Chương 54: (Book 2 Chapter 5)

A large, spindly leg slowly made its way across the window. I put my finger on my lips and gestured to Omar and Sam to look behind them. They turned and saw the leg, immediately getting up and getting ready. I went under concealed presence as Omar backed away and Sam went nearer to the window. I backed away and slowly opened the apartment door, looking out the hallway to make sure that it was still clear. It was. At least we have an escape route.

"I just cleaned…" I heard the low whisper of Omar. I had realized that it was probably Omar's usual boisterous nature that had caused so many attacks to fall upon the two of them since they got here. And right now, we were just on the first floor, low enough that any sound would be heard in the street outside. Especially with the window open, and with how silent the streets were, the sound was sure to reach far. Two more legs were visible now, before the torso of a large spider came in view.

This spider was much larger than the ones they had been fighting earlier, and looked to be about the size of the wolves we had faced off so many times back in the tutorial. The ones earlier were also far stockier in their builds, while this one looked thinner and definitely less hairy. I saw that basically the entire torso of the spider was lit up through critical sense, which made sense as the underside was visible to us. The legs were now reaching through the window, and I stepped forward silently.

Soon I was right beside the window, and with tactical insight cheering with approval, I waited. As soon as the torso reached the window opening, I buried my dagger inside it. The spider screeched and scrambled its legs to quickly get away, but again, it moved too slowly for me. I took the time to slash my dagger across its injured torso twice more, spraying ichor all over the floor and eliciting a short cry of "No" from Omar, before the spider lost its balance and fell down from the window.

I stuck my head through the window and saw the spider laying on the street below, its legs curled up in the air. I looked down the street, and barely caught a blur of movement on a building two down and across from ours, before the blur vanished in the alley. I looked in the other direction, but everything seemed quiet and nothing was moving. I looked down once again at the spider's carcass, and knew what we had to do. The tutorial had taught me many lessons, one of which was not to stick around near a dead body.

"We're moving, let's go. And Omar, you stay silent from now on! Anything you have to say, say it to me in a whisper, or just stay silent if it can wait. Do you understand?" I asked staring at him straight in the eye.

"What did I do…?" he asked, tilting his head innocently. I sighed. This is going to be a long night…

The sun was shining through the window when I woke up. I blearily looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings before I realized where I was. We had run away from the apartment, and passed three intersections before I decided we were far enough away. This time, I had picked an apartment on the fourth floor, despite Omar's protests about the stairs. This apartment was much larger than the one earlier, and luckily had two bedrooms.

Omar had spent 30 minutes thoroughly cleaning everything, working silently this time, before we were allowed inside. Sam and Omar had taken the master bedroom, while I had chosen the room with a single bed. And what a bed it was! It wasn't anything special, but after days of sleeping on hard wooden floors, the mattress felt like heaven. And the pillows! I had slept almost as soon as I laid down. I sat up and looked around. My eyes went towards a picture on the bedside table.

It was of a young girl, looking to be in her early teens, holding a small fish on a boat, with a huge smile. I had not recognized any place we had been to yet, but perhaps I could also find my apartment… assuming we are anywhere near where I lived. In the daylight, the room was much clearer, and it was sparsely decorated but had posters of swimming competitions and beach volleyball. My eyes went towards a corner piled with school stuff – writing pads, pens, pencils, and even some colouring and painting supplies.

Remembering that I had thought of writing the list I had made earlier down, I got off the bed and stretched, letting out a sigh of relief. Having a great night's sleep really made a lot of difference. I then went towards the writing supplies, and a bit of rummaging later I was able to find an empty writing pad and a couple of pencils that still worked. The ink in all pens that I tried had already dried up.

After a bit of thinking, I also went back and took the mattress from the bed and two pillows, and put them inside my inventory as well. I heard someone moving outside the room's door, and suddenly smelled something incredibly alluring. Rushing out of the room, I found Omar inside the kitchen. He had found a small propane stove that the family probably used during their fishing trips, and was busy making something on it. Did you know this text is from a different site?

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"Is that coffee?" I asked, full of hope.

"Yes!" he nodded, "I found a sealed bag of coffee beans, and they smelled okay when I opened them, so I figured why not. I have grounded the beans up and just added them to the water, since the machine won't work. Don't really have milk or cream, but I did find a bag of sugar if you want."

"Have I ever told you that you are awesome?" I asked, going towards him and taking a deep breath of the coffee. It smelled amazing!

"Yeah, well… I figured I would try to make up a bit for being an idiot yesterday and making so much noise…" he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Oh, don't worry man. You probably just relaxed a bit in a familiar environment instead of a forest. It's no big deal" I said, trying to comfort him.

"No, it was a big deal. You didn't see how many times Sam got hurt yesterday, and if you hadn't shown up, who knows what would have happened. We didn't even know about those giant centipedes" he said forlornly. He's right actually, but crap, what do I say? I've always been bad at comforting others… Luckily, the door to the other room burst open, and Sam appeared.

"Is that coffee?" he asked, mirroring me from earlier. Good, he's here to distract Omar...

We had an amazing breakfast of canned beans and stale coffee, and I was still savoring the lingering taste of coffee, however mild it had been. Sam had been able to convince Omar that he didn't blame him at all, and the big guy was back to his joyful self again. He was joyful, but much quieter now, which was a huge plus.

Omar had packed away any useable ingredients and items he found, including the propane stove, an additional propane cylinder, a few pots and pans, a broom, a mop, a bucket, and about a dozen cloths he claimed he would use for cleaning, into his inventory. Sam was back in his armour, and we were about to head back out in search of the others. I had already gone under concealed presence and scouted the surroundings, and had found nothing in the surrounding area.

The plan was for me to keep being under concealed presence, and Sam and Omar would silently explore. They would stop near pre-determined stopping points and wait for me to un-conceal myself and inform them of anything that I had spotted, before we would decide on the next stopping point and continue on. I would be constantly circling the both of them, never straying too far from them, so I would be able to get the drop on anything that thought of attacking them.

Plan made, I concealed myself and the three of us stepped out.

's POV That was such a great sleep. I was still laying down in the bed I had found in some random apartment. The soft bed and pillows after that miserably pathetic wooden floor had felt amazing. I wanted to stay in bed all day, but I had shit to do, so I got up and walked out of the room. The apartment door that I had busted open caught my eye, but instead I moved towards the window to see if I could spot anything useful. I was up on the third floor, so I had a decent enough view of both sides of the street.

I looked out and instantly saw Omar and some other guy walking along the street. Is that the guy who got yelled at for being a coward? I didn't know his name, but I knew of Omar. I took out my dagger and licked my lips. If I can take the big guy out, the group would lose a lot of firepower. The group had run around in the tutorial acting all high and mighty. Fair enough, they had the strength to back it up.

But now, I was going to be the one in charge, and for that I needed to take out the ones who were stronger than me. Most of the others in the tutorial were idiots and cowards, and would fall in line soon enough with a little persuasion. But I had a list of targets that needed eliminating, and the core group was the top of that list. Lucky that bitch Sara is gone. I had caught her staring at me with suspicion a few times, but the bitch had gone off and gotten herself killed like the idiot she was.

It was great for me, I only wished it had been me who had put her down. I would have had some fun with her too. It really was sad that I hadn't gotten a chance of putting her in her place myself, but she's at least gone. So had Ben, who I hadn't been too worried about but his death did mean the group had lost another person. And now, I could take one more of them down! I licked my lips, already feeling my dagger sinking into his neck.

I was just about to turn away and head down when I noticed that the two of them had stopped in an alley, and they looked like they were waiting for something. My instincts made me stop myself from going at them with stealth on, and I always trusted my guts. I kept watching, and a couple of minutes later he appeared out of thin air. Alex! This guy was the biggest threat in my opinion. I had heard the rumours, about how he had managed to upgrade his stealth skill and had learned how to use magic.

He had also been the first one to reach E grade, and was probably responsible for a bunch of other things I didn't know. I had seen how he was always planning, and guys like him always pissed me off. But I also knew I couldn't take him lightly. Or… maybe I could…? Can he see me when I am in Stealth…? I had no idea. Should I take this opportunity at taking out my biggest threat? I could approach him from the front under stealth, and if he didn't spot me, great, I would kill him.

If he did, I could just say I saw them and was coming over to join them. Once I was close to them, I could probably find a way to kill either him or Omar, or both. I was slowly getting convinced by my plan, when the three of them stood up. Alex then concentrated on doing something, but a split second later his expression changed to one of alertness and he immediately took out his dagger and got a bit low. He started looking around, all over the place, searching for something.

I ducked low before he saw me, going under the window and out of sight. Shit, this is worse than I thought! Can he somehow sense when he is being watched?