Hito continued walking towards the village while analyzing the interface. First he selected «Statistics».
< Level 1 >
< Hp 89/100 >
< Mana 20/20 >
< Exp 50/100 >
«Back »
He realized that his life was rising little by little, that meant that his HP counter might have reached zero in the battle against the previous enemy. Just thinking that, made a shiver run through his whole body.
Then he saw the mana counter, which had a maximum value of twenty, that meant that Hito could use the Stealth skill, four times in a row, until the mana regenerates again.
'If this system had a guide for newbies, I would appreciate it.' Hito said as he continued to inspect the options.
He then selected «Skills».
« Stealth »
« ? »
« Back »
The only skill that was unlocked was stealth, Hito tried to select this skill, closing the interface and suddenly his whole body became invisible.
"Wow... this really works." he said with a mixture of fear and curiosity.
After two seconds, his body became visible again. Besides, he doubted if those two seconds would really do him any good in a battle.
Finally, he selected «Missions».
« ? »
« Back »
At that moment, no available mission appeared. However, Hito decided to take a closer look at the question mark « ? ».
Suddenly, another message suddenly appeared.
«Missions will be enabled depending on the geographic area where the user is located.»
« Back »
After analyzing all the options, Hito closed the interface and continued walking.
He felt a sense of relief knowing that he had made the right decision to return to the village. To advance and gain more skills, he needed to explore and complete different quests, just as he had defeated the assassin.
Hito understood that he would face more creatures on his way. Also, he wondered if that was what the angel was referring to when he mentioned becoming stronger.
-
-
Once Hito arrived at the village, as he thought, it was still destroyed. The perimeter of the village was built with wooden logs, most of them were charred, so Hito didn't find it difficult to pass through them.
When he entered the village, many thoughts and memories came back to his mind, all the people who once smiled, cried and leaned together, could be dead.
Although there was a great calm in that place, part of it was covered by small spider webs.
"After all, it's been five years." Hito said sadly.
As he continued walking, Hito noticed some shoe prints on the ground. After years of hunting animals and beasts in the forest, he knew perfectly well that those footprints were fresh.
Suddenly, a message appeared on the system «New Quest».
«Objective: Defeat 500 spiders»
«Progress: 0/500»
When Hito saw the mission, a wave of fear swept through his body, leaving him instantly alert.
Hito looked in all directions, but everything seemed calm and in order.
'Why did I get agitated?' wondered Hito as he watched his hand tremble.
Once he calmed down, Hito recognized his reaction as natural. After all, facing 500 spiders was a totally new challenge for him. However, what was natural to him did not fit with the new normal in that world, it was possible that these were completely different and aggressive spiders.
The only obstacle to completing the mission was the lack of any trace of spiders or anything resembling one around him.
Hito scoured the village, but all he found were spider webs. He silently wondered if the absence of spiders had any connection to the shoe prints he had previously seen.
Determined to find a clue, Hito went out to explore the perimeter of the village, but found nothing new except some mysterious white crystals embedded in the ground.
Then, he noticed in the distance many trees with a white material on their branches.
Hito climbed the largest crystal he could find to focus his sight.
He noticed that the trees were covered with spider webs on all sides.
'Bingo' expressed Hito with joy.
After approaching the trees, the spiders finally appeared. Hito quickly approached one of them and hit it on the ground. To his surprise, spider fluids splattered all over the area.
Hito grimaced and exclaimed, "Shit!" He also watched as the progress counter increased.
«Progress: 1/500»
'Now I understand why the system is asking me for 500.' thought Hito.
Then, he wondered if those spiders were really dangerous, so he got the idea to let himself get hit by one of them.
« -3 HP »
Hito opened his interface and watched in «Statistics» how his HP decreased for each hit by the spider.
< Level 1 >
< Hp 97/100 >
< Mana 20/20 >
< Exp 52/100 >
«Back»
Hito experienced great relief when he noticed that his health was not declining as rapidly as he had feared, which made him reflect that his worry had been in vain.
He also noticed that the < XP > had increased by +2 points.
At that point, his experience reached a total of 52. If the initial value was considered to be 0, it meant that defeating the assassin had granted him 50 experience points.
Then, He closed the interface and continued attacking the incoming spiders with his blows.
«Progress: 2/500»
«Progress: 7/500»
«Progress: 12/500»
The more spiders he killed, the deeper Hito went into the trees.
«Progress: 14/500»
Suddenly, a flash of light on the ground blurred his view. As he got closer, he bent down and realized that this mysterious object was actually a necklace reflecting the sun's lights. Pulling it out, he noticed that it had the image of a person in the center.
"Could it have belonged to someone in the village?" wondered Hito. Although he did not know the person, he decided to keep it.
By this time, Hito was already quite far into the forest. As he continued walking, he could see bags of spider webs hanging from the trees.
Following the natural cycle of reproduction and development of these insects, the web bags on the trees indicated that more spiders were growing inside them.
'Will the progress counter increase if I kill hatchlings?' wondered Hito and without further hesitation, he threw a stone straight towards the top of the web bags.
Once the big web fell, it didn't look like something happened, no spider came out of the bag and the progress counter didn't increase either. However, the system did display an alert.
"Slowing effect received: Speed reduced 20%. Effect has a duration of 5 minutes."
Hito was surprised to see the effect he had received. Then, he moved from side to side and noticed that, although he didn't feel anything, his movements were slower.
More spiders began to arrive, Hito propelled himself towards them, but this time he felt something strange, it seemed that his body had touched something he could not see.
Suddenly, a web appeared in front of him and generated three more spiders. In addition, he observed how quickly more spiders came out of the bag that had previously fallen.
'Are they faster now?' wondered Hito and after thinking about it, he remembered that they were not really faster, it was just that the effect had slowed him down.
Hito started to hit all the spiders nearby. However, due to the negative effect, the spiders were now also able to hit him.
« - 3 HP »
« +2 XP »
« +2 XP »
« - 3 HP »
« +2 XP »
« - 3 HP »
« - 3 HP »
« +2 XP »
Although Hito killed most of the spiders, a large number more appeared. Suddenly, another type of spiders appeared, these had a strange mark on their body. Hito quickly used «Stealth» twice in a row, giving him only 4 seconds. Fortunately for him, it was enough time to get a few meters away from them.
He then opened the interface and selected «Statistics».
< Level 1 >
< Hp 67/100 >
< Mana 10/20 >
< Exp 98/100 >
«Back»
At that moment, Hito understood the difficulty of slaying 500 spiders. Actually, the problem wasn't how hard it was to defeat one, the problem was to finish them off as a group. If he killed one by one, it would take days to complete the mission.
Besides, that was not the only problem, the problem was those new spiders that had appeared with marks on their bodies.
Hito for a moment thought about giving up. However an image of his sister came to his mind and he consecutively thought, 'No, I can do it.'
When Hito was determined to defeat the spiders with first marks. At that instant, the system showed him another alert.
« - 5 HP »
«Poison effect received: Your life decreases 2 points every 10 seconds for five minutes. The effect is not applied if the target has a life less than 30%»
«Detection effect received: Enemies can detect you even invisible for five minutes»
Hito turned his face and saw a spider with white mark attacking him from his back. He quickly used «Stealth» during 4 seconds. However, the effect was already applied on him and the spiders were able to see him.