Chapter 54: Roasting a Rabbit

Choko said that Nero could take these coyotes and store them, she just asked Nero to get her more of those monster cores that she was already happy with.

"No problem; as soon as you finish absorbing the other monster nucleus at level 6, I will give you more monster nuclei." Nero saw no problem with Choko's proposal.

They then climbed back on Big Blue's back and continued their journey until the day got dark.

"Are we going to camp here? It is already getting dark, and traveling at night would not be good," Choko said. She was now finished absorbing the energy from the level 6 monsters and felt more confident since her strength and mana had increased a lot.

"Yes, let's do that." Nero nodded and made Big Blue stop.

This time Nero did not intend to make Big Blue return to the summon room. This place where they had stopped was more dangerous than the previous one. It was even possible for level 5 monsters to appear. Having Big Blue on guard was safer.

'At the moment, I can only summon two monsters at once,' Nero thought to herself, 'I'm going to keep Big Blue and Luna out.'

"Okay, let's set up the tent near these two trees." Nero pointed to two trees almost five meters away.

"Sounds good to me," Choko agreed and removed the tent from her Hunter Card.

Half an hour later. The tent was already ready. From within the inventory, Nero pretended to take a rabbit from her Hunter Card.

"Are we going to roast the rabbit? It would be a good idea. I'm going to get some dry branches." After saying this, Choko went in search of dry branches.

Nero looked at the map and saw that there were no monsters that could be dangerous. She then cut the rabbit's head with her dagger and tied the rabbit's legs with ropes and hung it upside down to draw the blood.

Minutes later, Choko returned. She did not carry the dry branches with her; they were probably stored in her Hunter Card.

"Here they are." Choko removed many dry branches from inside her Hunter Card, as well as some stones to put around also.

The surrounding stones reached a height of 40 cm. This would make it easier to roast the rabbit.

"Do you have spices?" Nero asked.

"No unfortunately, I didn't bring any with me," Choko said with regret.

"Mm, I have some vegetables, and salt should be enough." Nero said, taking out a jar of salt, onion, tomato, and pepper.

Looking towards the rabbit hanging upside down, Choko said, "The blood stopped dripping."

"Okay, I'm going to use that sword as a skewer." Nero took out a sword, and used fire to heat the sword first with the intention of sterilizing it. Although she didn't know if they were enough, it was better than not doing anything.

"Fire is done." Choko had a magic stone with her that helped her to use mana to create fire. It was very simple and not very expensive.

"Thanks," Nero smiled, and started cutting the rabbit's fur. After doing this, Nero approached the rabbit and untied the rope from the rabbit's feet. She then pierced it with her sword from its neck to the other side. With the rabbit like this, Nero took the vegetables, mainly the onion, and used it with the salt to season the rabbit some.

That done, she started baking. The fire was not very high, Nero left the sword resting on the stones and continued to talk to Choko.

"Nero, will I be able to pass the tests? I heard that they are very difficult." Choko was not very confident about that.

"If you reached level 6, would it be easy to do that?" Nero asked.

"Yes, if I were at level 6, it is certain that I would pass the test," Choko said confidently.

"Okay. I will help you to reach level 6," Nero said matter-of-factly.

"You know this is not an easy thing to achieve, right?" Choko frowned, she knew that Nero was a genius, but there were limits to the things that a person could do.

"What if you had more of those monster cores that I gave you?" Nero asked.

"If I have a few more of them, I'm sure I'll be able to level up, but something like that wouldn't be easy to aquire, would it?" Although she did not know the means that Nero used to achieve this, she did not think it was an easy thing to achieve. So when she offered the 15 coyotes, she only expected to receive 2 to 3 monster cores in return.

"It may not be easy for others, but it is for me," Nero said without explaining.

"Err... If you're saying so, I'll trust you." Choko smiled sweetly.

While talking to Choko, Nero did not forget to turn the sword around so as not to let the rabbit's flesh burn.

Soon, a tasty smell of roasting meat started to spread. Choko, who had only eaten a few apples before, started to drool a little. Nero was no different; just the smell made her stomach churn and growl with a cute noise.

"Wow! What a cute noise," Choko teased.

"... It's not much different from yours," Nero said matter-of-factly. As soon as Choko had spoken, her belly also rumbled, and made a sound very similar to Nero's, which looked like a kitten meowing softly.

Choko changed the subject. "Are you almost ready?"

"Yes, just a few more minutes, and it's ready," Nero said. She wasn't an expert on these things, but she has done something similar before, so she kind of knew the time it was ready. At least it was better than not knowing at all.

"Eek. Some monsters were attracted by the smell, as I thought," Choko said when she saw some monsters appearing from behind bushes and trees. Some were bears, and also some wolves and coyotes. There was even a jaguar.

"Luna, Big Blue, deal with them. If you do that, I'll let you two choose one of them to be baked for you," Nero said in a seductive way, enough to make Big Blue and Luna drool. In reality, they were already drooling when they saw Nero roast the rabbit, but they thought it was too small. However, looking at these monsters that were attracted by the food...

Big Blue mainly looked at the 3 meter bear with her mouth watering. She thought to herself about asking Nero to bake that bear for her.