Following Haruto obtaining these three bonuses, he was teleported back into the swamp. A vicious smile was etched on his face, as he saw the fucker who almost made him disgrace himself for the second time that day. Haruto proudly yelled at it, "Bruce Lee is no gift giver, but a man who opens a can of whoop-ass on dumbasses such as yourself. Now make peace with your sadist creator, because I'm about to end your whole career."

A new mission appeared before Haruto's eyes. New Quest: Defeat Level 5 boneman. Difficulty: Easy.

Haruto shook his head in disbelief. Level 5? He just started the game. How on Earth was a level 1 defeating a level 5 easy? Perhaps if he were a ranged champ, he could do it, but in a melee on melee fight, Haruto had a better chance of getting a girlfriend than winning.

No, no, think Haruto, think. This isn't some hardcore video game. This is knock-off heroes of darkness, and even if it was a hardcore video game, I would be the protagonist, so I can't die by that logic. Even if I lose, I would just respawn and try again from the last save. I'm sure I just have to try my best, and once it gets down to a specific hp, a cut scene will activate. Too easy. With a smirk plastered on his face, Hatuo pulled out his katana in an exaggerated manner and flexed his superior skill and capacity.

The bone fiend rattled angrily at the provocation and stumbled awkwardly towards Haruto swinging its chipped sword randomly along the way.

Though I know this game won't allow my death, the tutorial has taught me that pain is still present. In fear, Haruto dodged around the swings ducking and rolling about. Thankfully his new body was athletic. He hadn't done this much exercise since grade school. I regret skipping PE so much. Even though this body can keep up, mentally, I'm getting exhausted doing all the dodging.

As Haruto backed off to catch his breath, the skeleton continued to attack nonstop. On the bright side, the bone's attacks were pretty repetitive, and so far, nothing out of Haruto's expectations had occurred. Perhaps the difficulty meter wasn't lying, this is a breeze, I wonder what will initiate the cutscene.

As the skeleton came down for another attack, Haruto took the opportunity to spartan kick it. To his surprise, the skeleton actually began to fall over.

Haruto watched in awe as the skeleton twirled its boney arms to stabilize itself from falling. Haruto laughed at the scene and took the opportunity to smash his katana against the top of the skeleton's head, which proved to be hard as steel. The vibrations shook his arms, causing him to become even more winded.

The skeleton fell onto the ground and struggled to stand back up, splashing swamp water about.

Haruto grinned and began to berate it. "Poor little bones. You've fallen and can't get up. Don't worry, they call me life alert. Hahaha." Haruto started kicking the bones while it was down, causing more difficulty for it to get back up. "How could such a weak, lowly creature attempt to fight me, the great samurai Haruto? How about you learn to stand first, before running to your death so quickly."

As Haruto berated and kicked the bones, it began to act. As Haruto's foot came down for another stomp, the skeleton swung its sword. Seeing the swing come so quickly, Haruto was hard-pressed to dodge and ended up falling flat on his ass.

In anger, Haruto rolled onto his stomach and crawled towards the bones. Once on top of it, he began unleashing punches onto its face. "You dumb ai, how dare you use your intelligence to make a good decision in a fight. I almost lost my leg." Hitting the skeleton, Haruto's knuckles were quickly reduced to a bloody mess. Even after the hits, the bone's mouth continued to rattle incessantly. While Haruto was catching his breath after throwing 10 punches in a row, which was 10 more than he had thrown in his entire life, the skeleton again tried to hit him with its sword.

Haruto pushed himself away in a hurry, narrowly avoiding decapitation. This fight had taught him a valuable lesson and gave him a much-needed wake-up call on the misgivings from his old life.

I won't lie, I always thought I was a badass back on Earth. After years of virtual gaming, I thought my brain would magically make my real body better. You know, like in the anime where the guy got stuck in an MMO, and still retained the muscle memory. I mean, of course, I would lose to a martial artist, but a random delinquent well I always thought I had hands for those fools. I spent hours late at night imagining how badass I would be when someone tried me. I would hit em with the fast punch combo, then do a roundhouse kick. When delinquents would talk to me at the quik mart, I would stare them down and say a cool anime phrase like, "Oh, you're approaching me? Instead of running away, you are coming right to me?" After that, they would usually back down. I assumed it was because I radiated a natural real man's aura. From this fight, I now know for sure my fighting prowess is that of a toddler. I was really gutsy and sarcastic in my old life, who knew I lacked the strength to back it up. Haruto couldn't help but smirk, thinking what if those delinquents knew how weak he really was. Would they have aneurysms from thinking about how they let me off the hook after I had talked some good shit? My only regret is not finding out.

Haruto dragged himself up from the ground, wiping the mud off his armor. That was the old him, he needed to change. He will take his time leveling up and becoming stronger until he could talk shit and back it up. I will defeat this bag of bones in this realm. I will conquer that bag of bones in the other, and by the gods, I will become the most excellent shit talker in the universe.

