Save Aria

Travis got hold of the 15 meters of rope he had earlier. Quickly, he made his way away from the vine wall. He summoned the status and checked his condition.

[Name: Travis Salliv
Class: Apostle of Tricks & Manipulation
Level: 1
HP: 21/100
MP: 4/30
WP: 29/210]

A single hit from a vine almost killed him. It was no wonder, considering that he was only level 1, but… there was something off here.

'A monster of level 100 would kill me instantly by just sneezing at me… is that thing not as dangerous as I initially thought?' the thought appeared in his mind. It would make a lot of sense for everything in Penalty Zone to be extremely powerful, but… maybe that wasn't it? Maybe the main difficulty of the quest wasn't the level of monsters, but the fact that he would be actively hunted down? He scoffed slightly, unsure what to think.

The Penalty Zone was a place he learned about not even 30 minutes ago, and there was little information so far he collected. There was an environment that he'd never seen before, as well as monsters about which he never even heard.

First, he needed a weapon, second - a way to cut the vines. Both could be achieved at once if he found something sharp enough. Initially, he thought about the boar monkeys and their tools. They were primitive and most definitely made of sharpened rocks affixed to small handles with some rope-like things. Well, even if he would have known how to sharpen rocks, Travis was sure it would take too goddamn long. So, his other option was to take on one of those monsters and try to get their weapons.

'Now that I think about it, I could've done it in the first moment… no.' he shook the thought. If he had tried to retrieve a weapon thrown from so far up, there was a good likelihood that he wouldn't have been able to do it before the beasts got to him. Penalty Quest would've killed him and Aria before it even began.

Boar monkeys were out - that he knew for sure. The only other thing he could think of at the moment was what he'd learned in his life: learning to use the environment.

He reminded himself of everything he'd seen in this weird place. Going between trees, he soon spotted a place ideal for setting a trap. Checking the rope, he ensured that there was enough of it to cover the small area needed for his plan.

He worked quickly, not bothered by the rising temperature. The air was humid, and sweat appearing on his body was evaporating by the minute.

Just as he was finishing, he heard some grumbling nearby. Quickly hiding behind a tree, he noticed three boar monkeys come around the place where he's been working on his plan for the past 10 minutes. Visibly interested in the construct he made, one of them poked the vine he laid down with its spear. After a few seconds, seeing that nothing happened, the three monsters spread out to investigate the terrain around them.

Deciding that he couldn't take them on, Travis broke into a run when he saw them losing interest in his trap. Seemingly noticing him, one of the monsters squealed loudly and started running after him, the other two joining the pursuit instantly.

Panting, Travis could only swear inwardly as tried to get away. A few minutes passed as he was trying to circle back to the river, but the boar monkeys were relentless. Their speed appeared higher than his, but the moment they caught up to him, he'd make a sharp turn to throw them off. However, every time he did that, he only managed to get away from them for a dozen or so seconds before he was almost blindsided by an opponent seemingly already waiting for him. They were spread out just enough to make his getaway impossible.

'Gods damn it!' Travis put all the strength he had into his legs. Everything was going wrong again! How was he supposed to go about this now? 'If only I had a piece of vine, maybe I could've--- wait.' a thought sprung into his head. There were vines all around. What if he decided to use them just like those monsters did at the beginning of the quest?

He didn't have much of a choice. It was either trying this or running out of stamina. The choice was obvious.

He looked ahead of himself. There were multiple plant growths he could use to his advantage. He needed to make a choice of which to use. Noticing that one of the monsters was starting to close in from his left, he made a quick decision. He grabbed the nearest vine and jumped from his feet…

Only for the vine to snap, causing him to tumble forward. Travis rolled on the ground a little and soon found himself on his back, holding a piece of vine, roughly 3 meters long, at most 6 centimeters in girth. Maybe it wasn't the best option to pick this one…

But there was nothing to do about that now. Struggling to **** himself up on his elbows, he suddenly felt a hoof on his chest, pinning him down. The boar eyes of the one monster who caught him were laughing at him, its axe visibly sharpened. Its mouth curved in a smile, a guttural cackle leaving its airways. It enjoyed catching its prey, and the way he squirmed must've brought it plenty of satisfaction as well. But all fun had to come to an end. Its hand

'I… I can't die like this!' Travis felt his mind bolt into action, trying to find anything he could use to his benefit. Take in the details, the details!

