Chapter 14

The distance between the player named Jacob, a knight, and Hiro was getting shorter. However, Hiro did not budge from where he was standing. He waited with his greatsword ready to be pointed toward the incoming crowd of monsters.

Jacob shouted repeatedly at Hiro for him to run for safety, but Hiro ignored him. On the contrary, he felt grateful to the player for bringing nine free medium-level monsters to him.

Finishing those monsters off as a warm-up would be perfect as well.

[Wild Grizzly (Level 15)]

When the remaining distance was only 10 meters, Hiro swiftly dashed towards the monsters, surprising Jacob who immediately stopped his footsteps when Hiro passed him by just like that.

Whoosh!

Splat!!

Splatt!

[2x Hit Combo]

Splatt!

[3x Critical Hit Combo]

Splatt!

[4x Critical Hit Combo]

One by one, Hiro slashed the monsters using his combo skill. His body rotated rapidly right at the perfect time to switch targets when the critical hit combo reaches its maximum.

[Health -2,000]

One strike, one kill. Hiro used his combo skill incredibly well. Starting at 4x, just one slash was enough to finish off a running Wild Grizzly. The monsters didn’t even have time to fight back.

Splat!

Blood gushed out, and Hiro’s greatsword became covered in blood. Not only that, but Hiro’s face and body were now also bathed in the blood of those grizzly bears.

“Give me more LSC, fat bears!” he clenched his jaw.

4… 5… 8…

Splatt! [x10 Critical Hit Combo]

Hiro finished the last Wild Grizzly with a horizontal stab right at the monster’s face, stabbing his greatsword into the monster’s body and ripping its organs from the inside.

Hiro pulled his sword out and kicked the grizzly bear’s lifeless body to the ground.

Ding!

[Job Class level up 1x]

[You obtained 350LSC]

There are no useful item drops after eliminating those 9 grizzly bear monsters. Hiro cursed annoyed by it. He only got a few junk items that made his inventory even more full.

“Wow! How did you do that, Bro?”

Jacob walked over to Hiro.

“By the way, thanks for saving me. My name is Jacob.” Jacob grinned as he rubbed the back of his head, feeling bad.

Hiro waved his sword in the air—

Splat!

Jacob’s face paled as Hiro’s sword slashed through the air right in front of his face, sending the blood on his sword to spurt to his face. He thought that Hiro was not a friendly person and would teach him a lesson.

In truth, Hiro only did it to clean the blood of the grizzly bear on his sword. No other purpose.

“I didn’t do it to save you. I’m hunting for LSC, and you just happened to bring them over to me,” Hiro spoke in a calm tone.

“Mmm—sorry, I recently got the skill [Provoke] and was trying it out at those bears. I didn’t expect so many of them to come after me like that.”

Hiro had expected it, so he was not surprised to hear Jacob’s explanation.

“Looks like you don’t know anything about that knight skill.”

“…”

“Hey! Did you have to say that?” Jacob looked a little offended. Even so, when Hiro looked at him with his piercing eyes, Jacob turned pale again.

“Jacob, was it? You’re also a CBT player, huh. I’m NightFall.”

“Night–NightFall? Is that your real name?”

Hiro didn’t answer and silently studied Jacob’s appearance from top to bottom.

The knight has a height and posture that seemed very balanced, very suitable to be a knight. He was approximately 6′2″ and weighed 170 lbs with blond hair and ocean blue eyes.

‘Another Caucasian, huh? Does this game have no Asians?’

“Hello? You there?”

“NightFall is just my in-game username. It’s not my real name. Besides, why would I use my real name in-game? Don’t tell me Jacob is your real name.”

“…”

“My name’s Jacob. And of course it’s my real name, Bro. What are you, a spy? Why would you use a code name anyway?”

Hiro frowned. He just realized that Jacob didn’t understand what he meant. In fact, it seemed as if Jacob didn’t even know he was playing a game like him. He spoke like he was in the real world with a different system, just like Liberty.

Ding!

[Liberty is trying to contact you,]

Hiro patted his forehead. He almost forgot Liberty was still waiting for him in front of a cave. He didn’t have time to talk to Jacob any longer.

“I have to go!”

“Where? Hey! Can I go with you? I don’t know where the forest’s exit is. Please!”

Seeing his pitiful face resembling a golden retriever, Hiro couldn’t help but allow him.

He hurriedly ran deeper and deeper into the forest. Behind him, Jacob was trying to catch up to him with difficulty because the armor he was wearing was too heavy to run in.

Hiro activated his HUD system and the GPS system that had been integrated into his HUD system. He felt lucky that he got a GPS system from the first quest he received. Because of that, he didn’t need to be afraid of getting lost like Jacob because the GPS could record his footprints without restrictions.

It was extremely helpful for Hiro, who liked to go everywhere alone.

After running for more than 2 kilometers through the moderately wide gaps of the forest trees, Hiro finally managed to find Liberty.

The girl was sitting alone facing a cave, waiting for Hiro for who knows how long by now.

Hiro stopped in his tracks and silently stared at Liberty. No one had ever waited for him in his life. Everyone went away from him.

“Ah! Hiro!” Liberty shouted while waving at him excitedly when she noticed he was finally here. “Over here!”

Liberty immediately rose to her feet to greet him, but her eyes widened when she saw an unknown person had come with him.

“A girl?” Jacob looked surprised and fascinated.

“What took you so long? I thought you were lost or something. And who’s this?” Liberty had already walked over because she couldn’t just wait and stay where she was.

“Hi—excuse me, lady. My name’s Jacob. Your boyfriend is late because he saved me from the wrath of grizzly bears. It was my fault since I provoked them.” Jacob bowed politely.

“Boyfriend!?” Hiro and Liberty exclaimed in unison. They could not believe what Jacob just said about them.

“Eh?” Jacob was confused by the two’s synced reaction.

Hiro simply shrugged it off and walked past Liberty, approaching the cave 10 meters above ground level in height. Meanwhile, Liberty was still being shy by Jacob’s words.

As Hiro moved closer to the mouth of the cave, his body suddenly hit an invisible barrier, preventing him from going further.

“I told you the cave’s inaccessible!” Liberty called out a warning.

Even so, Hiro kept trying to go through it. He was sure that he saw a glitch in the part that was blocking him, a glitch from the system barrier. And so, he slowly touched the barrier with his right hand.

Ding!

[Hidden Dungeon [Underground Cave] has been revealed.]

[Learn the skill [Heat Resistant (Level 1)] to enter the dungeon.]