Chapter 74 - The Wolves Den - I

Merlin had heard of predator before, it was a title that you received by killing ten monsters your level or higher with your teeth. The title buffed your jaw strength and improved the damage output of bite attacks. It was a common skill to get if you used a soul that used bite attacks, such as vampires, werewolves or certain zombies.

Although with his experience, he hadn't heard of anyone acquiring a vampire title from drinking blood, if one existed then every vampire player would have received it. So he thought if there was a chance of an additional title it would have been through more extreme measures, and his mind for some reason went directly to eating part of the corpse.

He hadn't actually heard of the corpse eater title before, not many people even thought to bite into a monster's corpse, and anyone who did were usually repulsed by the flavour and texture and vowed to never do it again. Monster meat was a popular ingredient for cooking souls though, and it was possible to eat most creatures as long as they were prepared properly.

In some cases, monster meat tasted much better than some of the most expensive meats you could get in real life, especially when cooked by a high level cooking class. The increase of players eating food for pleasure rather than just buffs and status effects made starting a restaurant and selling food in-game a profitable business that several groups capitalised on.

The high popularity of consuming monsters meant that the requirement for acquiring the corpse eater soul was most likely just eating the raw meat straight from the source, much like what the name of the title described. From Merlin's recollection, there hadn't been a single person who actively admitted to having this title, which was understandable.. Just by staring at Alvira's face on the verge of being sick was all the confirmation Merlin needed to know that the process he had put her through wasn't pleasant.

"Good work, experiment complete." Merlin congratulated her, while helping her up. "What are the stats on the corpse eater title?"

"It says something about an increased resistance to poison and diseases that you eat." Alvira explained, "And it also grants a skill called ghoulish tendencies, which allows you to consume corpses to regain health."

Merlin found the skill interesting, to the point he almost wanted it for himself. A resistance to poisons and diseases that you consumed was a huge buff, especially if you associated with certain types of people or joined certain circles where poisoned food was a possible threat.

"Well, a ghoul is sort of like a vampire, technically." Merlin consoled the girl who looked disappointed with her new skill. "There is always the possibility of acquiring a vampire's soul at some point, cheer up."

Merlin turned to face the rest of the group, "Does anybody else want the titles while we're here?" To his question, Merlin received a strong refusal from everyone, effectively putting the idea to rest immediately.

Alvira walked towards the group while holding a hand over her mouth, it seemed as though the experience would haunt her for quite a while, but maybe she would think twice about licking random people's blood now. The little girl had a large blood stain that started on her chin and ran down her neck, which caused the redhead archer to run behind a tree and throw up.

The two groups conversed for a little while longer while walking back to the main road. Merlin,  who felt somewhat guilty using the girl as a test subject, decided to cast cleanse on her, letting her keep some small level of dignity. The redhead seemed to appreciate that the blood was gone, confirming in Merlin's mind that she had some form of phobia of blood.

The group said their farewells and split up, with the roleplayer group continuing down the path they originally intended to travel down, and Merlin's group making their way into the forest on the other side of the road.

"So, are you going to explain the poisonous blood and vine ability? What is this about you becoming a plant?" Snowbunny unloaded a string of questions, it seemed she couldn't hold it in any more, Typhoeus also listened.

"Well, It's a sort of long story, but I'll give you the cliff notes." Merlin began explaining his interactions with the rose wight from the start to the final fight. He pointed out that it was the same undead he mentioned to her prior, and that the purple face that Alvira had was due to his poisonous blood passive.

As the group made their way towards the dungeon, Merlin began showing off some of the things he could do with his vine, and he even began instructing Snowbunny on how to control her ears.

As the group finally reached the location of the dungeon, they saw that within the clearing were three dire wolves standing guard.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, can you send me an invite to the party?" Merlin asked while they were hiding behind a bush, peering in at the dungeon's entrance. A notification window appeared before him a few seconds after.

「You have been invited to "Snowbunny's" party, would you like to join?」

Upon Merlin clicking accept, everyone in the party received a notification message.

「Player "Merlin's" karma score is -134, all party members will be considered evil until the player leaves or the party is disbanded.」

Within New Genesis, your karma was only as high as the lowest individual's karma when it came to parties. This was another punishment from the system, as those who were partied with evil players suffered from the same consequences, even if they didn't commit a crime. Most people didn't want to take the risk, and instead pushed their friend away until they recovered their karma alone.

"How did you get it so low, did you murder four people?" Snowbunny looked at him in shock, "Or since you farmed karma back for an hour, was it more than four?"

"Oh well, it's not hard to get back, just a little time consuming" Merlin merely shrugged in response. He wasn't answering the question, but still managed to get through it without having to lie to his friend.

"Alright, bring your attention back to the front. There are three dire wolves and three of us, how about we take one each?" Merlin suggested, he received two confirming nods and began counting own from three before starting the assault.

Merlin took the wolf in the centre, it was a level five, like the usual wolves he farmed constantly. Using his knowledge that he acquired through roughly an hour of endlessly grinding wolves, Merlin had developed a bit of a system when it came to fighting wolves.

He started by unsheathing the blade, which caused the enemy to subconsciously focus their attention on his weapon. This was roughly the time when two vines flew out of Merlin's body and immobilised the wolf by taking control of its legs, allowing Merlin to come in and slice it to death with some degree of safety.

After killing his wolf relatively quickly, his attention shifted to Typhoeus, who was spinning around a large scythe. The wolf had a hard time getting anywhere close to him, as it risked being torn into ribbons if it did. Seemingly sick of the cat and mouse game the two were playing, the wolf ended up leaping at the man, but Typhoeus dodged the wolf's claws and counterattacked with a basic slash attack.

The wolf seemed to learn from its first mistake, it didn't bother trying to leap at Typhoeus any more. What came next was a set of annoyingly repetitive combat manoeuvres where ultimately nothing happened for a great deal of time. The wolf focused on its speed to dodge the scythe's attacks but it couldn't push in to deal any damage or it'd risk getting seriously wounded, and the scythe was too slow to hit the wolf for any serious amount of damage, but had enough reach to keep it away, leaving the two in some kind of stalemate.

"This is annoying." Typhoeus swore at the wolf as the sense of frustration kicked in. Unfortunately the scythe was a very bad match up against an elusive enemy, it was a rather cumbersome weapon to fight with in general, but sometime in the future Ty would figure out a way to use its strange quirks to his advantage and keep the top position on the leaderboard for thirty years.

Merlin was about to help him when, in his frustration, it seemed Typhoeus had made the mistake of lunging forward with the scythe instead of sweeping at the wolf, causing an obvious hole to form in his defences. The wolf had lunged towards Typhoeus the second he seemed to let down his guard, which Merlin later noticed that he had intentionally done, as Typhoeus had begun chanting a skill the second the wolf ran at him to sink its fangs into his leg.