*Yawn* Zeke sat up from the sleeping bag inside a tent, he stretched his body as a long yawn escaped from his mouth.

He crawled out from the sleeping bag and the tent, and looked around him. Alice was still coiled around the tree, the campfire was turned off, and the light of the sun shined brightly.

Just a normal morning…

Since Alice was still sleeping, let's posticipate breakfast for a bit and directly pass on the Spin.

*Snap* With a snap, the screen appeared in front of him. Zeke clicked the Daily Spin and looked at the Slot…

C

"Huh, neat." Finally it wasn't another junk item.

[You have received: Awakened Dream Nail.]

An hilt with a pink glowing orb on top of it appeared on Zeke's hands. He looked at it with a slightly amazed expression and whistled. "The Hollow Knight, huh? I missed that game…"

Zeke focused a bit, and from the pink orb, an ethereal blade appeared. After a bit, he turned it off and put it at the opposite side from where Angel Halo was placed. Unlike Jackal or other junk items, this might be useful one day AND it didn't weigh him down.

Passing on his inventory, Zeke checked a bit the first page and looked at the list of ingredients… What should he make for breakfast… Well, it's the same with Alice, she could eat chicken and waffle for breakfast without problems.

[Later]

After eating breakfast, Zeke and Alice, who woke up as soon as the food's smell reached her, started their journey once again to north.

Some time passed, and they reached another forest, but unlike the one surrounding Enrika, this forest had a different atmosphere than the others… It's more moist. Probably here rain passed a lot of times.

Some puddles of mud littered the place, the grass grew up a lot here, and plants Zeke never seen sprouted out like hair.

"In these kinds of places, a lot of tropical monsters are likely to appear. Watch where you're going." Alice gave Zeke a tip, and he nodded. Unsheathing Angel Halo, he carefully walked inside the forest.

He planned to go around this, but by then they would need another day to reach Iliasport, so he could just clench his ass cheeks and walk ahead.

After a couple of minutes inside, Zeke smelled a nice smell. He wanted to ignore that smell, but it was so strong that forced his mind to please up his curiosity and turn around.

He passed after a couple of trees as the nice smell was getting even stronger, and was blurring up his mind.

"Ugh…"

A small headache reached his brain as his mind turned completely blank. Something reached his cheeks, holding them as if the owner of those hands was holding his or her lover, and pulled Zeke closer.

[Notification(1)]

Suddenly, his mind flickered, and his vision turned normal. In front of him there was an armless girl inside a giant rafflesia and with tentacles over his cheeks.

The Rafflesia Girl licked her lips as she approached them towards his own. She didn't seem to know that he was out of trance, so Zeke used this opportunity to twist his body around, taking her by surprise, and reaching her neck with Angel Halo.

He just used Demon Decapitation, the skill he recently learned, to behead the Rafflesia Girl in front of him. The head flew in the air, and landed in the ground, rolling around while releasing a dark energy.

"Sis?!" Behind the Rafflesia Girl he just beheaded, there was another one that looked just alike to her… Wait a second, why the fuck are there 2 Rafflesia Girls?!

Zeke looked down while backing away, and saw that both of them came from the same giant flower. He tightly grasped Angel Halo with both of his hands and faced the sister.

Before he even knew it, something slapped his cheek, HARD!

"FUCK!" Zeke cursed and held his really red cheek with one hand, and looked at the ivy moving around like a snake in front of him.

The other Rafflesia Girl gritted her teeth and glared at him. "You'll pay for what you did to sis!"

More green blurs appeared and whipped the shit out of Zeke in his entire body. It was fortunate for him that he was wearing the Enrikan Armor set, or he would be knocked out almost instantly with those whips.

However, he didn't have anything for his head, and he doubted that a motorcycle helmet could do much against this type of power.

After Zeke got used from the strength applied on him, he tried to stand up. However, another ivy caught one of his legs and pulled him. Zeke slipped down and slammed his head in the ground, before he was pulled up.

With his body upside down, he kept getting whipped from the enraged Rafflesia Girl. "Die! Die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-die-DIE!"

Zeke's body started to get numb from those hits, and his head was full of bruises and scratches. If this keeps going on, then he will die…

One of his hands reached at his back, just to realize that Pumpkin slipped off from his back and was already lying on the ground, while Angel Halo had a limited range, so he can't reach the Monster Girl in any way…

"Shit…" He cursed at his misfortune, at this point she was too enraged to even listen to his words, and even if he said the truth, she won't believe that her 'Sister' is safe.

Suddenly, something came out in his mind and quickly summoned his own inventory, he pulled his hand inside it and took out Jackal. He should be physically strong enough to wield the gun, so he quickly aimed to the Rafflesia and pulled the trigger immediately without care.

The hollow-point armor-piercing bullet shot out from the barrel of the big handgun, and instantly reached the Rafflesia Girl's head. The bullet started to fold in itself and the force it carried traveled all the way through her skull, making it explode.