He stole a glance at the monster's hoof. It appeared similar to a boar's foot, albeit slightly larger. Going upward, he noticed that despite the creature being able to run very fast, its calves were fairly thin. It seemed physical fortitude wasn't its main strength.

Travis looked at his hand as the boar-monkey turned around a little as if waiting for its companions to come around. It growled loudly, trying to get their attention. Was it some sort of a ritual, for the hunter to kill the prey with others present? He didn't know nor care.

The man looked at the vine in his hand. It was the only thing he could use for either attack or defense. At the end of the day, human desperation knew no limits. He quickly put the vine in both his hands, preparing himself to raise them the instant he was about to die.

As if feeling threatened by what he was doing, the beast above him looked back at him and took a swing. Travis rose his hands in unison to the axe flowing downward in an arc. He closed his eyes...

And suddenly felt the tension. First, the axe's handle pressed onto his line of defense, and after a split second of fighting against his strength, it bounced off. Visibly startled by what happened, the boar-monkey took a step back, releasing Travis from under its foot.

'NOW!' only one thought permeated his mind at that moment: seize the opportunity. When his opponent was startled, they would've shown a weakness, a vulnerability. He only had a split second to make use of it.

He pushed himself from the ground as quickly as he could. Seeing the monster no more than 2 meters from him, reading another strike, he held onto both ends of the vine and threw its middle part forward, attempting to get it onto its neck. The beast understood what he meant to do, and backpedaled before he managed to finish. However, its step back paired with the construction of its feet showed a critical weakness. Those creatures could stand upright, but their center of balance wasn't in line with the surface that kept them on the ground. That meant they needed to bend forward a little to not fall backward. And by taking a step back, it was **** to disrupt its balance.

Travis used his opportunity. He didn't care if he died in one hit. He was dead anyway if he didn't take this chance. Lunging forth, he pushed the monster in its chest. As it fell on its back, he bashed at it, the vine in hand.

He made sure to **** himself onto the hand that held the axe and quickly bound the vine around the creature's neck twice while it was still stunned. Using all his strength, he pulled both ends, constricting the rope around the creature's neck. He put more and more strength into his pulling while the beast was trying to free itself from the dangerous situation. Suddenly, he heard a snapping sound. The creature that was looking at him suddenly stopped fighting, all its limbs and head going limp. He did it. He managed to kill the boar monkey.

Holy… for some reason, he felt like he could lay down, but he didn't. He knew well that the other two were aware of where he was. He needed to get away from this place, fast.

He got hold of the beast's axe. He **** himself up, and, feeling his muscles becoming a little sore, started running in a direction perpendicular to where he believed he was coming from in the first place. He needed to get away, and then back. Now he had a weapon.

[155 experience has been acquired.]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

He dismissed the notifications for now. First, safety.

...

[3:51:56]

He sat under a tree for a moment, taking in a deep breath. He looked ahead of him and saw some purple stains on the ground. He knew it; this was the place. Finally deciding that he had a short moment, he opened his status.

[[Name: Travis Salliv
Class: Apostle of Tricks & Manipulation
Level: 5
HP: 31/100
MP: 9/30
WP: 31/210]

[Strength: 10
Agility: 30
Intelligence: 15
Endurance: 10
Wisdom: 15
Sense: 20
AP: 20]

[Possessed abilities: Suggestion lvl.1]]

*Ting!*

[There you go, you leveled up. As you might've noticed, you received some stat points. You receive five stat points per level up. Make wise use of them, you cannot reassign them.]

'Now… how to go about it…' he put a hand on his chin. The message from Redion was of scarcely any help, but he didn't so much as frown. Right now, he needed to know what he was working with. '...RALS will answer my questions, right?'

"RALS. What are my stats, and what do they do?"

He read through the data for a few minutes, a plan slowly unraveling in his mind. As he finished the final line, he pondered for a short moment more.

'I would love to go full-out on Endurance to increase my HP, but that won't guarantee my survival. I need to place the points according to my needs. Strength to wield the axe, Endurance to gain stamina, and Sense to increase my perception. Those three are the most important ones now.' he nodded at his thoughts. A single misplaced point could mean **** at this time. He absolutely needed to know what he was doing.

"RALS, increase Strength by 5 points, Endurance by 10, and Sense by 5," he said the command.

