"Do you think she was killed in those day alleys ways?"

"No, she wasn't as insane as you."

"Then where do you suppose she was..."

"Who knows, I wouldn't be surprised if it was done out in the open."

"Why? Even if it was late at night, there would've been witnesses-"

"Human witnesses," She said with a tone that held daggers, "humans who probably could't care less about what happens to a fake. They probably commend those vigilantes for all we know."

"I see..."

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

Understandably, the villagers spent the next few days quietly.

Everyone was now banned from going to the main city at night unless accompanied by the Reaper...not that anyone actually wanted to go.

I spent most of my time returning to the slime forest with Alfred to train more. It was a bit ironic that I felt safer in this forest rather than the city itself.

Since Yukari handled everyone's food, there was really no rush to get more money at the moment. I decided to simply bring the slime balls back to the village and save them until we have a lot more, so we can bring them all at once to sell later. This just meant I wouldn't have to visit the adventure's guild as much as before.

After about two week of of none-stop slime fighting, it was becoming very clear that I was not improving at all. I had practically gotten used to dodging all their attacks while holding the shield. Their attack patterns were always simply but it still took around 7 sword strikes to kill a single one. Around 5 hours to kill enough slimes for one sliver coin and that's assuming we don't take breaks.

One day Alfred and I even got a bit overconfident and decided to challenge two slimes at once. Needless to say, we had to swiftly retreat with a few bruises.

Something obviously needed to change.

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

"Hit a roadblock already huh?"

"Y-yeah."

Today I went to join the Reaper on her usual monster hunt trip. I wanted to leave Alfred behind but he insisted he wanted to come as well. So there we were, walking across the deep forest with Alfred tucked in arms.

"Well you're not going anywhere killing the same old slimes over and over again, that's for sure."

"Anything you can suggest?" I asked.

"Hmm, yes actually," Said the Reaper, "Did you know there is actually one..."cheat" that will consistently improves almost every skill tree. A cheat so effective that you can make huge leaps of improvements in mere moments."

This naturally peaked my interest, "And what exactly is this cheat?"

The reaper stopped walking and turned to face me with her signature huge grin, she said in a low dramatic voice, "Near-death experiences."

"..." Alfred shivered.

"And just to be clear, it's not the same as simply risking your life by the way," she continued to explain, "you literally have to be at death's doorstep. You've heard all the stories and testimonies right? Haven't you always wondered why in almost every story, the person always unlocks a new skill at the exact moment they need it?"

"...A-are you sure it works?"

"Trust me, I know from personal experience," said the Reaper, "it's as if skill trees don't want their users to die... People try not to talk about it much, probably because they don't want idiots recklessly charging to their deaths. Don't let the stories of success get to your head though, the reason you haven't stories of failure from people is probably cause they all died. After all, it still takes more than just a new skill to get out of situations like that."

Before I could ask another question, a leaf fell from above into the Reaper's hand. The leaf looked familiar and wasn't from the surrounding trees.

"Ahh, what lovely timing," She said after reading what was writing on the leaf, "Summoner, we must get back to the village, now."

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

According to the hunting logs, they were called Elemental T-Rexes and were C-rank. There were two of them and twice the size of the village houses.

One had dark blue skin and an icy cold breath while the other had skin and sharp teeth made completely of stone.

To my bewilderment, the two monsters weren't attacking the village despite being very near it. Instead, they were both frantically attacking the air and random spots on the ground. It was as if they were being distracted by something.

"Alright, I'll take the ice one, you take the stone one, ok?" The Reaper said nonchalantly.

I stared at her with alarmed eyes, "Eh?"

"Good luck!" She grinned as she took out her shadow scythe and sprinted towards the monsters.

At the same time, part of her jacket moved and grabbed my arm, pulling me towards the monsters as well.

Before I knew it, I was in front of the stone monster while the Reaper drew the other one away.

My hands shakily held my wooden sword and shield. Alfred on the other hand, went straight to the monster's feat and began poking it. He then jumped in shock with his mini iron sword turned to stone.

