Larm Forest

Day 5

HISSS

Hearing a hissing noise, I jumped out of my sleep, both literally and figuratively. A huge white viper was standing out in front of me, sticking its tongue out from time to time.

'Um… rude much?' I slowly walked back, simply glaring at the snake. I tried to assert my dominance, which in my personal opinion was a very dumb move.

The snake snapped at me and I jumped out of the way, allowing it to hit the wall behind me. The whole place shook lightly and snake hissed in pain. I tried to run for the exit, but its tail came for me, sending me flying back.

Its mouth was already open in wait for my arrival. Did this snake think that I was going to be its breakfast? If yes, it was insane.

'[Adorable Wink]!'

I winked my hardest and the snake's mouth shut and it blinked several times, shaking its head. I hit its head and fell back on my back. For a second, I wanted to stay there for a while, but I remembered the massive snake in front of me and jumped up, trying to get out.

I was close to the exit, when I had a thought. I looked back at the snake and saw it still shaking its head, stunned. Its status also showed [Stunned] there, meaning it wouldn't be able to do anything for a while. Also, it was weaker than the white viper from the day before in terms of stats.

'What if I killed it? I'll be able to level up, right? And leveling up means I'll get stronger, right? Strong enough to the point I won't have to fight these things, right?'

I stopped in my tracks and glared at the snake again. It was still stunned. I would have gone for its guts, but I didn't want to accidentally get to its epox sac again, so I needed to finish this on the head.

Still, I doubted that even with my increase in stats I would have been able to do it, then I remembered getting something called stat points the day before.

'Agent, you got any idea what stat points are for?'

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'Huh? Not found in database? I thought you knew everything about this world!'

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'So tell me about the stat points!'

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'W-what is this? So weird. Sa sa! That means I'll just have to try my luck then.'

After stressing myself, a screen popped up in front of me.

[Stat points are used for increasing your base stats, depending on your preference]

'Eh? Wait… what's this?'

"HIIISSSSSSS."

Before I could get any time to think to myself, the snake regained its consciousness.

'I guess that means I'll leave this for later. All stat points into strength!'

I poured all the 6 stat points I had been given into my strength, raising it to 21, then ran at the viper. It snarled and I used [Adorable Wink] again, stunning it. Luckily it wasn't so intelligent, so it didn't think to prepare a counter for this.

I jumped up, using my new 21 strength stat, I got real high and came down to drop. I activated [Peck] as I hit its head, but I simply bounced off, after causing some damage. The viper started waving its head in pain, squirming about like a worm.

A fountain of blood emerged from its head and the snake glared at me.

'Tch, that wasn't enough. I need my attack to be more powerful, but I can't just get a power boost out of nowhere. Wait… its scales are the problem right? What's this skill? … [White Viper Scales].'

Suddenly, instead of feathers, my entire body was encased in white scales, like the viper's.

'Huh? So that's how it is, huh? In that case, I'll use this and [Peck] together to do some damage. My defense has gone up by 5, but I'm guessing a harder surface will carry a harder impact. Alright! Let's g-'

Out of nowhere, the viper's tail hit me, throwing me across the room into the wall.

BAM!

[You have lost 4 health points]

'Kuk-'

I fell hard. I realized that for the past day, I had been doing nothing but falling in the most embarrassing of ways. I grunted through the pain and stood up.

[Due the unique skill [Evolver] you have acquired the skill [Pain Resistance]]

'[Pain Resistance]? Nice!'

I looked at the viper again. My nemesis since day 1. It hissed at me and I used [Black Wayne Caw] to show it that I wasn't going to back down here. Birds versus snakes. The battle that has been raging on for centuries, with birds always winning. Today, I take up the mantle of my avian ancestors and fight.

'I defeated your brother and I'll defeat you! Wait are all vipers siblings? It doesn't matter now I guess. Join him in hell! Alright, let's go! [Sprint] and [Peck]! A Tori original! [Spearhead]!'

I ran at the viper, dodging all its poison shots, then getting underneath its chin. I jumped up and thanks to the momentum, I jumped higher and harder than I expected, easily piercing its skull from the chin and killing it.

[You have killed a White Viper]

[You have received 120 exp]

I landed on the snake's head with a dramatic pose like the hero after killing the demon lord or at least what I hoped was that. I then walked off the head and looked around. The cave was really empty, so I decided to go out to see what was happening.

Nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Just huge trees and even bigger trees. I looked out and saw the horned rabbit from last night still there. I was sort of surprised that the snake didn't swallow it whole. Maybe it had something to do with the spiky horns.

I then went back in and was left thinking to myself.

'This snake… how did it find me? Was it because of the rabbit? Either way, I don't want more of these things coming up out of nowhere. Let's see, wait the snake was using its poison generation skill to shoot poison out. Let's see.'

I tried out [Poison Generation]. My stomach begun to grumble like I had a bad case of diarrhea and then I felt like regurgitating. My mouth felt weird and stung a bit as a weird green substance fell out of my beak and onto the ground.

'Eh? Is this poison? Nice.' I then looked up, towards the entrance. 'To prevent outsiders from entering or at least weaken them, I'll use some of this poison to coat the entrance. The scent alone should probably repel some of them.'

With that said, I went to work, covering the entrance in poison. Then I looked inside the hole. It was filthy and was in dire need of a cleanup. I would need to remove the fur and poop from the ground and curl up the snake in such a way that it didn't take up too much space. It was food for later. I wouldn't be able to eat it all.

***

After some minutes, I managed to get my place clean and I wrote in front of the hole, Tori's Domain in Kanji. The snake had been curled up at the far corner of the nest. Not much could be done about the blood stains, but they didn't really matter much. While cleaning up though, I accidentally walked on my own poison and it stung a bit, but my [Poison Resistance] seemed to be getting stronger, so I covered the entire floor with poison to build up my resistance and slow down any enemies who entered.

While doing this, a question came to mind.

'Where the heck am I?'

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'Larm forest?

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'Safe haven, huh? Doesn't seem like it.'

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'Possession of extremely dangerous creatures? Ok, now I don't want to meet any of those if they are way scarier than the snake. Still, how did I get here?'

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'An individual? Do we know who this individual is?'

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'Sigh, what a bummer. Wait… humans pass through this forest? Maybe that means I could catch a ride with one of them and get to a human city.'

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'Sigh… only powerful humans, huh? I don't expect you to have an estimate of how many powerful people there are currently, do you?'

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'As expected. In that case, how close am I to the edge of Larm?'

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'A few days, huh? In that case, I should head out now. But, if I go, I might be killed by something strong. I need somewhere to stay for a while. In that case, I'll level up a bit more before heading out into the world.'

I sat up and waved my wing.

'Watch out world! A new creature's in town and it's going to take you by storm!'