[Processing… finished.]

Travis closed his eyes, waiting for some sudden burst of strength to overtake him, but… there was barely a thing.

He got up. No, there weren't many changes he noticed. His steps were ever so slightly lighter, but it could be because he just had some rest. Lifting the axe momentarily, its weight appeared just a little smaller, and swinging it, his muscles didn't feel bothered by the shift in mass center as much. He breathed a short sigh, feeling a bit of disappointment. Still, he knew that he couldn't expect much. Apostle of a god or not, his power couldn't be too large too quickly. Who knew what calamity would happen if he gained too much strength at once.

Travis brought the axe closer to his face, inspecting it. The edge was somewhat blunt, but he didn't have time to go and try to sharpen it. He sighed deeply; having had a bit of experience in maintaining battle equipment, he knew that just any rock wouldn't do. In the first place, he never sharpened a stone weapon. Who knew if he'd not end up simply shattering it?

'If there's nothing to work with, make use of what you can do.' another teaching of Cecilia popped up in his head. She emphasized her point by bringing up a story of a barbaric king Ogglix the Savage. 'When his sword and bow both broke during the battle of Nirr, he used his nails and teeth to kill the commander of the enemy unit. He broke his thumb gouging the eyes of the general and lost a finger to an officer, but he emerged victorious with brute **** alone. Tools are only that. Tools are a help, but not a necessity. The body itself can do wonders.'

Travis fixed his grip on the axe and got closer to the wall of vines. Another deep breath preceded a wide swing. And then, he brought the blade to the wall.

Surprisingly enough, the axe managed to cut through two vines before stopping at third. What also came to his attention was the fact that there were at least a few layers to those. However, Travis didn't fret in the slightest. That was the reason he increased his Endurance by a whole 10 points. He needed the stamina to break through.

He slashed again, and this time, managed to chop off another 4 vines. Suddenly, he felt some liquid splash around. Purple liquid, the same as the one that dripped onto Aria before. As he felt it gets onto his legs, he received a notification.

[Warning! A mana-sapping liquid is splashed on you. Currently losing 1 MP/ minute.]

'Joke's on you, my MP is useless anyway.' he grinned slightly, slashing again.

It took him a few minutes to carve out a small passage. Strangely enough, the plant didn't attack him once despite him cutting off as many as 20 of its vines. What was the reason for it? He didn't want to ponder. It didn't matter to him anyway; his priority was getting to Aria.

He took a step inside the weird cavern that was covered by vines. It was truly a strange place. Wherever he stood, he felt the vein-like vines stretching under his feet, as if waiting for him to go deeper inside to trap him when he least expected. Without thinking much, he slashed all around, cutting them. Purple, mana-sapping blood was spilled in his wake as he slowly made his way deeper.

As his eyes started getting used to the darkness, he started noticing an outline of a small cavern. There were pieces of plants all over the walls, and even on the ceiling that was about 4 meters above his head, small vines hanging just above his hair. For some reason, he felt some creepy feeling over his back.

'This place is weirdly scary.'

He slowly took his steps deeper inside. After making a turn left, he noticed that both the density and thickness of all vines seemed to increase all around. Under the walls, in somewhat regular intervals, Travis noticed piles of bones laid in what seemed dried-up petals. He shivered a little. The petals themselves were nearly 1 meter in length, and they were dried. They must've been at least double that when they were still alive.

'It's closing its flowers around them… and probably killing them with something or simply suffocating them.' he shivered at the thought. No, he needed to find Aria, lest the plant would do something to her soon.

He went on and on, taking care to slash some vines here and there (just in case they decided to attack him as they did with Aria). Strangely enough, the plant was still not responding to his attacks. Was it dead already?

'No. If Aria managed to kill it, then she wouldn't just stay put after a life-threatening fight. She'd have made an exit herself.'

After he took another turn, he noticed something moving by the wall. Making a wide arc, he turned around and saw a fresh flower. It was about 3 meters tall, made with many peach-colored petals layered all around the center in a spiral pattern. There was a very faint glow from within, and through the somewhat translucent petals, he could see an outline of a person, looking as if floating.

"Aria!" Travis felt his lips move as he suddenly ran up to the flower and struck at its base without hesitation.