The dinosaur didn't even see him and was focused on me. It stomped its feet on the grass, transforming the ground into hard stone. Floating rocks emegred from the ground around it and all flew towards me when the monster roared.

My "don't die" instincts automatically took over as I dived to the side to avoid. I managed to roll over and stand up again swiftly, just in time to ran as the stone creature began chasing after me.

It was going to catch up. Thinking fast, I spun around and threw my shield at the monster's head. A shield that could be broken by F-rank slimes would be more useful as a distraction than a form of defence against a C-rank monster. It didn't do any damage, but it did hit the creature in the eye, blinding it for a few precious seconds. The creature blindly launched itself at my direction, opening its huge jaw. I dove to the side again to avoid. The stone dinosaur landed roughly on the ground. Seconds later after the creature landed, the ground beneath it turned to stone.

"Sword Strike!" My wooden sword glowed as I aimed my swing directly at the neck of the monster while it was down.

The sword snapped into pieces and certainly did close to no damage. Not sure what I was even thinking.

Interestingly, the broken pieces did not turn to stone before disappearing. The dinosaur roared which blew me back, causing me to fall over.

At the same time, two flying rocks came at me from two different directions. I saw the rock fly towards my face. I thought that was it for me. But then a pair of arms swiftly grabbed and pulled me out of the way. The two flying rocks collided into each other instead of me.

I turned around to see who had saved me, only to see absolute no one behind me. All I saw behind me were leaves...lots of leaves blowing in the wind. The gust of leaves then flew to the dinosaur that was now standing up again. The leaves flew everywhere around the creature's face, especially in the eyes. The dinosaur swung it head left and right, trying to get leaves off its head. Occasionally, I saw a knife appear out of nowhere throw itself at the dinosaur's hardened eye. The creature began smashing its head on the ground.

While it was distracted, there was something I wanted to quickly experiment. I approached one of the spots that was turned to stone by the monster's feet and touched it. It was risky but I had to confirm something.

Few seconds went by and nothing happened to my hand.

Summoning another wooden sword and shield, I cautiously ran towards the stone monster again. It was viciously shaking its head and swinging its tail which I watched carefully. Then, when I saw an opening, I ran to it and pressed my two weapons against the dinosaurs' foot.

Few seconds went by before my sword and shield began turning to stone, all the way from the blade to the handle. However, my hands were not petrified at all despite still holding the weapons. Alfred was still moving, furiously slapping the monster's toe. Perhaps it doesn't turn living things into stone, which did make sense. Otherwise, how exactly would it eat anything?

The tail then swung at my direction. I was too careless.

A mysterious pair of arms once again grab unto me and pull me out of there before I was hit. I caught a brief glimpse of a dark green cloak before it disappeared.

I focused back on my weapons. With not much time to think, I dropped the shield and grabbed the sword handle with both my hands. It was still heavily distracted by the flying leaves.

Barely maintaining my posture, and pushing my veins to their limit, I approached the monster again and swung my stone blade. My sword did not break but all I did was scratch a white mark on the creature's foot. Before I could think about my next move, the head of the other elemental dinosaur and the reaper came flying down from above.

Tiny parts of Yukari's body had ice on it and she was covered in blood that I hoped belonged to the monster she fought.

With a huge grin, the Reaper landed on the stone monster's back and stabbed the blade of her scythe deep into its stone skin.

The monster roared loudly. I used this opportunity to grab Alfred and retreat.

"Oh, this one is quite sturdy." Yukari commented casually.

Flying stones came flying at the Reaper. Parts of her shadow jacket formed hands and grabbed the rocks before crushing them.

Her shoes and the wooden core of her shadow scythe began turning to stone, "Well that's slightly annoying."

The shadow hands punched the monster, launching Yukari high into the air. She then smeared a lot of blood across her scythe, causing it to enlarge immensely as red particles surrounded the black shadow scythe.

She fell head first towards the stone monster.

"Death Swing!"