Haruto felt his new life’s purpose, giving him strength. He caught his breath as the bag of bones struggled and finally got back up.

Haruto squared his body and began to flex his muscles and heightened his concentration. Feeling the influx of power filling his bones, he cockily informed the bones, "soon, I will unleash my strongest attack take it if you dare." Ha, foolish bone-man I've played enough games to know when fighting a high-level enemy early in the story. You just have to hit it with your most potent attack, and the stupid ai will just sit there and take it. After that, the real story will begin.

But, as Haruto concentrated, the skeleton did the unthinkable. It dashed towards him as if he had killed its bone-parents. It struck down with uncanny power.

Haruto's brain froze. A sudden thought appeared in his head. What if by some chance due to the sadist god's interference, this bootleg version of "Heroes Of Darkness" was hardcore. Death would be perma like in the infamous Black Spirits franchise where players got manhandled by enemies from start to finish. Coming to such a conclusion, Haruto thought to himself, and so ends my reincarnation. As he and his brain began signing the terms of surrender, his body acted on its own accord and blocked the attack. Haruto was flabbergasted, both he and his brain were still hacking out whether he would settle for a swift death and shame, or a slow one and agony.

As the skeleton fell back, Haruto's legs tightened and flung him forward. His muscles in the arms were still tightened due to him setting up his earlier attack. The fear of death made him unload like a rifle. He roared out, shaking the swamp. "I shall not, can not, will not die. Until I shove my soggy underwear down kamisama's throat and reclaim my pride."

His skill warrior soul had unknowingly activated. He swung down with all his power. Haruto's heart was on fire, his bones felt like they were breaking, his mouth was so dry, one would think he was in the Sahara for days without a drop of water. But he persevered, for his pride, for his virginity, for his descendants who would know their forefather peed himself and lost the dignity of their family for eternity.

His sword made contact. Instead of the butter-like feeling, Haruto was hoping for in this adrenaline-filled rage, the feeling was more like pushing his katana against steel. The vibrations went through his arms, his eyes blurred, he gritted his teeth.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the pressure vanished, and his sword made it to Valhalla. He continued pushing afterward, out of pure adrenaline and ended up falling face-first into the disgusting swamp water. The water tasted pristine in his mouth. He gulped it down, gagging, this sensation of disgust, repulsion, and regret reminded him he survived. He looked down at the skeleton in the water, green orbs dashed from its body into Haruto. His exp bar filled up.

A ding resounded, and Haruto leveled up to lvl 3. Congrats on leveling up. Three unassigned skill points added. 1 free point for every skill New title earned "Shogun Of The Swamp."

Hmm three unassigned points. Off you go to energy, my little points. Huh, what kind of title is this? In the description for the title, Haruto saw the bonus "when drinking swamp water plus .5 health regen" and a lofty description on the meaning of being Shogun of the swamp.

What the. It's over 1000 pages long. Who on Earth wrote this out? Whoever they are, picking the wrong audience. For anything over 1000 pages that isn't a light novel is a waste of my time. Not a bad stat, except for the fact I must drink literal swamp water, I'm 90% sure any regen I gain will be canceled out by the super germs living in this cesspool. While thinking that, a box popped up.

Sidequest added: drink swamp water to gain 1000xp.

Haruto's mouth gaped, a thousand xp that's enough to level him up two more times. The skeleton he just fought was only lvl 5 if he became lvl 5 that would make killing them 1 million times easier. Do I really want to drink this sludge?

The texture was like slime, and the color was green like snot. Haruto was no biologist, but he assumed a wide array of microbes were in any scoop of this water. Besides what type of quest was drinking swamp water, it wasn't a normal one like saving the princess or defeating the skeleton king. Drinking swamp water was kind of anticlimactic, and Haruto knew the only reason he got this quest was because he didn't want to drink it.

That sadist is probably laughing his ass off in anticipation of me drinking it. Am I his clown or something? Did he reincarnate me just to troll me till I die, what happened to becoming a hero, and where is my beautiful goddess with melons that break the laws of physics? You think this is funny, kamisama. Well, jokes on you after peeing my underpants drinking some swamp water is like a walk in the park. My dignity is already gone. I'm at the bottom of the barrel, the only direction I can go is up. Steeling his resolve, Haruto began gulping down vast amounts of swamp water. His stomach was filled to the point a swishing sound was made when he stood back up.

Burping, a ding resounded, and a free 1000xp was deposited, rocketing him to lvl 5. Congrats on leveling up. six unassigned skill points added. 2 free points for every skill. For some reason, the water tastes like mountain dew. Maybe it's from a perk of being Shogun of the swamp. Wait, that makes literally no sense at all. I can think of no correlation between the two. Is it that the taste is altered to fit the likes of the Shogun, or is kamisama fucking with me again? Wait, wait wait, am I honestly looking a gift horse in the mouth right now absurd, futile, unnecessary. Tossing these thoughts into the proverbial trash can, Haruto felt content with his usurpation of the great skeleton king of the swamp. I could get used to this.