Chương 8

Back in the settlement, the group of twelve had just finished resting. Charles sat down across from Carmen, a middle-aged woman with a harsh, cold look in her eyes.

"We have to get to that guy," she said.

"Did you see his rewards?"

"Yeah." Charles nodded.

"I don't know how he got that, but we'll just wait for them outside the place, and as soon as they come, we will take them all." The archer, too, had good gear. He had been holding a nice bow in his hands.

"Yeah," Carmen replied.

"But what if they have some weird magic? The last group was hard." With the last group, they had lost several of their own members. There had been twenty of them, but they had fought an equally big group, which had proven a challenge even when they caught them by surprise. They had told them they would go and try to fight a lot of mobs together, but in the end Charles had given the order, and each of them had tried taking out one of the others. The plan had not gone as well as he had hoped.

Now they were on the lookout for smaller groups to kill. The reason they had started killing people was that their guide had told them that killing other players would make for a much, much easier experience when it came to leveling up. Humans were more fragile than hyenas at this point, and, being sentient beings, they gave much more experience — meaning they could easily level up strong enough to fight a boss in a day.

Charles was an ex-cop, and he knew that people would start losing their minds soon and find any possible way to survive. He had been relieved of his duty after an incident, but he had never forgotten what his time serving had taught him. So he had assembled a force of people cold enough to do the same. A few of them had yet to get their hands dirty, and Charles mostly kept them around as bait. They could come in handy once they faced monsters that were too strong even for them.

But right now, the priority was to get to that guy with the S-ranked equipment. One of the nerds in his group had told him that the highest rank most likely wasn't A, but S — a nomenclature common in video games.

"Okay, let's move out. We'll wait outside the haven. And remember to whistle if you see anyone approaching, and to tell them that it's dangerous inside, that we were waiting for people to go in together. And keep in mind — if the group is too big, don't stop them. Just let them go. We'll move on. Especially if they outnumber us. We don't want any repeats."

"Yeah, Chief," Carmen said, taking out a long machete from her inventory.

"I can't wait to level up more."

"Holy shit," Lucas said, looking through the pieces of gore, blood, and flesh. I nodded.

"Holy fucking shit, yeah." Marcus was jumping up and down.

"Dude, how the hell did you do that? Is this some magic?"

"Um, no. Apparently, there is this synergy that I got from my equipment," I said, without going into too much detail.

"Man, we can just go after another alpha right now then. Just look at what you did. This is crazy." Marcus was so excited that I had to immediately calm him down.

"Yeah. And now if those motherfuckers try to do anything with us, you can just fucking explode them or something," Tina commented.

"This is very powerful, but I can only use this once."

"What? What do you mean, just once?"

"Well, technically not just once. It's just that it costs five mana," I said, "and I only have eight. So I also can't really exhaust all my mana — I already feel a little bit dizzy, and I'm at three. So I would have to wait every time in between uses. We could potentially hunt another alpha before sundown, but in a group fight, I could just take out one person. Maybe two, if the blast radius helps.

But if they have more than one caster or ranged fighter — let's say they have four bows, just like Lucas — they would just pepper us with arrows, and we would die immediately."

"He's right," Lucas said, scratching his chin and looking at me.

"It's a great move to kill an alpha, or maybe a boss, but it's going to be very impractical in a group fight for now."

"Yeah." I also didn't say the next part, which was that I could have invested more stat points into Intelligence so that I could use it maybe twice. But what I wanted was to get to the Strength requirement for the Lance of the Hero. Once I could use that, we might have a much better chance at facing any diver-killer group. I moved through the remains of the Alpha as the others looted the hyenas they had killed. And I suddenly got a notification. Would you like to loot Alpha Wild Hyena?

I looked at the disintegrated pieces of flesh scattered all around, and I frowned. Sure, I replied. An inventory opened in front of me, and I saw just one item. Alpha Wild Hyena Razor Fang. This is the sharpest fang you can find from hyenas. This is a crafting material. Interesting, I thought. The explosion had probably spared the teeth. That was fascinating to know. We ended up deciding to move out and spot another alpha after resting for thirty minutes.

