### Red Rabbit Round 2 ###

Zero woke up in Mythica to find a very angry Lina waiting for him. "You!!! How dare you? You cannot die and leave me in such a danger. Do you understand? Next time onwards set the resurrection point correctly so that I can be safe you MORON. If the great me died who will guide a fool like you. Have you ever considered the consequence. Hmmph"

"Sorry, Sorry. You know it was not really my intention to die.", said Zero apologetically "What's done is done. Lets think of a way to have rabbit stew today shall we?"

"Hmmph!", came the snort "and how exactly do you plan to do that. The Red Rabbit is called a Jackalope. It is a C rank monster. You need to be at least level 50+ to overcome the petrification and stats penalty. Also genius you don't have any medics with you, how are you going to heal yourself?"

"Simple by planning.", replied Zero with an evil spread across his lips.

Zero then hefted his bundle of venomous mosquito trunk and started from marching towards lair. Zero always thought that the problem with wars always come down to one thing 'Logistics'. The first one to secure a supply chain onto the war field has higher resources. Since he was in a jungle he had an abundant supply of wood making it a treasure house of improvised traps specifically spring traps. Spring spear traps date back in time probably longer than recorded history and are and excellent way to capture game of any significant size.

Zero now back in the narrow valley where he had met the mosquitos head on. He sat down on the rocky floor and examined the trunks, they were poison tipped so he was careful not to touch the tips. He then sliced them vertically using his swords and cut them diagonally, each approximately 3ft long.

He now had 14 spears in his possession.

He placed a long branch horizontally between the cluster of 4 spears and using a few feet of rope tied it firmly into place, making certain that the other end has enough distance to swing between the remaining two spears. Next, he tied a spear to the free end of the swing arm making certain that it is tight and at least some portion of the spear protrudes forward. He tied the horizontal trigger post into place about 5 to 7 inches above the ground and tied a string to the same spear slightly below the horizontal trigger post.

He repeated the same procedure and created a second trap. Lina was now watching him admiringly. She knew that Zero was building a trap but the speed with which the two traps were created was astonishing. It was as if he had done it his whole life. She could envision that in the narrow corridors of the valley this would be a deadly and unavoidable trap.

Zero hefted both the traps and put them into his inventory as he did not want to damage them carrying it till the cave. 500 meters from the cave he stopped, he took out one of the traps and placed it on the ground gently. A slight hint of mistake and it could prove fatal for him. He walked forward with huge strides counting his steps and exactly at 20 he stopped again. He then placed the second trap here. The reason for placing the two traps in proximity was that he wanted to use one of the traps as a diversion rather than the main attack. He then picked up generous amount of dirt and piled it on top of the traps making them almost invisible to the naked eye.

He cautioned Lina to follow him silently. They found a gap between the rocky ledges and hid. Zero wanted to start the attack at dusk so that he could gain advantage of the low light to mask the already murky trap. Zero assumed that the Jackalope would have a rather huge advantage at night time where Zero could be blinded by the lightning based attacks.

The first to break the silence was Lina, "Have you done this a lot?",

"Not a lot but enough. Once I was sent to the southern part of Africa to kill a terrorist. The assassination went smoothly but there was a problem with the extraction, which compelled me to flee into the forest with nothing except my set of throwing knives. I had to hide out in the jungle for almost a week before someone came to pick me up", replied Zero cautiously. AI or not he was still giving out official secrets so he distorted the facts a little bit.

He still had nightmares about the mission. He was sent to a south african nation to kill the leader of a religiously motivated radical group. Every day for almost a month he lay on the side of the road acting as a goat herder till one day he saw the man getting out of his jeep. He urged his goats to go close to the man and under a veil of ignorance and protests swiftly drew his throwing knives pushing it onto the enemies heart.

It was a risky operation primarily because they had no assets in the country. He was shot in the shoulders while fleeing but managed to get deep into the nearby forest covering his tracks.

Almost a week later the back up tracking his implanted GPS arrived to find him eating deer meat grilled over a makeshift barbecue.

"Hey Lina why cant I view your stats?", asked Zero just to change the heavy atmosphere.

"He He Its because you are not strong enough.", replied Lina sheepishly.

"So does that mean you are strong?", asked Zero.

Lina: "Strength is kind of relative. You know a lot of people say knowledge is strength so don't compare me to muscle headed idiots like you."

Zero: "You know you inherited Maya's twisted personality right?"

Lina: "Thanks."

Zero: "How is that a complement???"

Lina: "Do you mean to say Mother has a bad personality?"

Zero: "Eh. what else can I mean from twisted."

Lina: "Oh Mother. Please give me permission to kill this bastard right now. If you are listening, smite him with your fury."

Zero was not exactly sure but he thought he imagined laughter in the distance, "Nah it must be my imagination." he shook his head.

