《Hardcore OP-ness》Chapter 3: Death with Benefits
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Michael’s status-screen opened automatically, but he was surprised when he realized that he only received two points to allocate. Without even having to think about it, he place one in Vitality and the other in Endurance.
[Player Information
Name: Michael
Titles: The Nudist, The Noob
Level: 2
Experience: 0/20
Age: Adult
Race: Human
Class: None
Specialization: None
Profession: Unemployed]
[Stats
Health: 20/20
Mana: 15/15
Stamina: 10/10
Mana Regen per minute: 20
Health Regen per hour: 20
Strength: 3
Vitality: 2
Endurance: 2
Dexterity: 3
Agility: 1.5
Intelligence: 3
Wisdom: 2
Perception: 1
Charisma: 1
Willpower: 7
Luck: 7
Aura: 1.1
Attack Rating: 15
Defense Rating: 1]
Endurance increased both his Health and Stamina by five, while Vitality also raised his Health by five, but also his regeneration by ten. He snickered, then said “Well, now the question is whether or not I can still get experience for killing level-one rabbits.”
It had been less than an hour since he was mysteriously transported into a different world, and yet he didn’t even think for a moment about trying to go back; in fact, it was almost as if he had wanted to be there from the very beginning. Of course, he still had plenty of complaints: “Ow, shit, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me… a poisonous porcu-”
There were plenty of other adorable animals in that tall grass, but all of them were either level one or two, rank ‘G’ monsters; each of which still had the ability to kill him, if he was slightly careless. Aside from the porcupine, grasshoppers, and white-rabbits, there were also giant monarch butterflies, owl moths, dragonflies, and other similar, flying critters. Truthfully, they were all named after their much smaller counterparts, and could barely even be considered magical beasts; to Humans however, they were all vicious demons that only the most foolhardy adventurers would dare to approach alone… especially not when they were completely naked and unarmed.
After stepping on the poisonous porcupine, and becoming paralyzed, the cute critter continued to tear out his left eye, and then chew into the socket, until it was finally able to reach his brain a few minutes later. During the later half of the process, he started to regain his ability to feel pain, but still couldn’t move.
Fortunately, after dying, he received a passive ability called “Resist Paralysis Level 1,” which did exactly what it said. Once he respawned, then added a second headless corpse to his collection, Michael proceeded to encounter a brown-furred field mouse, that was the size of a city-rat.
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Unlike the rabbits, it didn’t try to jump at him, or sneak around; it confronted him directly… and he kicked it. It wasn’t some amazing technique, just a normal swing of his leg, punting the critter a few meters in the air and lowering its Health by five points.
Strangely enough, the level-two mouse, with 10/15 HP left, tried to charge towards him again; yet, this time it performed an actual ability: “Claw Attack.” As the name suggests, it was just a couple swipes of the relatively small fingernails on its hands.
Michael tried to dodge it, but the little rat was incredibly fast; it jumped a few feet in the air, and lunged towards his groin, figuratively dismembering him. The damage to his Health was only six points, though a ridiculously powerful ‘bleeding’ debuff was causing him to lose a lot more.
However, even if he was going to die, it didn’t mean he would let the sinister rodent escape with its life. He dropped down to his knees and grabbed its neck with both hands; while the rabbits would be defenseless in that state, the mouse was not.
The pitch-black eyes glared at him, and caused his body to uncontrollably stiffen; it was an ‘intimidation’ skill, but not very effective against targets of equal level or higher. His hands swiftly squeezed, and then twisted in opposite directions, causing a large “+2 Exp” to appear.
Immediately putting the corpse into the second bag-slot, he steadily lost Health until reaching 3/20, and then it started regenerating. He kept the ‘neutered’ debuff, but didn’t receive any other problems… aside from the fact that his reproductive system was removed, and his urinary tract no longer functioned.
Michael didn’t worry about it too much though; in fact, he didn’t even wait for his Health-pool to completely fill. Once he could walk properly again, he encountered another one of those rats, but it was only level-one.
