The next morning couldn't come fast enough if you asked me. About three hours into my relaxing, I noticed the light from above start growing significantly brighter.

Brogdar's sunrise had finally come.

So it was a pretty simple realization that days in Brogdar were a minimum of twenty-seven hours. Of course, I didn't have any way to accurately track the time but eyeballing and a strong internal clock meant I had some vague idea of how long it had been. But that's beside the point and irrelevant because I still had enough info to guess at a rough level.

Comparing my prior world and this one, Brogdar had a day roughly around thirty hours. It was possible that my days were so much longer due to wherever I was in the world, but that didn't change the length of the day. With such a large period of time to cover, it made a lot of sense why the ranbi constantly ate and cleared territory for me. It also made sense why the sudden arrival of ours had almost called out to the local ranbi population.

Boy did I get a shock when I came up the stairs to see both Bomber and Ivy diligently chomping down again, though. They had likely been up and at it the instant the sun came out based on how fast they went to sleep before.

So while they worked and before we had our first visitors for the day, I began exploring some of my rewards from day one. My nutrition had reset to one — thanks ranbi number thirty-whatever — but its new cap was at a total of ten. Evolution causes one to need more to eat, after all, so even though I was no longer a Creeper Thorn, I had an obligation to eat up all ten for my morning ritual.

After that, I start slow; first, to get used to my body, I learn exactly what this new "Creeper" can do.

As expected, I'm somewhat faster; my vine-feet don't have legs but can rise and fall to let me wobble my way around. It's unsteady but far from unusable. I'd actually argue that my familiarity with the Creeper Thorn made me faster but I'd only been one for a day. The true advantage actually manifested in my height; for the first time, I could see above the grass bordering my dungeon entrance. Not that there was anything to see since it was just fields and rolling hillsides as far as I could see. However, being much taller meant I didn't need to scale bodies to see over my defensive grid.

Speaking of which, I used my remaining Trap slots almost immediately once I finished playing around with my new body's controls. I formed a defensive line similar to the omega symbol; a mostly-complete circular barrier of Creeper Thorn with two paths alongside the dungeon's hole. It made two small walkways that only fit one Ranbi but that's fine; when we retreated, both ranbi could reach me faster and I could simply use Thorntwist to deal with either or both sides at once. The additional winged-off section of dried kill-plant would eventually form our second barrier of defense around our back end, but until I had the trap limit this was the best I was going to do.

With my base prepared and both Bomber and Ivy eating... well, I decided to finally investigate their stats. One of my rewards, after all, finally let me navigate through my window to view them... so why wouldn't I?

Bomber (Summoned Ranbi, #1) Level: 2 MP: 5/5 HP: 45/45 SP: 15/15 Race: Ranbi Class: Beast Role: Striker Evolution Stage: 1/1 STR: 8 CON: 8 DEX: 6 LUCK: 4 INT: 4 RES: 3 [Back] | [Evolve] | [Manager] | [Change Class] | [Kaden] | [Next] Ivy (Summoned Ranbi, #2) Level: 1 MP: 5/5 HP: 60/60 SP: 10/10 Race: Ranbi Class: Beast Role: Grappler Evolution Stage: 1/1 STR: 5 CON: 10 DEX: 6 LUCK: 2 INT: 5 RES: 4 [Back] | [Evolve] | [Manager] | [Change Class] | [Kaden] | [Next]

As you can see and may not understand alongside me, Bomber leveled up. This also seems to hint that statlines deviating is true; comparing them, it looks like Ivy would be naturally better at getting hit than holding or fighting an enemy. It was also strange that their roles matched what I currently had them doing yet their class was set to Beast. In the future, I hoped that the beast bit would change; it was possible that whilst my Class morphed with my body acclimation thing, they might inherit a new class when they change form. Beast probably was a placeholder or some sort of scrub class, since I was a full-fledged mage despite being a pathetic plant...

Before I dig into that new Evolve function, though, I'm happy to report that I was finally able to access and see their Manager window. As the ranbi codex entry suggested, they had all of their three listed in the initial menu... but that wasn't all. Bomber had developed a new Ability and Ivy had learned to use Vice, both listed as "Acquired due to role" instead of inherited. Bomber's new ability was-... actually, it'd be better to show you guys.

Kicker Acquired due to role. Battle Style-type A fighter can use any sort of attack, yet those who use their legs choose risk for high-power!

Increased damage of all kick-based attacks and defenses by +5%.

Increases LUCK by +2 for each unique skill tree related to kick-abilities.

This was my first time seeing an ability to grant more than one bonus. It was hard to not be impressed by Bomber's kicking strength before, yet Thorntwist handled most of the kills at the latter end of their first day so it was possible I had completely missed this use of power.

Actually, thinking about it... isn't it obvious that they probably leveled up from all that eating? I had made them slow down today but to test my theory I had Bomber take it easy for a while and Ivy continued chowing down.

An hour later, I saw a notification that hadn't appeared before.

Congratulations! Your summon Ivy has leveled up! + 10 Maximum HP

+ 2 Maximum SP

+ 1 STR

+ 1 DEX

+ 1 INT

+ 2 CON

+ 1 LUCK

+ 2 RES

After that, I let Bomber get back to work and digested the facts in front of me: Bomber leveling-up likely hadn't shown up since I couldn't see their page, yet now I saw both of their leveling up. It wasn't giving me notifications for nutrition or experience, however, so the only assumption I had was that eating in Brogdar granted you nutrition and seemingly all creatures so far were able to convert excess nutrition into experience points. If humans existed, would that make fat people likely to be stronger? An isekai environment like that... eugh... it's not that I dislike fat people since I had been a bit overweight in my prior life, but wouldn't that totally kill the mood if I decided to have a harem?

... Sorry, I got sidetracked. Leveling means eating is the takeaway and as long as we continued surviving, this massive field would be ideal for increasing our levels.

Bomber and Ivy's grass crunching was turned a lot more structured a few seconds ago so sorry for the brief pause. I'm having them create some detailing; rather than clearing grass, they're trimming it. We have around a thirty foot-wide perimeter of completely-cleared dirt, so the goal is to make the grass only an inch or two high beyond that. It still feeds them but it keeps things from turning into a barren wasteland. It's already rough enough with all our barbed wire-esque plants; my shrub needs a bit of green to blend in and not look odd, am I right?

Anyway, the Evolve function. Although neither Bomber or Ivy can currently evolve, the more surprising sight was that a ranbi actually evolves into three things. The Codex has no info on them but the list isn't terribly complex to grasp: Giant Ranbi, Ranbli Kid, and Alpha/Beta Ranbi. By its name alone, I figure the Giant Ranbi is just them... but much bigger. Alpha and Beta, if I understand their fantasy rabbit anatomy from a few inspecting glances, is probably a more elite version of their current state simply named differently based on their gender.

Ranbli Kid, on the other hand, has both Kid and an L in there. Subtle differences like that make me think that it's got to be something that's more human-like. I mean, why else would you call it Kid? Of course, there's a ton of baby creatures called kid that might imply it's some sort of chimera but what if it's just referring to kids? Human-like bunnies seems possible... but what if they're bunny-like kids? Can they still eat all this grass? Do they need water? Do Ivy and Bomber need water now? Do I need water?

The questions are endless but I plan to at least have one of them try becoming a Ranbli Kid. Bomber seems most likely given he's stronger.

And once they reach level three, I can evolve them into any of the three. For now, I'll let that marinate in your heads since both Bomber and Ivy are coming back to our defensive circle. Looks like the green bastards are awake and looking to fight us again.