Chapter 66.1

66 Part 1

Let’s be an Adventurer! ~Defeating Dungeons with a Skill Board~ 66

Let’s Show Our Love To The Little Red One!

How did this happen?

Though still confused, Haruki recalled the beginning of this situation.

Haruki was carrying out a special training using the Caterpillars in the garage dungeon’s 1st floor.

After two or three hours of practice, he had come across a small Caterpillar.

That Caterpillar was about 30 centimeters long, approximately half the size of the others.

Besides, unlike the usual Caterpillars, which had a dark brown color, this one was red all over its body, like a burning flame.

Was this a baby Caterpillar?

Haruki was rather confused.

However, be it a big or small Caterpillar, they were all lovable.

Lovable to the point of having to defeat them all.

Haruki approached the small caterpillar and slashed at it with his short sword.

However…

“It’s so tough! And fast!?”

Out of his two attacks, the first one was repelled, and the other one missed.

There wasn’t even a single scratch where his blade connected with the Caterpillar’s carapace.

The attacks that had been able to destroy so many Caterpillars before did not work on this little one.

This got Haruki mad.

— Oh, come on!

Haruki steps back, fearing a counterattack.

However, instead of fighting back, the Centipede ran away at full speed.

“Wha–?”

Haruki was so confused he couldn’t do anything but stand still with his mouth open.

Even though he wasn’t using his full strength, Haruki was powerful enough to destroy Centipedes with nothing but a single fingertip.

He could have never imagined one of them having such a strong carapace that not even he could cut through.

To make things worse, the small Centipede had fled instantly, without fighting back.

It had been a completely unexpected outcome.

“Is it some kind of rare species…?”

Haruki finally noticed that possibility.

Its armor was so tough, and it was so fast even Haruki had a hard time following it with his eyes as it fled.

It couldn’t be just a regular Centipede.

Maybe it yielded a crazy amount of experience points when defeated!

Enemies that are super tough and are quick to flee tend to give a lot of experience points.

Needless to say, Haruki went after it.

He expanded his Detection range to the max to make sure he wouldn’t lose the Centipede.

“Hehe…”

Haruki ran with all his might, laughing and drooling.

He only had eyes for that red Centipede.

The only regular Centipedes he would defeat were those who incidentally were in Haruki’s way.

Completely absorbed in his chase, Haruki had finally cornered the red Centipede into a dead end.

The cornered Centipede still showed no signs of counterattacking.

It was nervously shaking its little feet up and down.

“Hehehe… time’s up!”

Haruki stepped forward, spinning his short sword in his hand.

Then…

“Gah!”

Haruki felt a loud slap on the back of his head.

“Huh? Rhea?”

The sound had been caused by one of Rhea’s leaves.

She had slapped him with it with all her strength.

Then, skillfully using her leaves, Rhea climbed down from Haruki’s back, and got herself between him and the Centipede.

For a second, Haruki thought Rhea wanted to fight it, but that wasn’t quite what it looked like.

Rhea was actually facing Haruki.

“Watch out, Rhea!”

“*shakes*”

(I’m fine. You’re not the dangerous one here.)

Rhea made full use of her leaves in order to convey her intentions.

Her message was clearly aimed at Haruki.

But he wasn’t sure about what exactly she meant by that.

Had he misunderstood?

Haruki’s head tilted itself to the side in doubt.

He didn’t feel as if there had been any problem with his ability to understand her.

Her message was definitely for Haruki.

So why was Rhea standing in front of him?

A masked man standing with a short sword in hand.

Rhea standing in front of this man with her leaves spreaded horizontally.

And a red Caterpillar, trembling behind her.

In this scenario, Haruki looked like the evil one.

— How did this happen?

“So, why are you getting in between, Rhea? Don’t joke around. It’s not a bad monster.”

It’s not a bad monster.

Not all monsters were bad. Take Rhea for example.

Even though Haruki knew that, he still wondered if there were many more good monsters out there.

Though there was a connection between Rhea and Haruki, she was still a monster.

Perhaps these monsters had a way to communicate with each other.

Rhea continues her explanation by shaking her leaves in front of a perplexed Haruki.

“*rustle, rustle, shake, clap*”

“You want to be his friend? I mean, okay, but… does this little guy know? Is he okay with that?”

The little Caterpillar moved its tiny legs up and down as if nodding at Rhea’s “words”.

Caterpillars had no necks, so they nodded with their feet?

That was an impressively useless piece of information.

“So you’re saying you’ll take good care of it?”

“*pat pat*”

Rhea struck her stem with one of her leaves, as if saying “Leave it to me”.

Standing beside the Caterpillar, Rhea looked like a big sister to it.

That must have been what Rhea was going for as well.

Putting away his short sword, Haruki crouched in front of them.

“I’m sorry, little guy. Can you forgive me?”

As Haruki bowed apologetically, the Caterpillar restlessly wiggled its tiny feet.

It looked so cute!

“Thank you.”