Lukas’s stomach chose that mont to growl.
Not a polite, easy-to-ignore rumble. A long, demanding, fully committed announcent that had no interest in being subtle about itself.
They both looked down at it.
lody pressed her lips together for exactly one second before the laugh ca out of her mouth, bright and unrestrained.
She bent slightly at the waist, her arms gripping her stomach. It was a genuinely beautiful sound, and it was entirely at his expense. But he didn’t mind.
"I wish there was a restaurant out here sowhere," he said, looking around at the dark forest with complete seriousness. "Just a little place between the trees. Sowhere we could sit down and have a little al. Now that’s a business idea."
lody sighed, the laugh fading into sothing wistful. "That would have been perfect." She paused. "Especially if it was a steakhouse."
Lukas looked at her. "You really like steak, huh."
She nodded. Not once. Several tis, with full commitnt.
He shook his head slowly, smiling, then looked down at the boar carcass at his feet. "If I’d brought sothing to start a fire, we could have eaten right here. Fresh at, cooked on the spot." He exhaled. "I should have thought of that. I’m still new to this."
"Don’t apologize." lody waved it off. "I forgot too. Back ho, when my family went hunting, there were always people with us to handle the equipnt. Firewood, cooking tools, all of it. I never had to think about it."
She glanced at the carcass. "I suppose neither of us has fully figured out the independent version yet."
"When I have enough money," Lukas said, already making the decision as he spoke, "I’m getting a spatial ring. A proper one."
He looked at her. "We could carry everything we need and never have this problem again."
lody pointed at him. "Add a steakhouse to the ring and I’ll love you forever."
Lukas laughed at that, and after making sure there were no other pressing matters, they moved on.
The Green Forest was quieter than the Scorched Forest had been. Not because there were fewer beasts, but because the dense canopy swallowed sound differently.
Their footsteps were softer on the mossy ground, and the sound of the rustling undergrowth didn’t travel far.
Sothing was moving between the trees at the edge of visibility, and half the ti he couldn’t tell if it was simply watching or just passing through. But things didn’t stay that way for long.
The Shadow Panther gave itself away by the absence of sound.
One mont there was the soft background noise of the forest around them, and then there was nothing. Just a pocket of complete silence that moved, and Lukas was already turning when the panther reappeared behind him, claws extended.
He caught the attack on his forearm, the [Blood Armor] absorbing the rake, and pushed forward into the panther’s body before it could teleport again. He got one clean slash across its flank before it vanished.
He stood still and waited.
He was not the fighter he’d been two days ago. His body had ranked up.
That ant his muscles responded faster, and his mind had accumulated enough hours of continuous combat to stop reacting and start thinking.
At this point, it was simply instinct. His balance held under pressure that would have put him on the ground at E-rank.
The panther reappeared to his left.
He was already facing left.
It pulled back and vanished again, and this ti he tracked the silence, the moving pocket of dead air, and turned to et it before it materialized.
His sword was at the right height and angle when the panther appeared directly in front of him, and the blade opened a deep cut across its chest before it could abort the attack.
It teleported away, wounded. And the sweet part was that wounded animals made different choices. Faster ones, or should he say more desperate ones.
He watched the silence move and stopped trying to predict where it was going and started predicting where it had to go
After all, the panther was an ambush predator. That ant it had to attack from positions that gave it a clear line of attack, and let it use its speed advantage.
And in that mont, the panther ca from above.
He dropped to one knee and drove his sword straight up.
The panther ca down onto the sword, blood splattering in all directions.
[You have killed a B-rank Shadow Panther.]
He pulled the sword free, letting the corpse fall to the floor.
But there was no ti to enjoy his skill or bask in the satisfaction of killing a beast that had previously injured and outclassed him.
And so they kept moving.
The next two Shadow Panthers ca together, which should have made things harder. Instead it made things easier.
They both got in each other’s way, their teleportation patterns interfering, each one creating the silence that gave the other away.
He used the first one to flush the second into the open and killed them in quick succession, the second dying before it had fully materialized from its last jump.
[You have killed a B-rank Shadow Panther (x2).]
Before long, they encountered another pair.
The two Acidic Anacondas ca one after the other along the sa stretch of tree line, drawn by the blood in the air.
He handled the first the sa way he had handled the others, which was using the environnt.
The second he killed faster, having learned that the key was not to give the snake a straight angle on anything it wanted to hit.
[You have killed a B-rank Acidic Anaconda (x2).]
The Strong Boar was last. It ca out of the undergrowth at full charge with no warning.
Lukas t it head on, took the impact on his shoulder, redirected the tusk with a turn of his body, and found the sa spot he had found on the first boar.
He plunged his sword down, opening the skin. The boar grunted in pain, but Lukas didn’t give it a chance to do anything else.
He gripped its tusks, using it to pull himself onto the beast’s back, then began hacking into the injury he’d opened.
Finally, he plunged his blade straight through, killing the boar.
[You have killed a B-rank Strong Boar.]
He straightened.
Ding!
[Congratulations! You have cleared the quest.]
[Reward: 200 Gacha Points.]
He exhaled slowly, rolled his shoulder, then he checked his experience bar.
[EXP: 32.49%]
A wide grin blood on his face at the sight, and he told lody.
She grabbed him in a tight hug, squeezing hard enough that he felt it through the cuirass.
"That’s feasible," she said, pulling back with bright eyes. "If we maintain this pace, we clear the quest before the tir runs out."
"That’s exactly what I’m thinking," he said.
A 5% increase in so little ti? It was a good thing he insisted on carrying through with this.
Then a sound rolled through the forest.
A low growl that didn’t just reach their ears but reverberated through their chests to reach deep in their bones.
lody froze beside him.
They turned together.
From the undergrowth, moving without urgency, without any acknowledgnt that they were worth hurrying for, a lion stepped into the open.
Its mane was thick and dark, and its body enormous.
Its rank?
A-rank.
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