Chapter 6

A Leprechaun and his Gold.

The Leviathan hurdled and crashed into a particular angled willow tree. Willow bark spattered out from where the wild boar impacted. One of the small pieces ricocheted, slicing my right cheek along its way. The Leviathan then shuddered a shake, spasming, ready for a roll onto the soft dirt.

“Verdant Hells!” I yelled, ducking down and hugging onto the fur and the hide. One of the knots I had tied on to golden hairs finally broke loose at that point. I lost my grip when the Leviathan with all its 300kg of weight, slammed onto the ground. I flew out of the force and the motion. With one knot still tightly attached, I hurled into the air for a briefest of moments, then was hoisted back to the boar, my right shoulder dislocated.

The disjointed pain spiked me to scream, then I slammed my head and body into the golden fur of the beast. Gold into the black, unconscious had finally claimed me.

After a while, a long while, midday had ended. My eyes were bleary as I laid on my back, facing up to the afternoon skies. I had woken up beside a beast that was not breathing. I had done it, I slew the Scourge of the Fair folk.

Windows began to pop into my bleary, peripheral vision. With my head still dizzy, I forced myself to collect the scattered thoughts into focus.

Congratulations!

You have gained a Title!

Title: Child of Legendary Proportions.

Description: The Title is given to individuals who had slain a Legendary Creature, before his tenth cycle of living in the World of Iriza.

Benefits: +1 All Stat per every time the individual Leveled.

Congratulations!

You have gained a Title!

Title: Giant Slayer

Description: The Title is given to the individual who had slain an opponent a hundred times the individual's weight.

Benefits: +100% Damage to Opponents that weigh more than you.

Congratulations!

You have gained a Title!

Title: Genius Leveled Mind.

Description: The Title is given to individuals who had slain an opponent hundredth more Levels than the individual.

Benefits: +100% Experience gained from killing Opponents.

Congratulations!

You Have Leveled Up!

+1 to Skill Points

Congratulations!

You Have Leveled Up!

+1 to Skill Points

Congratulations!

You Have Leveled Up!

+1 to Skill Points

The Leveled up notification took 14 more iterations before the window disappeared. A huge smirk was plastered on my face, the whole time. It grew bigger and bigger when I read through the Titles. The Benefits those titles had given me were enormous for a little sprout like myself.

1+ to all my stats every time I leveled? Child of Legendary Proportions, be damn... Though I admit, it was ironic to have such a title for such a wee individual. Giant Slayer, 100% more damage to opponents who weigh more than me? Me? A wee folk? Nearly everything in this world is bigger and weighs a lot more than me. Why thank you Title, couldn’t have asked for a better present. Genius Leveled Mind, aww now you are being too kind, too very kind. But I'll take it, for I do have a genius leveled mind.

Excited, I had to check my Status Page.

Name: Thomas Rendfield

Age: 16 years old.

Race: Grass People.

Classification: Grass Singer.

Level: 19.

Strength: 19

Constitution: 19

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 32

Wisdom: 18 + 9

Charisma: 27 + 10

Stat Points to Spend: 17 + Stat Points

My eyes grew wider and wider when I read down my Status Page.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed on the ground in the shrubs. The benefits the title had given me didn’t feel real until I saw my Status Page. I’m probably two times or three times stronger than a Grass Soldier. And 4 times as strong as a Grass Cultivator. A dare I say it, the highest leveled Grass Singer.

I wonder if my high charisma will affect my vocal talents.

I started to sing.

“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

And they're like, it's better than yours

Damn right it's better than yours.”

Ah, that's a nope. I stopped singing. I was a bit peeved at the Charisma stat, glaring daggers into it. Hopes crushed I looked through my Skill Page. I had 17 Skill Points to spend after all.

I shouldn’t have done this, impulse spending, but I was in a jubilant mood. Maybe it was how I was raised in my first world. Whenever I had received a raise, or whenever I had an influx of cash, I would splurge it on Gunpla Builds, and paint utensils. I missed my Wing Gundam Ver. Ka MG Model. It was always at the forefront of my mecha shelf. A shelf where I would display all my Gunpla, Zoids, Voltron, and Chibi Gundam figurines.

I hope my mother on earth had stored it and kept it safe. With a reminiscent thought of my first parents, I had crumbled down inside for a few moments. My mother had always spoiled me then, giving me toys and figurines, which usually was way over our budget. She just couldn't stand me being depressed, so she spoiled me rotten with mecha. My Father would also feed my engineering talents, by giving me equipment and parts we used to build inventions together, throughout my childhood, until our last project together which was fixing up a 1996 Chevy Camero, painted yellow and black, like Bumblebee.

