With the brocade bag tucked at his side, Zalanir meandered around the mouth of the valley, and then pushed into the deeper area when finding nothing of note. The cliff on the right appeared to shield the valley from quite a bit of snow, and also light, allowing the valley to still maintain some shades of green.

  Two hours until the sun came down. Not that much, but not too short either. The middle part would probably need to wait for tomorrow. For now, he would stick to the area right at the foot of the tall cliff to avoid any potential flank.

  He got his eye on the first flower monster when it dropped down from the cliff. It was a purple flower with six petals pointing upward. Small twisted roots crawled in front, pulling its cat-sized flower along. A quick Identify showed Zalanir that it was three levels higher than him. A peak D-grade right off the bat? Bring it on.

  [Faninn Garrle — Level 48]

  Zalanir turned back and ran to the entrance. No reason to potentially involve other monsters in this fight. One was probably hard enough already. However, he only managed to make 40% of the way before he had to engage the purple flower. Its speed was just a notch above his own.

  One of the six petals detached from its body and shot like a dart toward him. Zalanir blocked it with Energy Barrier, then released the first salvo of earth bolts at the approaching opponent. He would prefer a metal variant, but that affinity couldn’t be found in this area. Thanks to Sound Sense, he could make sound bolts anytime and anywhere he wanted, but other affinities were still dependent on the what the surroundings had to offer.

  Did that just happen? Zalanir knew that it was quick, but the fact that it just somersaulted and twisted its body in the air to avoid his bolts was beyond ridiculous. He was too absorbed in the move that he failed to react on time to another petal and got a light cut on his shoulder. He did collect himself instantly and used the translucent shield on his arm to guard off a slam from the monster’s roots. The force was rather soft, though, so he took the chance to swipe off the monster, push it away, and create a short distance.

  The two petals that it had thrown earlier had somehow returned and were hovering on top of its green stigma. The other four were still attached to its body, acting like four blades, as he saw one of them cut off an unanimated flower that stood in its way. The monster was crawling around insidiously with its bending roots. Its eyes — actually they were the yellow stamen, as he doubted a flower would have eyes, but because of their forward leaning posture, he decided to call them so — fixed on him like a predator stalking and waiting for a moment to pounce.

  Zalanir would never allow that to happen, as he was the predator in this hunt. He made sure that it remembered that.

  Activating Wind Rush, Zalanir paid the monster back by slamming the shield onto its frail body and pushing it onto the ground. It wasn’t the only one that got good speed here. His might not be constant, but considering a burst of speed in a short time window, he believed he was the superior one.

  The monster kept on cutting the shield on top of its body until it broke, which released a wave of energy that didn’t allow it any chance to dodge. Zalanir timed the moment to fire a barrage of air bolts at point blank and then kicked it into the cliff. No matter what, it was still only a flower with a frail and weak body. The melee attack earlier when it smashed his shield had told him that much.

  It was a bit disturbing fighting something that didn’t make any sound. If this flower were a badger or a human, there could be a lot of grunts, howls, or curses already. But in this case, it just quietly stood up, adjusted its position, and lunged itself at him again. This point wasn’t relevant to how both of them would fight, but still, it left him rather unsatisfied somewhat. Imagine watching a movie without sound effects? Yikes!

  His kick just now might’ve severed some of its “nerves”, because it just became more aggressive with its assault after getting back up again. Zalanir blocked both of the petal darts with his barrier, but couldn’t dodge two slices on his right biceps when the garrle now utilizing all four petal blades. It dodged a close bolt salvo by dipping down and, in an unexpected move, shooting up into the air with all six petals formed into a pencil head. The attack slashed vertically from his belly to his chest and then exited at his clavicle. The only reason it didn’t straight up penetrate through his jaw was because he reacted by bending his head to the right at the last second.

  That was way too close! Goosebumps were all over his body, acting as a reminder that this was a peak D-grade that he was dealing with. It was weaker than the birduomera alright, but it wasn’t as injured as the summoning monster. He was fighting this battle fair and square, and that last attack had almost taken him out.

  Zalanir backed off when the monster was still in the air. His new robe was still in one piece, but its color was no longer pure green. Three big red lines that branched off into possibly twenty smaller ones now painted his front. He took this brief and precious moment to regain his breath and stabilize his heartbeat — though seemed like it even beat faster now that he paid it any attention.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The monster was like a martial art master in the way it fought. Its speed of attack and reflection was just too good. Or perhaps his was too low. After all, he didn’t put any points into Dexterity, nor did his Mastery give anything there when he leveled up. A speedy type like this garrle seemed to be his exact counter.

