Chương 108: Chapter 107: Lending a Hand

The shack sat exactly where Igor had described it. It was a small timber building, patched together with mismatched planks wherever needed. It could have passed for a woodcutter's shelter or a hermit's retreat. As I was told, it had only one entrance and a tiny window next to it. There was no smoke coming from the crooked chimney. For all intents and purposes, it had nothing remarkable about it, and it looked abandoned, which was probably the point.

I circled wide through the treeline, keeping a hundred meters between myself and the building, until I found the person I was looking for. Tatiana was sitting on a fallen trunk behind a cluster of rocks and bushes, devouring a piece of dried meat with surprising intensity; she was either very hungry or frustrated with her meal.

She was younger than I'd expected; I thought she was about Igor's age when I first heard her name, but she couldn't have been more than twenty-five, with short brown hair tucked beneath a merchant's hat. Her clothes melted into the background thanks to the clever use of browns and greens. If you looked at her from a distance, say, from the shack, she was practically invisible.

"Orion," she said with a weird accent, without looking up.

"Igor has notified me of you." I just left the inn. I started to suspect that this "Flock" thing wasn't just a bunch of volunteers selling information for money.

"Did anything happen?"

"No. But graich, he is inside. I saw fire burning in window. Nobody come, nobody go. The house smokes sometimes," she pointed at the chimney. This was the first time I felt like I was talking to a foreigner, and it made me think about language barriers around the world. All Kingdoms should speak English, right? But her accent and errors suggest there are other languages as well. I let it go and started studying the shack from our position. The window and the entrance faced the city.

If someone wanted to leave unnoticed or enter, we'd have the perfect view.

"I want to come back tonight," I said.

"After sunset. If he's active at night, I'd rather see it for myself." Tatiana nodded and started writing something in her notebook.

"Come back. I will sit here."

"Thank you, Tatiana."

"Don't say thank you. I get paid. Do you?"

"Fair enough."

"Sunset is at eight." She turned back towards her notebook. I left the grove the same way I'd come, making sure I was nowhere near the shack's sightlines. I had quite a lot of time until dark, as well as a couple of quests that I could tackle in the meantime. With that thought, I made my way toward the gorillas' site. Tranquil Valley opened up about twenty minutes east of the city, past idyllic farmlands and various homesteads of the farmers working them.

The road narrowed into a dirt path that cut through the woodlands around them. Soon enough, the trees thinned, and the valley revealed itself: the name did it justice. Tranquil Valley was like a Mecca of peace. The hills around it looked straight out of Lord of the Rings, and a beautiful waterfall completed the picture, ending in a lazy river that split the valley right down the center. There were Ironwood trees all around us, as well as various flowers I had not seen in the game yet.

However, the animal population was monotonous, to say the least: the Stoneback Gorillas had probably driven away all competitors. Uprooted trees lay scattered across the basin like their discarded toys and boulders were rearranged into rough barriers, which made me think these Gorillas were at least as intelligent as their real-world counterparts, maybe even more. I chose the first group of my prey from the ridge: four gorillas clustered around a stream, drinking.

They were massive, easily two meters tall even while hunched, with stone-grey hide that looked more like armor plating than skin. Stoneback Gorilla Level 25 On par with me, more or less. None of them, individually, was a serious threat. But these gorillas were pack creatures, and if I pulled one, the rest would surely follow. And four at once with that kind of bulk was opening up a whole bunch of other problems. I summoned Lune, and she looked up at me, ears forward.

"Hey, girl," I said gently.

"These Gorillas are destroying the valley's ecosystem. I hope you don't mind if we… solve this problem?" I was still wary of hurting animals in the game, even though I knew it wouldn't ever be avoidable. To my relief, she blinked twice, and I understood the sentiment.

"Alright," I said.

"Do you think you could provoke them one by one? I don't think all of them would start chasing a single—" She darted down the slope before I'd finished the sentence. The first pull went cleanly. Lune sprinted past the group, biting at the ankles of the nearest gorilla, and peeled it away from the pack. She was definitely not afraid, but I kept my Pet Restoration Potions at the ready. The Stoneback roared and began chasing her, while the others made sounds uncannily like laughter.

He couldn't see Piercing Shot coming. -348! The arrow punched through the gorilla's shoulder, and it stumbled, losing a chunk of health. I followed with two quick, basic shots, then Quick-Stepped sideways as it closed the distance and swung a fist at where I had been a moment ago, the impact flattening the ground. They hit hard. Good to know. I kited it for a while, peppering it with arrows, dodging the wide swings that came at me.

It took about forty seconds to bring it down: the gorilla collapsed with a final groan. Hunt Stoneback Gorillas 1/50 I got 800 experience in forty seconds. A decent spot to grind at. Fifty of them would take a while, but I had the whole afternoon, so I settled into a rhythm.

