“Well, my Soul Cores did Level Up. But I couldn’t select a new Skill for either of them, so I now have one extra point each in Agility and Dexterity,” Fern replied. I frowned for a few seconds before nodding in understanding. I’d actually forgotten that I’d had to choose between two Stat increases when my Spellglove and Naginata Core had reached Level 3 but what with all of the excitement this fact had completely slipped my mind which was a bit embarrassing, but it didn’t seem that anyone particularly cared about that right now and even if they did I’d just blame it on me hitting my head a few minutes ago.

“And I increased my Intelligence by 1, and my Spirit regen by 0.5,” Evie said giving me a smile. “Fern told me to balance those two Stats until I worked out what I wanted to do with my build.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed. “Thanks Fern. And what about you Katy?”

“Nah, not yet,” my AI companion replied with a shrug. “I am close though; I only need a couple more points.”

I nodded at her words. If there was one good thing that came out of us coming here it was that we would be getting a lot of Experience and Soul Points. So, even if we ended up getting killed then it wasn’t going to be a total loss. It would still be a set back of course but that was how these games worked. You couldn’t get something without risk, not unless you were a full-time crafter anyway.

“By the way Katy,” I said as I realised something. “I never actually asked but there is some sort of Boss monster in here isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Katy replied. “Dens usually have a Boss monster that’s a more powerful version of the same type of monster that lives there .”

“So, some sort of giant rabbit then,” I muttered to myself then realised that she’d dropped another interesting piece of information in her reply as well. “From what you’re saying I’m guessing that Den’s only have one type of monster?”

“Yes, that’s why they’re called Dens instead of something else,” Katy nodded. “While we’re on the subject I suppose that I should tell you that actual Dungeons can have anywhere between 3 to 10 different types of monsters and often have more than one Boss.”

I nodded thoughtfully at this, I had been planning on asking about that next and upon seeing the look on my face Katy gave me a sly smile making me snort in amusement. It was hard to believe that we had known each other for a couple of days now and she was already predicting what my next question was going to be. I mean I guess it was pretty obvious that I was going to ask that next, but it was still funny to someone like me who didn’t really spend that much time around other people if I could help it. And as far as I was concerned Katy was a person, even if she was an AI instead of a human being.

“Alright then, I suppose we should move on,” I said looking around at the others who nodded their agreement.

Luckily once again there was only one way that we could go and we carefully made our way down the tunnel which seemed slightly larger than the one that we had taken to get to the cavern that now lay behind us which made me feel more than a little bit nervous. If the tunnel was getting larger then there was a pretty good chance that the things that lived beyond here were going to be larger as well and I exchanged a meaningful look with Fern who also had a frown on her face.

“I think that you should give me a little bit more space,” I whispered to the other two who looked at me with questioning looks on their faces. “The tunnel is slowly getting bigger and having a little bit more space to work might make things easier if we encounter another Armoured Rabbit or something like it.”

Evie turned pale at my words, but they all nodded and took a couple of steps back. I wasn’t sure whether this would actually help or not, but it should give them a little bit more time to run away at least. Once we had settled into our new formation, we started back down the tunnel, taking care to move as quietly as possible. I wasn’t sure if this was going to help or not considering that our opponents were all rabbits and as such had excellent hearing, but it couldn’t hurt.

Thankfully I spotted the ned of this tunnel only a few minutes later and started to relax slightly. Inside this new cavern was a group of larger rabbits than the ones that we had fought back in the previous cavern. Cautiously I gave the cavern another look trying to figure out whether these rabbits were the only things in there and just as I was starting to relax further, I noticed something that I had previously thought was just a rock move slightly and bit back a curse. It seems like my fears about encountering another Armoured Rabbit were justified.

Thankfully there was a lot more room to manoeuvre in this cavern than there had been in the tunnel but I was still going to have to solo the thing which meant that the others were probably going to have to deal with the other rabbits themselves which could be a problem. Glancing back over my shoulder I once again made eye contact with Fern who for the first time since we had met looked nervous, but her expression quickly firmed, and she nodded.

