( Leo's POV )
"Good job kiddo, not bad for your first fight" Leo said, as he patted Dumpy on the back after his flamboyant slaughter spree.
"Huh–" Dumpy said, feeling startled as he never even sensed Leo approaching, until it was too late.
Thankfully, he did not have his skin coated with poison at the moment, because if he did, he could have accidentally injured Leo.
"You killed way more men than me, Lord Father, I cannot compare to you and Lord Grandfather yet" Dumpy said, as after comparing the destruction left behind by his seniors, he felt quite ashamed of his own performance.
"It's alright, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses…. Don't fret about it" Leo said, as he understood that Dumpy's strength wasn't in mass combat, but rather in precision combat.
Although Dumpy had killed only 30 men, his overall performance was quite impressive, which was the more important criteria to focus on.
"I will reach your level someday, Lord Father" Dumpy said aspirationally, as this incident further solidified his image of Leo as the ultimate fighter.
In similar situations, Leo outperformed him 3x, which made Dumpy believe that he was at least three times as strong as him although it was not objectively true.
"Good ambition….. but let's talk about it later, for now let's complete the wipeout of this village and get the hell out of here" Leo instructed, as he encouraged Dumpy to follow him as the two went on yet another tear of the enemy lines.
Out of the 300-350 odd men guarding the village, they had already killed about 230, which sent the morale plummeting for the few men left standing.
Naturally, as Dumpy and Leo resumed their slaughter, the remaining few could not hold their ground at all, as with Leo covering Dumpy's back, and the massive beast taking the offensive lead, the two of them became an unstoppable unit, as they managed to cleave through the remaining opponents within a short timespan of one and a half minute.
"It's done…. This village is a wipe" Ben said, as they reached the exit gate of the village, having slaughtered their way through the full length of it.
"Approximately 4 minutes, not too shabby" Leo said, as he made a point of noting the time taken for them to kill these many enemies.
Before the fight began, Leo had estimated that the team would need 5 minutes to finish the job, but they did it in just about 4.
Leaving the village in a rush, they continued down the paved trail towards StrongHaven, with Leo expecting more trouble to come up ahead soon.
Although 5 minutes was not enough time for other enemies to converge on their location, with the message exposing their location already out on the global forums, the trouble up-ahead was sure to be much more intense compared to before.
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( Half an hour later )
About thirty minutes after his massacre at Duffledem Village, Leo finally encountered his first wave of opponents charging toward him along the paved road.
The thunderous clatter of their mounts' hooves echoed through the air, serving as an unmistakable warning of their approach long before they ever came into his field of vision, as the sound of their approach gave Leo some time to prepare for their arrival.
"Enemies approaching" Leo said, as Ben nodded towards him with a practiced calm.
The two of them looked into one another's eyes and began contemplating ways to avoid the enemy without having to confront them, however, before they could arrive at a conclusion on how to proceed, Dumpy aggressively leapt forward into action.
While Leo wanted to leave the paved road trail and hide within the shadows cast by the long trees surrounding the roads, Dumpy leapt into the air and landed before the enemy contingent, as he launched the [Boulder Splitting Slash] against them.
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Killing 20 men, and their mounts in a single blow, Dumpy managed to wipe out the entire enemy contingent in a single attack, as he turned towards Leo with a satisfied smile.
"Lord Father, the problem has been solved" he said, as Leo slapped his forehead in frustration.
Dumpy had no idea that the problem had not been solved, but had only been made worse by his actions, as by killing the enemies, Dumpy just exposed Leo's location to the world once again.
In this situation, hiding and letting them pass would have been a much better outcome than fighting, as while a group of 20 adventurers did not pose a huge problem to Leo, having his position confirmed once again did.
When the first message regarding him being in Duffledem was dropped on the global forums, the enemy troops were still a fair distance away from his location and still only converging in real time, however, they were all a lot closer this second time around, having been on the same trail since the last 30 minutes.
This meant that enemies within a 10 mile radius were now aware of his exact location, causing a plethora of problems for Leo.
He had a couple minutes to react at best, before an endless stream of enemies swarmed him where he stood, which was why Leo acted quickly and started to dash into the woods, going off the main trail.
"Follow me… fast" he said, as he dragged Dumpy and Ben off the main trail, helping them avoid the hundreds of enemies that were converging on his last known location fast.
*********
*Dok dok dok*
*Tuk tuk tuk*
The sound of hundreds of horse hooves filled the entire forest around the trail, as hundreds of adventurers excitedly closed in on Leo's last known location.
"Look! There's blood here, and footsteps leading into the forest! Tracker get here…. TheBoss seemed to have gone this way–" one of them said, as arriving at the scene of slaughter, where Dumpy killed players and mounts alike, the players managed to find the trail of footsteps that gave away the general direction where Leo was moving.
"Attention all! Attention all! TheBoss is moving eastwards from 124.567.889N and 223.445.557E.
He is making his way through the forest and seems to be with his freak monster pet frog"
Leo found his exact whereabouts leaked on the global forums thanks to Dumpy's careless action, putting a dozen or so players hot on his trail, with just a few minutes gap between them.
With the next two hourly location drop being only a few more minutes away, Leo found himself in a tough spot, as surviving till the end of gaming day today seemed like a tall task.