Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Secret Skills of Hermit Ranger

In the small courtyard in front of Roger’s house.

Next to the old tables and chairs scavenged from the grocery store, Roger handed Dorothy a cup of freshly brewed chrysanthemum tea.

“Thank you.” Looking at the chrysanthemum petals floating in the clay pot, a tinge of sadness crossed Dorothy’s eyes. “In the entire Tongma Town, you’re the only one who likes to make tea with chrysanthemums.”

“This feeling is very strange.”

“As if it has been ten years ago since the last time I came to your house as a guest.”

Roger poured himself a cup of chrysanthemum tea and said, “Correction, it was two years ago.”

That was when Kane was still here.

Dorothy, as Kane’s follower, naturally tagged along wherever the latter went.

At that time, she had not grown into the long-legged beauty she was now, and her personality was very shy. Every time they met, she would hide behind her brother and watch as Kane talked to Roger.

The conversation between her and Roger usually would not exceed ten sentences.

After Kane’s death, Dorothy worked very hard to train herself, so she gradually lost contact with the frog hunter who went to work in a regular fashion like a civil servant.

…

Dorothy smiled silently.

The warm chrysanthemum tea washed away her feelings of nostalgia and sadness. The girl collected herself and started talking about the purpose of her trip here——

The Lord’s Mansion had formally approved this expedition against the Corpse Demon.

This meant that their expedition would be supported by the entire Tongma Town.

This was undoubtedly good news that would greatly boost their spirit.

And a piece of more important news was that the Lord’s Mansion had decided to make use of this opportunity of fighting against the Corpse Demon to reorganize the [Monster Crusade Team]!

Many young adventurers in the town were gearing up and eagerly asking about how to join the team.

“Ah… the crusade team.”

“Well, it is indeed good timing.”

Roger replied not too perfunctorily.

He didn’t really care about these things, but he knew this was very important to Dorothy.

It had been Dorothy’s wish to kill the Corpse Demon and rebuild the crusade team.

After all, since Kane died, the crusade team that he had concurrently served as the captain had also been disbanded; Tongma Town was only left with one guard team that was responsible for daily surveillance.

Anyone who wanted to head out to crusade against monsters would be sternly reprimanded. And the reason they gave was that even the crusade team had been disbanded, so why would you want to provoke those terrifying monsters?

And now, taking advantage of the influence from Roger’s slaughter of the Red Tide Corpse Queen, the Lord’s Mansion had boldly proposed the plan to reorganize the crusade team. Naturally, this decision was not made on a whim.

The activity of the monsters had been seriously affecting the survival and development of Tongma Town.

Any ambitious lord would not just sit idly and wait for death.

“The timing is of course good, but it is not the point.”

Dorothy took a sip of the tea, her fair thighs interlaced.

“The key is whether we can successfully kill the Corpse Demon.”

Roger nodded.

There must definitely be some disagreeing voices about reorganizing the crusade team in town.

Even if these voices were suppressed now, once the team encountered setbacks during the crusade against the Corpse Demon, these voices would soon resurface.

After all, no matter what era it was, there would always be a group of short-sighted people who only cared about defending their own turf.

“Here is the information about the Corpse Demon provided by the Lord’s Mansion.”

“And here is the list of the main forces participating in the crusade.”

Dorothy put the two documents on the table.

“The time for the crusade is set in two days tentatively, and I will inform you of the specific details.”

“As for the Lord’s Mansion, I hope you will take over…”

Roger grabbed the document and the name list, shook his head, and said, “No need. You can be the captain.”

“Don’t worry, I will coordinate with you.”

Dorothy hesitated, but she knew a little bit about Roger’s character, so she gave up after a few words of persuasion.

Roger opened the name list of the main forces and glanced through it.

Most of the adventurers on the list were familiar faces.

In recent years, there had been fewer and fewer adventurers coming from the plateau. In fact, Tongma Town was facing the dilemma of having insufficient new blood.

If the surrounding monsters were not cleaned up, this vicious circle might become more and more serious.

And one day, the monsters will attack Tongma Town and turn this place into ruins.

This kind of thing had been repeating again and again on Mystra.

…

“Huh? There’s a 2nd Circle adventurer?”

While looking through the information about the main forces, Roger became a little surprised.

He had found an adventurer of above LV10!

This was definitely a very rare existence in Tongma Town.

“It’s Uncle Terry.” Dorothy continued, “You have seen him before. He came from the Gem City three years ago. Because of his injury, his strength fell sharply, so he could only stay in the town to recuperate.”

“Do you remember that the Lord’s Mansion had been looking for medicines to treat his injuries a while ago? Now, he has recovered his strength and is now a LV11 warrior.”

Roger nodded. “Since there is a 2nd Circle adventurer sitting around in town, no wonder the Lord’s Mansion dared to reorganize the crusade team.”

Dorothy suddenly became a little bashful, she wavered for a while before she added in a low voice, “There’s actually two…”

Roger raised his eyes, somewhat surprised. “Are you also at 2nd Circle?”

He didn’t have the habit of inspecting his friends with the Qi Divination Technique, so he didn’t notice this.

Dorothy nodded proudly.

“That’s great,” Roger praised.

‘If Kane knew that his sister had surpassed him, he must be very happy.’

As he thought this, Dorothy asked, “Roger, may I know what your strength is?”

Roger pondered for a while, “Probably a little bit stronger than you.”

Dorothy was a little unconvinced. “Really?”

In her perception, Roger was just a LV8 adventurer.

Roger explained earnestly, “Don’t worry, it’s really just a little bit.”

…

After sending away Dorothy who was suddenly fired up to compete, Roger had a good meal and then went back to the house to sleep.

Late at night.

In the serene and small courtyard, a little candlelight was lit.

Through the [dim light vision], Roger could see everything in the yard clearly.

At this moment, he was holding a long narrow saber with both hands.

In the middle of the yard, a wooden dummy for training had been placed.

The dummy was covered with cut marks; obviously, it had been repeatedly used.

Roger held the saber and stood at his spot motionlessly.

Anyone who didn’t look closely might mistake him as another dummy.

A phoenix tree leaf fell.

His Qi which had been sealed off burst out suddenly.

Swoosh!

An arc-shaped reddish knife dazzled the night.

Thwomp!

Thwomp thwomp thwomp thwomp thwomp…

A series of dull sounds were heard.

On the ground of the courtyard, three wood segments were lying among the phoenix tree leaves!

“Amazing.”

“With one slash, all three dummies were sliced in half, smooth as if cutting the tofu, no, cutting the air!”

“There seemed to be no resistance at all.”

Roger caressed the Red Moon Saber fondly.

The blade looked new, and the blade was very stable.

It looked completely unscathed.

“Using secret skills on the dummy and with the energy storage technique too, I feel like I’m bullying the dummy.”

“But this move is indeed really strong.”

Roger was still recollecting the feeling of the move from just now.

This move was the first stance of [The Nineteen Rays of Moon], a secret skill of the Hermit Ranger.

This move was about making full use of energy accumulation.

Most of the time, energy accumulation would bring great bonuses to Hermit Ranger’s moves; but as the weapon collided with the target, for various reasons, some of the power that had been stored would be lost, reducing the final effect greatly.

However, with this move, this kind of situation would not happen.

Roger knew that even if it was just the simplest move such as the accelerated arc slash, the various bonuses brought by the secret skill of the Hermit Ranger would make it impossible to ignore.

This must probably be his strongest move so far!

“No need to invest time in practice and the user will become proficient right after learning the move. That is the most powerful advantage of the secret skill.”

Roger’s sense of security had grown even more.

…