Among all the monsters I had faced so far, the strongest had been the Shell Jaguar.
The Shell Jaguar’s level was 40.
Even then, what was inside had been Luna, and because the matchup favored me, I had been able to gain the upper hand.
The Rocky Mamba, on the other hand, was level 60.
A novice who was only level 19, against a large level 60 monster.
Furthermore, I had to seal away archery, my main technique, and fight with an unfamiliar weapon while having not a single related skill.
The Rocky Mamba slowly writhed while measuring the distance between us, then abruptly stretched its body long and thrust its head forward.
The Rocky Mamba opened its mouth wide.
An abyss suddenly appeared.
An abyss leading to the Rocky Mamba’s stomach.
I retreated behind a nearby rock and manipulated the environment around me so I would not be exposed directly in front of the Rocky Mamba’s mouth.
‘Mm, there must be a reason Ms. Grenda suddenly told me to fight with only a sword in front of a large monster. She must have some basis for conducting the lesson in such a reckless way.’
Did one start by denying things first?
Or did one start by accepting them first?
Depending on which side one thought of first, the way one looked at the situation before them changed by 180 degrees.
Denying someone else’s method and then accepting it later, or accepting someone else’s method and then denying it later.
In general, the latter tended to cause fewer problems afterward.
Besides, starting off by complaining did not suit my taste.
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!
The Rocky Mamba chased after me, circling around as if wrapping itself around the rock.
I continued thinking.
‘Mr. Nadan said it several times. For an archer, distance is directly tied to life. He said that when creating distance, I should make it comfortable for myself and uncomfortable for the enemy to move.’
In terms of movement speed, the Rocky Mamba was clearly overwhelmingly faster.
Even so, the distance between us was gradually widening.
The reason was simple.
I was moving only through paths where I could just barely pass through, but the Rocky Mamba had to climb over rocks or detour around them.
When I moved with the feeling of focusing on the surrounding environment rather than the Rocky Mamba itself, my body naturally moved along the optimal route.
Nadan’s advice to maintain a wide field of vision in order to find shooting points remained valid even in this current situation where I held a sword.
Once I secured a safe distance, I had the leeway to devote my thoughts to finding a breakthrough.
‘Why did Ms. Grenda tell me to fight right away without teaching me even the basics of swordsmanship? If a dimension traveler got killed by a monster, it would be nothing but a laughingstock.’
Imagine that a being called a dimension traveler challenged a monster far too early to face alone, lost, and returned to his original world.
That would leave a precedent that not every dimension traveler who crossed over was necessarily incredible.
It might worsen the perception of dimension travelers who crossed over later.
For something that was merely a swordsmanship lesson, the risk was large.
Let’s think in reverse.
Was Grenda assuming that I could naturally handle the Rocky Mamba with ease?
Because it was natural for me to win, she naturally was not considering the risk.
When my thoughts reached that point.
I gained certainty.
‘So what I’m currently holding in my hand is enough to win.’
What I was holding in my hand.
Venom Sword.
Come to think of it, they said that by consuming poison, I could create the blade in any form I wanted.
The moment the separate clues combined into one, a method to bring down the Rocky Mamba came to mind.
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE.
Just then, the Rocky Mamba was quickly closing the distance from the front.
I gripped the hilt with both hands and waited.
Twenty meters, fifteen meters, ten meters.......
Perhaps certain that it could swallow me, the Rocky Mamba opened its mouth.
The moment the snake’s head that had filled my vision turned into a giant abyss.
I activated Venom Sword while picturing the blade.
The amount of poison consumed was 98 percent.
In other words, I consumed all the poison in storage.
Black poisonous liquid flowed out from the end of the hilt, and the poison stretched long toward the front, extending five meters ahead.
The poison-laden blade sank deep into the Rocky Mamba’s mouth.
SQUELCHHH—!
The sensation of the blade piercing flesh traveled up the hilt and seeped into my hands.
Surprisingly, the feel in my hands had not the slightest heaviness.
