Initially GimmePower was quite tense about being so far ahead of the party as the scout that he was out of sight but as an hour went by without anything happening, he relaxed. After another hour, he started walking on his hands to train his Strength.

So it was no surprise that he was caught by an ambush.

Fifty meters behind, Jinyang and GimmeGirls heard GimmePower’s voice crying out.

“Ahhhh! No! I’m getting killed!”

As Jinyang and GimmeGirls looked at each other, they nodded. It was time for a strategic retreat. They had to do it so that GimmePower’s sacrifice would not be in vain. As they turned the cart around, they continued to hear GimmePower shouting.

“They are too strong! Run! Save yourselves!”

Hearing his words, both halted and again looked at each other. Turning the cart back to its original direction, they proceeded towards GimmePower’s shouts with as much stealth as they could muster. What they saw was GimmePower with his spear out, hopping about and parrying the attacks of a giant rock spider which both of them recognised, from browsing the game forums, as a monster with a base level of 92. Since his defence was weaker than the spider’s attack rating, several bite marks could be seen. He was making no effort to attack the spider at all, merely defending. In some cases, it was obvious that he was letting the spider bite him.

Looking at each other, the two hidden players communicated with facial expressions, twitches, shrugs and head jerks. After they once again reached a unanimous decision, both leapt out of their hiding place, both of them shouting words of encouragement.

“Ah Pow! We are coming to help you! Stay strong!”

“Power-san, we will do this together!”

Nearly tripping in surprise on hearing their voices, GimmePower was swift in discouraging them.

“Hyung, It’s too dangerous! The monster is poisonous! Take the cart and use the Teamster skill to run!”

“No Ah Pow, we are brothers in arms. Dead or alive, we won’t abandon you!”

“Yes Power-san, for loyalty and honor!”

GimmeGirls charged in, his axe swished about a meter above the spider’s head while dodging the return blow. Jinyang had taken out his morning star and was charging in, twirling the weapon above his head.

“Leave him alone! Attack me instead!”

“No hyung, I am the tank, I’ll take it on!”

“Power-san, Money-san, I have it under control!”

As each of them ‘attacked’ the spider, their weapons missed even the most glaring of openings. Each of them even occasionally ‘blundered’ on their defensive parries, allowing the spider to bite them. The reason was obvious if you looked at the system messages that popped up.

Defence increases by 1 point.

You have been poisoned. Health will decrease by 20 per second for 10 seconds

Due to continuous exposure to high level poisons, Poison Resistance increases by 1%

Since they were level 1, even the poison from the spider which was in the level 90+ range was considered extremely high level to them. They expected the poison resistance gains to be capped just like stat gains but every extra percentage point was very valuable as many monsters and plants were poisonous. Gaining resistance here now would help greatly against the stronger monsters they would encounter later.

The level difference was also the reason their Defence skill was rising. By fighting a monster that was so much higher level than them, the system had categorised their actions as being dangerously challenging. This reduced the amount of successes that they needed to raise a single stat point which meant a two or three successful dodges had their scores in Defence increasing.

It was an unforeseen bounty and each of the three was determined to thoroughly benefit from it. As GimmeGirls had the lowest health, he was forced to attempt to use the Bandage skill much more often than the others to recover from the poison damage. Even so, he refused to leave melee range of the spider, forcefully doing the bandaging while evading attacks. Despite failing many times, he did manage to succeed for a few times and those few successes rewarded him with a system message

The Bandage skill has been upgraded to Combat Bandaging.

There was no time for GimmeGirls to explore what had happened to the skill as benefiting from fighting the spider was the main priority. After half an hour, the spider’s stamina was nearing single digits from constantly attacking and it tried to flee. However, GimmeGirls was the fastest to respond, quickly cutting off its retreat. Now with enemies were at both its front and rear, it was forced to continue fighting. Several times, its stamina pool was exhausted and it could only plop down onto the ground to regenerate its stamina.

The poor spider’s store of poison was also running low as the system pop up messages showed that the duration of the poison was decreasing. From ten seconds it went to nine, then eight and it was at three when GimmePower grabbed the spider’s head while it was exhausted at 0 stamina and pulled it downwards, sinking its poisoned fangs into its shoulder. He even shook the spider’s head to create an impression that the spider had taken hold of him and was shaking him like a dangerous rabid dog.

