-239- The forest in the night

At Level 1, players have only two skill slots, which was previously mentioned. It's only when they reach Level 6 that they gain a third skill slot. Until then, they can only use two skills at most.

In Rozen's two skill slots, one is already occupied by the blade throwing, leaving one slot open. Originally, he intended to decide what to fill it with after obtaining the Rainbow Flower Butterfly. However, now that he's chosen a one-handed sword as his weapon, he naturally needs to assign a one-handed sword skill to it. Otherwise, he'd only be able to use sword skills with blade throwing.

Both of his skill slots are weapon skills. Such a combination should be quite rare among low-level players.

For most players, they usually choose one weapon skill and then either a crafting or passive combat support skill for the other slot. Opting for two weapon skills means that players can only improve the mastery and power of one skill. After all, regardless of the player type, they can't equip two different types of weapons simultaneously.

Kirito was the same. After choosing one-handed sword as his main skill, Kirito selected Searching as his second skill. As the name suggests, it's used to detect enemies. Players with this skill can enhance their ability to identify enemies, increasing the likelihood of spotting them to some extent. They can also gain abilities like night vision, provided their skill proficiency meets the requirements.

With this skill, Kirito was better at detecting enemy traces compared to regular players. As they entered the forest, he frequently spotted the red markers of monsters and guided Rozen to avoid them.

However, even if he didn't avoid them, Rozen wouldn't let monsters get too close to him. The reason was simple.

"Gu! Gu!"

The Rainbow Flower Butterfly flying beside Rozen emitted this kind of sound when approaching monsters that Rozen hadn't noticed yet. It was a unique trait of familiars with heightened perception, used to detect enemies. This meant that even without the Searching skill, Rozen could receive an alert from the butterfly and know that enemies were nearby.

In such a situation, even though Kirito knew Sword Art Online had turned into a death game, he couldn't help but cast an envious look.

"It's really convenient to have a familiar. You don't even need to waste skill slots; you can just use your familiar instead," Kirito remarked enviously.

However, Rozen responded, "I can only know if enemies are nearby. Without the Search skill, I can't see the markers for monsters, let alone know where they are."

As Rozen spoke, he drew the bronze sword from his scabbard at his waist.

"Then let me, who has the Searching skill, tell you."

Kirito pointed ahead.

"There are monsters there, and they're our target. The marker is quite deep red."

Although all monster markers were red, players could roughly judge the enemy's strength based on the intensity of the color. If the enemy was much higher level and unbeatable no matter how hard you tried, the marker would display a deep red, even darker than blood. If the enemy was much lower level, a weak monster that didn't grant much experience, the marker would be a pale pink, almost white. Enemies of similar level were indicated with bright red markers; darker red indicated some danger, while lighter red meant relatively safe.

Kirito was pointing at the former situation.

Ahead, there were monsters more dangerous than their current levels would suggest.

As they got closer, Rozen also spotted them.

Little Nepenthes.

That was the monster's formal name.

Even though the name included "little," the monster's height was over a meter and a half. Its appearance did match the name—it was a plant. The lower half resembled a pitcher plant's body, and the lower body was comprised of numerous mobile roots wriggling. On both sides were coiled vines with sharp leaves, and the head featured a large, predatory mouth that continuously dripped sticky fluid when opening and closing.

The Little Nepenthes's level is 3, so the marker is indeed a deeper shade of red. Considering safety, the two should avoid such monsters. However, as Kirito said, they are their mission target.

Rozen immediately looked at the head of the Little Nepenthes. Their mission items were the ovule of the Little Nepenthes, which only dropped from the ones with flowers. So, if the monster was going to drop the ovule, there should be a flower on its head.

Rozen stared, but Kirito, who had the Search skill, saw the target first.

"Not what we're looking for," he said.

That was the answer.

"As expected, it's not that easy," Rozen shrugged.

Among all the Little Nepenthes, the chance of encountering a flowering one was probably less than one percent. Otherwise, the reward for this mission wouldn't be a high-performance weapon.

It's because the mission target is so hard to find that the reward is so valuable.

In the past, some unlucky players had spent three whole days hunting here to complete this mission, only to give up in the end.

As a player who had done this mission before, Kirito was well aware of this.

However,

"As long as we keep defeating the regular Little Nepenthes, the chance of encountering the flower version will increase," Kirito said, fixating on the slowly moving Little Nepenthes on the ground and subconsciously lowering his voice.

"Moreover, since the Little Nepenthes is Level 3, continuously defeating them here will give us a significant amount of experience points. If we endure through the night and reach Level 5 before dawn, it shouldn't be a problem."

This efficiency was quite high.

You see, the ideal level for the first floor is 10. Once you exceed that level, the experience gained on this floor becomes so scarce that it's despair-inducing.

So, during the beta test period, players formed a large-scale raid alliance at Level 5-7 and challenged the floor boss. After several attempts, they managed to unlock the staircase to the second floor.

Being able to level up to 5 within one night—how could this efficiency be low?

Of course,

"With gains come risks, don't they?" Rozen said dismissively. "Apart from the flower version that's our mission target, there's another type of Little Nepenthes that carries a round fruit with the same probability. If we accidentally attack the fruit during battle, it'll rupture with a loud noise and release smoke, attracting nearby Little Nepenthes."

Being surrounded by monsters higher level than oneself, it's needless to say what the consequences would be.

Kirito also knew that Rozen didn't need his reminder at all, but he couldn't help but nag for a few more sentences.

No way around it.

"If you die, Mom, Suguha, and I won't be so happy," leaving behind these words in a low voice, Kirito sprinted ahead of Rozen.

Seeing Kirito like this, Rozen fell silent.

"Gu!"

At this moment, the Rainbow Flower Butterfly emitted a warning sound. Over in another direction, another Little Nepenthes was slowly approaching.

"Phew," Rozen exhaled, gripping the bronze one-handed sword in his hand.

"Come!"

At Rozen's voice, the Little Nepenthes let out a screech and charged towards him.