It was kind of nice to return to mindless grinding after last week's insane events; I barely had to think about my moves while progressing with the quest, and even Lune had figured out the exact distance she could bait from, without pulling the entire group. She really is clever. I'd mapped the patrol patterns across the valley floor and identified three spots where I could reliably isolate singles or pairs. The pairs were a bit more of a challenge, but it wasn't too tricky to take them down.

Sometimes I switched to the Threadweaver because using Silk Shot to flank confused them, giving me enough time to deal with one before engaging. The gorillas didn't drop much, just a few silver coins here and there, but I was gaining hides with good efficiency, and I could either sell them or use them for better armor later. By the time I killed thirty of them, I spotted a group of players entering the valley. There were four of them, a standard party composition of two melee, one ranged, and one healer.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it If they are Gold rank and able to hunt level 25 mobs, they must be at least level 20-21. They noticed me a bit later, but from the looks of it, decided not to mingle too much. The Guardian nodded, and I returned the gesture before going back to grinding. My fingers were moving on instinct, feeling the beasts one after the other.

It took me about two hours to finish the quest; the last Gorilla actually gave me some trouble by picking up a boulder the size of a wardrobe and hurling it at me from a good twenty meters. I dodged it, but the element of surprise made it so I needed a whole two minutes to finish off the mob. Hunt Stoneback Gorillas 50/50 I was 40, 000 experience points closer to level 25.

It was a good number for two hours of easy work, not to mention I'd also accumulated thirty-seven gorilla hides and a handful of other common crafting materials. But I still needed more than 700, 000 experience to reach the next level. It was more of a marathon than a sprint.

I went back to the Association Hall, turned in the quest, and to my surprise, netted another 30, 000 experience, a whole gold coin, and 3 Adventurer's XP for it. Gold quests sure give way more rewards than previous ones. It was understandable; the experience needed was also exponentially higher at this stage. Still, the fact was that Copper and Iron rank quests had only given a couple thousand EXP at most. The difference was staggering. Seventy thousand experience in two hours.

With 8 hours of grinding, I could gain about 160, 000 experience in Tranquil Valley, and if I could complete 3 Gold rank quests every day, that would mean I'd hit level 25 the day after tomorrow. I knew I had other things to take care of as well, but considering how much of a grind it was, I wasn't feeling too bad about the time frame. Speaking of quests. The bridge repair was still in my log. Twenty Ironwood Planks and ten Palestone Slabs.

I'd seen the Ironwood trees in Tranquil Valley; their dark trunks were impossible to miss. However, when I'd examined one on the way back, the system had politely informed me that my Woodcutting was too low. And it was no secret that my Mining was at zero. Both were non-starters. But the Auction House was right there. I walked across the bridge to the trading district and opened the materials section. Ironwood Planks were listed at 10 silver each, and Palestone Slabs at 30 silver.

I did the math: 200 silver for the wood, 300 for the stone. Five gold total. I bought them all. Ten minutes later, I was at the bridge site, where a stocky man named Foreman Drest was overseeing a crew of workers who'd been trying to fix the structure. I handed him the planks and slabs, and his face lit up like I'd given him a birthday present.

"These will do nicely," he said, already directing his workers to start fitting the Ironwood into the damaged sections.

"You have the Association's thanks, adventurer, and mine." Quest complete: Bridge Restoration Quest reward: 30, 000 EXP, 1 Gold Coin, 3 Adventurer's XP I was slowly getting there.

The Greenveil Woods lay north of the city, below Serendine Lake, about a ten-minute walk past the last of the outer farms. The road was pleasant, winding through the countryside that looked like one straight out of a painting. Green hills were dotted with wildflowers, and I saw a stream that followed the road for a while before branching off toward the river, next to the farmhouses with smoke curling from their chimneys. Serendine was beautiful. There was no other word for it.

While Tidemark had been picturesque in a rugged, coastal way, and Carpa had the feeling of home surrounding it, Serendine was gentle and welcoming. The land here didn't fight you like the roads between Carpa and Riverhear. It wasn't like the coasts or the Dustfields or Shadowreach in the embrace of Shademere Forest. The light here was softer, the wind was warmer, and the colors were richer.

Even the gorillas I had fought in Tranquil Valley had felt like part of the landscape rather than threats lurking in hostile territory, even if they were aggressive and easily angered. The whole area reminded me of the Brook Trail right next to Riverhear, in a way, mixed with the Scottish Highlands. Not the terrain, but the sense of calm. Like I was in a place where time moved more slowly, and nothing was in a hurry. I climbed a ridge that the road led to before descending toward the Greenveil tree line.

From the top, I could see for kilometers in every direction: there was the city of Serendine behind me, Greenveil Forest and Lake Serendine to the north, endless farmlands from the city walls towards the rivers both to the east and the west, the Tranquil Valley further east, and the ocean to the south. I stopped for a moment to drink it in, and that's when I heard the fighting. It came from below, in a shallow valley between two hills, partially hidden by a copse of oak trees.