“Hyung, go! I’ll keep it occupied!”

“No! We defeat it together or we die together!”

Pulling the spider’s head off GimmePower’s shoulder then pushing him away, Jinyang pulled it down onto his own arm making it look like the spider was biting him. He knocked the spider’s head a few times to make sure the fangs were injecting the poison into him. He had barely gotten the system message of him being poisoned when the head was pulled away from him and forced towards GimmeGirls’ thigh.

“Aieee! Power-san, take Money-san away from here quickly to cure his poison. I will sacrifice my life if necessary to buy you the time!”

As the three of them pulled on the spider’s head, it could not hold itself together any longer and the head burst, splitting into three parts. Greenish blue blood splattered everywhere. The three of them stood over the corpse of the spider. Each of them had gained eight levels from defeating just that one monster but that was not something they considered important as they expected to die and lose levels. It was in fact preferable to be as low level as possible given that maintaining a level gap could help in gaining defence or other stat points like what had happened just now.

None of the other two called out GimmePower on his fake cries of being in danger. To their minds it was perfectly reasonable to attempt to hoard a resource like that and something they would do themselves.That was not to say they could not hypocritically claim the moral high ground if there was some major gain to be achieved but doing so would sour their working relationship permanently.

“Hyung, it seems the monster was not strong enough to withstand our combined might.”

“Yes Ah Pow, this shows that through cooperation and teamwork, we can emerge victorious over the strongest of opponents.”

“Power-san though our flesh may be weak, our spirits are like the noon sun, shining through the darkness.”

As they finished praising the team effort that they had made in ‘defeating’ the spider, matters turned to others of urgency.

“Money-san, it has eight legs. So….”

“Yes hyung, are we supposed to eat it?”

“Ah Pow, Ah Girls, there are some things that should be done and some that should not. As men of class, honor and integrity, we should not eat anything we find just because we are hungry. We should choose higher quality foods.”

This was perfectly fine with GimmeGirls and GimmePower as the spider’s hairy body looked extremely unappetizing. GimmeGirls nearly vomited when he imagined himself munching on a fried spider leg with the hairs still intact. GimmePower could not stand thinking of having to cook something that looked this hideous. Jinyang was no better. His entire speech was simply to avoid having to eat the disgusting thing.

They had hardly finished agreeing on not having the spider as their lunch when a harsh hissing voice echoed through the tunnel.

“You would kill my petsssss and expect no retribution mortalsssss?”

From the deeper tunnel shadows, a creature that looked like a king cobra with its tail coiled and a pair of arms with human looking hands at the end of it appeared. The three looked at each other and their eyes and faces conveyed their thoughts to each other. A few pointed looks at the dead spider followed by sideway glances at the new arrival and some twitches of the eyebrows conveyed a message. A short jerk of Jinyang’s head brought two affirming nods. Their wordless conversation done, Jinyang stepped towards the monster.

“Oh sorry. Your pet was being violent so we had to put it down. Seriously how could you let your pet run around biting people, that’s just asking to be slapped on your face and have the police arrest you… well if someone can find where your face is… Anyway I just hope you understand how irresponsible and dumb you were with how you train your pet.”

After his speech, Jinyang calmly stood in a defensive posture. GimmePower and GimmeGirls had retreated fifteen meters behind him. With an angry hiss, the snake monster attacked. While moving and blocking its attacks, he did not stop in evaluating its offensive ability sarcastically to get it to continue attacking.

“Ooo, almost hit me there, almost but not quite. You have to work harder.”

“Still missing? I’m falling asleep here. Come on, can we finish this before next year?”

“Oh you finally managed to bite me, not bad, keep up the good work. 50 damage per second for 10 seconds. That’s better than the spider at least.”

As his health neared the point where another poisonous bite could leave him with less than 10% of his health, he retreated while GimmePower advanced. Jinyang then attempted several times to bandage himself, learning the Bandage skill in the process. GimmePower has prepared plenty of bandages so they could spam the skill to their heart’s content.

“Snake-ssi, you must extend your neck a bit more when biting.”

“Aish, not like that. Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

“Harder snake-ssi, bite harder. You’re must be like a real man, er snake, er whatever it is you are.”

