After putting all his items and smoked rabbit meat in his inventory. Goro logged out, the effect of food he has digested was enough to recover his health till 90% but it will take time too, so he considered logging off and waiting out the remaining time in real world till his health recovered. And while he was at it, eat and relieve himself.

Back in his room, Jirou felt disjointed as his vision was still blurry. He even stumbled down just after getting out of the capsule.

“This… this shouldn’t be happening.” Jirou was suffering from bleeding effect, a severe case at that. His body felt alien to him. The sudden change in physiology has affected Jirou somewhat.

The bleeding effect was a common illness one may suffer from when using a dive console, it was a rare condition only few players suffered from and it seemed Jirou was one of them.

“Shit! My luck seems a bit bad.” Jirou sat down as he calmed his breath, there was no cure for this condition only few preventive measures existed.

It took 5 minutes for Jirou’s body to re-adapt to the changes. Standing up, he went into the kitchen to soak his parched throat with cold water. His breathing though a bit heavy, it was a lot stable than when he got out.

The notion about the bunny murder in the game was forgotten by Jirou. Instead of searching about it, he instead messaged the Felexsis customer support requesting their help about his problem. He thought he will need to wait for reply, but he got one instantly.

“Sorry for the inconvenience Customer Jirou Rivas, those suffering from bleeding effect problem can always enable the security option in accessibility settings. You can access the settings menu on the bottom right corner of your console screen.

The option will made it so the capsule doesn’t open directly after logging out and the user can adapt in the next 5 minutes. For now this is the only way we have to counter this issue, if in future we found a cure, we will notify you immediately.

Once again, The Felexsis Console division is sorry for our incompetence, if you have any further inquiries reply to this message.”

Jirou face crumbled, this was an automated message, but it still answered some of his questions, he followed the customer care’s advice and enabled the bleed effect helper option and then moved toward his toilet.

It seemed the change in water has affected his stomach badly, his toilet reeked of bad stench. Jirou’s toilet felt more like a battlefield. His plan to read more intot he bleeding effect was canceled as the shit took priority. No one wanted to shit on their newly bought gaming capsule, and jirou was the same.

“God is this a punishment for killing those cute Bruce lee rabbits?”

*****

When Jirou logged back in and donned his persona of Goro, it was already night in the Dionvalem. He was back in the camp which he abandoned before, the fire he lit already burnt out.

“Don’t know if this is a good… Of course this is a great time to hunt.” Goro changed his tune mid way after remembering the character he was playing.

Taking out his heavy spear, Goro started his journey toward the bunny plains. He planned to stop with his foolish combat form and fight properly, though merging his own flare to it wont’ be as bad looking as how he gained a spear combat art due to his bizarre fight style.

Though he still dreaded fighting the cloud bunnies a bit, they showed a level of intelligence, fear, desperation that soured his mood.

“These beast are the invading aliens, they harmed the world, I Goro shan’t feel pity for the little insects.” He shouted causing the forest critters to go silent, though he didn’t shout it for them, instead this sentence was made for him more than anything.

He still was a bit shaken by it all, he even thought if he was made for this game or not, but he kept reminding him it was just a game and maintained his slow stride.

“The night really is something to behold.” Goro distracted his thoughts as he looked at the sky, as there were no artificial lights or pollution drowning the starry sky, it was really unique, the night sky of Dionvalem was a lot more varied than what Goro saw in his own world.

The stars glistened with brighter and more varied colors, his pace slowed down as Goro started to make out constellations with his own imagination.

From a dragon to a fat old lady, he tried various combination and loved it. This was something not possible in real life and even though it was something basic and may just be a graphic in sky made by some artistic devs, for Goro who was questioning the validity of the game, this was a good cure.

Goro thought to abandon his hunt, it was a game, not a race. He created a small camp right next to the road that would lead to the bunny plains just laid down on the ground looking at the nightly sky. It was a calming feeling. The cold breeze that rustled the grass and trees, the fresh air that lessen the heavy mind and the sounds of small critters that formed up a soothing song in Goro’s mind.

“This feels good, technology is really amazing. Gotta recommend this to mum and dad.” He thought while still creating different constellations in his mind.

There were no players around him, the starting region he chose already was only recently opened and only lone player who didn’t had any friends would come here. Add to the fact of Goro’s hunting area the dreaded Cloud Bunny, Goro was left alone under the night sky.

As time went on he got better, Goro drew more character from his memory into the canvas tht was the night sky of Dionvalem and the amount of stars he used in his constellation creation increased with increase in their size.

But when he tried to form up an image taking the whole visible sky into account, Goro’s eyes widened, his memory of the owl he saw during the opening cinematic flashed through his mind and he tried using it in his new constellation.

And to his horror, he found if starting from north of sky he cam make a detailed body of a the owl with its wings encompassing the whole sky.

