Chapter 5: Five Angry Rabbits?!

"Cough...! Cough...!" Litch coughed twice and managed to stabilize his breathing quickly. His wounds were already fully recovered, even his broken bones had recovered.

'This's the power of a Healing Potion?'

Litch was sincerely impressed, he never imagined that it would be possible to recover wounds of this level so quickly. He had heard of Healing Potions, after all, they were often used by players, there was even a specific class for making potions, but to experience it first was surprising.

Suddenly, Litch realized something. He was just thinking about the potion but had forgotten about the person who handed him the potion.

He quickly stood up and bowed to Ashard.

"Sir Ashard, thank you very much for your help."

"Tsk." Ashard turned his head as he clicked his tongue and exclaimed, "Aren't you a man? Then don't put your head down! And some healing potion like that is worthless, you don't owe me anything."

Litch scratched his cheek and smiled wryly, before nodding.

'Wasn't he drunk? How can he be so well all of a sudden? Leaving that aside...'

Litch's gaze turned solemn.

'I almost died to those rabbits. Do all beginners go through such a chokehold? No, it shouldn't be possible. If that happened I am unlikely there would be so many players in Paradise, after all not everyone could endure the terrible pain of having their bones broken.'

Sure, there were the initial five stat points given to all novice players that he didn't use, but even with them, he still didn't have the confidence to beat the five Angry Rabbits without taking any damage. It was unreal.

'For now. I should log off and take a breather.'

Litch sighed. Both his body and his mind were exhausted.

***

"Mister Litch, here is the lunch you requested."

A nurse entered inside the hospital room holding a tray with food. She greeted Litch with a refreshing smile and placed the tray on his bed.

"You may retire." Litch took the tray of food and dismissed the nurse.

Being left alone, Litch looked at the food on the tray with a smile. After a few hours in the game, he had become a little hungry.

He cut off a piece of meat and put it in his mouth.

"Wom."

He chewed and got a good taste of the meat, and finished by licking his lips.

'It's good. Hmm, soon I should get back to the game, but first, I should check out the news about Paradise.'

Litch picked up his laptop that was on a nearby table and turned it on.

When he got out of the game, he realized that in comparison with Paradise, which had been more than 5 hours, in the real world only 1 hour had passed. In other words, the time in Paradise was 5 times faster than the time spent in the real world.

'What happened in those 5 hours?'

He accessed the official Paradise forum and searched for the latest news.

[The first Rare Class!]

[Unknown level 15 player defeats a top ranked level 20 player and reveals the secret of his strength!]

[Dragons in Paradise, who are they?]

[A Sword Master appears and destroys a mountain with a single blow of his sword! Images not to be missed!]

There were several but one particularly caught Litch's attention. He quickly accessed the news.

[Unknown level 15 player defeats a level 20 player easily and reveals the secret of his strength!]

[-As there must already be hundreds or even thousands of people who know this method, I will be revealing it to the rest of the people. It is a method to increase your stats without having to level up or get a good class. That is, by training. That's right! With simple push-ups, you can increase your stats!]

"Training the body?"

Litch put a piece of meat in his mouth and observed his own body. Although it was not a skeletal body, he was quite thin. There was a time in the past when he trained for a certain period, but it lasted only a few years before he stopped.

'Gaining stats by exercising your body... Paradise is really a world with a lot of freedom.'

"Wom."

One of the biggest reasons commented on why Paradise was growing so fast was its infinite freedom. In Paradise there was a freedom that doesn't restrict you from anything, it was really like a second world. There is no pattern to the story in Paradise, the story is moldable according to the interferences of the players and even the NPCs.

'Well. This limitless freedom can also attract bad people.'

Litch smiled and finished eating his food and placed the tray on the table beside the bed.

He had heard of cases where players had tried to abuse NPCs or even other players. And this was something possible, after all the system allowed all sorts of things. Of course, it was a different thing if the players' actions were against the laws and rules of the kingdom or place where they were in Paradise.

There were also cases of players bullying people in real life, forcing these people to generate money for them. The money system in Paradise was divided into bronze coins, silver coins, and gold coins; in addition, it was possible to turn these coins into money in real life, causing many people to see the game not only as a form of fun but also income.

'It's time to go back.'

Litch looked at the time and 30 minutes had passed, that is 2.5 hours in Paradise.

He picked up his helmet and put it on his head.

Soon a familiar landscape greeted him. It was the inside of the training center, the exact spot where he had logged off.

"Are you back?"

"....?"

Litch turned his head and saw Ashard watching him from the bench with a bottle of alcohol in his hand.

"You know, it's not very good for your health if you keep drinking that much," Litch commented.

"Kuku. Bottles of alcohol wouldn't be enough to degrade my health, who do you think I am? You should be worried about yourself, you seem to have had a hard time against an Angry Rabbit."

Litch's expression turned grim at the mention of the rabbits.

"There were five, not one."

This time, it was Ashard's turn to sketch a reaction. His two eyes widened deeply.

"Five?! What the hell did you do to come across five Angry Rabbits?!"

"What did I do, I just walked into the hunting ground and suddenly, the five appeared from a bush."

"Puhahahaha! What bad luck! I don't think I've ever met a rookie like you who was lucky enough to encounter five Angry Rabbits on his first day." Ashard laughed heartily. But still, his gaze toward Litch had changed.

'Did this little girl survive five Angry Rabbits? No, first, why did five appear? The Angry Rabbits are a race that doesn't walk in groups of more than two.'

The reason for the appearance of the five Rabbits puzzled Ashard. The more he thought about it, but he couldn't figure out the reason, until...

"Ah! It can't be?"

"What?"

"Kuhuhu. Little girl, tell me, were there any offspring among the Angry Rabbits?"

"Well, there was one a little smaller than the others, he even gave only 1 experience point. But what does that have to do with it? Unless..."

Litch, who was in doubt soon began to understand Ashard's line of reasoning. It was because he remembered some things he had read about the Angry Rabbits earlier.

'Damn. Are you kidding me?'

If that was the reason, he really was very unlucky today.

'Huhu, you seem to have figured it out. You probably encountered a group of Angry Rabbits who were escorting a newborn junior to its father."

"..."

"Since they are a very violent breed to the point that they can't control themselves when a female Angry Rabbit gets pregnant, it moves away from the male so that he doesn't unintentionally hurt the baby in its belly. And once the baby is born, a group is made to escort this newborn rabbit to meet its father, while the mother recovers from the birth."

"So..."

"Kuhahahah! Yes, you killed a baby and prevented it from being reunited with its father, you're pretty bad, aren't you? Hahahaha!"

"...."

"Hey, where are you going?" Ashard asked when he saw Litch turn and walk into a wide empty space of the training camp.

"What did you expect? That I'd have compassion for a fucking rabbit? I'm going to train." Litch replied without turning around.

"Kuku. What a moody child."

"I'm 15 years old. I am not a child."

"Sure, sure. Little girl."