After GimmePower had reached the danger zone for his health, he retreated to recover his health with GimmeGirls taking over.

“You must pardon the nagging from the both of them nyaa. They just want the best for you nyaa.”

”We are just worried that if you keep missing like this, you will suffer later, nyaa.”

“We can only help you if you are willing to help yourself nyaa.”

Their words drove the monster insane with rage but the three puny things just would not die. Slowly its stamina ebbed away. As its stamina had less than fifty remaining, it attempted to retreat. Again GimmeGirls was the fastest, having moved to block off the monster’s escape. In its wildest dreams, it would not have imagined that what had happened to its pet was happening to it too.

Now wild not with rage but with fear, it attempted to push past GimmeGirls but GimmePower had grabbed onto its tail and had prevented it from doing so.

“Snake-ssi, you cannot leave halfway like this. The three of us need you to finish what you started. We still haven’t reached the stat gain cap yet and you still need to bite us so we can get poisoned.”

With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, the snake monster tapped into its reserve of energy, attacking in a frenzy.

“Power-san be careful. Snake-san is very stimulated now.”

“Aish, it’s giving me too much damage, I need to retreat and bandage.”

GimmeGirls was concerned. If GimmePower retreated, the snake creature would concentrate its attacks on him and with his smaller pool of health it might actually lead to a fatal result. He would then need to travel back to the tunnel after respawning without the aid of any transportation, not to mention, the other two would hardly be willing to wait for him. To prevent that from occurring he had to give up a recently discovered secret.

“Power-san, bandage in combat. It will upgrade your skill to Combat Bandaging nyaa.”

“Girls-ssi really? Ok I’m trusting you on this. Please don’t trick me.”

“Ah Pow, do it, I’ll cover you.”

Aiming straight for its eyes, Jinyang was not averse to using methods that would be considered dishonorable including eye pokes. As GimmePower kept a hold of the snake monster’s tail while attempting to bandage himself, Jinyang kept careful watch and continued to poke its eyes again whenever it tried to open them. He had to remain wary of the monster lunging blindly but then again being attacked was exactly what he wanted in the first place.

With the upgrade secret out in the open, it was not long before both Jinyang and GimmePower had upgraded their skills by switching positions with GimmePower poking the monster’s eyes and Jinyang holding onto its tail. The energy powering the snake monster’s frenzy rapidly diminished to nothing and as its stamina reached 0, it collapsed onto the ground.

“Very good, Snake-ssi. Rest a while then come bite us again.”

As the three waited for the snake monster to regain its strength, they sat down cross legged in the same spot they had been standing at, still surrounding the snake monster. To pass the time, they discussed the newly discovered ability of upgrading a skill.

“Ah Pow, Ah Girls, you ever heard of a skill getting upgraded before the expansion?”

“Money-san as far as I know, no one has ever mentioned such a thing nyaa.”

“Yah hyung, the old group I was with never mentioned it.”

“Oh Ah Pow, you had another group?”

“Long story hyung, I would prefer not to discuss it other than that it’s disbanded already.”

“Money-san so should we eat the snake? It has hands nyaa…”

“I dunno Ah Girls, it doesn’t have any legs and snakes are a type of food in China.”

“Same here hyung, you can eat snake in Korea too. I know of a place in Jeju island that serves very good snake soup.”

“It can also be eaten in Japan as well Power-san, though it’s much more common in the rural areas than in big cities like Tokyo or Kyoto nyaa.”

The snake monster was alarmed. These creatures were merely low level ants yet they could exhaust it even though it was a 127 level monster and now they were talking about eating it. It had only recovered less than 5% of its stamina and the goal was at least 20% before it would attack and kill them. It laid quietly as it continued to recover its strength.

“So we eat it hyung?”

“But the arms and hands nyaa, Power-san….”

“Well we could always just eat the tail portion only. Anyway, a snake’s gall bladder when properly prepared, is commonly used in Chinese medicine to improve eyesight, so if we can cut it out and get a doctor to prepare it, we could gain a perception skill or some other benefit after eating it.”

“Given its size hyung, I think we could eat its meat for a few days and I could use the remaining portions to make snake wine. It’s supposed to improve Vitality. I was thinking of making some soju (rice wine) anyway.”

