You have killed a significant amount of enemies of a certain kind without dying to them, therefore, you have earned the title:

Lagomorph’s natural enemy

Since you have a title equipped, you will need to go to a cathedral to change your title.

This title might have effect even without being equipped.

Lagomorph’s natural enemy: Bonus chance of inflicting fear upon rabbits and similar creatures.

Was this really worth it? Only time will tell

I think, from the verb To-not-be-sure-and-most-likely-I-am-wrong, not to be mistaken with the think from the verb To-smell-something-burning-in-my-head, that this is the game’s way of saying that I might have overdone it a bit with the rabbit hunting.

Well, it’s mostly a feeling, so chances are that it’s just me over-thinking its meanings. Yep, totally it.

“Master. That’s the game’s way of telling you that you might have overdone with the rabbit massacring.”

Well… Carp. I guess I might have taken it a bit too far indeed. I mean, midway, even Aura stopped playing along. Resting the hammer on my shoulder, I gave a look around me and finally noticed that Crys was working on a small pile of rabbits that had piled almost to my knees.

Not too far away from our current place, I could see the three rabbit dens I had… Erm… Forcefully forced an evacuation drill by using a hammer, an explosive and two exits.

He he… It was fun. Rabbit cannon…

…Okay. I went too far.

Sighing, I finally nodded and stored the hammer away in the hammerspace. Aka, inventory. As much as I like the big bastard, carrying it around was a bit inconvenient, since it was so large and normal sheathes don’t happen to fit them. I wonder why.

Anyway, silly obvious doubts aside, I gave a quick look upon my skill list and smiled happily. Hammer mastery is up to level nine and I already have four active skills! Including the golf-ball swing and ground pound!

For repeatedly and violently smashing some innocent rabbits into a bloody pulp with enough force to make the ground shake, you earned the War-Hammer mastery sub-skill: Quaking Smash

Sub-Skill: Quaking Smash [lvl 2]

(level increase with War-Hammer Mastery)

Bring down your hammer upon your enemies with enough force to quake the ground itself and disrupt your enemies’ footing. Repeated uses increase the damage dealt, the quake’s area of effect and energy consumed.

DMG: 150% + 25%

Area of effect 2 meters +1

Costs: 15 energy + 5

Cooldown: 20 seconds upon last usage.

For using your hammer to cruelly launch those poor, poor rabbits into the air like they are some sort of fluffy golfball, you have earned the War-Hammer mastery sub-skill: Jaw-breaker swing.

Sub-Skill: Jaw-breaker Swing [lvl 1]

(level increase with War-Hammer Mastery)

Wind up your hammer for a mighty upwards swing with a high chance for stunning or launching the opponent if it impacts with the head, based on its weight.

DMG: 300%

Stun/knock back chance: 25%

Stun duration: 4 seconds

Costs: 50 energy (Does not incur energy reg. Cooldown.)

Cooldown: 20 seconds.

Wind-up time: 1.5 seconds.

AkA, ground pound and golf ball swing, bread and butter monster hunter hammer combo! It’s the first time my weapon actually matches how they worked in that game. It was such an emotional moment for me that I even managed to forget a reaction upon Cyg’s less than subtle complaints about bunny rights!

Bunny rights, who cares about that?

“I feel that I should tell you that as long as you have that title, you cannot achieve the ‘protector of all that is fluffy’ title.” Crys coldly stated, shattering all of my hopes and dreams.

(Please wait for a moment as your main character recovers from the impact of losing such a wondrous title.)

“Wait, you are just saying that to…” I said while turning towards Crys with an annoyed expression.

“No. That’s an actual title that’s already written in the system.”

NOOOOO!

(Sorry, back to character recovery again. Please listen to this elevator music as Gon recovers from the impact. (Link at the end of the story))

A-Anyway, besides these two skills, I also got the basic “slam”, which is probably the hammer version of the slash skill. Nothing really interesting about that one since it’s just a basic swing. On the other hand, the last skill is… Well… For losing grasp of your weapon while playing around, and still managing to somehow kill a bunny, you have earned the War-Hammer mastery sub-skill: Impact Meteor.

