Towards the end of March, after reaching level thirty-five, Harry began to once again enter the various Dungeons on the first five floors in order to collect Items in between delivery jobs. He no longer took on any clients (Tracker James was believed to be dead due to his last client spreading tales of how he'd shattered over the previous months) and any time he went above the third floor he had company in the form of Agil or Kirito but Harry didn't mind in the least. He felt (in some ways) that he had more freedom now than he had had as Tracker James.
Of course, being a child within the game had its drawbacks too.
The ALF, or the Army as they were now called by most Players due to how large the Guild had grown, gave him considerable grief every time he tried to leave Hajimari no Machi or one of the other villages where they had members stationed. He'd had to get extremely creative in his methods of leaving the village as the older Players in the Army went out of their way to keep him and the other children (most of whom were between three and four years older than Harry) inside of the village. Harry understood their reasons for doing so but that didn't make the restrictions they tried to impose on him any more tolerable in his mind.
They even attempted to prevent him from using the Teleport Gates to travel between floors to make deliveries; those that tried were humiliated with creative pranks.
April first of the year twenty-twenty marked the end of Harry's lessons with Kirito, though the two of them still kept in contact. On the eighth, Harry learned that Kirito joined the Black Cats of the Full Moon Guild and he wished the teen good luck in his efforts to help the relatively low leveled Guild Members to grow stronger. Harry, in the mean time, worked towards gaining level forty (which he feared would trigger another torturous glitch because of the significance of the level). He also worked on mastering his last five Skills (which included One Handed Sword, Parry, Light Shield Equipment, Hiding, and Acrobatics – with the first three barely in the four hundreds as the first two were the ones Kirito had chosen to teach him and the third was one Agil had asked him to pick up; so that he could wear higher quality armor to better protect himself).
At the start of the third week of April, Harry took his first solo trip up to the front line since the glitch in order to truly test his Skills so he knew whether or not he could rely upon himself in a sticky situation. Agil had wanted to go with him but Harry had been determined to go alone because he felt he was relying too much on the older man to bail him out if things took a turn for the worse. He did, on the other hand, promise to message Agil if he got into any trouble that he couldn't handle.
Harry returned to the apartment he still shared with Agil in the dead of night five days later seriously injured, physically and magically exhausted, and his HP bar down to a sliver once more (Harry still unaware of his magic) but in no way beaten. As Agil treated and bandaged the twin gashes on his face, Harry regaled the older man with a blow by blow account of his recent adventure with a level of excitement and wonder that he'd not exhibited since he'd been caught in the glitch at level thirty.
"It was amazing, Agil…"
Several days earlier…
Tuesday, April 21, 2020 8:15 AM
Harry stepped into the colossal forest and stared up at the trees with wide eyes. He felt a thread of fear snake its way through his heart as the solitude pressed down on him for a moment (making him feel completely insignificant) but he quickly beat it down as he took the time to appreciate the beauty of the forest Dungeon. After a few minutes, he began moving deeper into the forest, taking care to keep an eye (and an ear) out for any Monsters that were lurking near by.
He'd only been in the forest for two hours when he ran into the scariest Monster he'd faced yet; a Killer Mantis. The giant green monstrosity was easily four times Harry's height and had wicked looking scythes instead of the usual spine like appendages on the ends of its front legs. The thing managed to slice through three of Harry's snare traps when he tried to trap it at the start of the fight and Harry cursed his luck. Knowing he couldn't go toe to toe with the creature (seeing as how he was practically snack size when compared to the Monster), Harry led it on a wild goose chase through the forest as he desperately tried to put enough distance between them so he could set up a pit trap.
Harry spent three hours playing cat and mouse with the giant insect and once the initial fear wore off, he thoroughly enjoyed the challenge that the Mantis provided him. At the end of that three hour chase, Harry managed to tangle the Monster up in a series of snare traps just long enough for him to set up a spiked pit trap. Getting the Killer Mantis to walk right into the trap had been easy too. The problem had been that he hadn't made the pit deep enough and while it did considerable damage to the creature, it didn't kill it but it was at least no longer able to chase after him.
Avoiding the swinging scythes, Harry made his way to the back of the creature and scrambled up onto its back in order to reach its head. He then dealt the death blow to the back of the Monster's head; causing the Killer Mantis to crumple forward, spilling Harry back onto the ground. The moment he was no longer touching the dead Monster, it shattered into millions of pieces and Harry let out a whoop of satisfaction at the success. In all of the excitement over beating what had been a difficult opponent, Harry never even noticed that he'd reached level forty without experiencing another glitch.
Over the next two days, Harry would defeat four more of the giant insectoid Monsters; each defeat taking less time than the previous one and each trap better tailored to the huge Monsters until he'd managed to trap and kill number five without the need to use his dirk to deliver the killing blow.
He'd reached the center of the forest shortly after that final kill and found himself on the edge of a grassy clearing filled with giant moss covered boulders that were nearly as tall as the surrounding trees. On the opposite side of where he'd entered, two of the largest boulders were leaning against each other to form what looked like a huge cavern. Harry hovered on the edge of the clearing for hours after he first stumbled upon it; the nine year old feeling on edge because the clearing just screamed Boss Monster.
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