Change of plans

"Wow."

She knew they would take the rabbit down but she did not expect it to be this easy.

"Man this was too easy!"

She looked at the downed rabbit, retrieved her daggers and put them back into her inventory, and checked the condition of her hunt.

"Was it easy?"

Elio came out of the bushes with Az who seemed happier after seeing the dead rabbit.

"Yup. It usually takes me a few minutes to hunt one of these in this perfect condition."

 There was no great damage to the rabbit's body, there were no visible wounds on the dirty hide either.

The only blood present on it was from the creature it was eating earlier and even though it had gone berserk, now that it was dead, its body had somehow returned back to its natural state– something should not happen in normal circumstances.

"It was too easy with the speed boost. And that restriction spell timing was just perfect."

After checking the condition of the hunt, she walked back to him and looked at him with a smile on her face.

"We actually make a good team, you know?"

With a playful look on her face, she first kissed him, and then she admired his still surprised expression.

"I don't know about making a good team, but that sure seemed easy."

Each of his simple spells cost him around Five units of Mana. 

At level-14, he had around 20 points of Mana and unlike the creatures who increase their Mana capacity as they level up, the players had to increase it with either special items or through training/achievements/enlightenment.

For players, Mana was a functional stat that increased with the level of players– or by 10 at each ten levels in simple terms.

"Right~. I know we make a great team~."

She was happy after hunting this creature, but she was nowhere content just yet.

"Let's hunt till evening~."

Contrary to him, she loved hunting.

She did not do many life activities inside the game and focused more on exploration, hunting, and finding more fun places to hunt in.

She also liked learning about new things so she also spent a lot of her time in the libraries of this world, but since she had mostly been by herself, she did not have many acquaintances or friends.

"Ummm… I don't seem to have any choice anyway so, sure?"

He had to level up anyway. And since they did not have anything else to do until the evening, they just went to their next target.

Which was a big brown peacock.

"Alex… this one's pretty."

She did not want to kill this creature since it was just minding its own business in an open area of the forest. 

It was a Brown feathered peacock of (Level-25). A high level creature that most certainly was also rare.

"It tastes delicious though. I know you'll like it when I cook it so don't worry about the small things."

She just told him to cast a Speed boost spell on her like the last time and a Movement speed reduction spell on the peacock. 

It was a fast one and since it was also not that big, it would be difficult to aim the spell. But, even though he did not like it and wanted to stop her, she had already run away.

"Muuuu."

"I don't like it."

The big and scary rabbit was one thing but this simple and harmless looking creature was a different kind of being altogether.

They were rare creatures but not too rare so people hunted them whenever they got the chance. 

The creatures themselves only had their superior escape tactics and skills so they mostly managed to escape from the hunters… but that was not going to be possible against someone like her.

He knew that.

-Ooooooooooooooong!

So, he used the movement speed reduction spell on her right when she closed in on the creature, and by using the grass restriction spell, he created a kind of wall between them so that the creature could not attack her.

"Pyaaaaaa!"

And since it could not attack the sudden attacker, the creature just screamed, spread her beautiful brown wings, and vanished from the open grass area.

"Muuu?!"

Even Az was surprised how his master used the spell on his own partner.

Though, of course, he knew the consequences of doing something like that.

"You… hypocrite."

The basic spell's effect did not last long on her. 

But as if to have expected this kind of event, she came back to him with a sad look on her face.

"I'm sorry… it was just-."

"Pretty?"

She knew he was crazy for pretty creatures. She knew there would come a time when he will do all he can to stop her from killing them if it is not necessary.

But at least, she didn't think he would interfere even for a simple creature like that one.

"Crazy bastard."

He took this game a little too seriously. That's why he was perhaps better being something other than a hunter or a kind of player that needs to kill other things.

"Haaaa…"

He knew she did not like it, but, well, there was no changing what had already happened.

He did not like it, and this time, he could not help himself either.

That creature was too pretty and too precious to just eat… they could buy the pea-cock meat from the market if they just wanted to eat it but killing it with their own hands was a little too much.

And yes he was crazy to stop her from doing it as well, but since he was helping her in this, he was indirectly doing it as well. 

"Alright then…"

He had known him for years now and knew he was not going to stop doing it just because she did not like it.

He would either just return back to the town and leave the hunting to her- something she did not want- or keep getting in her way of hunting creatures that gave good Exp but looked attractive.

She could not have that either.

Unlike him, she had her reasons to get stronger and get back to higher levels as quickly as she could.

But since she wanted to be with him as she did that as well, she also had to focus on his levels while she did that.

"Change of plans."

Since she had killed every single kind of creature one could find in this hunting ground once already, she knew most of the higher level ones that gave good Exp were good looking creatures.

It was the problem with the beginner hunting grounds. The creatures here were not as ugly as they were outside of the beginner areas.

"Let's go hunt down the field boss."

"What?!"

If he was not going to let her kill the pretty ones and if she wanted to power level before they go and do the Guard captain's quest, they both at least needed to be (Level-20). And he was not at that level just yet.

But she knew that would change if he gets all the Exp for killing the field boss of this beginner area– a (Level-35) creature that even she had not attempted yet.

"Oy, Alex. We are talking about the same field boss that I know, right?"

He was confused and stunned right now, so the logical thing his mind thought was how he must be misunderstanding something.

"Yup. You know what I'm talking about."

But just from looking at that excited smile she had… his heart already knew that she was up to another absurd thing now.