-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Fist fighting with Monkeys(1)-

Kenshin rushed towards the location and found a group of ten monkeys harassing each other. Using the tall trees as pivots, these monkeys agilely manoeuvring around like pro gymnasts. For a second Kenshin lost himself as he looked at the perfect control these monkeys have over their strength and that ridiculous sense of balance.

A dreamy look flashed on his eyes as he thought of the day when he could be like these monkeys, having perfect control over his strength and balance. Looking at these monkeys made him dizzy but also excited, he was excited to try out these moves. For a whole minute, Kenshin observed the way these monkeys move and balance themselves. With his higher INT and WIS, he remembered each and every movement of these monkeys and their strength distribution.

He had passive skills like Unarmed Combat Expertise and High-speed movements, so mimicking these moves won't be hard. So he tried it. Kenshin crouched a little on his spot before jumping up towards one of the thick branches like a frog. Then he used his arms to grab hold of the branch, but as expected he couldn’t do so with one hand, he had to use his both hands. He wasn’t disappointed, it was within his calculations.

Treating that branch as a pole, he rotated once before jumping above it and stood up over that branch. Just as he was about to stabilize his centre of gravity, a white flash appeared out of nowhere and gave a devastating punch to his right cheek. The huge force sent Kenshin flying like a rocket towards another branch.

Kenshin somersaulted in the mid sky and tried to land on the other branch, but at that time he was kicked in the back by another white blur. The force of this kick was even higher than that punch, rocketing him towards the ground. But this time he could no longer control his fall and slammed to the ground, making a human-shaped carter in the process.

WooWOOWOO!!!

The attackers were finally revealed. Its the same group of monkeys whom Kenshin was observing earlier. They came up with this strategy to beat him and later kill him. Their attacks were vicious and coordinated. Each and every strike was meant to cause heavy damage. First, the punch to the chin would stun anyone for a second or two, at the same time when the prey plunged to the other side, another monkey would kick him with all its force to go down. Finally, after taking these both strikes, the receiver would turn into a paste unless he or she had great equipment or strong physical based skill.

“Yeah! This is it. This is what I am looking for.” Kenshin mumbled and stood up slowly. His standing up attracted the howling monkeys, and they stopped their howls instantly and looked at Kenshin cautiously.

There was not even a scratch on his body, he was completely unharmed.

“I felt a tickle there, yes, this would work.” He mumbled again and crouched on his spot again.

Boom!

Creating a booming noise, he blasted himself towards the nearest monkey. The force of his jump made the ground gave in, forming a deep hole in the process. As he barreled through the sky, he clenched his right hand forming a fist and assumed a punching stance. When his figure was close enough to the monkey, he threw the punch, aiming to its chin.

Crack!

The monkey’s head made an audible crack as it totally dislocated from the spine. It died before it could even fall to the ground.

Kenshin didn’t stop there, he instantly grabbed the branch and used it as a pivot. After observing how these monkeys do it, he also tried to do the same. The first time he only succeeded slightly, but this time he had no intention of failing. After one rotation, he used the branch as a foothold to jump towards the other monkey.

But this monkey had already jumped into another branch. When it saw its own kind died from one punch from this human, the monkey instantly jumped into another branch and created a distance between it and the man. At the same, it tried to use its inherent skill, but it had no effect on this human.

Finding that its biggest weapon was useless in front of this human, the monkey did the next best thing, it fleed. But Kenshin was unwilling to let this monkey go so easily, he followed after it like a monkey himself.

Noticing that it was being followed, the monkey screeched a few times and tried to evade him by jumping around randomly. But Kenshin persisted and followed it while also copying its movements.

Typically, humans and monsters were too different physically. The monkeys were born with the unique physique that allowed them to easily manoeuvre through thick branches of the trees, but Kenshin overcame these shortcomings with his sheer strength. There was a saying that a human could never mimic a monster like how they couldn’t mimic a human. But Kenshin had already seen the second part of this saying proven wrong, so today he was trying his hardest to prove the first part wrong. Till now, he was succeeding in it.

The monkey zigzagged through the trees as it tried to evade and ditch Kenshin, but it didn’t succeed even after trying for a long time. Getting anxious, it decided to lead the human to its layer where he would kill him with the help of its brethren. These monkeys were even more intelligent than goblins. If goblins could think of strategies like attack and retreat, these monkeys could also think something complex than that, right!

It was not a surprise that this monkey thought of ganging up on Kenshin after leading him to its layer.

The monkey gradually entered the deepest part of the forest where howls of other monkeys could be audible every now and then. But Kenshin didn’t notice it, and he also had no intention of letting this monkey out of his sight. He had already noticed that by doing this, he was forcing his body his body to its limit, a different kind of limit. His flexibility was tested to the maximum and was showing signs of breaking through to another level.

Flexibility came under agility attribute. With higher flexibility, one could do just about anything with their body like bending at an odd angle or evading an attack that would have been unavoidable normally. To Kenshin this flexibility had even greater use, it would allow him to use his rock-like body to better obey his brain’s commands.

Kenshin had never taken his time to fully explore his abilities. His physical stats. Till now he was just following the same pattern of spamming skills one after another and kill the opponent. But after his fight with that man, he discovered that he had completely neglected his body. He became overly reliant on his system and skills. But although he became stronger and faster, when it came to minute movements like this, his body wouldn’t follow his brain’s commands.

He had become a stiff robot that could only follow some basic commands.