Chương 10

Skill levels gained: 1. Full report at your nearest Haven. Everybody was breathing heavily. Yesterday, when I had heard the group of people talking about running, I had taken it for a figure of speech. Nobody levels up running. The first thing I did in the morning, once I was up at the crack of dawn and the gnolls had gone, was run. Ten minutes at a slow jog. Then the kick — more power in the legs, less drag in the stride. It felt easier. And there it was. My first level in Running.

I told our group, and they all agreed that we needed that skill to work until we found a better way of transportation. So we all ran. Marcus had it the hardest because of his heavy shield. Lucas, instead, had some Dexterity bonuses on himself, and those made him more limber, faster. I had them jog until we reached a group of three hyenas, which made my eyebrows go up.

"It's three now," I said out loud.

"Bluemont must have forgotten to tell us about this," Marcus replied. Tina looked at me and asked, "So, what is it that we're doing? The French Brigade?" I looked at Marcus and told him, "Marcus, try pulling two hyenas now. Remember — you're the Tank." I had crafted a dozen more throwing spears before leaving the crafting haven, and I was keeping the alpha-fang one for myself.

With most of the hyena pelts I had gotten, I had made a set of leather armor for Marcus, who had agreed to set the heavy armor aside for now. It would hinder his mobility way too much. It would be too slow. He was clearly getting stronger, he had told us, because of the incredible physical exertion he had put himself through yesterday. But today would be even more dangerous than yesterday. And we needed speed above everything.

"Tank, engage two!" I shouted, attracting the attention of the Wild Hyenas.

"Damage, hold!" I looked at the three Wild Hyenas running down at us.

"Assassin, one, separate!" I called out my own move and then proceeded to circle around Marcus, staring down one of the Wild Hyenas, who lunged at me.

"Engaged!" Marcus shouted as we had agreed he would after he Shield Bashed the two monsters.

"Stunned!"

"Mages Focus Fire!" I said, while I skewered the Wild Hyena through the neck and killed it in seconds. Tina and Hailey, who had also gotten the Mana Bolt spell the first day, launched one projectile each and killed the monsters in one go. We were all still high on adrenaline as we saw the two creatures collapse to the ground, destroyed. Tina's bolt had utterly demolished the Hyena, but Hailey, having leveled up her Intelligence and Willpower, also delivered great damage.

Still, not comparable to the short woman with the comical wizard hat on her head.

"Wow, that was super efficient," Marcus said, hoisting his shield onto his back. His own skill consumed a little of health, but apparently he could easily regenerate that much in less than five minutes. Even if he used Shield Bash twice, he could use the skill virtually indefinitely by now.

"Yeah, that was great," Hailey said.

"I am happy I could fight as well, guys." I smiled at Hailey, who had said before that she had not felt as useful as she wanted to be.

"You did a great job."

"Yeah, Hailey." Tina, the much shorter woman, went up to the blonde and said, "You're great. This is great." Lucas looked a little grumpy when I turned to him and said, "So, Lucas, you're faster than all of us. It makes no sense for us not to send you scouting forward. We will rest a little so that everyone can recuperate, and then you can go off on your own. Try and dodge the hyenas, and let me know if you see any tracks on the ground. Dexterity maybe made it easier for you to notice stuff, too."

I had noticed Lucas, through my Sphere of Intuition, looking around more, and I felt like he was sharper somehow.

"Yeah," he said.

"Bluemont said that Dexterity makes your perception better." I nodded.

"Do you feel up to it, then?"

"Of course." Lucas just turned and went, shouting, "Wait here." He took off running, much faster than any of us would have been able to. Plus, thanks to his camo cloak, he effectively went invisible as soon as he left us. Soon after — possibly not even fifteen minutes after — Lucas came back, slightly panting, and said, "I have found the tracks." We followed Lucas to an Alpha Wild Hyena and I looked at my wristwatch. 7: 30AM It was very early, still. Night came down at around 8PM.

That gave us a little more than twelve hours to take care of as many Alphas as we could. This one had four Wild Hyenas with it. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Twelve hours mean I get to use Judgment of Raziel once every fifty minutes, give or take. So, let's say that if we run like we're possessed, we might be able to net twelve Alphas. That's… six Skill Books?

"Ok, for this one, I kill it. Tina, you can cast up to three Mana Bolts. Hailey, one bolt. Lucas, one bolt. Just take out the monsters." I took out one of my throwing spears and shouted at the Alpha. The monster looked up from the carcass of some other animal it was eating and made its weird sound. [Alpha Wild Hyena - Level 7] They attacked us, but by the time they got to us, there was only one Wild Hyena standing, which Marcus promptly tackled.

And before the Alpha could get close, I put all my strength behind a throw and chucked the spear at the Alpha the moment I activated Judgment of Raziel. The thing detonated on impact. I turned to Marcus and speared the Wild Hyena that was bothering him despite feeling dizzy from the Mana cost. I did not waste any time, immediately going up to the corpse and checking its Inventory.

"Holy shit," I shouted.

"Marcus, take!" I threw a booklet at Marcus that I had just taken out of the Alpha's inventory. Marcus looked at it, read its title and said, "Taunt? For me? Is that good?"

"Shit, that's perfect," Lucas commented. Taunt was a very common gaming Skill that allowed you to attract the attention of one or more monsters to you. It was the life and blood of any Tank.

"Lucas—""I know." He was already up.

