Chương 26

There was no one around that could help us figure out how to fight, the most 'experienced' among us was a woman who had taken karate lessons for a year when she was younger; basically, useless here. The fight with the kobold elite was mainly won through stealth and luck, and it wouldn't be repeatable against an entire army of goblins. We needed to learn how to fight properly. Thus, we had moved a bit into the forest in an area that allowed a bit of movement, and had paired up to fight against each other.

The rules were simple, no skills allowed, no lethal blows, and we each would cycle fighting against each other. For everything else, Marcus was present. I reiterated to everyone that they needed to focus on learning how to fight with every fiber of their being. The plan being for each of us to try and get some form of skill from the system that allowed us to become better at combat.

We were each using our class weapons, even Madelline and Omar were using staves, while Marcus was using a club and Mason an axe which he used for swinging against trees. My first opponent was Sara. She was using a large, two-handed longsword, which looked incredible in front of my small dagger. Her blade was about 2. 5 feet long, against my eight-inch dagger blade. Even though Assassins weren't known for frontal battles, I still needed to learn how to navigate a fight against different opponents.

We started moving towards each other, slowly, each step building the underlying tension. I knew I was at a reach disadvantage, and I also knew I had to get within the sword's reach, the how was the question I currently had no answer to. When we were about 3. 5 feet away from one another, she suddenly lunged, moving surprisingly… slowly. Huh…? No, it wasn't Sara who was moving slowly, it was just that she looked quite slow to me.

I had ample time to dodge her strike, move past her outstretched arms, and had my dagger pressed against her neck before she had a chance to even think about a counter. We were both surprised. Sara, understandably, was much more surprised than me.

"What the fuck was that?!" she exclaimed, eyes wide as she moved away from me.

"We said no skills!" I lowered my dagger and replied "I think it's the difference between our stats." I looked up and noticed everyone else was also staring at me, slack-jawed, their own spars forgotten.

"Dude, you actually blurred! I've never seen anything like that" blurted out Lucas.

"How high is your agility, again?" he asked. I knew what was going to happen next, and frankly, I couldn't quite blame them.

"21" I answered his question. Everyone looked at me with varying stages of disbelief, before Sara said what they were all thinking, "Right… so you're no longer a part of this." Everyone murmured their agreements, and my protests of it being a good opportunity to learn how to handle quick enemies fell on deaf ears.

"We are just starting to learn how to fight, we'll call you when we are in the advanced stages and then, sure, it'll be useful learning how to handle quick enemies" Lucas explained, while the group collectively shooed me away. Alone again… I sighed. This time, I really did try being in a group…

I was back in the forest, having slipped past the goblin scouts by once again going under Conceal Presence inside the longhouse and then simply walking past them. This time, I had decided to head towards the river. It was the one major landmark close to us and I hadn't seen it yet. Moreover, the group hadn't been able to find a way to cross it, and maybe I might be able to find something if I headed in the opposite direction to which they went in. I'll try and get to level 10 too, might be a new milestone.

The river was quite close, barely a few minutes past the tree line. I heard it before it came in sight, a low but constant murmur that got louder with every step. The air grew heavier, but also cooler at the same time while the smell of damp earth had a calming effect on me. Up ahead, I could see the bright sunlight shining through as trees thinned out rapidly. I finally laid eyes on the river, and it looked absolutely serene. This story has been stolen from Royal Road.

If you read it on Amazon, please report it It flowed in a calm manner, the water just brushing past the edge, barely disturbing it. The sunlight reflected off the water in pinpricks, and the birdsong echoed through beautifully. No wonder it's so popular. Even now, I could see a few people lounging by the shore, speaking with each other. A few men and women were fishing at different spots. I spent a few minutes to take the sights, sounds, and smells in, the river just having an undeniable soothing effect.