It was like pressing a kitchen knife against tofu placed on one’s hand.
I had thought it was a weapon whose poisoning ability was everything, but its sharpness was no joke.
It was as if Venom Sword itself were insisting that it, too, was unmistakably a famous sword.
The Rocky Mamba approached me in the sorry state of swallowing Venom Sword’s blade on its own, but in the end, it collapsed with only thirty centimeters left between us.
As the Rocky Mamba ceased activity, a large amount of experience points flowed in.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 19 to 22.]
-Current remaining skill points: 9
When I deactivated Venom Sword, the long blade evaporated and soon vanished without a trace.
The fact that experience points had come in meant I had successfully subjugated the Rocky Mamba.
Wearing a smile filled with a sense of achievement, I looked toward the place where Grenda and Luna were staying.
“Ms. Grenda! Luna! I did it by mysel...f?”
I had tried to convey the exaltation I currently felt to Grenda and Luna, but the two of them were nowhere to be seen.
The place where the two of them should have been was empty.
A moment later, Grenda’s voice came from behind me.
“Hooh, to think you really brought it down alone.”
When did she circle behind me?
I had not noticed at all.
The firepower to deal with dozens of monsters with ease, and the elusiveness she had just shown. She was a person whose limits were impossible to gauge.
In a slightly excited voice, I praised Grenda.
“I understood what you were trying to teach me, Ms. Grenda. You were trying to tell me that the answer was already in my hands, correct?”
“Mm.”
“Since I can adjust the sword’s form according to the situation at the time, I realized that the basics that force me to cling to one form would instead be harmful.”
“Mmm.”
“Once I thought that there was no way Ms. Grenda would deliberately drive me into danger, I reached the answer right away. A lesson method close to deviation. It was fresh, so I liked it.”
“Er... To be honest, I just wanted to see you make a crying face, but you really did defeat it alone.”
It was what people commonly called an initiation rite.
She said I seemed to be getting by too smoothly, so she wanted to tease me a little.
If I had complained, she had intended to help me then, but I had truly solved it alone.
I had been praising her over and over by wildly overinterpreting it on my own, and now Grenda looked troubled because she did not know how to react.
When I heard her original intention, I narrowed my eyes and stared silently.
“.......”
“Hehe, I am sorry for trying to tease you. It may not be a substitute, but I will give you something good.”
“You are subtly playing with people.”
“Hm? Did you not enjoy being bullied? From what I heard yesterday, I thought you did.”
It seemed she had kept in mind what Luna had said while hitting me with human hands as kitty-paw punches.
It was not that people became close because they teased each other. It was that people could tease each other because they were close, but the order had been reversed.
Even if I conceded a hundred steps and assumed she had done it because she wanted to get closer, the method was wrong.
It might be mild for a war veteran, but for an ordinary person, it was far too spicy.
“So I was the only one who thought Ms. Grenda had given the instruction with some deep meaning.”
“Come now, cheer up.”
As she said that, Grenda drew the knife at her waist and swung it concisely using only her arm.
Even though she swung it casually with only her arm, the strike was so fast and sharp that an afterimage remained for an instant.
Grenda’s knife swept under the Rocky Mamba’s neck.
A thin line appeared across the area contained in the knife’s trajectory, then the hard scales and flesh split wide open.
The knife’s length was only about thirty centimeters at most.
She had clearly said she had no swordsmanship-related skill.
Then was it because of the power the knife itself possessed?
It seemed to have been made from an incredible material despite how it looked.
Even if the material was good, the movement Grenda had shown was anything but ordinary, even to my untrained eye.
‘There is only a ten-level difference between her and Mr. Nadan, yet their specs are as different as heaven and earth.’
I knew this was a world where level was not everything, but if level 70 was this much, I could not even dare imagine how powerful the level 100 max-level experts said to be common in the capital were.
I realized all over again that even with a dimension traveler perk, I should not simply get full of myself.
