Will I End Up As a Hero or a Demon King (WN)

Chapter 48

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Chapter 48 – Level 4

I had my sights set on a Poison Mouse.

“(Hmm… I don’t feel like they’re swarming, but I have to stay away from the other one, which is about 30 meters away from here, not too far. Not sure if the other one will come closer…)”

As I slowly approached it, the Poison Mouse seemed to notice me, and after a twitch, it continued to look at me.

I quickly turned my gaze to the other Poison Mouse, which was a little further away, and saw that it had not yet decided that I was an enemy and that it seemed to be eating as it buried its face in the grass.

The fact that I can see it means that the other Poison Mouse can see me, too.

At first, I was happy to have a wide field of vision, but then I thought they would say, “My comrades have been attacked!” and I was nervous inside that all the moving brown objects in my field of vision would gather at once.

“(I hope they are still acting alone…)”

With this thought in mind, I approached about 10 meters closer.

Here it comes!

Only one of them was coming towards me!

Also… whoa, whoa, it’s slow!

I think they’re a little faster than Horned Rabbits, but now that I’m at level 8, I can easily dodge them even after they activate Rush, so the Poison Mouse coming at me with a little bounce is a little slower than I imagined, which is disturbing.

This may be because they are unnecessarily large for rats, about 50 cm long.

The smaller mice on Earth are obviously faster than the Poison Mouse.

“O-oh-oh… Hmm! The sword…!”

Like a batter who is suddenly thrown a slow ball…

The gap between what I expected and what I saw made my body move almost unbearably, so I quickly changed from a side swing to a thrust.

Poison Mouse and I faced each other with the tip of the sword facing forward, in a stance so awkward that someone with experience in swordsmanship would mutter, “What the hell is that?”

The Poison Mouse started to duck, but it didn’t make it in time, and the sword went off-center, stabbing it in the head.

‘Poison Resistance Lv1 has been acquired.’

‘Poison Resistance Lv2 has been acquired.’

“Huh?”

Since I was in a wobbly position, I fell to the ground, but I was still able to beat it in the end.

On top of that, I was suddenly able to obtain the Poison Resistance skill from just one monster.

Furthermore, I was so surprised to hear the announcement that the skill level had been increased to level 2 all at once that I froze without even getting up.

“(…What is this…what happened? …Not good, I’ll think about it later! There’s another one!)”

I quickly looked around and saw that the other one, who was a little closer to me, still had its face in the grass and did not seem to have noticed the death of its companion.

Feeling relieved, I turned my eyes back to the corpse in front of me.

“The material that can be sold is a bag of poison in its head, and yet I stabbed it in the head…”

According to the information from Roddy-san, the chief of the dismantling site, damaging the head means that the value of the material is lost.

I was prepared for the worst-case scenario of not being able to sell it, or at best, a material value of “E” or “D,” but since it was my first time, I decided to at least try to take it home, so I took out the head, the tail that was proof of subjugation, and the magic stone and collected them.

As expected, I’ve gotten used to the Palmera Great Forest, so I don’t think anything of disassembling a rat or something like that.

“(Anyway, something strange happened, let’s go back to the entrance…)”

I quickly moved away from the monsters and immediately opened the status screen to check the details of the Poison Resistance.

Poison Resistance Lv2: Increases resistance to poison.

The details were what I expected.

However, the fact that it is suddenly at skill level 2 and at 16% is puzzling.

The only possible explanation is that the Poison Mouse has a high level of Poison Resistance.

This is the only thing I can think of, and this prediction is the first thing I am sure of.

Then it could be a pretty hot monster…

After all, this Poison Resistance skill has a bonus status of Defense.

It has suddenly gone up to +3, and if it goes up that high with just one monster, there is a possibility that it can be brought up to level 5 or 6 with a little persistence.

Then, my Defense would be greatly increased.

It will be a very calming stat for the Orcs in Lulub Forest.

Also, the Poison Mouse seems weaker and more numerous than expected…

Oh man, is this a bonus stage?

Anyway, I’m going to kill another Poison Mouse to see how much experience the Poison Resistance skill increases.

After that, let’s go on a random hunt and look for Air Mantis.

▽ ▼ ▽ ▼ ▽

After about three hours of running around, taking breaks, and killing four Poison Mice, I was convinced that this guy’s Poison Resistance skill was level 4.

Why, you may ask?

Because after the skill was increased to level 3, the increase per mouse became 20%.

This means that I am now at the same rate of increase as I was in the Great Forest of Palmera when I acquired a level 1 skill from an unacquired state.

This is assuming that the monsters in Palmera Great Forest are level 1, but I don’t think it’s possible for all the monsters in the lowest level hunting grounds to be level 2 or 3, so there should be no problem assuming that the monsters there are level 1.

Let’s see.

Even if I hunt here normally, I can easily raise my skill level to 5 or so.

The rate of increase after level 4 has changed to a flat rate of 2% per monster, so it seems that the experience required per level has not increased at the same rate…

Still, it seems that the amount of skill experience per monster is set higher for level 4 monsters, and most importantly, the ease of finding monsters and the number of monsters are different.

To put it bluntly, it’s a piece of cake.

So, I would say at least level 6.

If I wanted to, I would have increased my skill level to level 7.

This is because after you get your first level 4 skill, the bonus ability increases pattern changes.

Up until now, level 1 was +1, level 2 was +2, level 3 was +3, and so on, and the level and the bonus ability value increased by the same number, but at level 4, the bonus ability value changed slightly.

In other words, in the case of Poison Resistance, this time, the Defense stat increased by +5.

The higher the skill level, the higher the bonus ability increase can be, so I expect it will be a lot easier later on if you stick with the high-level monsters.

Poison Mouse is good, hey… very good.

I have never heard of a poisonous creature dying from its own poison.

However, since they have poison pouches in their bodies, it’s only natural that they have some level of poison resistance.

I also killed two Air Mantis in the last three hours, and they were not that bad.

It is hard to tell them apart because their bodies are green, and their protective coloration blends into the grass, but when I hunt for Poison Mice that come into view while using Presence Detection, I sometimes detect something moving in the grass.

Although I cannot tell if it is an Air Mantis just by its presence, if I follow it with my eyes, I can see a large praying mantis head sticking out of the grass, so I activate Rush on it.

I was able to kill it before it shot me with its wind magic, so it was recognized as an easy enemy that I didn’t consider a threat at all.

When I got close to it, it tried to counterattack by swinging its foreleg, but when I hit it with my sword, its foreleg was cut off without any resistance, so it wasn’t even like we were in a close fight.

It is just a giant insect with an unpleasant appearance.

I was a bit more wary that I’d encounter some wind magic on the side while fighting a Poison Mouse or something…

Was it because it was only an F-ranked monster?

Or was it because I was persistently hunting in the Great Forest of Palmera to raise my skill level?

I was afraid that I would get carried away with the easy victory in the Rocker Plains.

――Then, thinking it would be a piece of cake, I took on the E-rank hunting ground and got killed.

I wonder if this is the path that Paisa-san’s son took. When I think about it, I become more cautious, so I will make a rule that I will not go to the next hunting ground until I have raised my skill level to that of my target, and I will follow it strictly.

I think it is more efficient and safer to move from one hunting ground to another based on skill level rather than on one’s own perceived strength or feeling for the monsters.

The minimum skill level for Wind Magic is 3.

As for Poison Resistance, it should be at least level 6.

I decided to stick with that level first, and then I would think about what to do.

While making this decision, I took a bite of the portable food that I had been hesitant to put in my mouth, the ‘horse manure lookalike’ as I had named it.