Taking a firmer grip of my naginata I quickly activated my Static Armour and Ward before stepping out of the tunnel and running towards the Armoured Rabbit firing a Jolt at it to make sure that I would get its attention.

While I was doing this the other three were engaging the rest of the rabbits, Katy and Evie both fired their ranged attacks at the group while Fern charged towards them much like I was with the Armoured Rabbit which yelped in pain as my spell struck it in the side. By the time it had managed to get to its feet I was already within melee range and started attacking it with my naginata using my superior Agility to evade its clumsy attacks. Unfortunately for me the normal attacks from my naginata were barely even able to scratch its armour making me curse loudly when I almost lost my grip on my weapon after a particularly powerful swing.

This Armoured Rabbit was considerably larger than the one that had attacked us back in the tunnel and it seemed like the armour that protected it was tougher as well. Even my Skills seemed to barely be able injure the Armoured Rabbit and from what I could tell from the shards of rock that were kicked up by its attacks I would lose a good chunk of my HP if it actually managed to hit me. I also knew that couldn’t rely on Evie healing me at the moments, she would be too busy keeping Fern and Katy alive.

As such we sort of ended up in a stalemate as I danced around the giant rabbit’s attacks and struck back with my Skills whenever I had enough SP to do so. Each time I attacked I made sure to aim for a joint in the hopes that this would actually allow me to do more than irritate it.

Every now and again I found myself in a position where I could see how things were going for the other three. For the most part they seemed to be doing well. As I had predicted Evie did have her hands full keeping Fern and Katy alive, but they were doing a good job of keeping the rabbits from attacking Evie. They had even managed to actually kill a couple of the rabbits that were attacking them. Of course, that meant that there were still another 5 rabbits to go plus the Armoured Rabbit that I was fighting. It wouldn’t be an easy fight for them but at this point I was guessing that they had a better chance of winning their fight than I did without help.

Sadly, stalemates can only last so long and eventually I made a mistake that the Armoured Rabbit immediately capitalised on and ended up being sent flying back into the cavern wall by a powerful blow from one of the Armoured Rabbit’s front paws. Pain flooded my body as I slid to the floor and I coughed up blood for the second time today, the attack had struck me full on the chest and my ribs had given way like twigs being stepped on. The rabbit glanced down at its paw which was now smoking slightly thanks to my Static Armour, not that it seemed to be particularly bothered by this which didn’t bode well.

Gritting my teeth, I used my naginata like a crutch and pushed myself to my feet as I tried to put a little distance between me and the Armoured Rabbit before it decided to hit me again. My HP was currently just below half and I was pretty sure that I had broken several bones. If I took so much as one more hit like that, I was headed for a respawn faster than you could say Bugs Bunny.

Seeing that I was injured the Armoured Rabbit bared its teeth in a fierce snarl and started gathering itself for a lunge. Thinking quickly, I conjured a Barrier right in front of its face as it started to leap at me. Luckily for me the barrier stopped the rabbit’s leap before its legs had fully extended causing the monster to simply plant its face into the shimmering wall of energy that had appeared so suddenly.

Breathing a sigh of relief I prepared myself for combat again, my Static Armour was already sputtering out but there was no way that I could spare the SP to cast the spell again if it was as ineffective as it seemed and my Ward had broken when I had deflected an attack earlier. So, in the end I had no defensive measures remaining to me other than dodging and parrying and I was pretty sure that parrying would be a bad idea considering how much more powerful the Armoured Rabbit was in comparison to me.

However, I noticed something odd when the rabbit made its way around the barrier that I had created. It was limping slightly on its left front paw which told me that at least one of my earlier attacks had actually done some damage. This was a good sign, but it didn’t change the fact that it would only take one more hit to injure me so badly that even if I survived the initial attack there would be no way for me to defend against the follow-up.

