Eika followed V outside as she excitedly spoke "Hey, you’re a hero now, right?! Eika heard about the celebration! I wanted to go, but was not allowed. You got the big scary lady, right? I heard she killed many people. Where are we going anyway? I mean, I figure it’s the forest because that is what I’m good at. Hey did you get hurt when you fought the crazy woman?" Eika's stream of words went on for some time. When she finally stopped to collect herself, V responded "The people here think I’m a hero, yes I got hurt, we are going to the forest to try and kill some mantises." Eika nodded and happily followed V to the outskirts of town. As they walked, she looked around the town with large eyes, as if she had never seen it before. "Is everything ok? You look... uh... distracted." V spoke up, diverting Eika's attention. "Oh. Yes. Eika was inside for the last few days. I am happy to see the town again. It's always nice to go outside." V sighed as he continued to walk toward the forest.

As they approached the tree line, V slowed down. He had little too no sword skills, and only a simple blade to work with. "Are you capable of fighting at all?" Eika nodded "Somewhat. I have some skill with ranged weapons. Mostly with my sling. Tracker is a mostly non-combat class. Someday, Eika will become a Ranger class! It’s like Tracker, but better!" V drew his sword, examining it. He seriously hoped the mantises were as easy to kill as L had implied. His knowledge of the blade was limited to "Sharp sides and pointy end." He had swung the sword around a few times before, it seemed light and easy enough to swing, to him at-least. He also had two low quality throwing knives remaining from the fight with O, he hoped it would be enough.

Entering the forest, Eika spoke up "What are we looking for? Eika will find it!" For the first time since meeting her, V saw what could almost be called a business like expression on her face. "Well, I came to hunt for a few mantises. I wish to try and acquire the swordsman class, I was told killing a few things with a sword is all that I require." Eika nodded. She sniffed the air, and her large ears stood tall and alert. "The forest is much more quiet then normal. We could always head north, but it might not be a good idea. There are a few mantis nests there. It might be good to find one that is alone..." V waited, he was sort of taken aback by Eika's sudden, seemingly reliable, tone of voice. Eika slowly moved through the forest, sniffing the air and examining the trunks of the trees. "Eika thinks she found something, but it might be a big one." V shrugged "As far as I’m concerned, they are all big." She nodded and lead him quietly further into the forest.

After another few minutes, V was able to hear something. A scraping, grating sort of noise. Eika pointed off ahead, faint movement could be seen between the trees. V had considered using an ambush, or some other "clever" tactic to deal with the first one. However, he decided against it. He figured it would be valuable to discover just how well he could deal with one of these things face to face. Supposedly, they were the bottom of the totem pole in terms of monsters. People spoke about wolves with more fear than these mantises. Facing one head-to-head would be a good test. He drew his weapon and open walked in the direction of the movement and sound. Eika hid off the side, observing. As V moved closer, he saw it. It looked almost exactly like praying mantises from his own world. Except it was roughly two and a half feet tall, and its arms were more...bladed than the ones from his world. It had seemingly been sharpening its arms on a tree. Spotting V, it quickly turned and stared him down, menacingly slashing the air in front of it.

A few tense moments hung in the air as V and the mantis faced off. It soon charged him; bladed arms held upward. V expected to have less time to react, however the mantis did not seem especially fast. He dodged easily to the side, and it turned to attack again. It seemed as if this monster was extremely weak, especially, compared to O, and that gorilla, mantis, thing, from before. The third time it came at him, V attempted to slash it with his sword. Even with an uncoordinated, sloppy slash, he was able to sever one of the mantis’s bladed arms with apparent ease. This was so low effort, V wondered if the thing was ill. After dodging one more time, V chopped the beast in half. Out of curiosity, he quickly checked his experience. Ah. Good. Two more points. Well, if he spent years and years hunting the things, he might be able to level his Divine class. V sighed.

