Smiling to himself as the stalkers fled, Kira looked at his notifications. Turns out, he had leveled back up to level 16, as well as having his sword mastery increase from intermediate 1 straight to 3!

"Assign two stats to strength, two to mana capacity and two to agility." Pleased with himself, Kira went to fight the monkey.

However, instead of the monkey, he found a different monster: A treant. The giant, overgrown tree with monstrous roots attacked Kira. It roared as it thrust its roots at Kira.

Kira dodged the first batch of roots, then deflected another branch headed towards him.

'Wood is weak against fire.' Kira noted. He threw a fireball, igniting on a branch. He threw another. And another. Soon the entire treant was on fire.

Even though it was on fire, no sound came from its mouth. It suddenly fell down, dead. "TIMBER." Kira shouted; He just wanted to as that was what you did when a tree was falling...

The treant burned, but thankfully the fire quickly went out. He didn't want to cause a forest fire; the real world had enough of those!

He looked around the fallen treant for loot and found some coins that he pocketed. Now, he had over 300 copper coins! He would need to convert them into silvers later.

He walked away from the fight site. He noticed he was being watched. It was something small and fast. The sound was getting closer. Kira went into the open and drew his katana. "Who's there?" He asked the trees.

It stepped out. Kira was startled. It was a orange 'blob.' That was the best way to describe it. It had some teeth, no feet and a one giant horn protruding from its body.

"What the fuck is that?!" Kit asked in surprise. "I am Tsunomon ." The blob suddenly spoke. 'OK. This thing is creepy... I should get out of here.' He ran.

"No wait I'm your..." Kira didn't hear the next part; he was too far away.

Kira glanced up. Something was heading straight for his face from above. Dodging to the right, he glanced at the object. It was a throwing knife.

"Is that how you greet people? Come out Ryan."

"How did you know? It could have been some bandits." Ryan dropped from above.

"Please. It has your signature on it. The two dragons. Ones white ones red. You think I wouldn't guess?"

Laughing in response, Kira shook hands with Ryan. "So how's the inn?" He asked.

"Not bad. I can see you're fine as well."

They talked for a bit before departing. Ryan had a job to do that involved destroying some book made by a supposedly famous author.

Meanwhile, John logged off. He got ready to go to school.

At school, Hajime immediately pounced on John, repeatedly asking questions about how he played.

"Bro you were brutal in the last episode. Some people fainted and I almost vomited. How did you not get sick?" John shrugged

"Its cause I've done it in real life and its not the first time I've done it in-game."Hajime paled at what he heard. He changed the subject.

"So what's your new pet?"

"What pet?"

"There were some players telling the company of Endless online that they wanted a pet system introduced, so the game developers created allowed players to gain one free pet. I, for example, got a yellow rat!"

John shrugged his shoulders. "I am not in a city right now, so I don't think I can get it now.... Unless..." He suddenly realized; that pink blob that had appeared, that was his pet! 'I gotta make sure that it is my pet.'

"So how does the system work. I mean, can you have more than one pet?" John asked Hajime.

"Yes, but that creates the class tamer. A lot of people don't want more than one pet so yeah. Once you gain a pet, it is with you for life. There is one difference. The first pet, is also the greatest. The first pet can be revived, but the later ones... Once they die, they truly die."

"Oh shit. Alright. But won't some pets be stronger than others? Wouldn't that be unfair?"

"At the start, they are all equal. Your pet eats parts of a monster's corpse after they die to gain exp. If a pet eats strong monster meat, then the pet gets stronger. If it eats weak monster meat, then the pet gets stronger but far more slowly. Some pets are support type. Others, assault or defense. It all depends on a player's play style."

They finished school and went home. Hajime wanted to level up his 'electric' rat, whilst John wanted to actually find his pet.

Logging back on, Kira fortunately found himself in a one piece in a clearing. Unfortunately, there was a pack of eight goblins surrounding him. 'Oh shit.' Scrambling up, Kira drew his katana. He tried to kill his opponent by electricity but it didn't work! He glanced at the goblin- it was wearing gloves! 'Cunning, but not cunning enough!' He jumped into the air. Surveying the goblins, he threw eight fireballs at them. Out the eight, only three managed to duck underneath the fireball.

Kira beheaded one goblin. He stabbed a second, killing both. The final one had managed to stand up. Gripping its sword, it went into a position to lunge, but was distracted by... Bubbles?

Snarling with annoyance, the goblin faced the source of its annoyance. Bad move. In a second, its head had already kissed the ground.

Kira looked at what had distracted the dead goblin. It was Tsunomon!

"Are you my pet?" Kira asked incredulously. It nodded, or tried to. "I finally found you!" It cried with joy. It leaped into Kira's arms.

'Woah, he's lighter than he looks.' He looked at his pet and Tsunomon looked back at him.

"Alright then Tsunomon, let's go on an adventure!"

"Yes!"

(Hello. It's me, the author. So here I was writing chapter 17, and I thought to myself. You know what my story hasn't had in a while? Brutal deaths. so I went and wrote quite a descriptive one. Sooooo, you're warned and be prepared... See ya.)