Just as expected!
Seeing its prey "trying to escape," the black-green serpent's meager intelligence could not tell it was a feint.
Its upper body reared back, more than half its length rising upright as it coiled like a spring, then launched itself at Aaron with a powerful lunge, fangs bared.
Now!
Aaron's eyes lit up. This was exactly the move he had been waiting for.
He whipped his iron sword back into a reverse grip and hurled it like a javelin straight at the serpent's gaping maw.
Thud!
The impact exploded in midair with tremendous force.
The iron sword pierced cleanly through the black-green serpent's open mouth, bursting out the back of its head in a spray of thick white mucus, red blood, and bits of flesh that splattered the ground.
"Hiss! Hissss!"
The serpent crashed to the forest floor, writhing in agony, its body twisting and squirming as it let out pained hisses.
Thump! Thump!!
Its thick tail flailed wildly from the agony, smashing randomly into nearby trees with booming crashes.
Aaron watched the huge snake thrash, its head blown through, then bared his teeth in a grin and backed off a few steps.
He calmly waited for it to die.
If the scales were too hard and slick, then the answer was to attack the soft parts from inside.
After two or three minutes of struggling,
the black-green serpent's convulsions gradually slowed, then stopped altogether. It lay still on the ground.
"EXP +150."
Current EXP: 421/1000.
"Not bad EXP."
Aaron smiled and walked over to the corpse. With the EXP notification, there was no need to worry about it playing dead.
He found the fallen iron sword, now caked in slime and blood, and could not help a slight grimace.
He pulled out some of the stiff, yellowish paper he had created earlier with a scroll and wiped the mucus and blood off the blade before taking it up again.
"These scales would probably make decent armor."
He looked over the more than six-meter-long corpse. Aside from the heavily damaged head, the rest of the body was in good shape.
Still, he had little interest in actually crafting armor.
With the techniques humans in this world currently possessed, the best armor they could produce would only reach Upper-grade at most.
Given that,
he would rather put that time into hunting down legacies of the Eight Greed Kings or the Six Great Gods.
In YGGDRASIL, equipment was divided into ten tiers:
[Lowest Grade]: lv 1–10
[Low Grade]: lv 11–20
[Medium Grade]: lv 21–30
[High Grade]: lv 31–40
[Top Grade]: lv 41–50
[Legacy]: lv 51–60
[Relic]: lv 61–70
[Legendary]: lv 71–80
[Divine]: lv 81–90
[Guild Weapon]: lv 91–100
And above those ten tiers were items beyond standard specs, the World-Class Items, which were in a category of their own.
If Aaron wanted to stand against the Great Tomb of Nazarick, he would at least need one Divine-class piece of gear.
"It should fetch a pretty good price if I sell it."
He touched the serpent's corpse with a finger and, with a thought, stored it in his Item Box.
The commotion just now had not been small.
But this area was clearly the snake's territory, so it was unlikely to draw other monsters immediately.
Aaron continued east.
The Great Forest of Tob spread around the Azerlisia Mountains in a massive U-shaped band of primeval jungle, roughly 120 kilometers long and about 40 wide.
Carne Village sat near the middle. With the forest's constant obstacles and the occasional surprise attack,
Aaron figured it would take him some time to reach the troll's territory.
Before he knew it, it was already around noon.
He pulled a pocket watch and a map from his Item Box, checked the time and his approximate location, then put them away again.
"Looks like I've only covered about a third of the way. Slower than planned. Need to pick up the pace."
He exhaled but did not stop walking, stuffing some black bread into his mouth as he moved.
Over the course of the morning,
besides that black-green monster serpent, he had added three wild boar carcasses and five giant pythons, each around five meters long, to his Item Box.
There were also a few small snakes, minor beasts, and poisonous insects, but since they were only animals, the EXP was low and he had not bothered to store them.
They were barely worth anything as food or loot anyway.
As for the two Eight Fingers corpses, he had dumped them somewhere in the forest not long after entering.
By now, the beasts had probably picked them clean.
He glanced ahead at the dense jungle.
Pushing himself to move faster meant he made more noise as he threaded through the trees.
Whether because of that boldness or not, some of the hidden beasts seemed to grow more cautious. Many stayed concealed and did not attack at all.
The shift genuinely surprised him.
If he'd known, he would not have bothered being so careful at the start. Ordinary beasts were no threat to him, and the EXP they offered was miserable—of no real value.
Shff!
His iron sword sliced through branches and undergrowth, hacking open a path he could walk through.
Above, the thick branches and leaves of towering trees wove together, and the dim forest light cast a subtle weight over everything.
Suddenly—
a faint sound came from his left.
Aaron's ears twitched. He halted mid-step and shifted back.
Whoosh!
A strand of white webbing as thick as his pinky shot past in front of him and stuck to a nearby tree.
"Spider?" He quickly turned his gaze toward where the web had come from.
On a branch where the leaves intertwined,
a basin-sized spider with a dusty gray body, violet markings on its abdomen, and eight long, razor-sharp legs was hanging upside down.
The white web strand had just come out of its mouth.
"A noose spider?" Aaron's face tightened slightly at the sight.
He had bought intel on the Great Forest of Tob from the Adventurer Guild, and this species had been highlighted.
They were trouble even for Gold-ranked parties.
Not because a single noose spider was so strong, but because its presence meant a large number of them nearby.
Rustle, rustle. Rustle, rustle.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Almost as the thought formed, the foliage all around him began to rustle, and white strands of webbing shot toward him from every direction.
Aaron kicked off the ground, dodging the incoming webs and sprinting away.
The spiders clearly had no intention of letting him go.
Using the sticky strands they spat out, their sharp legs slid rapidly along the web lines, the dusty gray bodies chasing after him.
In the blink of an eye, they had gathered into a dense mass behind him, a crawling wall of horror and revulsion.
Aaron glanced back and felt the corner of his eye twitch.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.