It took only a few minutes more to find our second horned rabbit. Knowing how it would react, along with how fast the thing was, I shouted to attract its attention.
It responded as expected, leaping straight at me. This time, rather than dodging, I simply held out my pitchfork. In mid-air, unable to react, the monster impaled itself, although the force knocked my weapon from my hands.
Simon ran up and stabbed it. When it didn't react, he stabbed it a few more times. "Hey!" he complained.
"Sorry," I said. "I wasn't expecting it to die so quickly. You can have the next one."
"No fair," he grumbled under his breath.
"That was dangerous," complained Mum. "Don't ever deliberately stand in the way of a monster's attack again."
"Why? It wasn't heavy."
In answer, Mum simply glanced at Simon, and it took me a few seconds to work out her point.
A point that was reinforced when Simon tried to pull the same stunt on the next monster, despite her warning.
"Gah!" he groaned as the pointy horn of the rabbit scored his side. Yes, the monster was dead, but his Strength hadn't been sufficient to block its leap or to safely shift its trajectory.
"What did I just say?" angrily shouted Mum.
"Sorry... I thought, since Robin made it look so easy..."
"Thought? I'm pretty sure you didn't think anything. You know Robin has a Mark that raises his Stats! Even then, the impact knocked his weapon out of his hands. What did you expect would happen if you tried it?"
She inspected the wound, which fortunately wasn't bad. The horned rabbit had torn through his tunic and left a scratch on his skin deep enough to bleed, but it wasn't pouring out. It didn't even need bandaging.
The worse problem was that the momentum of the rabbit, twisting his pitchfork out of his hands, had snapped off one of the prongs. There was a reason the material it was made from was called scrap iron. Perhaps a blacksmith with additional Skills, or one with better equipment, could have purified the iron, but there was little Boris could do with it except toss it.
"Well, are you up to continuing?" asked Mum.
"Yes..." answered an embarrassed Simon.
Mum's expression made it clear that she'd hoped the answer would be 'no', but she nonetheless nodded. "If you go against my instructions again, we will immediately leave and you will never be allowed to hunt monsters again, in a dungeon or otherwise. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes..."
"And that goes for you, too, Robin," she said, turning to me, which I felt was a little unfair. I hadn't gone against anything she said! She didn't tell me not to until after I'd done it.
"Yes, Mum," I answered anyway, because it was obviously the answer she wanted, and I knew that saying anything else wouldn't end well.
The next horned rabbit, I made sure to dodge its initial leap, then Simon and I skewered it as it landed. The thing squeaked loudly for a few seconds as it squirmed on the ground, unable to stand up, before it finished bleeding out.
"I wish they wouldn't squeak like that when we stab them. They sound like they're in pain..." I complained.
Mum gave me the look she reserved for when I said something particularly stupid. "Don't you think you'd scream if someone stabbed you, too?"
"Yes, but they're monsters."
"So? Why ever do you think that monsters can't feel pain? If it was a slime or a golem, then sure, but a monster based on an animal can feel anything that the animal can."
I blinked in surprise. We were making living creatures suffer to fuel our growth?
"I thought monsters were... well... evil," said Simon, seemingly unbothered by the revelation.
"I suppose you could put it like that. The defining feature of a 'monster', that separates them from animals, is an innate, unquenchable hostility to people. Unintelligent ones will immediately attack. An intelligent monster can comprehend being outmatched, bide their time and plot, but they will still strike in the end, even if they know their actions are futile. But when there aren't any people around... Well, you've seen these horned rabbits grazing peacefully."
"Sometimes, I feel like having words with whichever god built this world," I grumbled.
The fifth rabbit, I made very sure to stab hard in the back of the neck, the long prongs of my pitchfork piercing through its throat. It died quickly and in silence.
"Hey, what's it doing?!" exclaimed Simon, backing away from the slain monster.
Beads of light popped out of the corpse a dozen at a time, gathering around it and orbiting like fireflies.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Mum?" I asked, joining Simon in taking a few steps backward. "Should we be worried?"
Given that she looked completely unconcerned, I guessed the answer was no.
"No," she confirmed. "Just watch."
The beads of light continued to build up until there were more of the things than I could count, at which point they suddenly froze, ceasing all movement. They hung in the air for a few seconds more, before rushing all at once to the ground next to the dead rabbit.
"A treasure chest!" exclaimed Simon, and sure enough, that's what it was. The lights arranged themselves into the shape of a box, and then the light faded, leaving behind a red and yellow cube about half a foot on each side.
"To save on arguments, I'll open it," said Mum.
I felt that asking out loud, 'why should you get to open it when you haven't done any fighting?' would be something else that wouldn't end well, so I let her open the cubic chest. From it, she withdrew a small, brown gem.
"A skill crystal!" I exclaimed, recognising it instantly. It was the exact same colour, size, and shape as the one that had been provided to me. "What is it?"
"Only [Farming]," she answered. "Can still sell it for a few coins. Shall we continue?"
"Yes!" I exclaimed, excited at our first item of treasure that wasn't a bloody piece of dead monster.
"Treasure chests just appear when you kill monsters?" asked Simon as we hunted for our next killer rabbit.
"Sometimes. Like I said, all dungeons are different. Don't ask me what all the possibilities are, but I know that in some you just find them lying around."
"Mum, can I ask something really rude?" I asked.
Yes, it would be rude, but comparing myself to Simon wasn't helpful.
Mum raised a questioning eyebrow. "You know it's rude, and you still want to ask?"
"Yes."
"Well, go on then. Try it. Worst case, I give you a smacked bottom in front of Simon."
"What level are you?"