(Seriously, it’s like you are unable to NOT kill them!)

Sub-Skill: Impact meteor [lvl 6]

(level increase with War-Hammer Mastery)

Throw your hammer with great force towards the enemy, the suddenly loss of weight briefly increasing your running speed. Deals bonus damage when hitting weak-spots. Deals bonus damage when used against enemies below you. Deals less damage when used against enemies above you.

DMG: 110%

Weak spot multiplier: 2x

Downwards multiplier: 2.5x

Upwards multiplier: 0.5x

Mov. Speed bonus: 50% for 3 seconds.

Cannot use other attacks until the hammer is retrieved.

Costs: 50 energy.

Cooldown: 15 seconds.

(Inflicts Disarm status on user)

Well… I guess we can say it was a happy accident? I mean, I was aiming for the second level charge while moving skill from the hammer, also known as the spin-to-win skill when the hammer slipped my hand and accidentally killed a rabbit. No, I swear that was an accident!

Well, at least the first time. However, let’s focus on something else that bothered me now that I stopped to think about it.

“Hey, Crys.” I called out the maid who was still working on the rabbits.

“Yes, master?” She called out to me in a formal tone.

“Is it just me, or is the mastery skill increasing way faster than previously?” I asked curious seeing how it was already on level nine even though it hasn’t been that long since I got the skill.

“Ah. That’s a hidden system working. The higher your level, the faster low-leveled skills gather experience.” She explained. “That’s to help those who are at a high level and get a new skill be able to put it on an useable level faster, and not feel that it’s just another chore to level it up.”

“I see. And since I’m pretty higher level now compared to before…” I nodded in understanding. “Do the other players know about this already?”

“Yes. If master were to take some of his time to skim through the forums for a bit, you’d notice that there’s a thread dedicated to try to find hidden systems like that.” She chuckled amused. “They only guessed two correctly up to now, though.” She said with her eyes smiling mischievously. “Fu fu fu fu. And those two are by far the simplest ones. They’ll never find out about some of the more intricate systems. Fu fu fu fu.”

“You do reckon you sound like some cliché villain right now, right?” I said with my eyes dead.

“You do reckon you do this a lot more frequently than me, right?” She replied playfully.

Touché.

I sincerely have no comeback to that. None, nil, nada. Sighing in defeat while shaking my head, I decide that it should be about time for me to call it a day here, so I turn towards the city and prepare myself for my trek back. However, I am stopped by the sight of some certain kitsune, freezing tail and earth sprite quietly napping under a tree.

With Yuu leaning against the pine tree nodded off, Aura was quietly curled up in a small fluffy ball with her back against her while Mr. Pebblesworth was nestled comfortably on her tail.

After making sure to take a pic and store it under ‘fluffyness incarnate’ folder, I pondered on whether to wake them up or just wait for them to wake up on their own. While being torn apart between these two choices, I noticed Crys approaching me with the corner of my eyes.

“You have been playing the entire time this weekend, and it’s pretty late by now.” She stopped for a moment. “Outside, I mean.” Outside? Whazzat? Is it edible? “And I feel that I should remind you that you should have class tomorrow?”

“Uggh… there was no need for you to do that!” I complained before sighing and shaking my head. Quickly checking the clock time, I nodded to myself. Indeed it was becoming night right now, so outside should be somewhere around four PM or something. But then, the time we spent in here is a lot more, so mental fatigue should be piling up. “Oh well, I think I’ll call it a day a bit earlier today then.” I said with a defeated sigh before shaking my head.

“That might be better.” She nodded in agreement before turning to Yuu. “Still, it might be better to warn Lord Which. He wanted to speak with you earlier, remember.”

