Chapter 4 - Boosted

With the dark red, nearly black, murky dried blood covering his mouth and hands, the Imp kept walking behind the three things in front of him. They kept looking at him weirdly, but the Imp didn't care in the slightest. The hatred that he felt in his body was more than enough to look past such things.

The sun had now nearly gone down completely, and it seemed like the things were looking for something. It was similar to what the Commoner Monsters always did when the sun went down, so they would probably stop moving soon to wait for the sun to come back up. The Imp didn't really understand why they did it, but once more, it didn't care. He just watched them from behind, with a cold stare that he hoped would make them all drop dead instantly. But whenever he thought about actually attacking them to try and kill them, the Imp felt such horrendous fear throughout all his body that he would nearly drop to the ground, letting him even ignore the boxes that would appear all around him at such a time.

And usually, when that happened, the Imp was unable to keep moving and instead just stopped in his tracks, and the black thing would in response then grab the Imp by the stuffy collar around his neck and drag him behind it.

After a while of walking, the things stopped moving next to a river and placed down the things on their backs, before the black thing attached a rope to the Imp's collar and then climbed on a tree before tying the other end of the rope to a branch.

"Isn't that kinda uneccessary?" The red thing asked in response to seeing such a thing happen, and the black thing shrugged in response. "I mean, who knows what this thing might do at night? It probably can't climb, and it definitely won't be able to destroy an enchanted rope, but it might be able to loosen the knot if we're not careful."

"So what, not like it can attack us or run away anyway." The Blue thing then exclaimed before throwing something at the black thing, "Just come and help set up the tent." It said, before the three things huddled around some kind of brown object, while the Imp just stood there underneath the branch.

There were more issues than just one with this, although there was a problem that stuck out. It was probably on purpose, but apparently, when the black thing tied the rope to the branch, it made it too short. That meant that the Imp wasn't able to sit down, and always had to keep his body stretched as much as possible to not choke himself.

But after all that happened today, the Imp was feeling extremely exhausted. He could already feel his legs giving in, and it took him a lot of effort not to let that happen. The Imp just stared forward, trying to focus on something, on anything, to keep himself from falling asleep.

And to his luck, there was something to focus on now, the flames that the three things ignited in front of them. Fire was something mesmerizing to the imp. Out of all the different things that it saw in its short life so far, it was what excited him the most. The way that fire just waved around chaotically and swallowed anything in its path was something beautiful.

All monsters admired strength, and to the Imp, fire was the epitome of strength. So of course, the choice was obvious. The Imp would continue to stare at the flames to make sure it wouldn't fall asleep.

At some point, the Imp stopped noticing anything else that was going on. The light disappeared from anywhere around him, and the flames slowly began to dwindle and shrink. The Imp's body became heavier by the second, but in the middle of the night, just when the flames were about to disappear and the one thing that allowed the Imp to stay awake would be gone, they spiked up all of a sudden. Of course this startled the Imp, enough to let him look away for a little while.

The first thing that the Imp noticed were numerous notifications around him.

[Beginner Concentration Skill Learned]

[Beginner Concentration Skill Leveled Up!]

…

…

…

[Beginner Concentration Skill Leveled Up!]

[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Learned]

[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]

...

...

...

[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]

[You managed to fight through your tiredness through pure will. Willpower Stat unlocked]

[Your will doesn't dwindle. Willpower +1]

[Your will doesn't dwindle. Willpower +1]

[Your will doesn't dwindle. Willpower +1]

[You fought through exhaustion. Constitution +1]

[You fought through extreme exhaustion. Constitution +1. Resistance +1]

The Imp was terrified at the fact that so many of the boxes appeared all of a sudden, but at the very least he could now see that they were not nearly as aggressive as he thought they were. They made him shudder, but the Imp was sure that it could see through that if it needed to. So it literally tried that, and saw through the boxes with his pure will, noticing the red thing standing past them.

"I noticed that you liked the fire…" It said before slowly stepping up closer toward the Imp, but he himself wasn't sure what he wanted to do about it. He was filled with hatred when looking at the red thing, but at the same time, he was filled with fear when that hatred started taking over.

It helped his body stay energized, but it seemed to at the same time exhaust the Imp. It didn't like this feeling at all.

