14 Unexpected Encounter

Currently, outside of the swampland north of Elderwood Village, an elf can be seen traveling westward. Just like all elves, this one looked quite handsome but if one was to take a closer look at him they would realize that this elf was currently pale as a ghost. Naturally, this elf was Hidden Bow, the only surviving member of the party that Kirou recently decimated.

Hidden Bow couldn't stop himself from constantly looking over his shoulder as the events that took place in the swampland still frightened him. Somehow, joining a random party to do a quest resulted in him meeting such a dangerous person. If someone had told Hidden Bow this before he left Thousand Wood Village earlier that day, he probably would have laughed it off. He couldn't do that now though.

The conversation he had with Kirou kept replaying in his mind. This was especially so whenever he looked back at the items he currently had in his inventory.

``````````````````Flashback```````````````````

Hidden Bow had finally turned around to face the person that has been scaring him since their initial encounter. Upon closer inspection, Hidden Bow noticed that this Lycan was a size smaller than the two that he was recently partnered. Besides that, he also noticed that this smaller Lycan was no longer equipped with a knife as he previously saw when dealing with those crocodiles earlier. Instead, he was now equipped with some tonfa-looking armaments.

Seeing that Kirou had no intention of attacking him, Hidden Bow finally worked up the courage to speak, "What is it you wish to speak about, Senior?" Apparently the frightful skill Kirou displayed before along with the fear he caused in Hidden Bow caused him to respond very formally.

"No need for formalities. I'm just another player in this game, like you." Kirou said this while swapping out his gunblade tonfas for the knife. It wasn't his intent to scare the elf so badly. "You can call me Kirou. As for what I want to talk about, I'm just curious as to why you left long before the fight could start. I just find your decision intriguing."

Noticing Kirou's intentions, Hidden Bow released the bit of tension he still had left in his system before speaking, "So it's Brother Kirou. To answer your question, you could say that it's sort of ability of mine."

"An ability? Like, a character ability in-game or what?" asked Kirou with a raised eyebrow.

"More like a personal ability. You could say I've had this ability for years. I've basically been able to tell when I'm near a dangerous person or near a dangerous situation. It wasn't until later in life that I truly noticed what this ability is," was Hidden Bow's response to Kirou.

To Kirou, this ability sounded intriguing. He was planning to ask Hidden Bow how he acquired it if it was a skill for the game but hearing his words gave Kirou a shock.

'Innate threat detection. People are able to develop such an ability in this world? Looks like this world truly isn't simple.' Kirou's brows started to furrow as he thought about what that insinuated.

Hidden Bow saw Kirou's brow furrow and wondered if he said something wrong. Before he could ask about the matter, however, Kirou spoke up, "Well, since it's like that then it's fine. By the way, what quest were you doing for you to team up with people like that?"

The question caught Hidden Bow off guard and he just answered automatically without thinking, "I'm here to collect a few materials from the poisonous monsters in the swampland. The materials themselves don't matter but I need five poisonous materials from monsters and some poisonous plants. I partied with those guys because they were able to harvest materials at a higher grade but lacked the firepower in killing the monsters quickly." After Hidden Bow finished speaking, he realized what he said and started to nervously scratch the back of his head while looking down.

Kirou nodded his head in understanding. With how this game treats its players, sometimes you would have to work with people you don't like in order to complete quests with a higher rate. Kirou then opened up a trade request and spoke, "Then take these as compensation for me killing off your party then."

Hidden Bow was initially confused when he accepted the trade request. It was only after confirmation that he looked at the materials Kirou had just traded him. He was spooked as he noticed that Kirou had given him over a dozen items. He got the materials he wanted, all at excellent quality and received a few pieces of gear which looked vaguely familiar to him.

By the time Hidden Bow looked up, he already saw that Kirou was nowhere to be found. All he could do was stare blankly into space for a few minutes before he bowed in the direction Kirou was last standing, saying a quiet thanks before turning around and leaving the swampland. In his actions, he never noticed a certain "human" with tribal tattoos on his chest sitting on a tree not far from him.

'I'll make another round within this swampland before return to the village and make my armor.' This was Kirou's thought as he sank into the shadow of the tree.

```````````````````Flashback End`````````````````

After thinking about the series of events that took place, Hidden Bow felt both fortunate and distressed. Fortunate that he met such an amazing person after joining such a party and managed to survive by a personal skill. Distressed at the fact that he ran into a person that is capable of casually giving away materials at such a high level of quality.

As a person playing on semi-automatic mode himself, he can barely guarantee to get anything above good quality yet he ran into such a person. If he is playing on full manual mode and is capable of destroying a party and harvesting materials of this quality, he's sure to be much more of a monster later on in life.

'I should be glad I became acquainted with such a skilled person but I can't help but think he's way too good at this so early in the game. He's definitely not a simple person if my ability picking up on it before even seeing him fight has anything to say about it.' After that thought ran through his mind, Hidden Bow shook his head and continued his journey, no longer looking back in the direction of the swampland.

****************

In the depths of the swampland, probably near the center, finds a human with tribal tattoos on his chest, fighting a group of swamp crocodiles. This group had over a dozen crocodiles in it and they were stronger than the ones he fought when he ran into Hidden Bow's party earlier. Not only that, but they seemed to possess another skill that the other crocodiles from before lacked.

Monster: Swamp Crocodile (Elite)

Level: 12

HP: 1750

Skills: Charge, bite, tail whip, water bullet(new)

Honestly, Kirou wasn't even paying attention to the 'elite' modifier on the swamp crocodile's name and thought of them as just slightly stronger swamp crocodiles. Even the four-level difference mattered little to him as he found them to be better practice dummies that the others.

After dodging the charge attacks from a few crocodiles, Kirou had to jump up instantly to avoid a few tail whip attacks. Now that he was in the air, the crocodiles thought he was an easy target and half of them fired water bullets at him.

Contrary to their expectations, Kirou didn't panic. Instead, he just swapped his knife for his gunblade tonfas and started firing on the recently formed water bullets. Considering that he attacked the water bullets and blew them up as soon as the formed in front of the crocodiles' mouths, each crocodile took damage as a result of his attack.

[-57]

[-49]

[-70]

[-63]

[-120]

[-66]

[-55]

After finally landing on the ground, Kirou immediately ran to the shadow of a big tree. The crocodiles seeing him run gave chase. Fighting for so long, the crocodiles became acutely away of the dangers of Kirou entering shadows. The group of elite monsters originally had over twenty swamp crocodiles but Kirou kept whittling down their numbers. This was especially so for when he ran into the shadows. He would always disappear and show up behind a weakened swamp crocodile to finish it off. After having this happen to their group for a few times the crocodiles made sure to fight away from the shadows of the trees. If not for the recent attack, he wouldn't have gotten close enough to make a dash for them.

Unfortunately for these elite swamp crocodiles, this was just a feint on Kirou's end. The crocodiles doing their best to prevent him from entering the shadows never noticed their formation breaking apart. The moment it broke up enough, Kirou seemingly split in two, one continuing to rush to the trees while another went in the opposite direction.

The elite swamp crocodiles were immediately confused. They had no idea the human could split himself in two and even if they did, they didn't think he would do it in such a situation.

Kirou had used half of his remaining MP to summon that shadow clone. While the clone went to deal with the crocodiles on his original path, Kirou turned back to deal with three low health crocodiles that stayed back. He lacked the MP to pull off anything fancy so he kept his movements clean and simple.

He spun the gunblade tonfas around in his hand so that the gun barrel was pointing behind him and fired a charged shot. It drained 5 MP on his part but he thought it was worth it. He used the recoil of the blast to propel himself forward much faster than before. The elite crocodiles never expected it and the attacks they prepared to use missed their marks as Kirou flew right by them. As he flew by them, Kirou made sure to extend the bladed section of the tonfas into two of their mouths, which resulted in major damage for both elites.

[-300]

[-290]

After stopping, Kirou immediately spun on his feet, spinning the gunblade barrels back to the front and launched a few normal shots to finish off the two elites he slashed in passing. Now two elites down, the remaining swamp crocodiles not fighting his clone rushed at Kirou.

Kirou was forced to take on seven elites like that, a lot easier than when he was fighting sixteen before. That being said, his lack of MP forced him to get in close while fighting these elites. Being the elites that they are, they took advantage of that fact attacked in tandem with each other, making it hard for Kirou to land any solid attacks.

This stalemate kept up until the fight brought Kirou and his group to fighting close to a bunch of trees. Taking advantage of the area, he immediately jumped back and disappeared into the shadows of the trees. Those seven elite crocodiles immediately started looking around their surroundings, only to realize that the other group of crocodiles was finally finished off by the shadow clone and Kirou who appeared behind that group.

Now that he was a good distance away from his group and the number of elites were lower, Kirou finally had enough time to take an MP potion from his storage and gulped it down. His MP was finally restored to over half, 25 MP was immediately used to summon another clone. Now there were three Kirous against seven elite swamp crocodiles. Almost immediately after creating the second clone, all three pounced on the remaining seven elites.

Remaining true to his previous playstyle, Kirou and his clones kept the fight simple and clean, not using any skills. Maybe Kirou was just imagining it, but he could have sworn the seven elite crocodiles were trying to flee from the battle with him halfway through.

He ignored that thought as he and his clones finally finished the fight no more than ten minutes later. Kirou didn't immediately dispel his clones but had them guard him as he sat down under a tree to recover his missing health and mana from that fight. Though it didn't look it, he took a few hits while facing those seven elites alone. His current stats restricted him too much and he was forced to take some hits he should have been able to dodge easily. That was the reason he summoned a second clone when he didn't need to. He was a bit angry.

While resting, Kirou decided to look over his stats. He hadn't checked in a while and wondered how they looked now that he was at level 8, nearing level 9.

{Name: Kirou}

{Race: Werewolf(Lycan/Human)}

{Class: Weapon Master}

{Subclass: Crafting Master}

{Level: 8}

{HP: 130/228}

{MP: 75/190}

{Str: 18}

{Int: 16}

{Def: 17}

{Const: 19}

{Dex: 14}

{Agi: 14}

{Luck: 55/100}

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{Skill Points: 27}

As usual, no major additions to his stats but he was definitely stronger. As for the excess of skill points in his possession, Kirou had no plans to use them anytime soon. He planned to hold unto them until he ran into a situation he can't handle as he was.

Kirou stayed like that until his health and mana were back to full, after which he looked up the skill he created a while back while fighting the frogs but never bothered to check out until now.

Skill: Triple Strike

Skill Level: 1/3

Rank: A (S at max)

Cost: 40 MP

Skill Creator/Generator: Kirou

Description: This skill allows the user to deal three strikes superimposed into one which deals 400% of the user's attack on a target. Has a 50% chance to crit when used on soft areas/weak points and has a 5% to inflict bleed on the target.

Looking at the skill, Kirou couldn't help but wonder about the changes the skill he created has in comparison to the one he used in his past life.

'Back then I was able to casually unleash five strikes when I attacked. Looks like I truly am unable to unleash my skills with my current stats. I need to get much stronger if I wanna return to my peak.' That was Kirou's thoughts as he approached the bodies of the fallen elite swamp crocodiles.

Since there were too many bodies and not much time left before they disappeared, Kirou assigned each clone a few bodies to dissect while he dealt with his set. He wondered if the clones will have similar results as him or not. Just to make sure he doesn't lose out, he took care of half of the bodies and made the clones split the rest.

It took another ten minutes for the dissection of all the elites to be finished. When he checked the results, Kirou noticed that while they did get higher than average quality items, they were still the same amount received when using the system mode.

'Guess I can't use any shortcuts at all in this game. Oh well. I should be satisfied that they were able to get above average quality at the very least.' Kirou shook his head helplessly as he thought this.

As Kirou was about to dispel the clones and leave his current area, he noticed something was blocking his path. At first, he thought it was a giant boulder but as he got closer, he realized that it was a monster. Since he was just one monster kill away from leveling up, Kirou was about to engage the monster in combat. That thought process halted as Kirou got close enough to see its details. What he saw left him speechless.

Monster: Swampland Crocodile King (Boss)

Level: 15

HP: 12000

Att: 75

Def: 50

Skills: Charge, bite, tail whip, water bullet, tremor, berserk mode

Not counting the fact that this was the first time Kirou saw the attack and defense stats for a monster, the last two skills at the end made Kirou's hair stand on end when he read it.

'This was quite unexpected.' Those were Kirou's true thoughts as he stared at the beast of a crocodile in front of him that just so happened to be staring at him at the moment.