The rest of the body fell in the ground, while the head splattered all over the ground, letting out a yellow substance that should be her blood.

Zeke fell in the ground head first, but he couldn't move from there for a while due to all those attacks that numbed his body. Soon, Alice was over him, looking down on his eyes.

"Hey, Alice… How is the monster?" Since everything happened too fast, Zeke didn't see where he shot the Rafflesia Girl.

Alice turned around and seen the monster's blood and grey matter all over the ground, while the head Zeke took out before stopping emitting dark energy. Now that the monster is dead, Angel Halo's powers on the monster girl he beheaded disappeared, killing her too.

She looked back to Zeke and shook her head. Zeke could only hold a gloomy face at the thought of killing someone. He slowly sat up and turned his head around.

The next few seconds, Zeke covered his mouth, holding back his breakfast. A monster is a monster, but the thing that hit him hard was the fact that the Monster still had human-like parts, like her chest and head.

So, seeing how everything was splattered in the ground, while another head rolled in front of him, was like a punch on his stomach.

He turned his head away and gulped down his breakfast. He took a deep breaths and cleaned off the corner of his mouth from puke.

"Are you alright?" Alice asked some minutes later, when Zeke looked like he calmed down. He just nodded lightly and replied. "Y-Yeah… Better now… Let's just get going…"

He stood up and walked beside Alice, who stole a few glanced at him. "I didn't realize you would feel like this for the death of a monster…"

"...It depends on how you think them as. They are smart, they are capable of thinking, they have blood, a beating heart, they can create civilization… Except for the looks, there isn't any difference between them and humans, so I recognize them as people like us." Now that his mind was clearer, he could make a logical sentence.

""Like us", huh?" Alice replied the last words Zeke murmured, and looked up with a slightly surprised look, as if she just noticed it now. "I guess you are right… We are quite similar to each other without counting the looks."

Zeke opened his Quest screen and looked at the quest he completed recently.

[Survive(Medium): Self-Explanatory. Reward: 8 Bonus Points.]

Huh, maybe the Rafflesia Girl counted as 2…

He turned in the quest and brought up his Profile, updating it. This time he put 5 on Dexterity and 3 on Constitution. Then he opened his inventory and placed Jackal inside it.

Seeing Zeke's slightly pale face, Alice sighed and said. "I will give you a useful tip just for this time, seeing how you are reduced to. If you keep going forward, you will meet a Roper Girl."

"A Roper Girl… Thank you, Alice." Now there is a decision to take. Fight her or change direction?

Gripping tightly Angel Halo, he took a deep breath and tried to meditate while standing on his feet. He needs to have a clear mind to make a clear decision.

Pro: Fight experience, 3-5 Bonus Points, and a step closer to the title of Monster Hunter.

Con: 100% Safety.

As much as he didn't want to risk his life again after the mess with the Rafflesia Girl, his subconscious told him to go for it, or things will be even harder in future.

[Notification(1)]

So, Zeke stepped forward and glared at the scenery in front of him. Behind him, Alice raised an eyebrow at the decision to ignore her tip and go to take the initiative to attack the Roper Girl.

"Now you're going to act as a barbarian?"

"Yeah, I'm tired of getting assaulted, and I need to vent a bit from the beating I got from the Rafflesia Girl. I need to get stronger, so I need to get more Bonus Points since I can't train in the middle of nowhere in this moment."

Alice remained silent. She definitely didn't expect that Zeke will make the first move, but she only turned her head away and vanished.

Meanwhile, Zeke started to accelerate, before he noticed a slender figure with purple long hair. He immediately acknowledged her as the Roper Girl since her hair were too compact with each other and were leaving behind a trail of acidic mucus.

Hearing the sound of footsteps, the Roper Girl turned her head around, before Angel Halo passed between her jaws like air. Unlike the Rafflesia Girl, the Roper Girl seemed much weaker in her constitution, so it was much easier to pass through her with Demon Decapitation.

"...Eh?"

Before she knew it, the section between her jaws was split in two, and half of her skull slided down before both of the parts glowed, and turned into some sort of tentacle thingy.

[Notification(2)]

Was this good? No.

Was this fair? No.

Was this right for the Roper? No.

Did Zeke care? No.

As long as he gets the Bonus Point and the Roper Girl isn't dead, he doesn't care about her at all. Opening the Quest screen, he turned in the other Survival quest, which was ranked Easy.

Maybe it must be her constitution that made it easy, since Zeke felt little resistance.

He gained the 3 Bonus Points, which he placed in Strength. Now that he had enough stamina to fight for a couple of dozen of minutes, he decided to ignore Endurance for a bit.

...Now, it is time to find an exit from this wretched forest before another plant monster gets him.

[STATUS UPDATE]

Name: Zeke Conquest

Age: 15 years old

Sex: Male

Race: Human

Title: Hero

…

Strength: 37

Endurance: 35

Constitution: 32

Dexterity: 33

Magic: 1

Bonus Stats: 0

…

Skills: Sun Authority: Leo.