"Grrrgh!" The Imp ended up growling toward the red thing, but it simply came closer. "Shh… Don't worry… You don't need to be scared of me…" The red thing said quietly as it sat down on the ground in front of the Imp, who was simply staring at it with a smile.

"Ava! Ava!" The Imp yelled out, because he noticed that this word made the red thing angry, and he wanted to somehow make sure that the red thing would just run away from it. It seemed like the red thing was rather annoyed for a moment, but then it let out a deep breath and looked at the Imp again.

"It's Avalin… Can you say that? Avalin?" The red thing asked, and the Imp simply continued staring at it with his teeth grinding against each other. "Come on… You managed to pick up that stupid nickname, so surely you can manage my real name… Avalin, I am Avalin. A-Va-Lin." Once more, the red thing began to speak as it repeatedly pointed at itself, and now, the Imp stared closely at its lips before another box appeared in the corner of his vision.

[Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]

"Ava..lin…" The Imp muttered out through his clenched teeth, and the red thing's face suddenly became happier, it seemed.

"Yes! Yes, that's it! I'm Avalin!" It replied, before the Imp once more repeated one of the red thing's words. "Yes… Yes…" He said next, and now the red thing's face just became ecstatic.

"Wow, that's amazing! Hmm… What if…" It muttered to itself, turning away as it did so, before grabbing some kind of square object from the thing that it came out of before, and then sat down in front of the Imp.

"Here, let's try this… Reading should definitely help your comprehension skill…" The red thing muttered to itself before opening the square to show a few white squares inside of it, and then suddenly it took a stick and created some squiggly lines on the front of it. They were exactly like what was on the boxes!

And all of a sudden, the Imp realized something. Maybe if it used the red thing, it would be able to understand the boxes. Obviously they had something to do with him becoming stronger, faster, and smarter, the Imp just didn't know why yet. But it hoped to be able to find out soon.

"This here is the letter A. Try to pronounce it. 'A'." The red thing said, and the Imp followed part, using its mouth to make that sound. Next followed another sound, then another, then another, until the red thing wanted to do something else.

Instead, it now slowly made other, longer sounds. For example, it made a certain sound while pointing at the lowly kindling flames. "Fire. This is... Ffffiiirrreeee." The red thing said as it pointed at its mouth, before the Imp slowly repeated it. "Ffffiiiirrreee." In the exact same way.

"Good job!" It exclaimed as it clasped its hands together, before looking to the side at the flames again. "You really like fire, right?" The red thing asked, and the Imp just stared at it while bearing its teeth the whole time, before the red thing just sighed loudly.

"Well, work with me here, will you? I need to find something you like to get you to practice stuff more easily... that's like Animal-Training 101!" The red thing exclaimed, but the Imp simply started growling lowly, before the red thing shook its head and looked down at the fire.

"Alright, let's figure it out tomorrow then..." It muttered before moving its fingers around in the air while releasing a steady stream of a pure white, bright substance that illuminated the area around the red thing while floating in the air, forming a small circle with squiggly lines inside, but different ones to those that the Imp knew about. And after a little while, the red thing tapped the center of the bright substance and the fire nearly immediately went out.

"Heguh?!" The Imp exclaimed confused, simply staring at the slowly-fading light that was still floating in the air, and the red thing turned over to him confused.

"Oh, do you like magic? Or do you not like magic... I don't know what those sounds mean..." The red thing muttered, and the Imp simply kept standing there doing nothing, before the red thing stepped back toward him.

"Wait, that's it! There was a special spell like that, right?" The red thing whispered excitedly, before turning around and sprinting toward the small thing that it crawled out of before, and returned with another one of those square with lots and lots of white squares inside, although there already seemed to be some of those squiggly lines in there.

"Oh please, I really, really hope this works and will end up worth it... Because these spells were really f.u.c.k.i.n.g expensive..." The red thing muttered to itself and placed it hands on one of the white squares with the squiggly lines inside, before the whole white square began to glow brightly.

And before he knew it, the Imp himself was surrounded by a lot of white light and a box appeared in front of him again.

[Proficiency Boost Activated. Boosting Skill 'Beginner Common Language Comprehension' for the next 7 days]

The Imp continued to stare forward at the squiggly lines inside of the box, and then the red thing sat back down in front of the Imp and took its big square out again.

"Now, let's try this again, buddy..."