Kayen then put the sword back into its sheath and immediately left. The axe that had accompanied him through tough times is also left behind.
Kayen then summoned the system and checked the remaining trial time.
[Trial time remaining: 20 hours, 20 minutes, and 3 seconds]
Seeing this, Kayen quickly looked at his map again. He saw that he was quite close to a river to the east, so he started walking east, holding the sword handle with his right hand.
After walking for some time, suddenly he felt nausea and dizziness coming from nowhere, but Kayen immediately realized that it was all because of the relic he had just obtained.
'Damn... I didn't know this relic had consequences.'
Right after feeling nauseous and dizzy, Kayen bent down and vomited on the ground, staggering from the dizziness and nausea caused by holding the relic, the Parasite Sword. After recovering somewhat, he carefully placed the sword aside and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.
"Of course, a relic with strong power like Parasite Sword must have consequences for using it too long."
After calming himself, Kayen immediately stored the relic in the system. Seeing his vomit made him disgusted, so he quickly covered it with leaves around him. After doing that, Kayen continued his journey eastward without carrying the relic.
He would only summon the relic when fighting, of course with the risk that being late to summon it could be fatal. But if he forced himself to keep carrying the cursed relic, Kayen was sure his condition would be so bad that he couldn't fight at all.
With great caution, Kayen continued moving forward. Since he decided not to use his relic for the time being, he had no choice but to be more careful with every step. His eyes constantly scanned the surroundings without stopping in one spot.
Finally, after walking for a while, Kayen reached his destination: a river. He saw the river in front of him stretching very long from left to right. Kayen couldn't see the river's end at all. He also saw fish swimming inside.
Kayen immediately summoned the system and checked the time once more.
[19 hours, 57 minutes, and 1 second]
Seeing this, Kayen summoned the Parasite Sword. The reason he came here was because according to information he read online, monsters often swarm around water areas, so it would be a good place to hunt prey.
Kayen then walked along the riverbank. After some time, he saw a monster drinking from the river.
The monster looked like the rat he had killed earlier, except this one was in a healthy state. But seeing this did not scare Kayen, especially since he had killed a level 2 monster previously and now had a relic.
He then walked carefully, trying not to make any noise. As he approached the monster, Kayen drew his sword. When he got close enough to the monster so it was within his attack range, he attacked.
But the unexpected happened: the monster immediately attacked Kayen as if it was waiting for him. Fortunately, Kayen blocked the attack just in time.
Kayen was pushed back by the monster's strike. He then looked at the monster. The monster acted strangely; it shook its head repeatedly as if itchy. Seeing this, Kayen immediately attacked the monster's head.
[Congratulations, you have killed a level 1 monster]
"So easy."
Compared to his previous fight, this was very easy, especially because of the monster's sudden strange behavior. Kayen was curious why the monster had acted that way.
'Maybe because of this sword.'
Kayen then looked at his sword, the relic from the Parasite monster, and read its description again.
[A sword that uses Parasite as its main attack, a sword made from the flesh, soul, and essence of the Parasite and its host.]
A sword made from the flesh, soul, and essence of the Parasite and its host. Because of this description, Kayen concluded the cause of the Parasite Sword's side effects: it absorbed his flesh, soul, and essence.
'Why did the monster suddenly behave so strangely?'
Kayen recalled the black light that suddenly appeared and saved him. He then concluded that the light had entered his body, which was why when the Parasite monster died, it counted as him killing it.
Because the black light was inside his body, the Parasite Sword gave extraordinary effects by absorbing Kayen's flesh. But he was still confused.
'Since the light entered my body, why didn't the system notify me?'
The system notification usually tells everything a person obtains, so why didn't it appear this time?
Kayen soon dismissed the questions in his mind. He had to continue his hunt, even though he remained curious about the answers.
Kayen then dissected the monster's body using his relic. He was getting better at dissecting monsters because the blood no longer touched his face and only dirtied his hands.
While dissecting the monster, Kayen had an enlightenment. He came up with an extraordinary plan involving the relic he had just obtained. The plan would allow him to gain essences and Traits with ranks higher than he had originally expected.
'With this plan, I can get high rank essence and Traits even without facing any monsters.'
But the plan he thought of was very dirty, cruel, and bad. Yet a wide smile appeared on his face, like someone who had been accepted by the most beautiful girl in school.
"This plan is truly amazing."
After dissecting the monster, he found an essence stone inside. He cleaned the dirty essence stone that had been inside the monster.
While cleaning, he suddenly remembered that he had swallowed three essence stones earlier without cleaning them at all. He felt a bit disgusted by that fact, but the disgust didn't last long because after cleaning them, he swallowed the stones without hesitation.
[You gained 5 EXP]