The stone elemental dinosaur was sliced in half. I was half expecting to see more stone inside, but instead I saw that the monster had organic insides and meaning it only had stone skin. Its blood spilled everywhere which Yukari's jacket happily drank.

The lifeless body of the monster fell to the ground, turning it to stone before disappearing into white particles. I watched every leaf in the wind slowly fall to the ground as well before they too also disappeared. Alfred raised his sword triumphantly.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" The Reaper laughed as she landed near us.

"I didn't get any new skills."

"Yeah I figured," She replied after abruptly ceasing to laugh, "Ah, I know the locations of this huge pit that's filled with giant poisonous cobras. If you want, I can drop you in there now and pick you up tomorrow."

"N-no thanks."

"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad when I did it."

"You're beginning to sound more reckless than me."

The reaper simply grinned again. She then looked over at Alfred.

The tiny knight was currently feeling very annoyed. His precious iron sword had been turned to stone. He tried throwing it away and pulling out a new one out of his back, but no matter how many times he did it, the new sword he got was always made out of stone instead of iron. Actually, upon closer inspection, it wasn't just his sword: his helmet, gloves and boots were now made out of stone as well. I began picturing the mini knight head-butting, punching and kicking a stone wall. Alfred's movements were now incredibly restricted.

Watching him, it made me wonder. I let go out my stone sword. It hit the ground before disappearing. I then summoned a new sword out of thin air and to my utter confusion, instead of a wooden sword, it was now made of stone.

"How strange," Usually, if you attempted to change the starter wooden weapons with attachments or new materials, they would disappear after breaking or letting them go and return to its wooden form.

"Well there are skills that have all sorts of bizarre exceptions to the rules, especially skills used by monsters in the wild." The Reaper explained as she picked up Alfred with one hand. She began walking back, the shadow enhancement around the Reaper's weapon disappeared, revealing nothing but stone, "This ability is very common among certain stone species of monsters. It's an irritating debuff skill that sticks to you and doesn't wear off... luckily there is a solution, follow me."

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

We approached the nearby lake.

Upon arriving, the Reaper tossed Alfred into the lake. She then dipped both her stone shoes and scythe into the water, "It should return to normal after being soaked in water for about an hour. A bit annoying since you have to keep holding onto your weapon but oh well."

I watched as Alfred began swimming in circles.

"You not gonna join?" She asked me.

"I think..." I looked down at the stone sword that was leaning against my leg, it was surprisingly smoother than I thought, "I think I'll stay with this for now."

"You sure?" She raised an eyebrow, "It may be a lot more sturdy and deal more damage but...can you even carry that thing properly? I saw you struggling with it earlier."

It was true. Compared to the light wooden version, this was significantly more heavier. I didn't even have enough strength to raise the shield properly. I can imagine why something like this was only a hindrance for people like the Reaper. From my guess, her shadow enhancement skill isn't affect by the quality of the core weapon, so it would only make it unnecessarily more heavier for her. For me, however, if I could just get the hang on it, this could very well be an upgrade for me, "I'll just have to get used to it."

She grinned, "Well the lake is always here if you ever change your mind."

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

The mood and atmosphere gradually returned to normal with a few villagers occasionally going back to visit the grave to pay respects.

I leaned against one of the walls, looking at my skills while Alfred drew something on the dirt with his sword. It had occurred to me that perhaps I wasn't unlocking anything because I haven't tried to explore my current skills at all.

Currently, the only skills I had were two passives and two actives:

...

Chance Damage (Passive): Your Sword Strikes have a 5% chance of doing additional damage which equals up to 1% of your defence.

Sword Strike (Active): Deals 10 damage to target. CD: 5 Minutes.

Triple Hit Endurance (Passive): Your defence will increase by 5% every-time you are hit. Can stack up to 15%. The defence boost will reset after the fourth hit or if 20 seconds have passed.

Defensive Gift (Active): Increases a target's defence by 10% for 1 min. CD: 30 min.

...

"Hmm..." Not sure how I was going to unlock new skill using this.