The friendly banter continued for some time before Zero out a finger to his lips silencing Lina. He edged towards the gap and found that the Sun was shining a bright orange. "Its showtime!!!", he whispered in Lina's ear.

"Listen here's the plan we will first try to enrage the Jackalope and dodge his lightning attack somehow and then lure it to the first trap somehow.", said Zero.

"Did you just realize that you said 'somehow' twice in a single sentence.", shot back a bewildered Lina, "this is the most idiotic plan that I have come across."

"Yup", replied a smiling Zero.

"How stupid can you be and what's with the triumphant smile?"

"Wait!!! Allocate your points first. You will be a little faster than before if you allocate a bunch of stats to Agility, thereby increasing your chances.", advised Lina.

Zero then opened up his stats window and allocated 40 points to Agility and 10 points to strength based on Lina's advise.

Zero carefully counted his strides from the set of traps that he laid and walked towards the lair.

"OOYE JACKASS.", he shouted.

Lina took this opportunity to correct him "No No it is Jackalope not a Jackass. Well whatever I give up.", she sighed heavily and went back onto the ledge.

The Jackalope emerged from its lair pissed at the tiny human for disturbing his sleep. Although it was not the strongest monster in the Amazonian jungle, it was still one of the fastest. And this human had just made a mistake of angering it.

Warning!!! you have entered the Red Rabbit's lair.

All stats -5.

Petrification in effect.

All agility related stats and buffs -5%.

The monster lunged towards Zero at an astonishing speed. Zero ducked and rolled towards the right avoiding the blow. Although Zero was a lot slower than the Jackalope he had absolute confidence in avoiding blows not thrown in a point blank range. He slashed his sword at the rabbit's furry feet trying to impede its speed but missed when the rabbit jumped back sensing danger.

Streaks of blue white lightning gathered near the Jackalope's horns and shot towards Zero. But he just raised his sword dug and the moment lightning hit, he dug the sword into the crusty earth. The lightning gather around the sword for a short while then fizzled out as if being absorbed.

Zero picked up the sword and glanced towards the Jackalope who was not happy having his primary attack neutralised. The creature then took a step forward towards Zero gauging out his opponent and and in return Zero backed away a couple of steps while muttering "76" under his breath.

"Silent sword Third stance. Commence.", shouted Zero.

Where Silent Sword First Stance was a technique which relied on godly unsheathing skills to perform accurate cuts, Third Stance was more of a defensive technique relying mostly on parries and thrusts.

Zero struck the incoming paw with the flat of the blade and used the momentum to thrust the sword towards the creature's eyes. The creature avoid the thrust jumping to the right and swung his left paw towards Zero. Zero back flipped a couple of times before stopping and swept his sword in a wide arc barely missing the creature's nose; making him lose his balance a little. He then stepped back to avoid the incoming lightning attack launched by the Jackalope who had sensed that Zero after losing his balance a little had a distinct disadvantage. Zero staggered a little and muttered "23" under his breath. He had not escaped unscathed from the attacked his left hand felt numb and he could smell the burning meat before his shirt.

The creature jumped forward bounding towards Zero adding to Zero's misery. Zero abandoned all hope of attacking and ran backwards with the Jackalope following closely. Little did the creature realize that this was just an oscar winning performance put up by Zero.

When the count reached "Three" Zero jumped backwards slicing the rope holding the trap in place. The spear trap sprung up impaling the left foot of the creature who howled in agony.

The Jackalope was now furious he had never been pushed so hard or injured by such a weak little creature. With its anger tipping the boiling point it went berserk slashing, hacking and mauling the creature in front of him. However its speed was visibly reduced and it was limping now. Ignoring the pain it pushed on to kill the little creature in the most gruesome manner that it could think of.

Zero was panting now. This was now real life where he would run out of stamina so fast. Here the stamina was dependant on stats which due to his low level he did not have. He continued to dodge the shattering blows from the bear missing them by a hair's breadth each time. To save stamina he was now swaying to avoid the blows instead of jumping backwards.

"7 more steps to go. Come on Zero you can do it.", he urged himself.

Little by little he made his way to the second trap, summoning his reserved strength he jumped over it and cut the rope. The poison tipped spears were now lodged deeply into the creature's torso. Zero knew he would barely have a couple of seconds of poison effect before the Jackalope released itself. So he summoned all his willpower, gathered all his strength and in one swift attack cut off the Jackalope's head.

Congratulations!!!

You have successfully slain an Amazonian lightning Jackalope.

for killing an C class monster alone you gain +50 fame.

You level up!!!

You level up!!!

You level up!!!

You level up!!!

You level up!!!

You level up!!!

You level up!!!

The lair of jackalope is now empty.

Do you wish to change your resurrection point to the cave?

"Yes" "No"

Zero quickly pressed "yes" before passing out with a smile on his lips.

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