Deciding to ham things up a bit I kept my weight fully on my naginata as I moved around so that the Barrier that I had created was between us once more. This would quite literally only buy me a couple of seconds but every second allowed me to recover a small amount of HP and SP as well as making the rabbit think that I was even more injured than I actually was. As I did this, I quickly pulled a potion out of my Inventory and downed it which wouldn’t heal me too much but would hopefully at least dampen the pain a little so that I could focus on what I was doing.

Unfortunately, this little stalemate couldn’t last forever and not long after I had used the potion the Armoured Rabbit leapt to one side and then pounced towards me once more. It always amazed me in these games how easy it was to make an overgrown rabbit look terrifying and this one admittedly did also have some sort of hard shell which made it look more intimidating but it was all that I could do not to freeze in place when the Armoured Rabbit leapt at me.

Leaping to one side I rolled back to my feet with a pained groan as my ribs shifted slightly in my chest, activating my Slash Skill as the rabbit landed and I spun back towards it striking the ankle of the rabbit’s already injured left leg.

Unlike previous times I had attacked the rabbit this time it screamed in pain as the blade of my weapon bit into its ankle causing a grim smile to cross my face as I stepped in so that I could drive the blade of my weapon even deeper before tearing it out causing blood to spray me in the face.

Grimacing I stepped back as the rabbit spun towards me. I didn’t so much as have time to wipe the blood from my face before the rabbit reared up to try and swipe at me with its front paws. Ducking under these attacks I swung my naginata at its knee as I circled around behind it. Now that one of its front paws had been injured the rabbit’s agility worsened even further and I took advantage of this fact to continuously reposition myself behind the rabbit and attack the back of its knees.

Even with one of its front legs maimed the rabbit somehow managed to stay upright this entire time which surprised me slightly because as far as I knew rabbits weren’t actually able to do this in real life, but then again rabbits didn’t have armoured plates protecting them either so I guess that didn’t matter too much.

As I danced around the increasingly clumsy attacks from the overgrown rabbit, I noticed that the other three had finished off most of the other rabbits and I briefly made eye contact with Evie whose eyes widened when she saw the state that I was in.

A few seconds later light washed over me as Evie finally managed to cast a healing spell on me just in time for me to dodge under an attack and stab my naginata into the rabbit’s throat. The rabbit gurgled slightly around the blade that I had jammed between the armoured plates that were protecting its neck and swung its right paw at me forcing me to let go of the weapon when I discovered that it had become stuck.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I was now unarmed, and I couldn’t see any way to retrieve my weapon without losing the health that Evie had just restored so I was going to have to fight unarmed, at least for now. Luckily, I did have my Jolt spell which I promptly cast on the base of my naginata’s blade. The small bolt of electricity struck the metal and was promptly conducted into the neck of the rabbit causing it to moan in pain once more. From the sound of things my naginata was plugging the wound that I had created which meant that the rabbit wouldn’t be dying from that particular injury until I removed it.

The rabbit lumbered towards me slowly, it was obvious that it was in incredible pain and I half expected it to try to rip my naginata out of its neck itself. But it seemed more interested in killing me than doing that. In fact, as soon as it was within lunging distance it launched itself forward and started desperately attacking me. It’s attacks were wild enough that I was barely able to dodge most of them but as soon as I saw an opening reacted quickly creating a Ward which I used to deflect the wild swing that had thrown the beast off balance and gasped in pain as my arm made a strange cracking sound. I didn’t think that the bone was broken all the way through thankfully, but it was definitely cracked at the very least. Gritting my teeth in pain once more I lashed out at my naginata with a kick to loosen it up a bit before grabbing hold of my weapon and ripping it out of the rabbit causing crimson blood to spray from the now gaping wound in its neck.