I searched my memory to when I unlocked those skills, trying to see if I could find some sort of clue or pattern.

"...I started with sword strike and chance damage...I got triple hit after getting a beating...and I got defensive gift after watching the reaper battle for the first time...hmm..." It was hard to create theories based on only two examples.

If you can't unlock new skills, try finding new ways to better utilise the skills you already have. A piece of advice I had once overheard when visiting the guild.

The issues, however, was that there wasn't really much to experiment with. Or am I simply not thinking hard enough?

A leaf suddenly appeared and fell on my head which also caught Alfred's attention.

The words "Hello, may I offer some advice? - scout." was written on the leaf.

I looked up at the sky awkwardly and waved, "H-hello. Umm, yes please."

Two more leaves fell from the sky.

"Instead of working on your skill tree," said the first one.

"I suggest improving your base stats." the second one stated.

"My stats?"

More leaves fell from the sky. Lots of them.

"Since we normally can't see our own stats, many people tend to forget or ignore it. However, just because you can't see your own stats, it does not mean you can't improve them. There have been a few famous fighters who rely purely on their own stats rather than skills. You just went through a reset, meaning your stats must've went back down to the bottom so I recommend focusing on that first. Certain stats may increase a lot easier than others while other stats may not increase at all, that all depends on what type of class you are. You may be a summoner but judging from your weapon type, you role seems similar to that of a tank class so I recommend raising your defence."

True. Not to mention I did have a skills that scale to my defence. I was covered in leaves but I didn't care. What he said was true, I had focused so much on my new skill tree that I had forgotten about my base stats.

Alfred looked at the writing on the leaves. He then started playing with the leaves by throwing them in air and seeing them fall.

"How do I raise my defence?" I asked. You could buy armour but that was too expensive at the moment.

A few more leaves landed in my hands, "Enduring hits. By far the most riskiest stat to improve because it requires you to take attacks over and over again. Now, everyone in the village is too soft to hit you and asking the Reaper might accidentally get you killed so I recommend just sticking with slimes for now since they not strong enough to kill anyone."

Purposely enduring attacks huh. I guess in that case, slimes are perfect. But it was definitely going to hurt. There was a reason why I preferred to avoid them in the past.

Another single leaf fell, it simply read, "Don't push yourself too hard though."

I looked up at the sky once more, "I won't. Thanks for the advice and... thank you so much for saving me earlier. Umm, I... hope we can meet face to face one day."

There was no leaf that fell after that. Alfred jumped in shock when all the leaves he was playing with suddenly disappearing into particles.

I looked back at my skills again, mainly to look at one of the passives I had. If I was going to purposely get hit, then it would mean my Triple Hit Endurance skill was going to be very useful. It was unfortunately that it wasn't that consistent but this was what I expected from a beginner skill.

Something clicked in my mind. Maybe it can be consistent.

I raised my hand...and gently slapped myself. No response.

"Maybe it wasn't hard enough."

I slapped myself slightly harder. Still nothing. I tried again with more force, a bit too much since it left a red mark on my cheek.

"Umm, are you okay?" One of the passing villagers asked. She was an Eve fake.

"Oh ah, yeah, umm, sorry I was just testing something." I went on to explain my Triple Hit endurance skill.

"Ah I see. That's...very inconvenient huh?" She commented.

"Well it is a beginner skill," I replied, "but then I thought: what if I just trigger the skill myself because it never specified what counts as a 'hit'."

"Ahh, that's clever."

"But looks like that doesn't work," I continued before sighing, "I wish the descriptions were more specific. Skill trees sure are complicated huh?"

"Haha, I mean if it was that easy, everyone would be as strong as the nine heroes right?"

"True."

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

The next day, I left the village early in the morning.

On the way, I continued to think about my passive, "Hmm..."

Alfred walked beside me.

It was then something else finally clicked in my head.

My feet stopped moving as I looked down at my mini knight. He looked back at me.

"H-hey Alfred?" I bent down to him.

He titled his head as he stepped on top of my hands.

I brought him closer to face before saying, "Can you hit me?"