Once I was sufficiently relaxed, I focused on the matter at hand. The river looked to be about as wide as a four-lane road. The flow wasn't too concerning, but the depth was. Even though the water was clear, the riverbed was shrouded in darkness and it wasn't possible to see how deep it was. There was no way anyone was risking swimming across it with no knowledge of what lurked beneath.

I craned my neck and used every ounce of perception I had to see in both directions, but the river seemed to twist and turn endlessly through the forest, unnaturally uniform in width no matter how far I saw. I started moving upstream. The group had previously gone downstream and had gotten quite far with no luck in crossing it, but had stumbled upon the group of cattle-like creatures they had mentioned earlier. How to domesticate them, and if they were even able to be domesticated, were still under discussion.

No one had even attacked one yet, as the creatures were mentioned to be larger than African buffaloes, and the fear of getting trampled was too big to ignore. I moved past a few people fishing, nodding to them as I passed, and continued moving upstream. I moved a bit towards the tree line, as the river's calming effect made me lull into a dangerous state of being unaware of my surroundings. Soon, I had left any signs of people behind, and I started moving a bit more cautiously.

Dagger in hand, I kept my head on a swivel, constantly checking my surroundings. I knew about the panther-like felines, who evidently liked to ambush, but I was certain that wasn't the only thing lurking in the shadows here. The only thing I was absolutely sure about, was that I was still blissfully ignorant of a majority of creatures here in this tutorial. My increased perception came in handy yet again, alerting me to a light rustle to the right of me.

I immediately tried to go under Concealed Presence, but the skill failed, giving me all the information I needed. I was being watched. I immediately turned to look at my right and scanned the surroundings in as much detail as I could. However, apart from the scattered trees, a few bushes, and random vegetation, I couldn't see anything else. I scanned the tree canopy as well, but there was nothing there either. I tried activating the skill again, but it failed, so there was definitely something watching me.

Is it something I can't see? Do I need to put more points in perception? I didn't want to commit to putting more stats in perception though. I wanted to go past the threshold in intelligence and wisdom, so that I could stay hidden for longer and have a shorter time to regenerate mana. But being alive and having a suboptimal stat distribution is obviously better than being dead and having unassigned stats in hand.

Before I committed though, I scanned my surroundings again, focusing on each and every thing that I could see. I noticed something. I had seen a lot of forest over the past two days, much more than I had wanted to, actually. Some patterns remained constant. Bushes tended to grow where they could get sunlight, so they tended to be a bit further away from tree trunks generally so as not to have their sunlight blocked by the canopy.

In areas where the canopy breaks and there is a 'pillar' of light, I had almost always noticed dense underbrush. The trees were sparser here, so there were more areas where sunlight was reaching the ground, yet the pattern remained. However, right now, I could see one bush that was right next to a trunk of a tree, and this tree was thick and had large, dense leaves, so it almost definitely stopped sunlight from reaching right at its base.

Apart from being in the wrong place, the bush also seemed a bit different from any that I had seen so far. Too many small deviations were ticking my brain, so I kept my eye on it while still being vigilant of my surroundings. I still had a few wood pieces from when I had started the kobold fire, so I took one out, lit it on fire with the flint, and hurled it straight at the bush. As soon as the fiery wood touched it, the bush came alive.

It immediately stood up on four stubby legs that had been dug deep into the ground and moved straight at me, and this time, nothing looked slow. I started moving away from it, but it followed at a rapid pace. I started running, thinking about how I could defeat this thing, while it remained hot on my heels. I turned behind a tree, removing myself from its sight, and immediately activated both quick step and concealed presence.

I moved instantly, pulling myself further away, but a sense of wrongness also hit me as concealed presence failed to activate yet again. How am I still visible? Or is it because it can hear me? I turned around and watched as it barreled past the tree and turned towards me, before I suddenly felt something try and wrap around one of my legs. Dexterity showed its merit, my reflexes being instantaneous now, as I jumped back, startled, and watched as another vine snapped at the place my other leg had just been in.

I turned and looked back, as another one of those creatures came to life behind me. The first one just chased me into a trap!