"Wooooowww" Eika ran up, jumping up and down. "You were so coool! You stepped aside and then were like BAM! and then it didn't know what to do and you were like GASHINK!" She jumped around V "I guess this is the strength of having all B attribute ranks! You know, mantises only have E's. Sometimes they have a D in agility" she looked at the dead mantis "Not this one though! Hey are you a swordsman yet?" V shook his head "Does not look like it, we will have to find some more" Eika nodded "Oh ya, it could not be right after one, right?" After she recounted the fight in her own words a few more times, she returned to what V internally called "Business Mode." Searching once again. 

As they moved through the forest, Eika commented more than once on how the forest seemed more quiet than usual. None the less, in short order, she paused and pointed off into the distance. "I think one is over there, but... something is wrong with it. I can't tell from this far away; it does not sound right. I'm not sure what’s wrong with it, it smells wrong too. Eika ran her hand over a slash in one of the tree trunks. "We could look for a different one if you want?" She looked at V questioningly. He shook his head, he was curious, and also confident that he could deal with it. He headed toward the spot Eika indicated. Again, she hid off to the side. As the creature came into view, V paused, surprised. It was a mantis gorilla, but not like the first one. It was… hairy and had gorilla like eyes, but the rest of it was a normal mantis.  It was not as horrible looking as the other one, but it was still awful.

V readied his weapon as the thing noticed him. Unlike the first one, it made no gestures of aggression, and took no time to size him up. It charged immediately, it also did something akin to roaring. However, it was sickly sounding. It was more the like gurgle of a dying animal than a roar.  It was faster than the last one. It nearly caught V on the leg as he avoided its charge, it seemed unable to change its course, and crashed into a tree. However, it was the tree that suffered the effects of the collision. The trunk cracked and splintered; the tree began to fall over. The mantis seemed to have taken little damage from the crash. It turned and charged toward V again. More properly prepared this time, V was able to dodge it cleanly. He tried to slash it as it ran past him, but it seemingly did little to nothing to the... hide... of the mantis. It once again crashed into a tree, unable to change course. It turned, instead of charging, it slammed the ground with both hairy blades. The ground underneath V shook and cracked, a small fissure forming underneath him. He jumped away quick enough to avoid falling, the fissure was only a foot deep, but if he was immobile for even a moment, he was sure the mantis would hit him with its charge. Having little time to consider the absolutely insane situation he was in; he did the only thing he could think of. He set his stance wide and waited for the mantis to charge once more. As it did, he braced his sword, pointing it directly at the mantis. He was sure this was going to hurt, but if slashing the monster was not going to work, stabbing it might. Predictably, the mantis charged directly onto V's sword, which penetrated the mantis's torso. However, the collision pushed V backwards violently enough that he was smashed into a tree a few feet behind him.

┌——————┐
You have fulfilled the requirements to become the Swordsman Class!
Class: Swordsman Lv 1  0/20
Attribute Scaling:
Strength: C
Agility: D
Constitution: C
Awareness: D
Willpower: E
Skills: None
Abilities: Focused Slash
└——————┘

The pain in V's back was bad, but not as bad as getting stabbed to death by a hairy mantis. It hung on the end of his sword, dead. Apparently, killing two monsters was in fact, enough to unlock the class. He struggled to remove it from the end of his sword as it was quite stuck. Eika bounded up, her eyes looked a little wet "I thought you were going to die! After Eika saw it was hairy I looked at its status! It was level three, and had an S in strength! It also had three abilities! I never saw any monster in this forest with more than two, and that was a gorilla pack leader! When it used its Slam ability, I thought you were going to fall..." Eika sniffed and continued "But you did it! You killed the horrible thing!" If one of its abilities was to cause that fissure, V was glad he did not witness the other two skills it apparently had. "Eika, it seemed unable to stop running, do you know why that is?" She looked at the monster again for a few moments. "Maybe it was cursed? It has a F in awareness. Normally F ranks are only if you are cursed or have some other problem. Eika does not think F ranks occur naturally." They both just stood there for a few moments. Staring at the body of the hairy mantis.