The knight recoiled in shock as he slowly stepped back, furiously shaking his helmet. He seemed to have completely forgotten he was standing on my hands cause he ended up falling off. I gently caught him before rubbing his helmet, "Please Alfred. If you do this, you might help me take a lot less damage."

"..." The tiny knight pondered for a moment. After he finally agreed, he hesitantly...poke me softly in the cheek. No response. It was certainly way too soft to be considered anything.

"Try a punch." I suggested.

The knight hesitantly punched me in the cheek. Which didn't hurt at yet a small box of the text in the corner of my eye read "Your defence has increased by 5%".

It worked.

Excited by this discovery, I swiftly headed to the slime forest.

When we arrived and found a slime to aggro, I made sure to remind Alfred, "Remember, this time we're doing things very differently. Ok?"

He nodded.

After we got the slime's attraction with rocks and sticks, it came bouncing towards me. This was a good time to try out the Scout's advice, especially now that I couldn't even hold my own weapons anymore.

With no sword, no shield and no armour, I raised my arms in front of me and readjusted my footing.

The slime bounced and hit my arms. I winced and went back a few steps. It hurt. It had been a while since I felt the full force of a slime's attack. Before this, I always avoided or blocked with my shield.

Alfred lightly punched my cheek three times before the slime bounced again to hit me.

This was how things went: I preemptively had Alfred hit me three times, giving me a 15% defence. Then the slimes hits me and resets that boost back to zero. There is a short pause between each time a slime attacks. This gave Alfred the chance to quickly hit me three more times before the next strike.

In other words, it meant I always had a 15 percent defence boost every time the slime hit me, decreasing the amount of damage and pain inflicted on me. Still hurt obviously, but I could certainly feel the difference.

We continued this cycle over and over again. Bruises began forming on my arms and it became increasingly painful as the hours went by, especially when the slime kept hitting the same spot. Slimes are actually quite stubborn, seems like they don't stop attacking you until they think you're dead.

Every now and then, I would run away to briefly take breaks.

That was the start of how my daily routine and training went from killing slimes to getting beaten up by them. It was going to be one of the many days I return to the village limping.

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

Meanwhile, back in the village, the Reaper was casually resting on the ground while humming a song.

A gust of leaves suddenly appeared behind her. Emerging from the leaves was a man, wearing a dark green cloak that covered his entire body. He wore a face mask and a hood that covered his entire face.

"Reaper, you went too far yesterday." He spoke with a strick tone.

"I'm surprised you didn't just write that down on a leaf."

"I'm serious, Reaper. You can't just send the newcomer to fight a C-rank monster that could've killed her in one hit."

"I only did it because I had faith in you, Scout," She replied sarcastically, "Doesn't that make you happy?"

"Still, that was too risky. I get what you were trying to do but you can't just expect others to walk on that same tightrope you do and still survive."

She sighed, "Fine...I won't force her to do things like that next time. Happy?"

"...Very well." He turned around to leave but was stopped when part of Yukari's jacket grabbed onto his shoulder.

"Hold up, why the rush?" She spoke slowly and in a low tone that was somehow more intimidating, she stood up and wrapped her arm around his neck, "There was a something I actually really, really wanted to ask you. You rarely show yourself so I would say now is a good time to ask, don't you think?"

He knew that tone of voice very well.

"A-ah, well I'm a...a bit busy right now...so..." He began sweating profusely under his cloak, the strict tone from before had completely disappeared.

"Do you...have any idea...how many Aria fakes I had to look through to find our summoner friend?" She asked with wide open eyes.

He gulped before letting out a nervous chuckle, "haha...ha...h-how unfortunate for you..."

Her smile grew wider as her fingers stretched themselves before forming a fist, "Let's have a long chat shall we?"

At the same time, there were two neutral villagers watching all of this occur from a distance.

"Shouldn't we help him?"

The villager next to her finished chewing his piece of bread before replying, "Naaah! He'll be fine."

...

To be Continued.

This Chapter was finished on 6/02/2022