The unmistakable sound of skills, steel-on-steel combat, and the occasional tactical orders. I moved to the edge of the ridge and looked down. I counted seven players, all of them focused on a single target. The target was not a monster. It was a woman in heavy armor, moving with a speed that had no business belonging to someone wearing that much steel. She carried a longsword that crackled faintly with blue energy, and she was fighting all seven of them at once.

Three bodies were already dissolving on the grass nearby, their loot scattered in the dirt. She'd killed three of them before I'd even arrived. I watched for a few seconds, reading the fight. The seven remaining attackers were coordinated but moved as if they were uncertain about getting closer. Two melee fighters — a Berserker and a Guardian — kept trying to pin her down while an Arcanist and a Cleric hung back.

Two Rangers peppered her from range, and a Rogue was circling for a backstab, staying just outside her awareness. The woman wasn't having it. She moved between the melee fighters like water through a fishing net, her sword moving in arcs that forced the Berserker to block rather than attack. Every time the Guardian tried to Shield Rush her, she sidestepped with a burst of speed that left afterimages; a movement skill I had never seen before.

The arrows from the Rangers were a nuisance at best; her heavy armor absorbed them without visible damage, which shouldn't have been possible unless she had an absurd defense value for her level. She was good. Very good. But seven on one was seven on one. Ten, if I count the ones already dead. The Rogue had finally found a good angle. He was creeping up from behind a rock, daggers drawn, waiting for the woman to commit to an exchange with the Berserker.

It was a patient play, and in about five seconds, it was going to work. I didn't think about it for long. I knelt on the ridge, drew the Emberwood, and entered Dead Calm, and I felt the similar sensation of the world around me going absolutely still. He was crouched behind the rock, his body barely visible, only his upper back and head exposed. A narrow target, partially obstructed, at around 300 meters, shooting downhill. I read the wind. A gentle breeze from the east, maybe two or three knots if I had to guess.

Barely enough to push the arrow a hand's width at this distance. I adjusted. The Rogue shifted his weight, preparing to jump on the swordswoman. I had maybe three seconds. I drew the string past my ear, past the anchor point, feeling the Emberwood's limbs bend to their limit. The amber glow along the bow's body intensified. I fired. A streak of amber light crossed the valley in a heartbeat, descending from the ridge like a falling star. The Rogue never saw it.

It struck him between the shoulder blades with the full force of Dead Calm behind it. Four hundred percent of my attack power, ignoring all resistances. Even though physical defense didn't count as a type of resistance, the shot was more than enough. I had over 300 attack power, and the Rogue's defense couldn't have been more than 120 on a good day. -719! That was more damage than Lothras's HP pool. One moment, he was there. Next, he was light and scattered loot on the grass. The battlefield stopped in time.

The gankers didn't move for a full second. The remaining six attackers stared at the spot where their Rogue had been, trying to process what had just happened. The Swordswoman didn't freeze. She moved the instant their attention broke, closing the distance to the Arcanist and turning her into motes of light. Her sword took the Cleric across the chest in a single devastating cut next, and before he could react, she pivoted into a second strike that caught him mid-cast.

The Berserker, the Guardian, and the two Rangers broke. They ran, scattering in different directions, sprinting for the tree line, not understanding what had happened. The Swordswoman let them go. She stood in the valley, breathing hard, her sword still crackling faintly. Then she turned and looked up toward the ridge. Her eyes scanned the treeline, searching for the source of the attack, but I was already gone. Dead Calm went on a six-hour cooldown, and right now, I didn't want to draw more attention than needed.

Alice stood alone on the trampled grass and stared at the ridge for a long time. The Crimson Court players were gone. Six dead, four fled. She'd been constantly fighting an uphill battle, but ten on one had been pushing it, even for her. If the fight had dragged on for another thirty seconds, things would have gotten complicated. But someone had made sure they didn't. She replayed the moment in her mind. The Rogue had been in cover, crouched behind a rock, invisible to anyone at ground level.

She sensed him, but had no way to deal with the threat while keeping the other players at bay. She was almost certain it was an arrow. The shot must have come from the ridge, even though it was almost 300 meters away. A single arrow, impossibly fast, impossibly powerful. She'd looked up immediately, scanning the ridge for the shooter, but she saw nothing. Whoever it was had already moved. Alice collected the scattered loot from the bodies without much interest.

A few silver coins, an uncommon ring, a pair of daggers the Rogue wouldn't be needing anymore. She opened her message interface and composed a quick note. Alice: Something interesting happened. Got jumped by ten Court members on the eastern ridge. Killed six, four ran. But someone helped. Phantom's reply came within seconds. Phantom: Helped how? Alice: Long-range shot from the ridge. Three hundred meters, at least. One-shot kill on a Rogue in cover. I didn't see the shooter. They were gone before I could look.

A pause. Phantom: There's only one player I've seen so far who is capable of doing that. Alice: I thought the same thing. And that means there might be a potential ally in Serendine. A very interesting one. Phantom: Find him. Alice: I intend to. She closed the interface and looked at the ridge one more time.