The Only Thing I Can Upgrade is Strength chapter 3

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The rabbit charged at me, and jumped. It was trying to spear me on its horn, I think. The rabbit had a horn. I didn’t have time to think about that, as I barely dodged out of the way. Could I have punched it or kicked it? Maybe, but even in the best situation I would have missed. Worst situation… I impale myself on its horn. I know enough to know that I don’t know how to fight, no matter how strong I am. Thus, upon realizing I couldn’t do anything right now, I ran away. Upon finding out that the rabbit could keep up with me, I climbed a tree. That was actually rather easy, since I felt so light.

Now then, little rabbit. Why are you glaring up at me? I’m not attacking you. You… you don’t eat meat, do you? I certainly hope not. Well, I have a plan if you don’t go away soon… which it looks like you won’t. I thought as I waited.

The rabbit… wouldn’t go away. For some reason, it hated me. Well, fine. I gave you a chance for peace. You might think I don’t have any weapons up here, but you would be wrong. In fact, I have an entire tree. First, I chucked down a smaller branch. I would have really just liked it to leave, but it shrugged it off. If that’s what you want, rabbit. I found a large, thick branch. Besides the one I was balancing on, of course.

With my new strength… I wouldn’t say I broke it off easily, but I definitely couldn’t have broken off a branch even half as thick- and therefore many times weaker- before. It wasn’t really a great weapon, but the rabbit was rather small. Here’s hoping it’s stupid. I threw the branch down, though it could almost be called a small log. Though, my sense of size is skewed somewhat by the fact that I’m not very big at all.

The first one I dropped was a small branch with twigs sticking out. It basically just annoyed the rabbit. The second time, I threw down a pretty heavy branch. It was hard to snap off, but the tree was actually dead and brittle. *Whump*. A loud sound. That was the sound of a branch hitting the ground… and a horned rabbit. I didn’t think it was dead… but it looked stunned. I made up my mind quickly, and climbed down. Then, I picked up the branch, and swung it like a club. *Crunch*. That sound… it wasn’t hard to guess what it was. It was much worse in person though, let me tell you. As I staggered over behind the tree, I vaguely saw some kind of whitish mist floating through the air. After I wiped the vomit off of my mouth, I thought maybe it was… experience? At least, that’s what my gamer senses told me.

I looked down at the corpse of the rabbit. It appeared this wasn’t the kind of fantasy world where the corpses disappeared and conveniently left behind “meat” “skin” and “horn”. Instead, I saw a squashed rabbit. I retched, but it’s not like I had anything else in my stomach. Geez, I was spoiled by modern conveniences wasn’t I? Not having to see the actual animals I ate.

I thought I should probably take it with me, since it was the only food I’d seen around, but I was not even slightly hungry right then, and I had no way to carry it. Plus, it was a gross mess. So was my “club”, but at least I don’t have to touch that part of it. I took it with me, because apparently even the rabbits in this world wanted to kill me.

I picked a direction and start walking. Soon, I saw another rabbit. It glared at me. Yeah, they’re definitely aggressive. The last one was pretty fast, but I had a plan. I hadn’t ever really played baseball. I couldn’t swing the bat, even when I could stand. However, I had some idea of what to do. The rabbit sprung at me, just like the last one. I stepped out of the way, and swung. *Whiff*. That’s the sound of hitting air, if you didn’t know. The good news was I did successfully dodge the rabbit. I turned, and the rabbit did the same. The second time… *crunch*.

A direct hit. No, more than that… right on the horn. The horn itself stuck in my club… and also in the rabbit’s head. It seems horned rabbits’ sturdy little skulls weren’t quite good enough for a decently-above-average-strength direct hit. They were still about the size of regular rabbits, maybe a bit bigger. However, it was quite clear their horns were definitely very sharp. It could probably kill me. At least, I could bleed a lot. I doubted I would just “recover hp” if I sat around for a while, and get all better. I was determined to not find out.

As I walked along, I found more rabbits. Fortunately, all alone. Even more fortunately, they all stupidly charged in the same way. How does a species so stupid not die out? Ah… they probably breed like rabbits. Silly me.

After the tenth one, the mist came out… and I got a feeling. Is this… a level up?

Yes indeed, it was a level up. I didn’t even get to look at my points before they distributed to Strength. Incidentally, the club (Well, stick really) felt lighter. It was weird to experience sudden changes in strength, even though it wasn’t as large as before. I also obtained club mastery, which stated…

It seemed level 0 was really more like level ½. It’s a recognition of “you’re gaining this skill, but you don’t really have it yet”. What’s the maximum? 5? 10? Maybe there isn’t one, or maybe it’s a weird value. Well, I figured I could ask that kind of thing at the adventurer’s guild… once I found a city. Hopefully I could at least find a road.

I started to get hungry. The rabbit… it didn’t look too bad. Except… it was raw. I didn’t have any way to start a fire. I was seriously starting to consider eating raw rabbit, but it would probably have made me sick. Then, a glint caught my eye. The sunset was reflecting off of something red. A berry? A whole berry bush.

I brought a berry to my mouth. Wait. What if it’s poisonous? I looked at the rabbit. Yeah. I ate the berry. It tasted good. That didn’t necessarily make it not poisonous, though. I waited a few minutes. Feeling no ill effects, I ate more, until the small bush had no more.
It was getting quite dark. I didn’t know if these rabbits came out at night, but I hoped not. I’d have climbed a tree, but I could pretty much guarantee I would have fallen off when sleeping. I moved around, looking for a cave or something. Then, it was fully dark. I could barely see anything. I guess I’ll just have to sleep here, and hope nothing bad comes out. I held onto my club and set myself up with my back to a large tree. It was cold, but fortunately I had my jacket on when I was brought here. It was a bit uncomfortable during the day, but at night it was quite helpful. Eventually, I fell asleep.

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