I could now carry my stone shield. It took much longer to get used to than the sword but I eventually got there thankfully. It had been a while since I last held my sword and shield together at once. The sword dealt way more damage as I am able to defeat a slime in one or two hits now and they can't break the shield regardless of how many times they hit it. The only downside is that I was incredibly slower now that my weapons were much heavier.

To improve this, I made sure to make daily walks while holding my weapons. I sometimes jogged with them if I ever feelt confident. My roommate Lily commented how Alfred and I looked like soldiers on patrol duty.

Fighting sharp tailed rats become easier as the time went on. It was still scary knowing that they had the potential to kill you, and I am embarrassed to admit that I did need the Scout's assistance on too many occasions.

The "regeneration" passive I got has been a lot more useful than I originally assumed. For example, since the handle of my stone is also made of stone, my hands would often get blisters which would conveniently heal over night thanks to my passive. But there is one downside to it: if I'm too injured, I'll suddenly become incredibly sleepy which is incredibly inconvenient if I'm injured in the wilderness.

But having Alfred there with me and knowing that these rats die in just a few hits really helped. It was also easier now that I could lift my shield. A tactic I also learned during battle was to simply drop my weapons if I ever needed to dodge an attack. This helped a lot against the rats. I was honestly amazed how much progress I had made compared to when I had the Angel class. I was never able to defeat a rat as an angel.

I've also somehow gained a new skill again much to my surprise. I received it when fighting a rat but I wasn't sure what exactly triggered it.

...

Endurance (Passive): Reduces damage taken.

...

It was yet another skill with an extremely vague description, even more vague than regeneration which I didn't know was possible. I didn't even know skill descriptions could be this short.

How much damage is reduced exactly? Neither Alfred or I have any clue. I haven't felt much of a difference since receiving the skill so I assumed it wasn't that much. It's interesting to note that, judging from the description, the passive doesn't increase my base defence which is a stat that affects my other skills.

Alfred had grown bigger as well. He was now the size of a child. It was interesting to see the size of his armour and sword grow bigger with him. Perhaps his armour was actually his real body. I asked him but he didn't understand the question.

While I was watching Alfred drawing on the dirt with his sword, I saw the Reaper again who about to exit the village. The moon was wide awake and it was around that time of the night again. It was another detail I picked up during my usual people-watching sessions. At least once a week, I always spotted her leaving the village around this time, just when most people are about to sleep.

"Where are you going?" I asked as I followed after her.

"To the deep forest."

Strange. She was certainly not going to hunt for food. She had already done that today.

"What for?"

"To search for something." She answered before giving me a small grin that spoke of nothing but danger, "...Wanna join me?"

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

"How do you know where to go in a place like this?" I asked the Reaper as we ventured back into the deep misty forest.

Even after all this time, this forest still confused me. Everywhere I looked, I could only see tall skinny, dark, tree trunks and mist. The tree trunks stood tall, with their leaves and branches at the top acting like a ceiling for the forest.

It was hard to see what was in front of us thanks to the mist as well. There was another feature I had never noticed about this forest until now: the mist illuminated its own misty white light. It was night at the moment, so logically, it should've been pitch black inside. Yet I could see clearly inside, including every rock, pebble and twig on the ground.

"Hmm...Well...I have set up a few...'landmarks'." She said as she pointed at a tree's shadow that shouldn't logically exist from its angle, "but besides that...you just get used to it...Oh yeah! You always follow me so I guess you've never noticed huh?"

"Noticed what?"

Yukari spun around slowly while spinning her index finger until finally she stopped and pointed in a certain direction, "Walk that way."

Alfred and I both turned our heads at the same time. We saw nothing but the usual trees and mist in the direction she pointed.

"Trust me, if you're worried about monsters, don't be...they don't appear at times like this."

Alfred and I shrugged at each other before walking in the direction that the Reaper pointed to. The reaper simply waved at us, not moving from her spot. I held Alfred's hand and told him to keep an eye on Yukari as we walked. He kept me updated on how much he could see her.

As we walked, Alfred told me he could now only see a blurry outline of the Reaper's figure.

Sparking my curiosity, I looked back as well. Just like he said, Yukari's figure in the distance had been condensed into nothing but a wavy shadow, as if it was merging with the mist. I had expected the mist to completely cover her up once we walked far away enough, but no matter how far we walked, Alfred and I could still the blurry outline of the Reaper's body.

I suddenly bumped into something.

Alarmed, Alfred and I pulled out our weapons...only to jump in utter bewilderment to see that it was...Yukari's back. She turned around and smiled at us. She giggled as if holding back the urge to laugh out loud.

Alfred and I turned around again to look back. We half expected the shadowy figure, which I originally thought belonged to Yukari, to have disappeared...but to my shock, it was still there. Not only that, there were was now two more shadowy figures standing next to it. One of them was holding a sword and shield, and the other one was about the size of a child.

