Reign and the others slowly made their way through the woods, they decided to go slowly in case the area here had higher-leveled monsters. So far they had not come across any monsters, similarly to how it previously was.
Reign suddenly stops as he looks upon the trees, he smiles slightly as he unsheathes his sword. Shadow and the others look at him curiously before following his line of sight. They were able to see a green figure standing on a branch a couple of meters above them, the thin figure blended well with the green leaves while being motionless, its long arms that functioned as scythes were held against its body while it stares at them.
Lightning flickers as Reign disappears from his position, before the monster could even try to defend itself the katana was already swung at its neck, decapitating it in a moment. Reign slashes again as the headless body actually swings the scythes towards him, both of the razor-sharp blades get severed from the body as it slowly falls to the ground. The whole body was cut into three parts that fall down in front of Shadow and the others.
"Damn, I almost forgot that these bastards can live without the head." Reign curses as he gets down to the group, Beast goes to the corpse to inspect it for a bit.
"Well, a praying mantis and some other insects have their central nervous system in the ganglia, if I remember correctly the ganglia of a praying mantis is located in its stomach, some other insects have multiple ganglia running alongside the body." Beast looks at the corpse of the mantis before shaking his head and standing up, everyone looked at him with praise as they slowly made their way further inside the woods.
Beast had definitely changed, for him to actually be able to crouch next to a corpse, even an insect corpse was something unimaginable previously, even after killing so many enemies in the past he would usually just pass by without even looking at the corpses.
The enemies they came across were all level 20 to 25, the same as the ironbark woods they were previously at, but the difference was that it didn't continue for long, they had only walked some 30 minutes in the forest before coming across stronger enemies, in the past, they actually spent about 1 hour in the forest before even encountering any monsters.
Praying mantises, bears, trolls, they were all present in the woods, but now they were face to face with a creature that confused them greatly.
[ Level 28 Horned Rabbit ]
"The fuck?" Shadow utters as he looks at the creature in front of them. A white rabbit was standing right in front of them while feasting on a body of a wolf. The rabbit was about 1 meter tall and had a 35cm horn sticking out from its head. Other than that it looked the same as any other rabbit, with long fluffy ears that perked up when it heard Reign and the others coming close, a fluffy fur that covered its body, two strong hind legs, and two front legs, it was just a rabbit.
"How the hell is this thing level 28?!" Shadow curses again as he points to the rabbit that was curiously looking at them, it was cute, well it would be if it didn't have blood smeared all over its face.
The rabbit was seemingly not afraid of them as it hopped to them quickly, its speed made Shadow and the others surprised as it stopped right in front of Shadow. The rabbit looked at Shadow curiously as it cocked its head on the side before sniffing his legs.
"Hey, cut that out, I'm not food you little bastard!" Shadow takes a step back as he scolds the little rabbit that was still looking at him curiously. Reign suddenly comes over before crouching down in front of the rabbit.
"It doesn't seem hostile." He extends his hand before rubbing the head of the rabbit, the small creature closes its blood-red eyes as it seemingly enjoys it. Reign suddenly grabs the rabbit and pulls it close to his chest as he cradles the small animal. Suddenly the rabbit starts kicking as it wanted to be freed, the second Reign relaxes his arms the rabbit kicks his chest as it jumps at Shadow who catches it in surprise.
The rabbit snuggles his head against Shadow's chest as it rubs against him affectionately.
"Damn it, that actually hurt you bastard." Reign wipes off the mud from his chest as he complains, even though the rabbit didn't attack him, the kick was strong enough to injure and probably kill a normal person.
"Hey, cut that out, you're staining my armor with the blood!" Shadow drops the rabbit down as he admonishes it, the rabbit of course understood nothing and simply stared at him curiously before jumping at him again, Shadow catches it under the front legs and holds it in front of him while sighing, "What the hell man?"
"Come here you little cutie." Laura suddenly grabs the rabbit from Shadow as she wipes off the blood from his mouth, with the blood gone, the rabbit looked much cuter and she immediately started rubbing her face against it, "It's sooo cuteee, can we keep it?"
"We're in the midst of an unexplored area that could be filled with dangerous monsters and you guys, want to play with a freaking rabbit, have you lost your mind?!" Wolf suddenly yells as he points at Reign, Laura, and Shadow. He berates them fiercely while Tank and Beast suddenly take a step back, they actually also wanted to come close and pet the rabbit, but seeing Wolf being angry scared them so they decided to stay in their position.
"It seems only me and these two are normal here, for god's sake!" Wolf points at Tank and Beast as he stops yelling and starts panting slightly, the two suddenly look away and cough lightly, uncomfortable by Wolf's words right now.
Suddenly the rabbit starts shining as it disappears from Laura's arms. She looks at Wolf with a bright smile as she says, "I made him my companion."
Wolf blinks several times as he looks at Laura with a befuddled gaze. He puts his hand over his face as he starts walking, "Whatever, let's, let's just go."
Laura playfully sticks her tongue out at Wolf before she smiles at Tank and Beast.
Slowly they made their way further inside the woods, they encountered some more monsters on their way, there were some stronger variants of the same monsters they had previously seen such as the troll, the stronger trolls had a deeper tone of gray skin while carrying a club with them, they ranged anywhere from level 25 to level 30, they were also a bit taller compared to the young troll they had previously seen in the Ironbark Woods, being about 4.5 meters tall.
They still hadn't come across any of the species they had seen at the lake, however, such as the mountain lions and the ones they really wanted to meet, the elves.
The encounter with Magokur and the rabbit showed that not all monsters were hostile, some were in fact open to cooperation, if they had any luck the elves would be the same, they were after all famed for being a species that loved nature and disliked fighting and killing, at least that's how it was written in most novels.
They fought one of the trolls, even though it was level 28 it was stronger than normal monsters at that level, its thick skin protected it well against most attacks, of course, it couldn't protect it against Reign's swords and the weapons the others had, especially if mana was used to coat them.
The tall troll took the party some time to dispatch, even Tank had to be careful when blocking its attacks as the fearsome strength of the trolls was far higher than most monsters had, its speed was abysmally low however and it was easy to go around it to attack. It took them about 2 minutes to kill the troll, even though it seemed fast, Reign and the others were strong enough to fight against monsters that had higher levels than them, such as the elk and the lion in the grasslands, to spend so much time on an enemy that was lower in level compared to them showed how much endurance and vitality the troll had.
Of course, its speed was not the only thing lacking, its willpower and spirit were both incredibly low too, they took care of the troll before going further in the woods, the air suddenly started changing a bit as the lush, green forest was now slowly turning into one that had less foliage.
The tress looked rougher while the plants had a grayish hue on them, the once peaceful atmosphere turned into a bleak one. They were all alerted by the change, it was evident that they had moved to a different part of the woods, one that was definitely more dangerous compared to before.
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