When I had deflected the rabbit’s attack my Ward had broken as well, so when the rabbit recovered faster than I had expected despite the mortal wound in its neck and charged into me I was sent flying once more. This time I clearly heard my leg break when I struck the wall and screamed in pain when I slid to the ground causing the bone to tear through my skin.

Looking up I could see that the Armoured Rabbit was in an even worse state than I was. Blood was still spurting out of its neck in regular intervals which probably meant that I had managed to cut the carotid artery that delivered blood to the brain.

However, the Armoured Rabbit wasn’t dead yet and from the crazed look in its eyes it really wanted to finish me off before it died. As the rabbit approached me, I could hear Evie crying out to the other two as I tried to push myself backwards dragging my broken leg along with me. Every movement caused more pain to shoot up my broken leg but thankfully despite the piece of bone sticking out I wasn’t bleeding too much so if I could manage to stay outside of the Armoured Rabbit’s reach then it would die of blood loss.

Taking a chance, I looked over my shoulder to see how the others were doing just in time to see Fern finish off the second last rabbit. Evie had already raised her wand and shouted loudly as she fired her basic attack at the Armoured Rabbit, but the bolt of blue energy didn’t even faze the thing as it walked towards me leaving a trail of blood behind it as it did so.

It very quickly became clear that it would catch up to me before it bled out, so I raised my hand and fired a Jolt at it as Evie continued to blast it with attacks from a distance. However, as I had already noticed the armour that protected it meant that only our more powerful attacks could deal any damage to it even in its weakened state.

Rolling over so that I could move a bit faster I looked up just in time to see Katy taking aim with her bow and soon her arrows joined the small darts of energy that Evie had been firing but from the sounds of things they weren’t doing much more damage than Evie’s basic attacks. Fern was still fighting the last rabbit, but it didn’t look much better off than its larger cousin which was still plodding along slowly after me.

As soon as my Jolt spell came off cooldown I turned back towards the Armoured Rabbit and almost leapt out of my skin when I saw it looming over me but managed to control myself in time to fire the spell up into its mouth which was open in preparation to bite into me with the long sharp looking teeth that looked different enough from a normal rabbit’s front teeth that I was perfectly comfortable with calling them fangs.

This time my spell had an effect causing it to shudder briefly and collapse right on top of me making me yelp in pain once more as I struggled against the monster rabbit’s enormous weight. I honestly thought that those sharp fangs were going to bite down on me at any moment and from the surprised cries coming from Evie and Katy they thought so too. But then I saw the blank look in the rabbits eyes and immediately calmed down as I realised that it hadn’t fallen over on top of me because that was the easiest way for it to prevent me from escaping but because it had finally expired from loss of blood.

Try as I might, I couldn’t manage to lift the thing off of me and even when Evie and Katy saw that I was alright and rushed over to help me even the three of us could barely move it. A couple of minutes later Fern made her way over having finished off the rabbit she had been fighting and working together we managed to get the Armoured Rabbit’s corpse off of me.

“So,” I gasped as I tried to take my mind off of my broken leg as Evie started fussing over it. “Did anyone happen to notice what Level that great lump was?”

“Level 7,” Katy replied as she looked down at me with a mildly surprised look on her face. “And the one that attacked us earlier was a Level 5. Honestly, I’m amazed at how well you did fighting it. Monsters undergo a large increase in power once they reach Level 5 so even the smaller one should have been nearly impossible for us to defeat without one of us dying. I actually thought we just got lucky.”

“Well its not like fighting that thing was fun you know,” I grumbled angrily before looking at my leg which still had the piece of broken bone sticking out of it. “By the way, will that be fixed by a healing spell or will we have to set it somehow?”

“We’ll have to set it,” Katy replied shaking her head sadly and I groaned at her words, even with pain dulled in game if what I had felt when the bone broke was anything to go by then this was going to hurt a lot. I had broken bones in other games, and I could’ve sworn it didn’t hurt as much as in this game even though they were supposed to be set to the same pain level.

“Alright then,” I sighed eventually. “Let’s get this over with.”