I raised my hand. After about a second later, the second shadowy figure in the distance also raised its hand.

"W-what the... H-how-"

"Like I said...you have to get used to it." The Reaper replied with an amused grin.

Alfred began playfully jumping up and down as he watched the third shadowy figure copy him.

The Reaper patted me on the shoulder, it felt as if she placed something on me but when I looked, there was nothing there.

"Shall we... split up to cover more ground?" She suggested with an innocent smile.

We both turned the other way and walked in opposite directions.

it sounded like a horrible idea at first. But Alfred and I ended up seeing her again five minutes later appearing from our right. Then again from the left. Again from behind us and one time, she even fell from above.

Each time, she would say something along the lines of "oh hey again" or "fancy meeting you here" and each time, she would wander off in another different direction.

It felt as if we were always together but at the same time, it felt as if we were always separated.

"Boo."

I screamed. But it was just Yukari.

It soon became clear that the Reaper just wanted to mess with Alfred and I. I began to question whether separating actually made a different or not.

We had been walking in the forest for quite a while and still hadn't been attacked once.

Every so often, I would see our shadowy reflection in the distance.

Everywhere we went looked exactly the same. It was getting more and more difficult to tell how much time had passed. So I began using Sword Strike, which had a 5 minute cool down, over and over again to gauge how much time had passed.

15 minutes later, we came across Yukari again.

"Is there a trick to it?" I asked.

"Yes...but I won't tell you."

"Why?"

"I got too used to this forest...perhaps that's why I can never find it. You may have a bigger chance than me. Just a theory, of course."

"What exactly are we searching for?"

She simply smiled, "You'll know when you find it...if you find it that is."

Another 10 minutes passed. Still nothing.

I guess anything different from trees and mist would be easy to spot.

Alfred seemed to be having fun as he constantly looked left and right as if he was some sort of explorer.

5 minutes. I heard flowing water. That was new.

"You hear that?" I called out, thinking that maybe the Reaper could still hear me.

No response. Alfred followed the sound of the water eagerly wanting to know where it was.

Eventually, we came across a small, rocky river. The water flowed from our right to the left. The river continued passed the mist on both sides so we couldn't see where it ended or began.

It was so shallow that you could walk across it, which I did. Nothing happened as I looked around.

Perhaps...we were meant to follow the flow of the water.

So we did. Alfred wanted to swim or float in it but he was already too big and heavy for that.

10 minutes. We came across something unusual.

The trees still looked exactly the same. It was their alignment that was unusual. They were set up in a perfectly straight line, as if someone had carefully placed them there. The distance between each of the trees were closer than usual and the length between each tree was exactly the same. It looked like a fence.

The flowing river suddenly stopped flowing and it went flat in silence.

There was an opening in the middle of this huge 'fence'. Like a doorway, but through it, I saw nothing but thick white fog. The river that we were following, however, kept continuing through that opening.

Should I wait? Before I could ponder that question, Alfred sprinted right through the opening in the fence.

"Alfred! Wait!" I hastily followed after him.

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

We ran through the thick fog that basically blocked my entire sight, hearing nothing but the splashing of our footsteps.

Eventually, we saw a bright light at the end and we both burst through on the other side.

What we saw was eye-opening.

We had entered a wide open square-shaped clearing with thick mist surrounding the perimeter of the area like a fence. I could briefly see the shapes of a wall of endless trees within the perimeter. Inside the area, however, there was no mist or fog and everything was clearly visible.

There was grass. Clean shiny grass where the water droplets on them almost glistened like diamonds.

The shallow river we followed connected to a circular, deeper river in the middle of the area. The circle shaped river surrounded a small grass hill that occupied the very centre of the entire open area. The bottom of the lake was not visible.

Around the river were more clean, shiny grass areas. Plenty of space that could probably fit the whole of Fake Town and still have room to spare.

However, I paid almost little to no attention to all of this as all my attention was focused on the tall creature that sat quietly on the small hill.

There I was, staring at the creature with wide open eyes.

It had six arms, sat on a huge bolder with folded, brown furry legs and had the head of a deer. It had hooves and human shaped hands. Its torso looked as if it belonged to a human. But he was certainly no human. Though identical in length, its long thin arms were not all the same. The upper two arms that were closest to its head was covered in brown fur just like its legs. The middle two arms looked like human arms with pale skin. The lower two arms looked as if they were made of dark wood.

Despite being in plain sight, however, the creature did not attack me and sat there in silence...it was staring at me. Those eyes. They were pitch black and had no iris or pupil or anything that eyes are supposed to have. Its eyes simply contained two dark voids.

For the first time, I saw Alfred hesitate and back away. His hands clutched onto my leg as he stood behind me.

"Oh wow you found it," The reaper appeared from behind me, almost giving me a heart attack, "Either you're insanely lucky or the world just really wants you dead."