By the time we found another, I would have regenerated all the mana needed to use Judgment of Raziel again, so it only made sense. However, the tracks I found this time were a little different. The prairie had very few trees. And more importantly, the tracks I had found the first time were actually footprints from the hyenas. Now I saw a bunch of broken twigs on the ground. And I wondered, naturally: where the hell did those come from? Was it a different way an alpha's tracks could appear?

I didn't rule it out, of course, but it seemed weird. So I started wondering — is this another kind of monster? Bluemont had mentioned in passing that hyenas were not the only monster out here. If we wanted the second floor, and if we didn't want the dungeon timer to kill us, we had to fight other alphas. I had asked him what he meant. He said different alphas, from different groups. We had killed the hyena. Now we had to move out and find something else. Carefully.

Not every monster on this floor was as low-level as the hyenas. And one thing he repeated more than once: do not go out at night. At night the monsters got much stronger. Second-floor strong. We were not ready for any of them, Armor of Raziel or not. So I was a bit worried that maybe these sticks were some kind of tree monster — an alpha, or worse, a boss waiting to tear us apart. But after several hyena encounters, for which we were now more than prepared, we came upon another haven instead.

This one was clearly much smaller, but it was still surrounded by the same wooden palisade that had encircled the first one. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Huh," I said.

"This is great."

"Now we don't have to worry about the damn diver killers we met in the other haven."

"I wanted to make these people pay for having killed innocents," Tina said regretfully. I looked at Tina, a little weirded out by the sudden bloodthirst — which, to be fair, hadn't come out of nowhere. The more I learned about the seemingly meek HR lady, the more I found out that she was not the kind of person I had envisioned while we worked together. We entered, and immediately it was clear that the place was different, and not just by its size.

There were very few huts — five of them, unlike the two dozen or more that had been present in the other haven. The broken twigs, I realized. Not a tree monster — just the trees. As if somebody had been stripping them for wood. But the most striking thing was—"Is that a forge?" Lucas said, his eyes going wide.

"Oh my god. I think I know what this is." Congratulations. You have just entered a Crafting Haven. Refer to your guide for any information on how the Crafting Haven works.

"Our guide?" Hailey said.

"But isn't Bluemont back at the other haven?" I looked around and saw an inn with some smoke coming out of the chimney.

"I don't think that's how it works. Let's get there." We entered the inn, and we found Bluemont getting shit-faced at the counter while chatting with Mateus.

"Ah, damn it," the middle-aged man said, looking back at us.

"You guys already done? And wait. Is this— Why did it just get— Ah. You are in a different haven." He sighed.

"This inn did look different. I didn't notice when I was switched, though. Whatever."

"So what is a crafting haven?" I asked, joining Bluemont at the counter together with the others.

"A crafting haven is what the goddamn name implies, kid. It's a place where you craft with the resources you got. From the tutorial." Soon after, Bluemont brought us to the forge.

"You can probably craft some shit armor here based on what you have. The forge can also naturally offer to exchange resources — for example, you might exchange a pelt for a spear tip or something. Who knows? Just figure it out for yourself. It's really not that hard. The System AI really handholds you here. And unless you're a blacksmith, that's all you need to know. Once you have a crafter in your group, you might start worrying about how all of this works. But until then, it really doesn't matter."

All right, I thought. Let's check this out. I got closer to the forge and a menu option appeared. Welcome to the Crafting Interface! Since you clearly have no idea what you're doing, we've kept it simple. Below the greeting sat a short list. Available Materials — it had counted everything I carried without asking: eighteen Hyena Teeth, eighteen Hyena Pelts, one Alpha Wild Hyena Razor Fang, one hundred and four Hyena Anal Glands. Then, it showed what I would be able to craft at the moment.

There was only one item available. Crude Throwing Spear — 1 Wood, 1 Hyena Tooth. The wood was greyed out. I clicked on it, mentally, and the System AI replied. Fell a tree, genius. I went out with Marcus and we sort of just broke apart a dry tree outside. We came back and I saw that the description had gotten longer for the crude throwing spear. Now I had Wood (14). Crude Throwing Spear — 1 Wood, 1 Hyena Tooth. A pointy stick with a tooth on the end. It will fly, sometimes even where you want it to.

I crafted six of them because I realized that this could be a very interesting way to activate the Judgment of Raziel. If I could just throw the spear and let it explode on a monster without being involved in the blast radius, this could become a grenade in my arsenal. Interestingly, I got a notification. