I was panting for breath by the time the wolf came behind me, so it was no surprise that it had managed to get this close. Even with my Sneak skill active, there was no way to hide someone like me from a creature with sharp senses. If anything, I was lucky that only one dire wolf had tracked me down.
The question was… how could I deal with it? Dire wolves at full strength were regarded as a level ten threat. Those outside the city had been starved to the point that they could barely move, and they could still pose a threat to an unprepared NPC. This one before me… if left alone, it would be able to tear through a village, assuming that there were no fallen nearby.
The monster lunged for me, and I brandished my sword on reflex, slicing out with one of the moves that I had just been practicing. I felt my blade bite into one of its legs, before a powerful rebounding force knocked my blade away. The wolf had lightly swung its paw to shake my attack off, the other paw slapping at me from the side.
Facing the monster’s overwhelming strength, I let out a deep grunt. The force of the strike alone had knocked me clean off my feet, landing half a dozen meters away. This is… the force of a level ten…
The main difference between levels was not some insurmountable level of skill. It wasn’t some mystical force that aided certain creatures. It was power, raw power. Higher level creatures had higher stats, it was as simple as that.
I pushed myself to my feet, already feeling a wetness against my side from where the wolf’s claws had glanced my skin in the previous attack. My mind was racing. How could I survive? I couldn’t outrun it, I couldn’t outfight it, Even if I made it back to my weapon, my first attack barely bloodied its arm.
As that thought crossed my mind, I saw a dagger fly through the air and strike into the side of the dire wolf, calling it to howl in pain. Diane? I thought briefly, not sure who would come to save me at a time like this. Diane was the only player that I knew, and she certainly acted like she was aiming for the rogue title, which often used daggers.
“You don’t mind if I cut in, do you?” A distinctly masculine voice called out, and I turned my head to see a foxfolk walking over, a knife held in one hand. He had short, brown hair, and brown eyes. As I noticed him, I caught a glimpse of his weapon. It… wasn’t a dagger. It was a knife. Specifically… a kitchen knife? Was he not able to get a proper weapon from the shop?
Though I asked that inwardly, I gave a small grunt, biting back the pain. “You can’t be that high level yet. It’s best to retreat.”
Though I said that, the wolf had now turned its attention fully to the foxfolk. Whenever one entity dealt considerable damage to a monster, they would naturally draw that target’s aggravation, which we refer to as aggro for short. Because it had taken a clean hit from the thrown knife, the dire wolf had all but forgotten about me.
“Sorry, looks like it’s a little late for that.” He said with a chuckle, drawing yet another knife. Why was he dual wielding? Wait, why did he have so many kitchen knives? “Can you still fight?”
His question broke me out of my internal debate, and I forced a nod. My sneak skill had been canceled at the start of the battle, so I couldn’t run away even if I wanted to.
When the wolf ran at the foxfolk, I made my way over to the discarded sword, picking it up and watching. The way the foxfolk moved, he had trained his agility, hadn’t he? Still, it was all he could do to dodge the wide swings of the wolf, or roll under its leap without being able to counterattack.
“Think we’ll get a global announcement for taking out a high level monster?” He asked when he saw that I had grabbed my weapon. We had barely scratched the dire wolf, and he was already counting the spoils?
“What global announcement?” I had never heard of something like that in my lessons, so I was confused. When the foxfolk heard that, he briefly glanced over, giving the wolf a chance to charge into him and smash him against a tree.
“Gah!” The foxfolk cried out, blood spewing from his mouth. Did he puncture a lung with that charge?
Still, his eyes were determined, flipping the knives in his hand and stabbing them at the skull of the dire wolf. There was a loud yelp of pain from the monster as it jumped back, two trails of blood covering its eyes while its head shook to try and shake it off. That strike had done some real damage, but not enough to pierce its skull. “Tough bastard, isn’t it?” The foxfolk asked, gasping for breath as he leaned against the tree.
I took my chance while the dire wolf was distracted, jumping at it from behind. Its bones were too hard for me to pierce, so I landed on its back and used one arm to wrap around its neck, the other flipping my sword into a reverse grip and stabbing at its neck. Blood gushed out, and it began bucking violently to try to get me off.
My arm tightened, and I forced myself to stay on its back, trusting its panicked reaction to give me time to drive my blade in again and again. The foxfolk chuckled, closing his eyes for a moment as the monster began to slump to the ground. “Maybe… maybe I’m not ready to go this deep yet.” He said, and I firmly agreed.
“Let’s get you back to town.” I said in a serious tone, placing one hand on the monster. “Collect.” A bright light shone, and then a system window appeared in front of me as the monster’s body disappeared.
|
Received Dire Wolf Meat(LQ) Received Bone |
Low quality meat, huh? Well, I didn’t have any kind of skinning skill, so I wasn’t surprised. “Huh… so that’s how you loot things.” The foxfolk said as I walked over to him, supporting him to walk out of the forest. “Hey… shouldn’t I have healed when I leveled up?”
“That’s not how that works.” I shook my head. “Injuries can only be recovered with your passive regeneration, or healing magic. You should have some broken ribs and a punctured lung, right?”
The foxfolk grunted, spitting out another mouthful of blood. “Y-Yeah. The timer says three minutes for the ribs, and eight for the lung.”