“I could use more Vitality nyaa, my amount of health sucks…Yeah maybe the tail is ok nyaa…”

The talk about cutting out its gallbladder and chopping it up frightened the snake monster more and more and as GimmeGirls’ words were heard, its courage broke. Attacking was no longer even being considered as it leapt over GimmeGirls and slithered as quickly forward as possible.

“Oi! Hyung lunch is running away! Girls-ssi stop it!”

The sudden movement had surprised all three who had been expecting to get attacked instead of having to chase the fleeing monster. By the time they had stood up and gotten ready to chase it, it had already disappeared into the darkness.

The three of them looked at each other glumly. Their lunch had refused to be eaten. Still there was always a silver lining as long as you looked long enough for it.

“Well hyung, the next time we see it, we can start letting it bite us all over again without having to wait.”

“It is better than doing nothing and just to wait for it to get back its stamina nyaa… This way at least it won’t be so boring.”

“Yes, true that. Well you never know. Maybe the next tunnel has a pig monster and we can get some nice cuts of ham.”

“Hyung I know a recipe for a very good braised pig trotters in oyster sauce and another for salted fried pork knuckles with lemongrass. If we get a pig monster, I can cook those for both of you.”

“Heh heh, sounds delicious Power-san nyaa.”

As the three set off deeper into the cave tunnel, each kept an eye out on their satiety meter which had dropped to 30%. To conserve their remaining food, they had agreed to eat the last of their food only when the meter had dropped to 3%. Still they saw no reason to waste time and continued with their stat training, concentrating on the less exhausting methods of flipping coins and cards.

Despite the constant noise from the clinking coins, nothing attacked them. As their satiety headed towards single digits after twelve game hours, a light at the end of the tunnel greeted them. Literally.

They had finally reached the other side of the mountain range and what they saw was a vast swathe of jungle. The tunnel had exited the mountain but at a height of nearly twenty meters. From their vantage point, they could see that though most trees were below them, there were scattered specimens that towered over their smaller cousins and whose tops were much higher than they were. There was no road down from the cave exit.

“Hyung, I think we have to leave the cart.”

“Yes Money-san, it is a sad event but we will have to move on foot from now on, nyaa.”

“My brothers we should be united in the face of danger. I propose that Ah Girls carry the mule while we two carry the cart down.”

“Hyung, we could try but I cannot say for certain that my hands would not slip while climbing down. The cart would be smashed into pieces…”

“True. Money-san I also could not guarantee that the mule could make it down in one piece. If it struggled, it might fall down the cliff, though that would solve our food problem…”

“…”

Though the reasons sounded perfectly rational, Jinyang could read in between the sentences. Just like how he and GimmeGirls had cooperated in getting GimmePower to be the scout, now the two of them were cooperating with each other. It was that moment when he felt he truly understood the proverb of how events happened in cycles and you would get hit by what you hit others with. Democracy was always a tyranny of the majority and now was no different. Sighing, he had to agree to leave the cart at the exit. As GimmePower and GimmeGirls were preparing a rope to rappel down, Jinyang stacked hay for the mule to eat and kept the cart just inside the cave. There was nothing he could do if monsters from within the tunnel or from outside the cave decided a mule was a good snack.

“Yeah, well you just keep imagining that I will tell them about you.”

“Spare me the hollow threats Thorny. If you could really do that, you would have done that before now. Anyway what are you going to tell them? That you are their father or some other cliché lie?”

“Sure sure. With great power comes great darkness, whatever”

Ignoring Thorny, Jinyang approached the other two who had secured the rope around a large rock. With satiety at 9%, they needed to get down the cliff and gather some berries or other food. Being so far away from the last visited civilized area of Mythos meant that they could not afford to be killed simply because they slipped while climbing.

It was a good precaution as the cliff face proved to be a difficult climb with few handholds causing several slips that would have brought all of them crashing to the ground if the rope had not been in place. It took a good part of half an hour before they managed to reach the base of the cliff safely. However the efforts was not unrewarded as both GimmePower and GimmeGirls gained the climb skill. Jinyang, however, received an extra message.

Skill: You have failed to learn the skill - Climbing.

As all available skill slots have been filled, you cannot learn the skill

“Ahhhhh!!!!!!”

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