-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Fist fighting with Monkeys(3)-

Kenshin followed the monkey all the way to the deepest part of the forest. Then soon after passing a certain area, the monkey started to screech loudly, as if calling for someone. But Kenshin paid it no mind as he was immersed in the sweet feeling of his breakthrough in flexibility. As Kenshin was about to step on one of the next branches to bounce off towards the rapid direction changing monkeys, his senses tingled, and his eyes caught the approaching shadow below his legs.

As of right now, his sensory perception had already surpassed 10, which was equivalent of having a sixth sense. In some cases, even if his eyes couldn’t see and his map couldn’t detect the danger, his senses would tingle warning him of the approaching danger. Although the sense wasn't precise, it was still better than not having any. In the past few days, he was also honing this ability. During those time, he has also discovered another amazing thing. While using his Intent, the sensory perception would be twice more powerful not even allowing an ant below his feet to lose from his senses.

Although he was yet to find out the true function of this sensory perception, even with how much he got, it was still enough for him to counter many dangers. Just now, he felt his feet tremble for an instant, after that he began to feel restless. This meant danger was approaching from below where he was now.

Squinting his eyes, he observed it was a three-eyed monkey closing on him from below. A smile crept upon his face as he noticed it. Kicking the next branch, he pushed himself higher and did a somersault, landing a branch behind the monkey. After that, before the monkey could realized anything, he pulled himself down closed himself onto the monkey. By now the monkey had already realized the approaching danger, but it just couldn’t stop itself. Kenshin neared the monkey in just a few pushes and gave it a tight slap to its neck. This time he had controlled a huge amount of his strength, but it was still enough to blow away that monkey’s head like a watermelon.

“Damn! Still to much strength!” Kenshin mumbled. He just wanted to slap the monkey down, but it died from that slap.

After killing the monkey, Kenshin observed another shadow, creeping up at him from his right. He waited for the monkey to approach close enough, and when it entered his ‘mai’, he gave its abdomen a tight elbow smash.

Puchi!

With a disgusting noise, the monkey’s chest cavity gave in, and it vomited out blood and other gastric juices. But he wasn’t given time to relish in his victory, another monkey soon came at him from his top, aiming for his head with a mace. It was his first time seeing this kind of monkey holding a weapon. So when the monkey approached close enough, Kenshin clenched his fist and gave a hard punch to the monkey. His fist smashed the mace into tiny peace and continued to pound the monkey into a bloody pulp.

This time the monkey didn’t die, the mace chipped away some of the power of his punch. At the same time, due to having a sick skill like Passive Regeneration, Kenshin knew that monkey would get up and run around in just a week. The monkey fell down, but he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he concentrated on his front where more than twenty monkeys were glaring at him. The monkey he was pursuing this time was nowhere to be seen, probably after alerting its friends, it hid somewhere.

‘Or maybe it has gone to call for their chief!’ A monkey chief was as a boss, but less special and less powerful. Even so, if these monkeys were limited to level 20, the chief could be anywhere between level 20 to 25. But although the chief wasn’t considered a boss, sometimes, it can be more terrifying than a boss. At least the boss appears after all the monkeys or at least 80% of it were slain. But a chief can appear anytime. And if it couldn’t beat you alone, it would order its subordinates to gang up on you.

These monkeys couldn’t disobey their chief’s orders, it's in their very DNA. Due to this chief would succeed in utilizing this dirty but effective trick. There was also another reason why hunters didn’t want to deal with a chief, despite the difficulty in killing it, its drops were no less than a regular three-eyed monkey’s.

Although rumours were going around of D-grade equipment dropping from a chief, nobody was yet to confirm this claim. Equipment was divided into various grades, starting from D to SS+ Getting a graded weapon was as rare as awakening a skill. Most of the time, the dropped equipment were upgraded. Although sturdier than common, a lot weaker than graded ones. Graded equipment could be anywhere between 10,000G to several million golds. From this, one can understand the rarity of them.

Even Kenshin’s Blood Armour set and Jewel sword were only C-grade equipment. Despite being only C-grade, it could still give enough DEF to counter some of the high levelled hunters. One could only expect what would have happened if it was of SS+ grade.

The allure of a D-grade drop even had Kenshin’s heart pounding. All the drops he had got during dungeon break, none of them was graded weapons or armours. Though some of them approached the threshold of a D-graded one. Even in his System’s Store, single D-grade equipment cost more than a 1000G. It was just his good luck that he got that jewel sword at a very low price. Kenshin stopped himself from hopping forward and observed the twenty or so monkeys standing or hanging from the trees. The monkeys also did the same, observing the human who had killed many of their brethren.

Both sides sized the other as if gauging the strength and weakness. Then suddenly a screech was heard from somewhere as if it was a signal. The monkeys all reacted and raced towards Kenshin with varied movements.

Kenshin had to give it to them, these monkeys were really intelligent and knew how to utilize different strategies. They also had superb teamwork among themselves, increasing their strength to another level. Anticipating their moves, Kenshin braced himself for just about anything.

At that time, the monkey on the lead entered his mai. Just as he was about to strike it, he noticed the monkey suddenly squatting down, at the same time two monkeys carrying heavy maces in their hands, came from its back and attacked him. The monkey that squatted earlier jumped forward to give him a vicious headbutt to Kenshin’s stomach.

Kenshin became speechless at the coordination between these monkeys. It was a well-thought trap, a person would first deal with the maces, but at that time would be vulnerable to the headbutting monkey. At the same time, if he deals with the headbutting monkey, the maces would smash his head open.

This time, Kenshin was really surprised at the monkey’s intelligence. To this coordinated move, Kenshin’s reacting was this, he clenched his both fists, and sent two punches towards the maces. At the same time, he raised his right leg and kneed the headbutting monkey.

His fists broke through the maces and smashed the two monkey’s faces, his knee crushed the monkey below to die on the spot.

[Ding* Killed a level 11 Three-eyed monkey. Gained 120 EXP]

[Ding* Killed a level 11 Three-eyed monkey. Gained 120 EXP]

[Ding* Killed a level 11 Three-eyed monkey. Gained 120 EXP]