The owner of the party, the man with the blonde hair, was someone named TRIPLE SHOT. The other man in the party was called BIG GUNS.
The little girl with the red hair was called CRIMSON WAVE, and the bigger girl with blonde hair was NIGHT SKY.
Ning had found this out after he had accepted their party request. The panel with their names showed their HP and MP numbers, and while he couldn't let levels, he could guess they were also Level 1, just like him.
Once he partied up, he quickly returned back to the city and found a random tavern where he could sell the grasshopper's legs and eyes to get some bread for himself.
Ning ate 1 of the 2 bread he got and watched his HP and MP regenerate to full. Once it was full, he turned around and went back to the party.
"Let's go hunt," TRIPLE SHOT said.
Ning nodded and walked together with the group before going out to the fields once more.
The next monster he saw was a Corrupted Grasshopper as well. "Are there only grasshoppers in this place?" Ning asked.
"No, there are worms and rabbits, which are easier to deal with than grasshoppers," BIG GUNS said.
"Easier? They don't jump around as much?" Ning asked. That was the only thing he could think was troublesome when dealing with them.
"Yes," TRIPLE SHOT answered. "Worms are the easiest, then rabbits, and then grasshoppers. Let's talk about that later though, let's kill it for now."
TRIPLE SHOT held out a sword, and BIG GUNS took out a dagger. The CRIMSON WAVE girl took out a wand, and the NIGHT SKY girl took out her dagger as well.
"Start with your magic attacks," TRIPLE SHOT said and both Ning and the red-haired girl pointed their wands at the grasshopper.
At the same time, they fired.
Two fireballs flew off, hitting the grasshopper at the same time, dealing 18 damage each.
At the same time, the two people with the dagger moved and cut the grasshopper, dealing 14 and 15 damage respectively. Finally, TRIPLE SHOT moved and swung his sword, dealing 17 damage at once.
All of a sudden, the grasshopper lost over 80 HP in a single round of fights.
"2 more rounds and we should be done," TRIPLE SHOT said.
The grasshopper targeted the one that dealt it the most damage. As there were no taunt skills for anyone to use yet, the normal taunt system worked where it went by most damage dealt.
The one that dealt it the most damage was CRIMSON WAVE and Ning. So, it chose Ning.
"Dodge!" TRIPE SHOT said the moment he realized the grasshopper was going for Ning.
Ning saw that too and jumped to the side before the grasshopper could even attack. The grasshopper missed by a long shot and flew off way behind Ning, where the 3 with the weapons attacked it once more.
The aggro changed to TRIPLE SHOT now that he had dealt the most damage. At the same time, CRIMSON WAVE, who was the only one that could possibly attack in this situation, jumped forward and hit the grasshopper as best she could.
Unfortunately for her, the grasshopper was faster. It moved immediately, but TRIPLE SHOT dodged it easily.
At such an early level, dodging was quite easy as long as you knew something was going to attack you.
Ning was already up by the time and punched the grasshopper, while the two dagger users cut the grasshopper as well.
The one that dealt the most damage NIGHT SKY, so the grasshopper turned towards her and jumped. NIGHT SKY expected it and was about to dodge when a sword appeared out of nowhere in the path of the grasshopper and hit it on the head.
The grasshopper disappeared into bits of lights and everyone got notifications.
<Your party member has killed a Corrupted Grasshopper.>
<You have gained 4 Experience points.>
<You have gained Corrupted Grasshopper Legs x 1>
Ning waited, but that was it. No more notifications came. To say he wasn't disappointed would be to lie.
"Did you crit?" CRIMSON WAVE asked.
"Yeah, I got lucky," TRIPLE SHOT said as he chuckled a bit. "It was a high roll too. I did 34 Damage there, you know?"
"Oooh! I got an observer stone. Not bad," BIG GUNS said with a big smile.
"What's an observer stone?" Ning asked.
"It lets you check the stats of the beast in front of you," TRIPLE SHOT said.
"Oh... How do you know all of this? You even knew how much HP that beast had or how to regenerate HP. Have you played this game before?" Ning asked.
"Haha, yes. A little," TRIPLE SHOT said. "I started playing this game a little over a month ago when it arrived here at the station and ended up with a character with very low-grade stats. I tried going with it for a while, but I simply couldn't bear with it, so I decided to change it."
"Bad stats?" Ning asked with a confused expression. "You didn't start with 10 to all stats?"
"No, that's not the stats I'm talking about. I'm talking about the hidden stats like Charisma, Leadership, and such. I had a really bad Leadership, but I ended up with a Beast Taming class and I simply couldn't keep going. I had to change."
"Ah, I see," Ning said. "There are more stats hidden, huh? I had no idea. How many Leadership stat did you have at the time?"
"Oh, those stats aren't defined by numbers, but rather letters," TRIPE SHOT said. "It starts from D at the lowest and goes to A and then to S and SSS at the highest. I had C+ in Leadership."
"How do I check mine?" Ning asked.
"There are certain monsters that you can kill and they'll drop Stones of Wisdom that randomly tell you one of your hidden stats. You can also just buy them if you want, but they might end up costing a bit at the early levels," TRIPLE SHOT said. "You will find them as you go along."