“Good call. I’ll go talk with him then I’ll stop there.” I decided before nodding and bringing up the party menu and sending a message to Hanbei and Co. I’m pretty sure they went deeper into the forest to farm monsters or something.

Having done my job, in socializing, I headed towards the napping group and took a deep breath while preparing myself to the unrelenting task of having to wake them up. Oh great Cygnas, forgive-me for what I am about to do, by ending this scene of fluffiness, and I asketh of thee that thou dost not punish me, for it already pains me so to wake them up.

Okay, prayers done, time to do it.

Gently resting my hands on Yuu’s shoulder and Aura’s neck, I started to nudge them, very gently so that they wouldn’t wake up… No, wait, isn’t that against what I wanted to do? GAAH! THE FLUFFY! IT DISTRACTS ME!

The first one to wake up was Aura, who lazily opened her eyes and let out a long and lazy yawn before moving herself a bit so that my hand was resting on her head instead of neck. Her movement then proceeded to wake up Mr. Pebblesworth who looked around groggily.

Yuu took me a bit more effort to wake up, as she looked the most tired of the trio, however, after some seconds she finally opened her eyes and looked at me blankly for a few seconds.

“Shi-shishou?” She asked slightly confused before looking around.

“Good morning sunshine.” I said jokingly while standing up. “I’m going back to town right now to hear what Lord Which had to tell me, then I’ll probably stop here for today.” I told her as she covered up a yawn.

“Hmm… Okay.” She said sleepily. I offered her my hand to stand up and helped her up, though she almost fell over, so I had to hold her up. Hmm, I guess that even Yuu is a bit clumsy when sleepy. “Thanks.” She said while standing up and making sure she wasn’t falling this time.

“If you want to log out when we get to the town.” I gave her the idea. She looked at me surprised for a moment before making conflicted expression. “No need to worry about me. It shouldn’t take me much longer to stop either.”

“Then I’ll do that.” She said with a tired smile.

I nodded in agreement starting to feel a bit tired myself now that I wasn’t fooling around with the bunnies. Once Yuu was up, I started removing my hand from Aura, but not before a certain scorpion-shaped sprite lazily grabbed on the sleeve of my robe and started climbing it up until he reached my shoulders, where he curled up in a small ball… Or pebble, with his knees, or whatever it is actually called, sticking upwards and the tail resting over his body.

He looked like a curling stone. A spiky one, but certainly a curling stone.

And for some reason Aura was staring at me jealously. Hey, it’s not my fault you aren’t small anymore, you know? Well, it is somewhat my fault, but you were the one to ask me to do this!

Luckily, Aura is more often than not one to be understanding, so she quickly sighed and simply looked away slightly disheartened. Making a mental note to spoil her a little later, I turned back towards the city and started making our way there.

The way back was extremely eventful, with me facing against a Squirrel-warlord hellbent on conquering the world, having a tea-party with one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, met a sentient sarcastic potato and finally had to dodge around this unique blue slime mob called Bria or something.

But since nothing there is important, I’ll just skip it.

As soon as we reached the mansion, we met the butler and he told us that Lord Which wished to speak with us about the property. Seeing how it was something that referred to the two of us, I asked Yuu if she wanted to leave it for later, but she said that she didn’t mind my choice.

Welp, I’m still not too tired, so I guess I can at least hear what he have to say. Giving her the go to log out, I was then guided towards the office like always.

“Ah. Mister Gondorrer.” Lord Wich said once I opened up the room. “I see your fiancée isn’t with you today?”

“…Yuu’s not my fiancée…” I said awkwardly.

“…Really?” Lord Wich looked shocked for once, but he quickly recovered by shaking his head and nodding. “Anyway, about the matter of the terrain we talked about.” He said while looking around for some papers. “Here. These are the ones I found out that matches your requirements.” I nodded while taking the paper from his hand.

Hmm, I wonder if I can get some translation here. I mean, I’m not very good at this whole legal thingies… Oh, it’s in layman’s terms. Nice.