  The monster resumed its assault, and Zalanir continued to be on the receiving end of various slices and cuts. Learning from the previous experience, he paid close attention to the position and stance of the petals. He chose to ignore using his barrier to block off the petal darts for now. Those left only minor cuts, so he could still tank it for a while. Thanks to that, he reacted in time to the second drill attack by erecting a barrier right on top of its pencil head. The monster still tore through it like a thin piece of paper, but the extra second that the energy wave breaking out of the barrier bought him was crucial for him to sidestep the attack.

  That extra second was even more important when Zalanir felt a mental signal that Wind Rush was ready to be used again. Without this burst of speed, he just couldn’t land any attacks against this damn monster. He repeated the same consequences that had knocked the garrle into the wall a moment ago, only with a slight deviation that this time, he waited until the monster was closer to start his counter-attack. Missing this attack might put him in such a dicey situation that he couldn’t help but be a bit extra careful.

  Though that turned out to be a bit of an overreaction, because he pulled off everything flawlessly once again. Rather than only losing some of its “nerves”, the purple flower lost half of its petals and even got a part of its roots pulverized under the stomp of the barrier.

  Instead of running away, it turned its attack pattern to clinging onto the wall and firing off petals from afar, which made blocking and dodging much easier. He ended the battle with another slam of the barrier onto its flimsy body, using the cliff as an anvil to magnify the force.

  You have slain [Faninn Garrle — Level 48]

  Level advances to 46

  Even though he needed mana, Zalanir went on ahead and put the single free point he just got into Dexterity. Would that help? He didn’t know. But at least he would have the peace of mind that he had tried to improve his speed. He had already gained +3 Intelligence and +2 Spirit through his mastery bonus anyway, so not like he was slacking off with increasing his mana pool.

  His health wasn’t in a critical condition yet — currently sitting at more than 40% — but he still chose to pull off to the entrance to rest. It would be too high and arrogant to think that he could take on another peak D-grade flower monster.

  Sitting with his back against the cliff, Zalanir entered meditation. An hour in this state could help him get enough gas to do a last ditch of exploration before nightfall.

  Zalanir continued looking around the area where he had killed the purple flower. He scanned the cliff first to see if there were any similar monsters, but seemed like that garrle was rather unique. Even the captain only said that he could find peak D-grades here, which he had already got one, not that this place was swarming with them.

  There was a bush of greenish orange herb that caught his attention. Instead of staying and growing in one dense place, the herbs spread out rather thin in a c-shape. He went peeking over, hoping for something in the middle, and there were, but just not what he was looking for. There was a total of twelve dead black grasshoppers scattered inside the belly of the c-shape. The weird thing was that their bodies were intact, with no sign of any damage. If it wasn’t for the dark red, hardened blood oozing out of their mouth, Zalanir could’ve mistaken that they were sleeping or something. Identify showed their levels at only 29, so perhaps they were killed by something else?

  The question is what? He wasn’t a fan of having random deaths in the area that he wanted to explore without him knowing the cause. He still had the brocade bag on his side, so at least he was safe now to investigate.

  He crouched down and touched a grasshopper, which, by the way, was the size of a baby spoon instead of being a tiny creature like its Earth counterpart. Its exoskeleton around the belly was rather crunchier compared to the rest. He could shred those with just his fingernails if he wanted.

  However, he pulled back his finger immediately after touching the dark blood, not because of its disgusting state — he kind of expected that — but due to the fact that his skin was being wrinkled and torn apart around the contact area, and there was this feeling of having the inside of his fingertip being wrecked by a blender or something. The effect registered all of a sudden, without even giving him any warning.

  Poison! That word came to his mind when the contact area started to turn dark green. Zalanir instantly pressed and squeezed the surrounding area until the same dark red blood that he touched splurted out of his fingertip. The light pain eased out and vanished after a couple of seconds.

  Zalanir stood up and surveyed where he was with both his eyes and ears. He focused on even the smallest sound of something that he could pick up, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Was this herb the cause? He reached out again with his other finger and touched one of its heart-shaped leaves, and the same sensation returned in the blink of an eye. Now he had two messed up fingers instead of one. What a discovery!

  Aside from flower monsters, looked like he also needed to be aware of poisonous herbs. He wasn’t sure if there were other equally dangerous plants in the deeper parts of the valley, but he better be careful when choosing when to fight. Falling into one of these could spell death in maybe a minute.

  Wait! But what if I push one of the monsters into it? Will it work? Sometimes he hated that his mind would just jump onto random risky ideas like this. Why couldn’t it be normal?