I could practically see Simon's ears perking up, while Mum merely sighed. Yes, asking someone their Stats and Skills was incredibly impolite, but Mum seemed to think she could beat the boss here as long as she didn't need to protect us two. I needed to know how far I had left to go.
"You just want to know what sort of Stats you need to clear this dungeon, don't you? Well, the information your dad brought back from the adventurers' guild said that without dedicated combat Skills, sixty points of Strength, Dexterity and Processing is considered a minimum, so you still have a very long way to go."
... And with that response, Simon visibly deflated, either as he realised he wasn't going to get an exact answer, or because those numbers seemed so distant.
"Thanks," I nodded. Mum saw through the purpose of my question, but told me what I wanted to know anyway. If I spent my free stat points, I could get pretty close to that right now. A couple more levels, and I could exceed it. Not that I wanted to; letting my Constitution lag so far behind could prove fatal if I made a mistake, and combined with no points in Stamina, I'd run into difficulties if I couldn't finish the fight quickly. Even so, two more levels and, if I was sufficiently foolhardy, I could fight the boss.
Simon couldn't. It wasn't even close.
It wasn't as if we needed to clear the dungeon; we could fight mobs in a higher ranked one—things with strength between the horned rabbits and the boss—but I doubted we'd be so lucky as to have two dungeons in commuting range. Simon was going to hold me back.
"Best we kill some more monsters, then," I said, deciding to put the problem off for another day.
By the time we ran out of time, we'd culled another dozen. Three days' experience for Simon, and a couple of days' for me with my maxed out [Farming], all within a couple of hours, plus another few hours' travel time. Not quite enough to push Simon to level three, but enough that another day in the fields would get him there.
We'd found another pair of chests, too. Mum hadn't said anything, nor had Simon commented, but my observation was that one had appeared after every five slain monsters. Obviously, it was linked to our party somehow, or others in the dungeon would have spoilt the pattern. There must be other rules, too, given that John had slain eight monsters without spawning a chest. Perhaps the interaction of two parties spoilt it, or perhaps you needed to be below a certain level for rewards to spawn, and having a high-level guard had prevented his winnings.
The contents were another pair of skill crystals. Presumably [Farming] again, given that they all looked identical and Mum hadn't commented.
The exact behaviour of the chests didn't matter, anyway. More important was the way that if treasure chests spawned based on monsters slain, perhaps the boss did, too. In that case, we didn't need to explore, to find some hidden feature of the wide open field. We just needed to go on a murder spree.
"Argg, do we have to leave?" complained Simon as Mum led us back toward the exit. Thankfully, there were enough landmarks scattered around—mostly big rocks of distinctive colours and shapes—that finding our way back was fairly simple.
"Yes. I promised to get you home no more than a couple of hours after sunset."
"Then what are we supposed to do in the winter?"
"Don't be pedantic, or I won't bring you at all. Sometimes, I wonder why the System unlocks at sixteen, when people obviously aren't ready for it."
It was a bit of a silly question, in my opinion. It unlocked at sixteen because it unlocked at sixteen. You might as well ask why the sky was blue, or why the sun came up in the morning. Besides, without mental Stats, when would anyone ever be 'ready' for it? What did that even mean?
As I had that thought, my Reasoning sent up a little signal, pointing out that there was, potentially, a reason why the sky was blue and the sun came up each morning beyond 'that's just the way the world works', and I simply didn't know it. Maybe that was the sort of thing posh people like nobles did with their spare time—debating why the world was the way it was, and maybe even came up with potential answers.
"You can still kill any more monsters we come across on your way back," conceded Mum, spotting another horned rabbit between us and our destination. It fell easily to our usual strategy.
Alas, that was the only one we came across before the rock that connected to the surface above came back into view, so Simon still didn't get his third level.
"Gah. So close to a level-up," he whined as we stepped through the archway and back into the cylinder of stone. Given how late in the evening it was, little light from above was filtering through the mist, but the area was lit up regardless by a large lantern hung up in its centre.
Unfortunately, the staircase room was not empty.
"Oh? Look who it is," smirked John, which was an interesting trick. I'd seen his face smirk plenty of times, but managing to imbue his voice with pure essence of smirk was a new one. Was it a Skill, or just a skill? Frankly, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised either way.
He was with his parents and all four adventurers, who were busy wrapping up neatly butchered cuts of horned rabbit meat.
"Oh, it's you," sighed Simon. "On your way home, too?"
"Just sorting out our loot," answered John, waving a condescending hand in the direction of the adventurers.
I saw the one who'd been guarding John twitch, but he said nothing and didn't otherwise react.
"Congratulations then, I guess. See you," said Simon, not breaking step.
"Hey. Did you even make level three yet?" called John after us.
This time, it was Simon's turn to twitch. "What's it to you?" he grumbled back, not having the adventurer's levels of self control.
"Oh, just holding a friendly conversation. I made level four today."
Simon twitched again. I probably did, too, although in my case it was more to do with the struggle to not respond with, 'that's nice. I made level ten.'
Mum turned around and glanced at John's mum, who stooped and whispered something in his ear. John blushed and didn't say another word as the three of us ascended the staircase.
"That was a neat trick," I commented. "What did you do?"
"Hmm? I did nothing," answered Mum. Alas, I wasn't sufficiently sure it was a lie to call her out on it. Was Mum secretly some sort of bad-arse? "Simon, when you get tired, let me know and I'll give you a piggy-back."
"What?" exclaimed Simon, blushing as badly as John had minutes earlier. "I don't need help to climb some stairs!"
To give credit where credit was due, he managed half a dozen loops before his legs gave out, and Mum needed to carry him the rest.