"Rest up. I'll go find another." And so, we settled into a rhythm for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. We had taken some food from the inn made by Mateus and used the downtime to rest, with Lucas never really stopping to run around and scout more Alphas. We killed three more Wild Hyenas and, around 11: 30AM, we found an Alpha Wild Boar. The tactic stayed pretty much the same. They were slightly more resistant than the Hyenas, but not by that much.

And the Alpha still exploded all the same after one Judgment of Raziel's empowered spear. We tried dodging as many monsters as possible, only fighting the Alphas, but when we had to, we resorted to our French Brigade, calling out shots, learning our roles, ingraining them into our coordination as much as we could. By 4PM, we had killed seven Alphas. And we had also found five Skill Books thanks to our luck.

After Marcus had gotten Taunt, Hailey had gotten an 'Attack +' which consumed 3 MP and increased one's physical prowess. Tina had gotten 'Empower,' which allowed her to overclock one spell like Mana Bolt by spending more Mana on it and delivering more damage. Lucas had gotten 'Quickshot,' which would allow him to draw his bow point-blank and release much faster. He had also gotten 'Farsight.' At that point, I realized that the AI wasn't exactly giving us randomized items. They all fit one of us, one way or another.

I was happy that everybody had gotten something. Thanks to my Armor of Raziel and the SSS-Ranked Skill Scroll, I was already doing well enough not to feel any envy toward my teammates. In fact, I found that them getting some good Skills was going to dramatically increase our chances at survival. None of them had used them yet since they needed to be in the Haven to do so, though. It was all still very amateurish, but when I opened my Synergy Tab, this is what I saw.

TEAM SYNERGY REPORT John O'Donnell — 11 → 17 Lucas Dawkins — 23 → 29 Tina Martinelli — 32 → 38 Marcus Jackson — 34 → 40 Hailey Marie — 5 → 11 There were small changes to the Team Synergy Report. I suspected the numbers would go further up as we learned more skills. But right now, the fact that there was a small increment made me happy. I don't think that the brigade — what we had started calling the Hyena Brigade — by itself made that much of a difference. As in, calling the shots didn't exactly change the synergy.

But shifting our approach to fighting, saving up the mana, not spending energy uselessly, sending Lucas ahead to scout — it was all making a big difference. Furthermore, there was one aspect that we couldn't really quantify on a tab. We all felt more confident. Something about the Hyena Brigade allowed us to fight less, to be more organized. My coworkers probably had some problems of their own, but not more than I did when we first entered the tutorial.

And we weren't perfect, but it showed that these people were not actually stupid when their life was on the line. Honestly, I started feeling grateful that I was with them. I imagined that if I had been with my brother, or perhaps my father, in this, I might have just gone my own way. Next, we stumbled upon some zebra-like creatures called Horned Zebras. They were a couple of levels higher than the hyenas, and a little harder for Marcus to deal with.

But by now our teamwork was so well-oiled that we killed them ruthlessly and made our way to their alpha. I exploded that thing, and then we killed two more. By then, even though we were still at full HP and MP, we were wiped. We needed rest. Inadvertently, we had circled back closer to the original haven we had visited. And so, around 7 p. m. — one hour before it got fully dark — we made our way toward the haven where we had first met Bluemont.

It was the closest haven, and possibly the only one we would be able to reach before dark.

"Guys," Tina said, "great job. I can't wait to learn the Empower skill. I'm really curious to see how strong my Mana Bolt will be."

"I'm sure it will be pretty strong. But I don't think the conversion is going to be one-to-one. I mean, I'm actually not sure, but usually it's like — if you spend two more points of mana, you might get one more point worth of output."

"That's still good," Tina said, shrugging.

"I would like to try it on an alpha tomorrow. I'd like to see if I can kill one with that skill." I nodded.

"As long as we get out as early as we did today, I don't think it's going to be a problem." Tina beamed at that, and we all made our merry way toward the haven, following the giant arrow in the sky. I hoped the diver-killer group had moved on. We had a plan either way. If they were there, we would rush the haven. Once we had the skills, we would fight our way back out, with Lucas quick-shotting as many of their ranged fighters as he could. I doubted they had killed more than a couple of alphas that day.

The only reason we had had an easy time of it was Judgment of Raziel. It was an utterly unfair skill to own. And I told the others that if it came to it — if they blocked our way — I would make a diversion with it, and we would run. What I did not expect, however, was that they would be waiting outside the haven, standing still like statues. It was Lucas who warned us.

"Guys, they're ahead." We squinted toward the distant wooden palisade and saw twelve figures in the dying sunlight.

"Do we turn?" Tina asked.

"No. The other haven is too far, and I really don't feel confident in taking on those gnolls. So we should probably try and scare them. Lucas, keep the bow ready," I told him. But Lucas was squinting himself now, frowning.

"There's something wrong with them." I took out three throwing spears and one potion of clarity, holding four spears in total with the alpha spear I had crafted, ready to use them as nukes.

"Hey!" I shouted. But as we got closer, they just kept not moving. I frowned as our group slowed its walk to a crawl. None of the twelve people in front of us... Wait. I counted again, and there were only nine.

"Guys, three people are not with them. This might be an ambush. Lucas, do you have eyes on anything?"

"It's all clear. I thought the same. They are twitching. Are they sick?" That's when a wind blew past them, and a stench of rot and death reached us. I heard a System notification. You are afraid