Chapter 51: Babysitting and Bear Hunting

Rabbu-i walked slower than others but showed everyone she could handle little slimes with a thin dagger. Nimbo helped them with the shield Eren found from the dungeon yesterday. It wasn’t a magical artifact but probably better than all of others’ weapons.

They were having fun with destroying the little menaces.

Eren spent one hour watching them walk slowly, find slimes or some groups of bunnies or tiny lizards and attack as a group.

He had to shout some of the basic stuff like “be sure to hit twice” or “never be indecisive while fighting”. But overall they were capable of hunting little monsters or some lonely beasts around level 10 with no problem.

When he was sure they would be okay, Eren walked away a little bit to one of the special pinewood trees. He readied his hand.

These trees’ trunks were wider than a car. Its bark was also so hard that female wolf cub couldn’t cut it with their new skill. Emily had told him dark pinewood was what the village used for structural supports because nothing short of a high-level beast could scratch it easily.

Eren remembered punching a regular tree at Level 2. His hand had hurt so bad he couldn’t use it for ten minutes. At that time, he believed these were normal trees but it was dark pinewood. Emily had been nice enough not to laugh that day. To his face but anyway. She was a wife material from the get go in his book.

I love her more and more every day. Is this even scientifically possible?

He set his stance. Rotated his hips the way Emily explained on the road. And drove his fist into the center of the ironwood trunk.

BOOM.

The impact echoed like a cannon shot.

His fist sank five inches into the wood. Splinters exploded outward. A crack showed up on the trunk like lightning but it was tiny and didn’t create a major change as much as he expected. It felt cool to see some leaves and chunks of bark rained down around him but that was all of it.

He pulled his hand out. Not a scratch or a bruise.

He saw his punch print and some cracks in the middle of the trunk.

“Holy shit.” He whispered with a proud smile. Then louder. “HOLY SHIT.”

“This tree is suppose to be harder than rock!” His heart was beating like a drum in a rock concert. He didn’t just feel it, he could also hear his own heartbeats with half-elf senses.

At Level 2, punching a normal tree had nearly broken his wrist. At Level 25, with soul sync at one hundred percent, he had just punched four inches into a thick pine with his bare hand and his skin didn’t even get hurt.

Endurance and Strength 36 wasn’t just about giving big punches. His skin, bones, tendons actually almost everything were reinforced to a degree that made normal weapons from Earth almost irrelevant. A regular blade would probably bounce off him at this point. Or most of the basic guns couldn’t kill him if he didn’t act stupid.

Alright. Next test is speed.

He was wondering about how fast a system user could be in high levels. So Eren picked two trees really far away and sprinted between them.

The forest blurred. He reached the second tree before his brain fully processed that he’d started running. Agility 47 with the item bonuses.

It was ridiculous. He wasn’t just running. It was something closer to teleporting with extra steps in his opinion.

“I’m fast. I’m actually, genuinely, stupidly fast.”

He sprinted back. Then again and again for a few times until he didn’t feel like a child with a new toy anymore.

Then he tried drawing zigzags while still sprinting between trees at full speed. His body responded to every correction instantly. No delay between thought and movement was necessary.

He felt as if he was on a 3D movie and the whole screen was showing the environment in fast forward speed.

It was like the body he’d been wearing for twenty-five years had been a rental and new one was the custom-built version that actually worked.

Just before he understood how to maneuver around the trees in the best way possible, a noise from his left disrupted his focus.

Finally a new hunt.

Whatever it was, it sure didn’t care about noise as snapping branches with heavy steps. Eren’s fully unlocked perception locked onto it before he even turned his head.

A thornback Bear, the kind Emily had warned him about during his first week. According to her experience in the last years, they were almost all around Level 20!

Big, aggressive, with a ridge of hardened quills along its back that could delve through bones or armors.

The bear spotted him already and charged immediately. Eren knew for a fact that black bears wouldn’t hurt humanic beings if they weren’t threatened but this one had a different opinion about that.

It was clearly aggressive.

Maybe Earth black bears didn’t see humans as a food and didn’t care about them. He wasn’t sure as this black thornback looked pissed as hell.

It run to him with its head low but arms front and thorny head behind its head aimed at his stomach.

To his old body, this would have been a terrifying blur for Eren. But with his current body, the beast was moving in slow motion. He could see the individual muscles working in its legs. He could count the how much spit its mouth was spilling around. He could predict the exact trajectory of the tusks to within a centimeter.

Eren sidestepped. The bear thundered past. As it passed, he brought his fist down on the back of its skull.

One hit to its head. The bear dropped dead with its thorny back barely scratching Eren’s hand. It was bloody but pretty okay comparing his old wounds from fire slimes.

[You gained 100% energy of Spiked Verdant Black Bear – Poison Variant (Level 23)]

Maybe he could start hanging around with Emily for the mid or long range dangers around the village.

[Congratulations! You have reached Level 26]

-All stats increased by 1

-You gained 1 Stat Point to distribute

“..”

His brain needed a moment to realize what he actually achieved and added his stat point to mana again.

Eren looked at the dead carcass on the ground. A Level 23 Thornback Bear. The thing that Emily had explicitly told him never to engage alone was dead from a single bare-handed punch on its head.

But poison variant?

[Congratulations! Passive Skill “Poison Resistance” leveled up]

He checked the skill and saw that it became level 2.

Every creature in this world had multiple ways to kill enemies and if he didn’t have the passive skill things would turn ugly.

He tried to find other enemies around the area while sprinting like a blur.

“If my college friends could see me right now, they wouldn’t believe it. Actually, if anyone from Earth could see me right now, they’d think they were watching a movie.”

He looked at his hands. Turned them over. “What am I even supposed to do with this much power?”

The answer was obvious.

He had a dungeon to clear. A pregnant wife. A dragon to hunt on the north mountains. Organized beast packs in the forest. He was supposed to deal with all of it!

Just before he walked to the small rookie group, Eren remembered an important addition for the to-do list.

The bed was still broken. He’d have to fix that too.

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