Chapter 32 Disparity In Levels

Bang!

'-20'

As a faint thud resounded throughout the vicinity, the wooden spear Valyr held pierced through the bear's thick skin, even going so far as to dig into its muscles. Though, with the force behind the attack, that moment was only short-lived as the bear was sent flying for a couple meters, crashing into a nearby tree as it let out a pained growl.

Retracting the spear he held, he could not help but look at the spear he held, then at his hands, surprised that his strength was now at the level that he could send large monsters like the bear before him flying. Recalling that he was still engaged in a battle against the bear, Valyr snapped back to reality as he dashed closer to the bear, making sure to not the latter get any chance to recover from the pain.

With the amount of pain inflicted on it, the bear was greatly annoyed and incensed, wanting to find who or what decided to fight against it all of a sudden. Fortunately, just as it turned around, it caught a glimpse of a blur getting closer to it, prompting the bear to raise one of its paws and swing it downward with all of its strength.

Thud!

Unfortunately, the bear hit nothing but thin air as a dull thud resounded from its paw colliding with the ground. Still furious, the bear looked around once more to find its aggressor, only to realize that the blur it had seen for a brief second had appeared before it, revealing itself to be a human wielding a spear.

Finally coming face to face with its aggressor, the bear let out a growl before charging forward, aiming to dish out a headbutt. In response to that, the human lightly chuckled, swiftly taking a step back before jumping into the air with all its power.

Although Valyr knew he was vulnerable in the air since he could not maneuver, his opponent did not have any method to capitalize on this vulnerability. With that in mind, he brazenly extended his spear once more, exerting all of his strength as he thrust his spear towards one of the bear's eyes.

Bang!

'-24!'

"Graaaaoooo!" This time, a far louder growl than before came out of the bear's mouth, embodying the amount of pain and fury the bear was feeling at the moment. As Valyr landed on the ground, the tip of the spear he held covered in the blood and juices of the bear's eye, a grin could be seen on his face, becoming etched in the bear's mind as its remaining eye glared at him, wanting nothing more than to see him dead.

Without a care for the world, the bear let out another growl as it pounced on Valyr, raising the front half of its body to utilize its greater body weight to its advantage. However, as the bear looked at Valyr, expecting the human before it to be scared and run away from its attack, a grin still adorned Valyr's face as he muttered out a word.

"Gotcha."

"[Pierce]!"

Whoosh!

With great haste, Valyr extended out his spear once more as he took advantage of the bear being in mid-trajectory of its attack. Imbuing all of the strength his body contained to the tip of the spear, he thrust it towards the bear's chest before placing his hands behind his back, letting the momentum the bear had built up to do the remaining work for him.

Bang!

Although it was by no means sharp, the wooden spear pierced through the bear's skin once more, only to be hampered by the bear's dense bones not long after. At first, the bear looked at Valyr with a feeling of smugness, thinking that the human's plan had been foiled by its sturdy body. However, once it noticed that the grin on his face had never disappeared, instead deciding to get out of the way, it was only then did the bear realize what the human wanted to happen.

Knowing very well that it would die from the human's attack if it succeeded, the bear tried its best to rotate its body in midair, aiming to land on the ground on its back at the very second. Unfortunately for the bear, just as it was about to rotate, a being appeared on top of it, kicking down on its abdomen to make sure it stayed on course.

"Oh no, you don't."

Bang!

Crack! Puchi!

Appearing above the bear's falling body, Valyr kicked on its back, hastening its descent as the law of gravity finally did its work. With the wooden spear being the first to touch with the ground, it dug into it for a bit before getting stuck. Not long after, the spear finally broke through the bear's dense bones as more of the bear's weight pushed down on the spear, eventually piercing through its heart as it poked out its back, its bloody tip and shaft now available for all to see.

'-61!!'

"I'm surprised the spear didn't snap from the weight." As blood gradually trickled out of the monster before him, Valyr retrieved the spear jutting out of the bear's back and shook off the excess blood. After that, he struck against the bear a few more times, only stopping once a notification sound resounded in his mind.

Looking at the injury that had solidified the bear's death for a bit, he went ahead and closed his eyes, committing the fight scene into memory. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes once more, lightly nodding in respect towards the corpse before walking away from it, opening his screen soon after to check the notification he had received.

"With my current stats, I can show more of the combat experience I've accumulated in my past life," Valyr muttered to himself, satisfied with the outcome of the battle. "However, I shouldn't let this get to my head. After all, the reason why I could do what I did was because of the great disparity between our stats. After all, it's just Level 11."

The fact that the bear was Level 11 was the reason why Valyr chose it as his first target, being at the precipice of one's stats starting to become more specialized. Aside from that, he also chose a monster at Level 11 because he knew that the strongest monsters in this forest would have stats that exceeded his in some areas, reducing the advantage of his high yet all-rounded stats to nil. As for choosing a monster that was Level 10 and below, he thought that it would be meaningless, certain that it wouldn't take long for him to obtain their experience.

"This is definitely a lot more experience than I was expecting. Almost forgot the game had a system like this in place," said Valyr as he looked at the notification he had received. "In any case, I should find a way to maximize this advantage. After all, Damian wants me to return to the village as soon as possible."

"Then again, I'm here because of Tristan's quest in the first place."

Ding!

[With a 5 level disparity between the user and the opponent, the amount of experience obtained shall be increased by 100%.]

[You have slain a Level 11 Forest Bear. You have gained 348 XP.]

Finding out that the experience he had obtained from killing the bear was equal to just a bit more than one-tenth of the experience he needed to level up, a wide smile could not help but appear on Valyr's face as he checked how much time he had left before sunset. Seeing that there was still a lot more time before then, he left the vicinity, deciding to head in deeper to the forest in search of monsters that were of a higher level than the bear.

"Since it's not much of a problem for me to kill a Level 11 monster, I should try searching for one that's around Level 12 or 13," Valyr muttered to himself, wondering how far his current stats could take him to maximize the amount of experience he could get from the level disparity.

Grrr…

Unexpectedly, just as he had started to move deeper into the forest, a small pack of wolves had appeared before him, all of them baring their teeth at him as they growled in unison. Noticing that the wolves had encircled him, leaving no way for him to escape, Valyr went ahead and checked the level of one of the wolves in preparation for the battle, only for a chuckle to escape his mouth soon after.

Ding!

[Level 12 | Forest Wolf]

"Well then. What perfect timing."