"Reaper that's-"

"Yes. The B-rank monster that rules this entire area. Viridescent: Watcher of the Forest." She stated with a wide grin, she looked at me straight in the eye before asking, "Wanna challenge it?"

My head snapped towards her. I knew her enough to already know that she was dead serious but I still double checked her expression. She may have been smiling but it was clearly no joke.

B-rank: Two ranks above the sharp tailed rats I was used to fighting. While C-Rank monster are considered dangerous. Any monster classified as B-rank or higher are all seen as catastrophic in terms of power. It is also said that most of these monsters have high intelligence, meaning it's hard to deploy a consistent attack strategy on them unlike C-rank monsters and below.

I have...never seen a B-rank monster before. The strongest monster I saw was that Ogre but it was swiftly taken care of so I never saw what it was fully capable of doing.

"Why isn't it attacking?" I asked.

She shrugged, "Who knows... don't be fooled though. Once you attack, it won't hesitate to kill you."

"So this is the same monster-"

"That almost killed me last time. Yes...Want to have a closer look?"

"Y-you sure?"

"You can seat next to it, have a drink with it, even try talking to it if you want...don't expect a response though."

I was hesitant. So was Alfred. But Yukari casually crossed the river and approached the B-rank creature. She gave it a nonchalant greeting and sat in front of it. The creature didn't move.

Cautiously, I went over to the river. There were small stepping stones that convenient acted as a bridge from one side to the other.

It stared at me as I went seat next to the Reaper. Even sitting down, the monster was meters taller than both of us.

At first I thought the name was something the Reaper had made up, but a name tag of red text briefly showed up above its head as I approached. Similar to Sir Alfred but his name tag was white.

"Most common folk believe this guy is just a myth," Yukari explained, "although this creature's legend is quite popular hence they named this forest: Viridescent's Forest. His rank was given to him long ago... after it was killed by a General."

The reaper's jacket pulled out a wooden cup and a wine bottle. She poured a dark red liquid into the cup and offered it to the creature. The creature reached with one of its arms and accepted the cup, completely baffling Alfred and I.

"You mean supposedly killed?" I asked as I curiously observed the creature swiftly finish the drink before gesturing for a refill.

"No. It was confirmed dead. There's even a picture of the General holding Viridescent's head," Yukari replied as she poured the creature another glass, "Monsters are full of mysteries aren't they?"

"Where did you get the wine?" I asked.

"It's not wine. It's poison." The Reaper replied casually as she eyed the creature drinking its second cup.

"Eh?"

"Although the venom belongs to snakes that came from this very forest so I'm not surprised. Worth the try though..." Yukari then turned to face me again, "So Summoner...I'll ask one more time...want to challenge it?"

I gulped.

"You can always turn back if you're too scared."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to fight it, of course. No way I'm wasting such a rare chance like this."

"But what about the village? If you die here then-"

"Listen Summoner... if you can't even stare death in the face than how are you meant to face the dangers that threaten those you want to protect."

"..."

"Besides...I could use another power up."

There was no convincing her to turn back now. My mind wandered back to what she told me about the "cheat" that gives you huge leaps in improvement. Perhaps part of the "cheat" requires you to go all out and still have your limits pushed so far that you're at death's doorstep.

This seemed like a horrible idea. Might as well call it suicide. Everything about the idea was insane. The wisest- no, it would be common sense to decide to turn back: you didn't need to be wise to make a decision like that. But there was no way I was going to...

"Alfred. Go back to the village." I ordered.

He shook his head, stubbornly disobeying me and crossing his arms.

"Well?"

I sighed, "You know...This could very well be the end of both of us."

Her smile grew larger before she burst out laughing, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The creature gently placed down the cup of poison it had already drank.

Yukari grabbed her shadow jacket and brought it closer to it her mouth, "Be nice to her okay?"

Her jacket suddenly ripped into two pieces. Without warning, the Reaper chucked one of halves at me. I flinched as the piece of shadow fabric swiftly wrapped around my neck, forming a long, pitch black scarf that reached down all the way down to my foot.

The other half formed a hoodie and cloak around the Reaper, "Give it blood whenever you can, even your own if you have to."

With that, we both turned to face Viridescent. I summoned my sword and shield while Alfred pulled out his iron sword. Both my knight and I then reached our hands towards the Reaper, using "Defensive Gift" to boost her.

"Oi!" The reaper yelled at the monster as she pulled out her scythe, "Up for another round? I've been dying to pay you back for last time."

To my surprise, it made a gesture with its fingers. A finger gesture that could only be interpreted as "Come at me." Does it enjoy being challenge? Or perhaps, it doesn't even see us as a threat.

"Shall we begin then?" Yukari grinned as she sliced her own arm with her scythe. The blood flowed down to her scythe, causing it to enlarge in size. Without wasting another second, she took the first strike.

"Death Swing!"

...

To be continued.

This chapter was finished on 22/02/2022