The Earth After Rebirth

Chapter 20: Rotten Luck

For a minute, they just stood there staring at each other. Both boys hoped it'd just, you know, walk away. But alas, it didn't wait any longer as it leapt forward crazily growling. Hiro stood his ground with his shield up.

The werewolf lunged at his shield.

Screeeech—

Every nerve in Kiro's body complained, as the metallic-nail sound reverberated from every inch of his body. As sturdy as Hiro was, he was pushed back, but thanks to the skill he acquired from the skill book, his muscles started bulging and he stood his ground. The werewolf couldn't move him any longer.

Kiro jumped from behind Hiro to behind the werewolf. He activated Palm crashing. Before it turned to him, it was distracted, Hiro had used his axe and hit it square in the face, it flew a couple of meters and banged against a tree.

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It seemed like they had made it angry, its speed suddenly increased. But it was futile, Hiro and Kiro had gone through thick and thin inside that Labyrinth and inside this forest, they came back from being almost swallowed by a snake and everything else!

They decided to do a back to back, so that whichever way it went, it would be within their eye peripheral. It attacked with it's gaping maw, Kiro simply blocked it by his staff. He was surprised the staff didn't crumbled, he used bending kick it flew backwards.

Whenever it got close to Hiro he'd hack with his axe, and whenever it got close to Kiro he'd use his staff or his palm crashing.

Palm crashing was extremely useful. It didn't need for the opponent to be touched. You can strike in the air, and the waves of the attack will reach the enemy, carried by the wind. Stronger than ever.

They continued this until they saw how exhausted the werewolf became, without wasting time, Kiro activated Blink Step and appeared right behind it, at a perfect distance to decapitate its head. Without a seconds hesitation, he beheaded the bastard.

Ding!

[Congratulations, you've killed a werewolf. 50 000 EXP rewarded each]

[You've discovered and killed a werewolf for the first time, 50 EXP awarded]

Both of them had finally reached level 20. After this quest they would no longer be able to enter the beginner's village.

Kiro's HP was now just 50 all over again and MP was almost zero. Fatigued, they sat down for a while before looking through the loot. They both were hoping for another skill book but this overgrown pup dropped potions.

[You've received 10 Health Potions and 8 Magic Potions. You've received 50 000 coins. Equipment Received: Ordinary Shield]

The shield went to being sold without question. They split the rest 50/50. Now that they had more potions, the game was a little bit fair. Kiro quickly downed 1 Health potion and 1 Magic Potion. The results were almost instantaneous, the MP and HP saw a full bar in a matter of seconds.

After 10 minutes of resting, they walked on.

"Do you think we can clear this quest? What if we can't and our characters get erased." Hiro asked.

Kiro was just thinking about what Hiro asked. 'Can he read minds or something.' He held back the urge to slap him senseless.

What's he being wimpy for? If they can't clear this quest they're doomed for sure. Goodbye mansions at the upper district.

The middle district wasn't so bad, but Kiro wanted the upper one, specifically because of their security. Kiro had to shake the negative thoughts, he had to get through this and succeed, for his family.

The Crow Mafia Gang that killed him in the past played this game too, even opened up a guild, that's how they got to be loan sharks in real life.

'I'll be stronger here just to make their gaming experience a misery!' Kiro made the promise to himself.

He wanted the upper district to ensure his safety in real life, while he messes with their business in the virtual world. Enough to make sure they never become loan sharks in the lower district. Ever.

Kiro hadn't forgotten how they treated him, and how his brother and sister died at their hands too. How could he simply forget about it and move on? His revenge will be sweet.

'I'd be an idiot to have all this past knowledge and not make them feel the pain that I felt.'

Just as Kiro was consumed by his happy revenge thoughts, they heard a crunch.

Not like someone stepping on dead leaves, no this was different. Both have never heard a sound like it before, but the closest to describe it was that, someone was stepping on dead leaves. The—

Crunch—

Crunch—

Crunch—

It was, it was the trees, they were standing up! They were alive! They turned their heads, the trees at a distance weren't moving at all, so it must have been just these ones. Just these ones must be special.

There were 2 of them, each at level 25.

"Buddy, we'll have to fight each of them by ourselves. We're stronger now, we can do this." Kiro reassured Hiro, hoping that his nerves receded and that he sounded convincing enough to his friend.

"Don't worry about taking hits. You have potions, use your rare shield and axe, hack that son of a gun and let's turn them to fire wood."

Hiro smirked at this. Kiro could tell his confidence was creeping in bit by bit. Then it started. An all out war, with mere trees.

Making tree monsters was ingenious! Basically getting them to lower their guard around trees, who would think trees would just get up and kick your ass? Nobody! Suppose this was their test for how people could react in an unpredictable situation.

The trees were incredibly strong, but their defense was weak. Though their dexterity was stupid high. Kiro wondered how could they be so big while their speed was on par with his. They were too broken!

Luckily Kiro had good reflexes and Hiro's shield was holding on, though he was taking a full blast to some attacks as he wasn't fast enough.

"Really need to get my dexterity up!"

"You think?"

His staff was reaching it's limit. He secretly hoped the trees would drop a staff.

The thing attacked Kiro with every branch it had, He would slide, parry, jump but never backed down, only moved forward to hit it with the staff a couple of times. He activated Palm crashing, at the same time Bending Kick.

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His attack damage was really high so it didn't take long before the Tree monsters health was downed by a lot. Hiro's shield bashing was becoming effective as an attacking skill. They were both doing serious damage to these tree monsters. Though not without a few scrapes, at times Kiro and Hiro would be sent flying.

Kiro refused to use blink on anything that wasn't a boss from now on. Unless it was life threatening, he just wouldn't do it. They could be seen every so often switching opponents, in order to get this done quicker. It was amazing how synced they were. They could possibly be the best duo this game has ever seen.

[Congratulations you've defeated two Elder trees. Rewarded 120 000 EXP]

[Discovered and Killed Elder Trees for the first time. Rewarded 300 EXP]

[Item rewards, 2 skill books. One ordinary sword. Elder Tree Bark for armour. 200 000 coins]