Spoiler: Spoiler Classification: Grass Singer

Passive Skills:

Vocalization - Novice Level: 5 / 5

Description: Sounds that are vocalised by the Individual will now be apparent to the Nature of the Grass.

Area Of Effect - [ CHA stat x 5 Centimetre = Centimetres ]

Vibrations - Novice Level: 5 / 5

Description: Vibrations that are sounded by the individual will now be apparent to the Nature of the Grass.

Area Of Effect - [ CHA stat x 5 Centimetre = Centimetres ]

Cognition - Novice Level: 1 / 5

Description: The Individual will now be able to telepathically transmite feeling with the Nature of the Grass, vice versa.

Area Of Effect - [ (CHA stat + INT Stat / 2) x 1 Centimetre = Centimetres ]

Active Skills:

Craft Song - Novice Level: 5 / 5

Description: The Individual will now be able to craft sounds with premade commands in a set amount of time, intended by the Individual.

Crafting - [ (INT Stat + WIS Stat / 2) x 5 second = seconds ]

Invoke Song - Novice Level: 5 / 5

Description: The Individual will now be able to add intentions into sound and melody by audio sounds, chord, verse, bridge and chorus which will then transmit into the targeted plant conveying to following the commands in the song.

Targeted Distant - [ (CHA stat + INT Stat / 2) x 1 Centimetre = Centimetres ]

Resonance - Novice Level: 2 / 5

Description: The Individual will now be able to include multiple sounds concurrent with another in the same tempo into a melody. The active melody will increase the distant effect depending on the amount of sound added into its Resonance.

Area Of Effect - [ (CHA stat + INT Stat / 2) x 2 Centimetre x ( Max Sounds ) = Centimetres ] Max Sounds - [ Sound + ( Novice Level ) = Sounds ]

Having spent my Skill points on 2 Passive Skills, and 2 Active Skills, raising both to maxed Novice. I had one point left over. So I spent it on Resonance, to increase the number of sounds when I can play at the same tempo.

I was ecstatic at the audio range of my castings and giddy with the length I can create with new songs. I could cast Invoke Song within a 2.5-meter range, and craft a tune with a duration of 3 minutes and 30 seconds. All these numbers compounded in theorizing mathematical equations in my bruised head.

It was overwhelming at first, with all the possibilities that this benefit had given me. I could create contraptions, 10 times as big, or maybe 20 times as big as I am right now. I was so giddy at the thought of controlling a Gundam Size Mecha, I began to tippy tap like my old dog Pax.

The Leviathan was dead, and I was doing an Irish jig--back and forth in my green little pants until the day turned into the sunset.

Moving my arms, I winced at the paint of my disjointed right shoulder. I spotted some willow bark debris from the Leviathan's collision into the willow tree, and chucked it into my mouth and chewed on it with puissance. Willow bark had pain reliever chemicals that had been used for thousands of years. The taste was awful, but I continued with my Irish jig, for when there's a time to be happy, why not do a jig.

If you were a spectator, an animal in the dark, or a human passing by, you would have spotted something strange dancing in the shrubs near a dead pile of golden fur. Wearing its green pants, It might have looked like one of those fabled leprechauns, dancing an Irish jig near a stockpile of gold.

With my jubilant mood simmering down. I composed myself into the poise of my intellect. I presented myself to the grass shrubs around me as an articulate, concise, and astute individual, with a quirky smile. Giving them a bow after my performance, to the greens and the grass, I headed out to collect all that was dropped from me when I fell off my slain prey. Untying the grass rope that was knotted into a clump of golden fur, I slid down onto the ground with my makeshift spear and glider on both my hands.

I had jumped high to collect my scattered things. With my new added Strength and Constitution, The amount of force I could display in my tiny wee frame and weight was unequal to individual scores that were my stats. It’s strange to consider, that with my new found boost into my stat, I was not the average fair folk that I was once, a few hours ago.

I swiveled my head back and glanced at the Legendary dead wild boar before me, with its golden fur and its rounded frame of fat. ‘Wild pig...fat...meat!’

“Mother of Bacon,” I said out loud. For all my years living with the fair folk, I have never recalled eating any form of meat, it was just green vegetables and grass. I went full vegan and I didn’t even know it. It was just a thing that flew over my head. I can’t believe it. Did I just not notice when I was a child? And not questioning or missing the taste of cooked meat.

I once had regarded the wild boar in front of me, as an obstacle and a fiend. But now I was salivating at the thought of it, meat simmering in fire stones and cooked over a grill, with its tough and chewy skin. I remember the crusty fat skin of roasted pork melting into my mouth, the taste was divine, refined at the right time.