While I was reading the documents, lord Wich also took the chance to explain things for me.

“After some search, I found three terrains that seems to match your requirements. Or at least comes closer.” He looked at the paper I had in hand at the time and said. “That one is admittedly a bit far from the mines, but it has access to the coast and is a pretty patch of land.”

“Hmm. This looks good, but my main reason for a house is for it to be near the mines.” I said awkwardly. But yeah, if it weren’t for the buffs and whatnots, this would be ideal. Looks like a real nice place with even a particular beach! Calm place, close enough to the city for it to not be inconvenient, looks like it gets a nice breeze and whatnots. Though, admittedly, it is a bit cold, but nothing some rings couldn't solve.

That said, I’m not really much of a beach person and I believe my attention span is not very good for fishing. Not to mention I don’t even have bathing clothes in here…

…

No. I will not do it. I will not get tempted by the idea. I will not think of Yuu in swimsuit…

Dang it. I did it.

Damn you male body’s hormones!

Wait, do I even have hormones as a golem? Now that’s a good question. I can’t even think of a possible rocky counterpart to go with it. Damn, now that’s a difficult joke to make.

“Now, there’s the second choice.” Lord Wich said as I switched the papers. “This one’s a bit smaller, however it’s close to both the mines and the forest as you want. However, the terrain is a bit muddy, so working on construction will need some deep foundations that might end up being more expensive and take longer to get ready.”

“Hmm… This does looks a bit more like what I want. How much longer would it take it for the house to get ready? Any idea?” I’m no expert, but I do remember reading somewhere that such things can make for a very expensive and time-consuming building. The way this was going, chances are that it won’t be worth…

“Hmm. Possibly two or three days. If we take the house-building itself, probably two weeks.” Huuh… That wasn’t what I was expecting. Two weeks to make the foundation AND building a house? I’m almost sure that it shouldn’t be that fast…

“Dwarves are master craftsman. Not only that, but they also have access to magic.” I heard Crys whispering to me in my ears. Ah yes, magic. I should probably dabble into it a bit more one of these days. Probably make a magician alt or something.

“Two weeks isn’t that bad to me.” I replied to Lord Wich, who blinked surprised before raising an eyebrow. “Taking that into account, this actually looks pretty good.”

“Well, if that isn’t a problem with you…” The white-haired dwarf said surprised. “Then I guess I won’t need to trouble you with the last option then.” He replied relieved.

“Well, taking a look wouldn’t hurt…” I started saying, but once my eyes landed on the document I raised a suspicious eyebrow. “…This isn’t a terrain…”

“Yeah. It’s an old building that’s been abandoned for some time now.” He said with a worried expression. “It was the last one that met your requirements we found out from this brief search.”

Once I looked at the details in the paper revealed that the last terrain was in a similar situation as the previous one. However, instead of still being a simple terrain, there was already what looked like a fairly big building. It wasn’t perfectly intact, as it reported some missing windows, rotten wood planks and so forth, but overall it didn’t look that bad, as the foundation was still intact and the main pillars holding up the second floor were just fine or had been patched up recently.

Not to mention that the terrain itself was even larger than the previous one. It was a bit farther from the mines, but it made up for being closer to the forest. And it wasn’t that far from a lake, so chances are I might even get a fishing bonus.

“And the location’s pretty good too.” I said surprised while frowning confused. “Wouldn’t this be the best choice then?” I asked confused. “I’m no expert, but I’m almost sure that repairing a house like this would be a lot cheaper than building one from ground up?”

“Well, if that was simply the case, then yes. The issue is… Something else.” Lord Wich said after sighing and scratching his head. “From the information I gathered, they’ve been trying to do something with this house for fifty or so years. Be it selling or demolishing it. Anything. However…”

“IT’S HAUNTED?” I said once I read the final lines.

