As if in response, the king crawler swung one of its scythes downwards towards her. She swung her sword toward the scythe to block, mostly out of reflex.

"Clunk!"

-0

[Your weapon has lost durability and is in critical condition! 5/100 DUR]

The scythe of the crawler had cut the entire blade of her sword off, so cleanly that Mei could barely feel any of the impact transferred to her. She could only watch helplessly as the rust covered blade flew into the air.

The scythe paused midswing before swinging toward her horizontally this time. She ducked down frantically as it whooshed over her head. If not for how oversized the crawler was, she wouldn't have been able to dodge that.

"Kruhh..." it growled, annoyed.

It began to curl its body up. Seeing this, Mei hurriedly ran towards the left, attempting to circle the beast. But to her shock, the crawler uncurled, swinging a scythe towards her at incredible speed. The act of curling up was just a dud!

This time, she wasn't prepared to dodge. The blade swung towards her, slicing her entire arm off.

-346 HP (519/865)

[You are inflicted with heavy bleeding and will lose health quickly!]

Mei almost screamed in panic. The attack did not hurt at all, as the game wasn't designed to traumatise the player. But seeing her arm fly off and fade was not a pleasant experience. The lost sensation of an arm wasn't fun either.

Her heart started to beat faster and faster. Panic clouded her mind. She felt like she was definitely going to die before help arrives.

As the creature turned to face her again holding up on of its scythes, Mei felt her limbs weaken as if she was made out of jelly.

-100!

Just as she was about to give up hope, an arrow struck the head of her foe. The crawler turned towards the direction the arrow flew from. Dozens of metres away stood a lone archer. The archer nocked another arrow on his bow, aiming it at the monster.

-100!

"SKREEEEE!" the crawler screeched in anger. 

The arrows barely did any damage, but they still hurt as much as a needle piercing the skin. It aimed one last attack at Mei before it curled up to shoot towards the archer.

She leapt to the side randomly, hitting the ground awkwardly. The scythe missed her by a large bargin.

"Attack!" shouted a voice from afar. 

The sound of shouts and weapons clanging could be heard soon after.

As she slowly calmed down lying face down in the moss, relief overwhelmed her. She wasn't going to lose her fruits after all! Her joy was interrupted by red text appearing before her eyes.

-87 HP (345/865)

Crap! It struck Mei that she still had the bleeding debuff and was about to die anyway! If only there was a potion... 

It was at this moment when it struck her. Didn't Alzeth say the fruits restore a certain amount of health? She hurriedly took out one of the fruits and gobbled it up in around ten seconds, spitting out the seeds.

+500 (845/865)

Level up!

Congratulations, you are now level 12!

+100 SP

SpellSword level up!

Congratulations, you are now a level 8 SpellSword!

+25 DEX

+50 AGI

+50 STR

+75 MAG

Race EXP 75/400

SpellSword EXP: 15/340

She sighed in relief. She almost forgot that the fruits even restored health since she ate them while at full health. Her bonus skill levelled up too, which was nice, but it didn't seem that usef- Wait a second. A strange but brilliant thought came over her. If she levelled up this skill enough, wouldn't she be able to eat food in an instant? If she got fast enough, she could pretty much treat food items like potions in battle!

-87 HP (778/865)

The red text snapped her out of her thoughts. She should leave the aggro range of the king crawlers. Lost limbs would only regrow outside of combat, even if the health bar was full. The exception was if the healing was done by a healing spell high levelled to regrow limbs, but she currently did not have anyone like that on hand.

She took off running, at a surprising speed. To think she would be so much faster after just a few levels! With her newfound speed, it didn't take long before she exited the agro limit, a hundred metres. Her arm simply popped into existence right from the stump. 

Mei stretched happily. It felt so good to have her limb back! She couldn't help but wonder how horrible it would be for someone who loses their arm in real life. Sure, they might be able to get a prosthetic arm, but it just wasn't the same afterwards.

But enough of that. Mei opened the party chat.

"idk what youre doing to take so long but we're waiting for u at the town portal rug thingy fyi"

Opening the chat, Mei was greeted by Alzeth's message that had been sent a few minutes ago.

"Haha sorry. Out of agro now so you can summon me." typed Mei.

"nice" replied Alzeth.

Alzeth is summoning you.

Teleport there?

Yes No

The box popped up seconds later. Mei clicked hit 'yes'. 

She landed on a familiar pad.

"Yo," said Alzeth as he waved his hand. 

"Hi," replied Mei awkwardly.

A few seconds of awkward silence passed.

"So how many fruits did you leave for us?" said Alzeth.

"Oh, um..." Mei hurriedly took out the clean ones. 

She handed them to Alzeth who pocketed them swiftly. 

"There're more but they're covered in saliva," she said.

"Just hand them over like. I'm not easily grossed out," said Alzeth as he reached his hands out.

Gingerly, Mei dropped the rest of the fruits into his hands from her inventory. The somewhat greenish saliva coated his hands but he didn't seem to mind much. Alzeth took out a set of rags out of his inventory and wiped his hands as clean as he could before putting it back.

Mei was a little surprised to see him using the starter rags as a handkerchief too. It seems that other players found the rags as useful as she did too.