The axe damaged the petal deeply, but he had some trouble getting it out. '...This is going to be difficult.' he realized before taking another swing.

It took him 5 strikes to take care of a single petal. Looking at the flower again, he realized that there must've been many layers to it. He sighed with slight frustration. 'Nobody ever said anything's easy in life.' he gritted his teeth as he hit the soft surface again. Again and again, the axe made an arc, the petals fell, and Travis felt the weird feeling of creepiness travel on his back. He knew what it meant; the monster was sensing him. As for why it wasn't yet reacting, he had no idea.

Finally, he had broken what looked like the second to last layer of petals. He took a look through the nearly completely translucent layer and noticed Aria submerged in some kind of liquid. She didn't seem to be dead, as he saw her move her arm a little, but it didn't seem like a conscious move, either. She was most definitely out of it, and…Travis' eyes went wide as he realized that Aria was completely naked. She had small breasts, smaller than Cecilia, but her ass was toned and graceful. No, wait!

'Don't get distracted!' he berated himself. 'You're here to save her, not ogle at her!'

He took a wide swing and damaged the petal. Oily liquid started flowing out from the small cut he made. Another swing widened the hole, and the third one caused enough structural damage for the pressure to do the rest of the work.

Suddenly, the flower burst open, and Aria flowed out together with the liquid. She slid on the remnants of the petals, her entire body having a little bit of a glistening look. However, she didn't move at all, and that made Travis's heart almost stop with fright.

He got her on her back. Getting his head close to her mouth, he confirmed that there was some breathing going on, but it was very shallow. She was on the verge of dying of suffocation. As to why it happened now and not before, he didn't want to even know. He knew it must've been connected to her missing clothes in some way, but he could ponder on that later. Now, he needed to wake her up and get her away.

He got her on her side, opening her mouth and allowing gravity to take out some of the fluid. Suddenly, he heard her starting to cough audibly. After a few seconds, Aria vomited in front of herself, seemingly ridding herself of liquid that got into her stomach. Still coughing, she went to her knees, coughing vehemently.

It took her a little over a minute to stop. With watery eyes, she started looking around and noticed a humanoid shape standing in front of her.

"A-Ah!" she tumbled away, visibly scared.

"H-Hey, it's me!" Travis got to his knee, trying to calm her down. "Travis."

"T-Travis…?" she seemed to look a little downward as if pondering for a moment. "Travis!" she suddenly lunged at him, hugging him tightly. "Oh, gods! *Sob!* I thought I was *Sob!* done for! Thank you, thank you! *Sob!*" she said whilst crying. Her hands were all slimy, but Travis felt that she was shaking.

"Let's talk later. We need to get out of here." He said, helping her up.

"Y-Yes… we need to get out… wait! You can't see me like this!" she started protesting. "I-I… I'm naked!" her voice sounded with a shake.

*SCREEE!!!*

A loud noise reverberated throughout the cavern, sounding like some kind of an angry screech. Travis felt that vines under his legs started wriggling around a little, attempting to latch onto his legs. But he wasn't having any of that.

"Hold this," he handed Aria the axe.

Taking the tool into her hands, but just barely able to make out what it was, she started asking, "W-What is-- Whoa!" she suddenly gasped when she felt Travis hold her bridal style. "H-Hey! Didn't you hear what I said?!"

Travis just barely registered her words, dodging a few vines that zoomed at them both.

"Do you seriously think a little nudity is more dangerous than that thing trying to kill us?!" he asked her rhetorically, making a sharp turn.

Aria seemed like she wanted to say something, but decided not to. Instead, she got a hand around Travis' neck.

*SCREEE!*

The sound reverberated again, and the vines all around seemed to double their efforts. But Travis, thanks to his already high Agility and heightened Sense stats, was able to dodge nearly all of them. And even when he got hit by one in the back, his boosted Endurance ensured that he didn't die from the hit. He didn't even lose balance.

In no more than 30 seconds, both of them made it out of the cavern, and then about 100 meters into the forest before finally coming to a halt. Travis let Aria down on her legs, let out a loud sigh, and smiled.

'...I did it.' he leaned over a tree and sat down. His muscles felt sore. He needed some rest. Then, he looked at Aria. Noticing his gaze, she immediately dropped the axe she'd been holding, and covered herself up, one hand over both her breasts and one covering her crotch area. There was a red flush all over her white face.