The Owl in the sky was the same generic owl Goro saw during the opening cinematic with its wings open wide covering the whole sky, its eyes staring down below at Goro as if an insect and an open beak that only had void in it. It felt like looking into an abyss.

-Warn… Congratulations for Player “Goro Skullmasher” for discovering a game secret hidden by the developer.

-You are first person to discover this hidden piece.

-You have been noticed by Olfo the Omniscient.
-You have gained a unique [Ex] trait “Olfo’s Mark”.

Olfo’s mark[Ex]: Mark given by Olfo to those that strike his fancy. This boosts the players glossary and makes it easier to identify a monster’s information.[Further information hidden] [This is an Exceed trait, it has no weaknesses]

“Again?… But wait a minute, Olfo?… That Owl is really called Olfo?” Goro was happy to gain a new trait that seemed broken to some extent, but what made him laugh loudly was the name of the legendary owl.

“Dayum, these devs got some good humor… Gotta say the contrasting feelings this game gives me is really something. First it makes me hate myself for killing some bunnies and now I find the name of the legendary bird in this stupid way.” Goro got up, he thought if he formed up some more constellations in his mind, he can find some more easter eggs and gain more unique traits. But He thought this much was enough.

He felt reinvigorated after the sudden surprise gift.

“Well this world needs saving, guess I the great Goro shouldn’t tarry any more.”

Extinguishing the camp fire with some kicks and putting his bedroll back in his inventory, Goro’s short break was over.

This time he didn’t take time to reach the Bunny planes, the wide expanse filled with tall grass and reeds were back in his gaze, the way the grass danced in night breeze were more soothing compared to the day.

“Maybe those little runts are sleeping already, Goro doesn’t like to kill in sleep.” He considered while closing in to the outskirts of the plane.

It was same as before, grass that reached still his neck tickled and scratched his skin like usual, but like last time, he didn’t bash the tall grass or reeds away with his spear. He was much more cautious than before and activated kept watch all around himself.

The search function of Glossary was coming into play a lot, as he had already hunted a Cloud bunny before he had all its detailed information on him.

>Enemy: Coud Bunny[Common]

Level Limit: 1-5
Skill Core: Weighted Ascendance[1-4 grade]

Remark: Edible beast; Smart beast that hunts in group; Stay away from tall grass.

A skill core grade dictated the potential of a skill one obtains from the core. Goro was lucky to obtain one with grade 3 on his first try as most skill cores that drop in wild from common beast are between 1-2, the highest the Weighted Ascendance can go was grade 4. To upgrade a skill core, one needed to feed more skill core of the same family for till a qualitative upgrade.

After grade 4, weighted ascendance will not be able to upgrade further, the only way one can upgrade a skill core later was to mutate it and that too was only possible after reaching a proficiency with the skill to at least 60% and obtaining a similar skill core to make it easier for the upgrade.

This was one of the main reason many didn’t want to use waste their first skill slot on this, even if this skill become godly through combination of later mutations brought on by later upgrades. Reaching 60% proficiency was already far fetched with the way this skill worked.

So most only used it as a material for weapons or potions.

It was same for Goro, no matter how much attractive a grade 3 skill core was, he didn’t plan to use it and consider selling it.

At the moment, he was trekking through the grass silently, though it was night, the starry sky was too bright that it didn’t made it much hard for Goro to walk around.

He intching deeper into the grassy plain while stabbing the ground to check his path forward while his ears were active all the time.

It was way past the time when he was attacked earlier, he was deeper into the grass forest, but none of the bunnies attacked him.

“They really are sleeping.”

Confirming his earlier guess, making some space around him by bashing the grass with his spear. Goro sat down on the ground while taking out a torch.

Using the flint and magnesium bar he had in his bag, he lit the torch and lifted it above his head while increasing his pace.

He didn’t bother to burn the long grass at all, as there was too much moisture on the leaves and it was virtually impossible to bun them using a weak fire from his manganese bar.

Other players before him had told him this before, so he didn’t bother earlier.

Utilizing the light that boosted his sight, Goro started searching for Burrows in the area, he knew that rabbits won’t sleep in open, this whole grassland probably had a whole network of burrows that rabbits used to not only attack the players but also used to move between this dense jungle of grass.

Like before Goro continued to tap on the ground while illuminating the ground with the golden light fro the torch at a higher rate.

“Little Bunny, where you at? Daddy is back.”

Goro nightly rabbit hunt has begun.

Race: Dromrasa

Hit points: 133/150

Lvl: 1[45/500]

Companion beast: None

Traits: <Brute mind><Glutton><Olfo’s Mark>
FSP: 0

Skill Slots: [Empty]
Beast Arts: [None]

Combat Arts: <Goro’s Bizarre Spearmanship>[6.7%]