appearance had been stained red because of the Afos, I swore he was smiling.

Let's go get you washed up. We passed a river on the way here.

PING!

[Bonding Level Increased to 5%]

"Well what do you know, I guess feeding you is the best way to bond. It's also nice to know that you eat anything."

It didn't take long before we found the river that ran through the plains. As I approached the edge I started dunking SB in it, washing off all the blood off of him.

SB started making happy Bloops with each dunk.

As the water splashed everywhere I noticed how cold and refreshing it felt. Taking a moment to just look at the scene, I could feel the stress of the past events just start to wash away from me. With the stars shining so brightly it almost looked like the river was glowing. Not long after all the dunking, SB was clean and back on top of my head again.

Taking a moment to look at my reflection I noticed something incredibly different about me. My hair, it was no longer black but instead...silver ?

"What in the world caused that!?"

As I kept looking to make sure nothing else changed, everything else about me looked normal, my green eyes and toned body that I was proud of hadn't changed. It was still full of scars from the last ten years of life or death battles. I had to work hard to keep that body because my face was only slightly above average attractive, or so I thought.

My hair was still at shoulder length, it's just it's color was silver now.

"Could it be because I sealed myself?"

More questions for later I guess.

Turning to SB I spoke.

"Well you're clean now, shall we make camp he—"

HEEEEEELLLLPPPP! ANYONE! PLEASE!

The cry for help was followed by a blood curdling roar, nothing a human could ever make. Before logic had a chance to process I quickly started running towards the direction of the distress call.

It didn't make sense, these are the plains of Luna, it may not be the safest place but it's not the most dangerous at all. What creature could have let out that scream? On top of that who would be making those cries for help?

As I ran in the direction to offer help only one thing crossed my mind.

Could it be? Maybe someone found the entrance to the hidden area? If that's the case then what monstrosities exist there?