Time flying by, they say, is like blinking. And I guess that's not wrong, for me though, spending the last week and a half stumped with work meant that it passed by slowly.

  Agonizingly so, if my life was an anime, it'd probably be its own training montage or something like that.

  Even with all the exhaustion and pain and other annoying stuff I had to go through, I like to think that it was all worth it since I made a lot of progress in the end.

  "How do I look?" To say that I'm fashionable is blatantly wrong, I've never touched a magazine in my past life and my clothes are fairly plain, moreso bought for comfort instead of attention. "I think the leather worker did a pretty good job right?"

  Which is why it feels so weird for me to ask whether or not I look good in a full set of leather armor. Can armor make you look good? Probably, I don't really see the appeal of something like this, it covers my entire body and leaves no room for anything that might be considered attractive.

  Or maybe it's not about attractiveness? Maybe it's just people liking suits of armor or something, which I can understand somewhat, there's a strange sense of professionalism in medieval gear that office clothes could never copy.

  "Like you're ready to take on the world." Laself's soft reply came from somewhere to my right, I can smell the caramel that she's cooking even from here. "And yes, the leather worker did do a great job."

  And he really did, the leather armor I originally commissioned from him was nothing more than a chest piece and leggings but he went above and beyond that, there's an added greaves and thigh padding on top of the leggings and my arms now had greaves on them, he even added fingerless leather gloves!

  This is above and beyond what I had asked for and I was actually surprised when he showed me the completed work earlier, I told him I'd pay more but he just said that he used the same amount of leather he usually would when working with an adult but since I'm so small, there's extra leather and so they got made into something else.

  My chainmail is also the same, which unlike the common adult chainmail actually had two layers instead of just one.

  Well I guess in the blacksmith's case he just looked at me, then at the oversized chainmail in his hands in shock before flipping one end on top of the other and then clipping them into a two-layered chainmail in front of me.

  Pretty neat stuff.

  "Your teacher says you're no longer exerting yourself." Mom, who is sitting beside Laself, spoke up. "I'm not sure if I believe him."

  "Haha..." The laughter was full of guilt and I focused on tightening the straps of my armor instead of my family. "I guess you shouldn't."

  There's a good chance that the rogue just didn't realize my limit for exhaustion has risen up, he did seem like the type of watch over things like my state after training so when I no longer fell down back first at the end of each day, he must have thought that I'm not pushing myself as much anymore.

  Which is wrong of course, and the reason why I'm not exhausted anymore is because my [Physical Resistance] passive has now reached the [Masterful] tier, which gives me a lot of stamina recovery on top of a much stronger body. And the best part is, it'll only grow with me over the course of my life so my current peak isn't even my best.

  "What are you gonna do now that you have a full set of adventurer's gear? Are you finally gonna try and max out your learner's badge?"

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  "In a little while, yeah." I confirmed, tone noncommittal. Finding the beehive had been hard but I did it eventually, I completed 5 more beginner quests after that, once I get 4 more I'll be able to upgrade the badge.

  No rush, really. Not like the badge serves some kind of importance for me right now, other than upgrading my adventurer rank from F to E that is. So yeah, no big deal, I'm not gonna go around doing quests yet and that means the guild can wait.

  "I'm done changing so I'll be leaving for a bit, don't wait for me okay? I'll go to Ghorise on my own after this." I caught them both nodding as I walked out the door.

  A cold wind blew past me seconds after standing outside and I'm reminded that winter is now starting, it's still not here yet but soon. Soon. The Day of Piling will come around in just three days as well, marking one of the biggest annual events that happen around here.

  Moving past the houses in Flotol shows just how important it is to the people here, almost everyone is preparing to go to the neighboring town on the day of the festival: making or repairing clothes to wear, crafting baskets, ornaments, or even furniture, there's also the good few preparing food to sell.

  Most, though, are excitedly sharpening their bladed weapons. The cull will start soon and I might not be able to farm the aberrants as extensively as I am now so I need to be proactive and start hunting them while it's still early.

  Come to think of it, it's been a while since I decided to kill an aberrant huh? An adult one I mean, all this time I've only spent my time killing the young ones I catch along the mud lines since I can cook them just fine and it's not like the taste is different.

  Now would be the perfect time to get back on track when hunting down the oversized crayfish since I'm about to get my assassin class— or something adjacent to it. — so leveling up is going to be crucial to me coming forward.

  Hm... I think I'll even get the class later today, so yeah, it's time to start power leveling.

  Coming back to the lifeless pool after almost two months feels kinda surreal, I'm not sure how I reacted to seeing these dead trees back then— or maybe I didn't even bother to look at them. — but they really give the area a sense of creepiness that's only rivaled by the general sense of unease the outside of the Humus Dungeon produces.

  Walking past a landscape that looks straight out of a nuclear apocalypse isn't all that strange in this world either, the lifeless pool is just one of the many places that's filled with corrupted creatures and also has a general lack of plant life.

  "Not that it will stop them from trying to grow." I mutter as my eyes catch sight of a strange looking fern that I pass through.

  Mutations aren't all that strange in this world either, there's probably no way to catalog all the existing species thanks to the way mana functions, which doesn't just ruin, but also changes. In the case of the lifeless pool, the source of all this death isn't mana, rather it's the giant aberrants ruining the environment with their existence.

  This is why species diversity doesn't exist locally and that only a single species is dominating the swamp.

  And currently, all of them are preparing to hibernate.

  My eyes scanned the unnaturally still water as I hid from behind a rock, knees bent and pressed against the soft mud. Antennas are the most common way for people to find the location of one of these things during the cull and that's what I'm doing right now, my gaze moving from one antenna to the next in search of a bull.

  Prioritizing the biggest, meanest, and deadliest crayfish will pay off on dividends since their exp yield is by far the biggest compared to all the others.

  I couldn't find any of them though so I decided to just attack a large group of aberrants from where I am and then hope that a bull is among them.

  "[Water Ball]." The spell activates from my chant and my wand takes it in, turning it into something different.

  Standing up, I place myself in a patch of ground that's drier than most, ensuring that I don't slip when I run away. Thankfully, the mud is starting to harden thanks to the drop in temperature so it didn't take me that long to find a spot like that.

  When I was sure that no accidents would happen to me once I aggravated the aberrants, I waved my wand sideways two times, depleting the charge of [Icicle Spear] stored inside.

  Six pairs of icicles arrowed towards the water, they landed in several large splashes but the following disturbance in the water made them look like rain drops falling down a raging river: which is to say, barely noticeable.

  Eight aberrants rose from the depths of the lifeless pool and started swimming towards me.

  In what must be second nature to me by this point, I ran away, heading for the forest where some of my— hopefully still functional. — traps are waiting.