Grenda thrust her arm into the Rocky Mamba’s flesh without hesitation and took something out from deep inside.
“Here you go. Take this. If you are going to keep using Venom Sword, this core will help.”
The item Grenda referred to as a core was a black bead the size of a golf ball.
Mamba Core.
She said it was a material that could be harvested from a Rocky Mamba.
The Mamba Core had the ability to continuously produce poison, and it was an excellent match for Venom Sword, which always needed to be filled with poison.
Normally, extracting poison from the core required complicated procedures, but Grenda advised that with Venom Sword’s ability, I should be able to extract the poison simply and safely.
As I listened to Grenda’s explanation, the lump created by the initiation rite had, before I knew it, completely melted away and disappeared.
Grenda placed the core in my hand and wrapped both her hands around mine.
“No matter how I look, I do not feel any special atmosphere. But why is that, I wonder? It does not seem as if you are particularly hiding your strength either.”
“Um, Ms. Grenda?”
“It really is fascinating. This is the first time I have learned that something can be fascinating even when it is not special.”
Grenda slowly leaned her upper body forward and examined me closely.
As if she intended to use my pupils as a mirror.
Just before Grenda’s face drew close, a slender arm intruded and separated me from Grenda.
It was Luna.
Luna widened the gap between Grenda and me, slipped into the space that opened, and spoke in a bleak tone.
“In the end, Master did not need swordsmanship lessons. The lesson is over. Let us resume the schedule.”
Because that was so correct that there was nothing to refute, Grenda and I shrugged our shoulders at the same time, expressing our awkwardness.
***
The second place where purification work would be performed was a reservoir at an elevation of 1,000 meters.
The reservoir, which had been neglected after being contaminated, had fallen into being a drinking water source for monsters.
In order to perform the purification work, subjugating the monsters was essential, and the moment the judgment was made, we began subjugation.
The number of monsters we subjugated was thirty.
Their average level was 40.
Grenda suppressed eighty percent of them with overwhelming martial prowess, while Luna and I cleaned up the remaining twenty percent.
Of course, in order to receive the benefits of the experience point event, I mainly cut down monsters with Venom Sword.
My level rose very refreshingly and continued to climb.
[Level increased. Level has risen from 22 to 23.]
-Current remaining skill points: 10
[Level increased. Level has risen from 23 to 24.]
-Current remaining skill points: 11
Just as we finished cleaning up and were about to perform the purification work.
Grenda suddenly stopped me and spoke with a rather serious atmosphere.
“Wait. Please move behind me. Someone has been watching us for quite some time.”
“Is it a monster?”
“Probably human. They have been following us since the village.”
“Since the village? Hm, so throwing me alone in front of the Rocky Mamba was not purely because you wanted to tease me.”
The only people who knew that a dimension traveler had visited Volter Mountain were Larsson and his close aides, and Grenda.
If someone else had deliberately followed us, the other party could be divided into two types.
Either they happened to discover the existence of a dimension traveler and followed out of curiosity.
Or they had ill feelings toward dimension travelers, happened to come across my information, and followed in order to harm me.
If they had followed out of goodwill, when I played tag with the Rocky Mamba, they would have tried to help in some form.
No wonder her voice had sounded raised when she said she had only been trying to tease me.
She had set up the board to see through the intentions of the person following us, but unexpectedly, I had hunted the monster alone, so she had hurriedly smoothed it over.
Grenda spoke toward one part of the embankment surrounding the reservoir.
“Reveal yourself. If you continue hiding, I will consider you an enemy.”
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
Exactly three seconds later, a person revealed himself beyond the embankment.
Blond hair, blue eyes, and a feathered hat.
The man who appeared was none other than the bard I had encountered at the Southern Volter Mountain Hot Spring.
The bard removed his hat, placed it on his chest, and politely offered us an apology.
“I am terribly sorry about this. At the Southern Volter Mountain Hot Spring, I happened to overhear that the person there was a dimension traveler. I will not cause any trouble, so would you please allow me to observe?”