But I had one problem to consider, how am I going to lift this carcass back to my laboratory. If I head out now and come back with my mechanical centaur, I could cut a piece of that delicious meat before it goes bad. It will be an all-night process, but the prize would be worth it. I salivated.

Well, it’s now or never…

So with that dream in my mind, I searched for a tree, for me to climb and use my glider to fly through the air. With my strength and running jump, I could probably fly quite far, hip-hopping around the branches and stumps.

Finding another willow tree, I did a running jump onto it. Using my makeshift spear to pierce onto it, I then started climbing up using the bark as handholds. After reaching its highest branch, I looked up at the sky, finding the sun setting location, I determined the direction.

“North, I go.” I had muttered.

Suddenly, I heard something faint, rustling from behind. I turned my head to peer at the afternoon forest below me. There it was again, the sound of rustling and chinks. It was an alien-sounding sound in this forest of green. It was metal colliding on metal, chiming a tune into links.

In the twilight of sunset, I spotted a white glimmer in the shrubs. It was gone, then came back with a bigger shine. It was chromatic metal, brushed by branch scratches and mud spatters. A low vibration began to clink itself into my presence. And there I saw it. It was a human-size individual armored in steel-plated attire.

I gaped at the sight, the first human I had laid my eyes upon for a lifetime. It was a knighted, armored in well-worn armor, glimmering in chromatic varnished steel. It was a sight for sore eyes, the metal that was reflected in my eyes, deflated me into a somber brilliance. An armored giant, running and bashing into grass shrubs, and kicking past green mounds. The knight was holding a cloth ridden basket in it’s left gauntlet and a steel bastard sword in its right.

There were bloodstains all over the blade, and the knight was in a hurry. The helmet swiveled back then faced forth. It was beautiful, I marveled at its design. It was a typical knight visor, covering a steel metal helm, with horizontal vision slots and a few breathing holes below the center. There were intricately gold plated patterns around the edges of the visor. In fact, the whole armor had intricately gold plated patterns.

This knight was wealthy, really wealthy by the small slithers of silk fabric and chainmail that was shown underneath the armpit and the side skirts. There was blood sliding down the front plate skirt. It was spilling out a crossbow bolt shaft that had pierced to the armor underneath the right side of the breastplate.

The knight was pierced through the ribs. I hope it wasn’t through the lung. For that could be one of the worst ways to die, to suffocate drowning in blood drowned drenched lung. The knight turned its head back, then collapsed its back onto the oak tree behind it. Another bolt had struck the knight’s shoulder.

In my shock, I watched above as a silent audience at the proceedings below. A man, in a hood unarmoured, ponderously followed the knight’s trail from behind. The Knight collapsed onto the ground before him, with a sword lifted pointing.

The knight was injured and exhausted. The basket fell onto the ground, with that disturbance, a small sibilant cry began to voice out of the basket’s cloth.

My eyes widened in surprise. It was a baby’s sibilant cry…

“Hush, now, my child…” The knight spoke with a feminine tone. The baby continued, but lower inaudible volume.

“You have taken me for quite a jaunt. Milady.” The hooded man with a crossbow admonished. His voice rasp in a condescending tone. He continued his slow walk towards the knight garbed lady.

“You monster! Who paid you?” The knight spoke with accusing tones reverberating from her steel visor.

“Shush...Milady. You don’t wanna wake up the true monsters who are slumbering in this forest. I hear they are quite ferocious.” He rebuked, with a sarcastic tone.

“What do you want.” The Knight said, her right arm shaking the point of her broadsword. Her right arm seemed to be tiring from the feat of keeping it pointed to the hooded man before her.

“All I do is follow commands, Milady. And you and the boy must go.” He said with a cold edge. Judging from the man’s relaxed and deliberating posture, there was no cost to his conscience.

I was a spectator to it all, the shaking of the gauntlets to the unbolted crossbow on the man’s side. I had to act. There was a baby involved. But can I? What can I do? Truly? The hooded man below me was 20 times my height, and they are a different race to me. I’m of the fair folk, who was once human.

‘But...I am human.’

I was conflicted for the briefest of moments until I heard the child do a brief cry for attention.

“Hush, My child. Everything will be okay.” The knight soothingly lied.

“Giant Slayers be damned.” I cursed out. I took the grass ropes out my bag and stepped a few paces back, preparing for a running jump. I have ridden a mecha and I have slain a legend, why not another.

“Out from the frying pan and into the fire,” I muttered.

Cursing my intentions, my conscience of regrets---I’ve come to slay another giant yet.