Their size was only slightly smaller, but otherwise, it was difficult to tell the difference without the floating text above its head. When the field-mouse saw him, it unhesitantly charged, and prepared to use its “Claw Attack.”
However, the difference in speed between the one he had faced before, and the second, was pretty dramatic. He not only evaded the assault, but also stomped down in the rodent’s neck, with his right heel, severing its spinal cord; the HP dropped down to 2/10 instantly, and it only took a few more seconds to finally die, giving him a single experience point.
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Even if the higher leveled and ranked monsters gave much more experience, the weaker ones were far easier to kill. Unfortunately, it was impossible for him to target anything specific, because there were just too many different types of animals, and they each had very different behavioral patterns.
The sky was becoming darker, and thunder was resounding, but the rainclouds had yet to reach him. It was impossible for him to tell what time of day it was, because he didn’t even know if the planet was anything like Earth.
After killing five rabbits and three giant mice, his stamina reached 2/10 and fatigue finally forced him to stop moving. Not only did he have to sit down and rest, but the various wounds on his body started to fester and become infected with a flesh-eating bacteria; in less than five minutes, his Health reached zero, and he died.
However, he did receive another passive skill called “Immune System Boost Level 1,” which dramatically increased his resistance against various infectious diseases. When Michael’s new body was formed, he started laughing maniacally, then yelled “Yes! I can breath out of both nostrils! Thank you, mysterious aliens or whatever the hell you are!”
Making so much noise, attracted the attention of a small finch-like bird, which divebombed directly into the back of his head, dealing twenty-five damage as he immediately fell down onto his previous corpse. His wisp suddenly muttered “Wait a second… since I didn’t have my mana-core eaten the last time, doesn’t that mean it’s still in my fourth head?”
Without waiting for the beefy crow-sized, brown and grey “Vicious Sparrow” to fly away, he quickly respawned and grabbed the level two, ‘F’ ranked monster with both hands. Evolving didn’t regenerate the Health that it lost from smashing into his skull at sixty miles-per-hour, so he was able to use all of his relatively powerful upper-body strength to snap its neck.
Michael continued to store the carcass in bag-slot three, while putting his own corpses into number one. He didn’t really want to try to tear a human head open without any kind of tools; at least it wasn’t something that he could do at the time.
When he killed the rank ‘F’ monster, he realized that it have twice the experience as the level-two rat; he was left with only six points left, until he could reach level-three. As the rain started pouring down on the grasslands, he muttered “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about catching a cold, heh-heh.” Indeed, even if he did get sick, he would likely be killed again before he had a chance to suffer and die from the illness.
As he unhurriedly walked towards the south, with little to no visibility, he grumbled “Ugh, so much mud… ow, shit, wait a minute. Why the hell am I fighting completely bare-handed, when there are so many fucking sharp and jagged rocks laying around?” Michael looked down at his muddy feet, noticed that his Health and stamina were being slowly but constantly drained; then he reached down and grabbed a handful of dirty pebbles, putting them into bag-slot number five.
All he had to do was touch them with his hands, and he could shove most things into his magical, nonexistent, item storage device. He wanted to try and test whether he could put living organisms inside of it, but all of the animals that he had met thus far, were all incredibly dangerous: It definitely didn’t work on grass that was still in the ground though.
Technically, all of the carcasses and corpses that he stored, should have had plenty of microorganisms, bacteria, viruses though, so he was pretty sure that it didn’t matter too much. When he put grass into one of the slots, after pulling it out, from what he could tell, it still looked pretty Healthy.
Then Michael noticed something important; none of the foliage had floating names or life-bars. Picking up another handful of pebbles, he concentrated on them, while imagining a fairly common skill in video-games that he had played, called “Identification.”
The moment it activated, he received a message “Scan Level 1 Acquired.” Which was accompanied by another pop-up, which read “Small Jagged Rocks: These were once large stones, but were broken apart by magical-beasts. Poor Quality, no level requirement.”
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