“You’ll be dead in six.” I said as I looked at the amount of blood he was losing. There had to be more that was pooling in his lungs. “If you want, I can kill you now and let you respawn without the pain.” Although the words sounded threatening, I only sought to allow him to return painlessly.
“W-Wait, don’t. I want to try to see if there’s an achievement for getting to a certain level without dying. Give… give me a minute and help me get closer to town. I’ll call my wife.” As he said that, his eyes lost focus, and I nodded my head, doing my best to guide the both of us. My injuries were lighter, only having fractured bones and torn skin. Most of it had already recovered.
As for my experience… it was stuck at one hundred percent, unable to break through and level up. Unless I died, that was what I was likely to see from now on.
“There you are!” A voice cried out to the two of us as we exited the forest. Looking ahead, there was a blonde foxfolk woman with green eyes running towards us, clutching a basic wooden staff in her hands.
“That her?” I asked, though I was certain I knew the answer already.
“Yup. Sorry to bother you, Nuoda. I know you were–” The man’s words were cut off with a stern look from his wife, who aimed her wooden staff at the two of us.
“Light heal!” She shouted, a pulse of white energy flooding towards us. I had never been on the receiving end of a healing spell before, so this was… interesting. A warmth spread throughout my body, easing the pain in my side.
The foxfolk male, on the other hand, coughed out a mouthful of bad blood once again, scaring Nuoda. “Light heal!” She shouted once more, though the spell didn’t activate. No doubt, it was still cooling down.
“Wait.” I held a hand up, thinking. A punctured organ was a major injury, so a single light heal wouldn’t completely negate it, even at level one. However, given the time he had left, it had likely done a fair bit of good. “Why not try chanting the next one?” I asked, to which the girl blinked.
“Chanting? The spell doesn’t have a chant, so why would I just add it on?” She asked in confusion, looking at me like some sort of crazy person.
I let out a sigh, helping the man to sit down as I explained. “If you apply an incantation to a spell, it can provide a variety of effects. It could increase the power of the spell, reduce its mana burden, or even alter the spell’s area.”
Nuoda’s eyes went wide when she heard that. “What type of chant do I need to increase the power?” She asked urgently, and from how she was glancing to the side, I could guess that the mana burden was almost over.
“I can’t tell you that.” I shrugged my shoulders. The specific types of chants that were effective weren’t taught to NPCs. All we needed to be able to tell players was that chants were useful. “All I know is that it can work.”
“Right… right… if this doesn’t work…” She sent a glare at me, before holding up her staff. A white glow began to surround her staff, and then her arms, flowing down her body to form an arcane circle. Now, she was in ‘channeling’ mode for her magic.
“I offer this prayer to the world’s light. Bless this servant to heal. Grant me the strength to offer salvation.” As she chanted, the circle grew. When she brought her staff down, the circle seemed to fly up, attaching itself to the head of the staff. “Light heal!”
This time, the spell activated, a much thicker blast of white light engulfing her husband. His eyes widened in surprise, glancing off to the side briefly. Nuoda, meanwhile, nearly collapsed, panting for breath. She sent a half-glare at me. “It… it tripled the burden!”
“No, it worked!” The man declared energetically as he jumped to his feet. He wiped the blood from his mouth, smiling. “The injuries disappeared!” Saying that, he ran over to the foxfolk, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. “Sorry for disturbing your training, Nuoda.”
Nuoda’s face softened when she heard that the spell worked, allowing herself to lean against him. “It’s fine… don’t let me catch you like that again. Why did you get that hurt just outside of town?”
The man chuckled. “Well… all of the monsters were taken when I arrived, so I thought I’d go a bit deeper into the forest. Maybe I could even find some good materials to make dinner tonight? My friend here and I fought a stronger wolf variant, and… well, this happened.”
“I’m sorry.” I apologized sincerely to the two of them. “I was training by myself when it attacked. I didn’t think it would migrate that quickly.”
“Migrate?” Nuoda blinked, looking over at me. “Who exactly are you? You don’t look like a caster, so why do you know about incantations already? You’re not a beta player, are you?”
My eyes widened in surprise at the suggestion, quickly shaking my head. Beta players were renowned heroes of legend, and many of their fallen still acted as heroes of larger cities. “N-No… I’m just a failure. Ah, sorry, a fallen. My player deleted his character.” Feeling guilty, I lifted my improvised bandana, showing the burnt brand.
The two widened their eyes in surprise. “Why did you call yourself a failure?” The man asked in a surprisingly stern tone, causing me to lower my eyes as I readjusted the bandana.
“Fallen can’t level up without being bound to a player. Failure is the term for a fallen that is forever stuck at level one.” I explained honestly, before holding my hand out. A large chunk of meat as thick as my forearm appeared, wrapped around a thick bone. “Here, this is the main drop of the wolf. It’s not much, but you said that you were looking for something to cook.”
The man’s eyes widened when he saw the wolf meat. However, it was Nuoda who stepped forward to accept it on his behalf when it looked like he would refuse. “Thank you.” She said in a sincere tone. “And thank you for helping Ennolf. Would you mind adding the two of us as friends? From the sounds of things, you have a lot that you could teach us.”
I blinked in surprise, having been expecting them to leave when I explained what a failure was. Instead, I received my second and third friend invitations.
