Chapter 162.2: Hunt

Chapter 162.2: Hunt

PART 2/2

You have offered moderate contribution toward the slaying of Level 7 Gloomspur.

You have earned 16 XP. Your XP is 618.

Level 32 Draconiad has offered moderate contribution toward the slaying of Level 7 Gloomspur.

Due to having a Bond with Draconiad, you have earned 1 XP. Your XP is 619.

“That’s the last of this pack,” I said as the final body fell before me. I’d used a couple Sanguine Bonds in the process of taking them out—my Health was full, but I was always spending Stamina to move around, so the incidental restoration there was nice—and in the process, it’d Ranked up. I’d forgotten that my Soft Cap was at 11 by now, so when I used the Spell Crystal to push the Spell up to Rank 10, I actually still had one more Rank I could earn without having to push past. Unexpected, but the gains were very nice to see.

Threshold reached. Sanguine Bond XP has reached 355.

Sanguine Bond Rank has increased to 11.

Due to Sanguine Bond Rank reaching 11, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 298 to 305

Health Drain: From 6.52 to 6.85The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.

Stamina Drain: From 8.15 to 8.56

Mana Drain: From 9.78 to 10.3

Health Regeneration: From 1.63 to 1.71

Stamina Regeneration: From 3.27 to 3.43

Mana Regeneration: From 4.88 to 5.12

Erani looked around. “How do we get the teeth?”

“I will do it!” Ainash bent down and, using a thorn from her whip, not-so-neatly poked and stabbed the left fang from its socket in the first corpse’s mouth.

“I guess that does it,” I muttered, looking at the bloody display. Then I turned to Erani. “Well, we got four out of twenty.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Just sixteen to go. And it’s only...already nighttime.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking we’re going to be working pretty late.”

“Think if we buy it past midnight, they’ll let the payment count for the next night too?”

I shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

Hours passed as we continued to hunt down packs of Gloomspurs. They seemed to travel in packs of three or four, but we got lucky once with a pack of five. Eventually, as the moon rose into the sky and we wandered on and on in the dark wilds, we got to a certain point.

You have offered moderate contribution toward the slaying of Level 5 Gloomspur.

I hit him with Crippling Chill, and he kept running. Level 15 Berserker, the notification said. So I raised my hand and shot him with a Ray of Frost. He kept coming at me.

“Hey! I’m Human!” I shouted.

He didn’t stop. With a grunt of exertion, he brought the sword down and I leapt to the side, once again barely avoiding getting hit. I was sure I could survive a landed strike or two, but I couldn’t afford him knowing my Class.

“Hey!” I shouted again. “Please!”

He turned to me with a crazed expression.

“Father! Is this bad guy? Should I attack?”

“Um...” I couldn’t decide what to say. Was I going to have to kill this man? “Just try to restrain him for now!”

Instantly, Ainash leapt into action, charging at him. He raised his sword to deflect one whip strike, but then a Firebolt from Erani sent him stumbling back. When the smoke cleared, he was charging straight at her, apparently having switched targets from me to her. He swung his long blade and just barely grazed her arm with it, but Angelic Shield protected her from damage, and before he could swing again, Ainash rushed in and wrapped her whip around his neck, forcing him to the ground in one swift motion.

“Hey!” A voice came out from afar. I looked over and saw a woman, alongside a whole group of people, running up to us. “That’s our guy! Let him go!”

“He was attacking me!” I yelled back. “Come get him under control.”

“Let him go!” She yelled again.

“He’s a Berserker, right?! So he’s under the effects of Berserk. If we let him go, he’ll just attack again. I’m not doing that until you get him under control.”

“Ugh. Fine.” She ran faster in her approach, waving a hand to usher the other closer, as well.

After a few seconds, the man still struggling to reach me but being restrained by the combined forces of Ainash and Erani, the group came over to us. Only then did I tell Ainash to let him go, and she did, leaving visible marks where the thorned whip had been poking him.

The woman nodded at a couple people, who knelt to attend to the wounded man, and then walked up to me. “What the hell was that?”

I looked at her. “What in the hells was that? I should be asking you the same thing. Some man just attacked me out of nowhere—it’s you who needs to be doing the explaining, here.”

She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. “I expect compensation.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Compensation?”

“Yes. For harming an innocent man.”

Erani walked up. “He wasn’t innocent. He attacked us first. It’s basic self defense. We only did what we had to in order to keep ourselves safe.”

A man walked over to us, splitting off from the main group of easily over a dozen people to stand next to the woman, facing me. “I dunno. I think you’re lucky to get off with just paying us our due.”

“How in the bottom hell do you think you’re in the legal right here?” Erani scoffed. “In fact, I’m almost certain that what just happened here could easily be classified as attempted murder, especially since you didn’t know our Levels. If we were Unclassed—or even just low-Level—we’d be dead where we stand.”

“I’m just sayin’.” He nodded his head, and a couple other people walked up to us. “There’re a lot of people on our side of this. You’re lucky we decided not to attack right away. ‘Bout fifteen on three, I think this’d go pretty poorly for you, huh?”

“Father,” Ainash said, looking at me nervously, “am feeling these people wanting to hurt us.”

“...Oh.” I looked around us. Every person in the crowd of fifteen was staring straight at me. “This is...a mugging?”