"Tria-chan, I’m back—"
When I logged back into the game after finishing my shift, the Young Turtle was already dead.
I call it "young," but the thing was roughly the size of a dining table. Tria appeared to have been stuck in a loop of squats and jumps in front of the carcass.
The corpse was a pixelated mess. Looking closer, I saw the shell had been completely shattered.
Her Status had grown by a respectable amount, as had her proficiency in the Unarmed Combat skill.
"Now then, time to scout the area. Target: the Adventurer’s Guild!"
I began searching the vicinity, starting with the dead Young Turtle.
Time to loot the still-fresh carcass. I didn't have any tools, so I had to use my bare hands.
I obtained a Turtle Shell Fragment, Turtle Meat (Freshness: Average), Young Turtle Innards (Freshness: Poor), and a Turtle Bone. I shoved them all into my Inventory.
It looked like the innards spoiled quickly. I wondered if they’d be edible if I grilled them. At the very least, I could check if items continued to lose freshness while stored in the Inventory.
Once I finished looting, the Young Turtle vanished without a trace. While that part felt very game-like, my hands remained stained red with blood. The developers seemed to have some weirdly specific hang-ups regarding realism.
"I need to find some water to wash this off. Still, if I could take down one Young Turtle, it means I can farm them as long as I keep the fights one-on-one."
Water could wait; my priority was hunting more Young Turtles for Experience Points. I could have rushed straight to the Adventurer’s Guild, but there was never a downside to grinding levels early.
"I’m not sure how I’d handle being swarmed by two or more, but I won’t know for sure until I try. Let's find another one."
I took control of Tria and began scouting for more targets.
Eventually, I found what I was looking for at the bottom of a nearby cliff. However, the Young Turtles weren't alone.
There was a reservoir-like area occupied by The Great Turtle.
It looked like a more malevolent version of the Young Turtles, scaled up to the size of a semi-truck. The edges of its shell were serrated like a saw.
Given its massive scale, the serrations looked less like a saw and more like a row of blades. The sheer size of the beast was so bizarre it threw off my sense of perspective. The Young Turtles surrounding it actually looked like tiny hatchlings by comparison.
If someone had told me that thing was a Land Dragon, I would have believed them without hesitation.
There was no way I could win—at least not yet.
"I’ll either need to learn a long-range attack to cheese it from afar, or grind my Unarmed Combat until I can just punch right through it from the front."
In other words, it was time to hunt Young Turtles and level up.
"That said, it’s just the first field boss. If I spend the night at it, I should be able to win. Alright, today's objective is officially a Young Turtle hunt!"
With that decided, I began picking up stones that looked easy to throw while searching for any stray Young Turtles to pull.
Looking down at the creature by the waterhole, Tria felt a chill run through her. Or she would have, if she still possessed a heart and lungs; as a Halo, she lacked internal organs, but the terror was real enough.
It was a monster that, no matter how she looked at it, she could never hope to defeat. The Great Turtle sat there with a grim, imposing face. It wasn't far from the Shrine at all; she realized how lucky she had been to remain safe while she killed a Young Turtle and leisurely trained so close to such a beast.
"I’ll either need to learn a long-range attack to cheese it from afar, or grind my Unarmed Combat until I can just punch right through it from the front."
The Spirit-sama, however, showed no sign of wavering.
If anything, he seemed eager, already calculating how he might slay the beast.
"That said, it’s just the first field boss. If I spend the night at it, I should be able to win. Alright, today's objective is officially a Young Turtle hunt!"
His confidence was staggering. He surely had a reason for it.
And so, the Young Turtle hunt began.
They spent ages scouring the mountain for the first one, and even longer beating it into submission. Its shell was so thick that her blows barely seemed to register, but they eventually triumphed.
The Spirit-sama grumbled to himself. "Thirty minutes to find a mob and ten to kill it? What kind of game balance is this?" Tria felt a pang of guilt, assuming his frustration was directed at her own inadequacy. She resolved then and there to train her body even harder.
They performed more looting, obtaining fresh meat and innards. The Spirit-sama noted that the meat he had stored in his subspace was already starting to turn, and mentioned he would need to process it soon.
He also seemed puzzled by the fact that the Young Turtle hadn't fought back. He had clearly expected some kind of resistance, but since its passivity was convenient, he set the thought aside. "It’s probably just a training dummy for the Tutorial!" he decided.
Then came the second one. He boldly waltzed into a spot where two were gathered and started punching one of them. This time, however, the second turtle tried to snap at him, forcing a hasty retreat.
The beast’s jaws crunched into a nearby rock, leaving deep gouges. Realizing the disadvantage, the Spirit-sama opted to flee.
"So they only counter-attack when they have backup? Or maybe it's because they can see me attacking their friend? They're slow, but they hit hard. I guess this is the Fishing Tutorial? I'll stick to pulling them one by one."
They waited at a distance for the turtles to calm down. Once they had, he threw a pebble to lure one away. Tria found the use of the Young Turtle’s own innards as bait a bit unsettling, but the creature approached regardless. It didn't seem to care about cannibalism; it apparently craved meat, specifically entrails.
The Spirit-sama must have known or deduced their nature. His insight was truly peerless.
After that, he beat it to death just like the first one. When isolated, the Young Turtle didn't fight back, simply withdrawing into its shell in a futile attempt to weather the storm. It died all the same.
"Phew... did I kill it faster than before?"
Just as the Spirit-sama noted, it felt much faster. Specifically, he said the time had dropped from ten minutes to eight.
Next, he took down the remaining turtle from the pair. That time, it only took six minutes.
"Yeah, she's growing steadily—or rather, her stats are skyrocketing. Is this an opponent you're not normally supposed to be able to defeat at this level?"
Tria wanted to nod in agreement. She was a girl who had never fought a common animal, let alone a monster. The Young Turtle was a formidable creature, and the strength she gained from defeating it was immeasurable.
Moreover, the limbs the Spirit-sama had bestowed upon her were remarkably resilient, strong enough to crack even those iron-hard shells. Her original hands would have surely shattered.
While Tria felt they should leave this place quickly and flee to safety, the Spirit-sama's perspective was entirely different.
"In other words, they're Bonus Enemies! This is a goldmine! I reckon it'll be easier later on if I grind here now, even if it's a bit of a slog. It’s time for a Turtle Hunt Festival!"
And so, it was decided.
The Spirit-sama’s judgment was surely the correct one.
"Oops, since I've got it, I want to use the Turtle Meat too. I'll use the innards as fishing bait... but I wonder if I can grill the meat and eat it? In games like this, using monster meat as ingredients to make Buff Dishes is pretty standard."
Wait, we’re going to eat a monster? Tria wondered. But she quickly pushed the thought aside. If the Spirit-sama said so, it must be right. Her old common sense was no longer of any use in this new existence.
After all, her common sense would never have predicted that she would become a Halo, or that she would be capable of slaying monsters.