Stated in big and bold… not really. In pretty small letters that were trying to pass off discreetly was the statement that it might possibly be haunted by ghosts, seeing how some super-natural events happened. There was even the talk about the sightings of a pale, legless dwarf in armor roaming the mansion.

Ughh… This is troubling. Haunted houses never end well. If this was a book or something, this would be the moment I’d say something like: Ghost doesn’t exist and so there’s nothing I need to worry about, then proceed to take the house and get wrapped up in a b-rated horror story.

But, this is a game, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something like a ghost actually existed and a vengeful is actually possessing that house. And everyone knows that vengeful spirits are extremely dangerous, guarding a place to death and not letting anyone come closer while cursing, scaring, and sometimes downright killing anyone who even dares to come close to the house. Almost like some sort of guard dog on steroids.

Heck, I’m pretty sure that if I left a vengeful ghost to guard my stuff it’d be much safer than any sort of guard or insurance I could hire.

.

..

…

This is…

…

“…Lord Wich.” I asked a bit curious. “Think you could find me some info on the person who last lived in that house? I mean, the one that might possibly be a ghost?”

“Oh god…” Crys said while facepalming. Wait, aren’t you supposed to be the god here? “Here we go again”

“That’s an odd request.” He told me confused. “Are you planning on actually accepting that house?”

“Well. I do want to try something…” I said with a small smirk. “I’ll come back in a couple of days, try it, then give you my answer. Is that fine with you?”

“Hmm… I’ll have Oldir look into it.” He said a bit hesitant. “Can’t give you any promises though.”

“No worries.” I said before yawning a bit. “Now, I’ll leave you to your job. Thanks for all the help so far.” I stood up and he nodded back while we shook hands.

After sending Supplies a message telling him that I wouldn’t log in for some time and ask for Oldir, the butler, to tell Mummy-man the same, I took me some time to spoil Aura for a bit before logging off. We made our way through the now snow-clear market and I searched for a snack she liked while patting her head.

However, she suddenly stopped and started sniffing the ground. Being curious by her reaction, I followed her as she made a full turn and started walking back the way we came from.

It didn’t take me much longer to understand why she had made such a turn, as we soon caught sight of something that left us confused. We followed him for a few minutes just to be sure, but the longer we kept the watch, the more confused we became.

“…I think we somehow broke Lieutenant.” I muttered. Aura nodded besides me while Crys was stifling a giggle.

For some reason, our soldier cat was wandering around in his new set of armor and with a small lance to match. He was riding on the back of Rio who was cheerfully going around with his play as they flew around the streets.

Nothing new there. What was strange was how he had stopped by a flower shop, bought a couple of roses with money I have no idea where it came from, then flew off with it in hand, just to land near a fishery instead.

He proceeded to buy himself a fish, then held the hand of the girl who was taking his money while on his knees and kissed the back of her hand, before offering her the flower. Afterwards, he left off with a suave ‘nyaa’ and hopped back on Rio before flying off.

Then he started to patrol around the city until he saw a stray cat stealing meat from stand, where he swooped down and stopped the cat in his track by landing in front of him. Following that he made the cat go back to the stand and give back the meat while giving him a sermon.

Shouldn’t he be… You know, playing pranks and such? As the three of us watched Lieutenant act so out of character, we decided to not think too deeply about it.

I spent another half an hour walking around with Aura by my side and Mr. Pebblesworth in my shoulder before logging off. After asking Pebblesworth what he’d rather do while I was off, he decided to stay around in the city, so I fed him another ore before leaving him near the Mansion, telling him to not wander too far off, and if needed, to look for Lt. for help.

In the end, I finally logged off determined to take a brief nap before finding something else to do. Probably sit down and write for some time.

As that thought crossed my mind, a warning popped up to me while I was preparing to log off from the virtual desktop. The words were simple, yet devastating.

[Phantoms: Btw, have you finished the program for tomorrow’s class?]

...Aaaaaah… Damn it. Why is it that the first time you pop up after so long you deliver such a low blow?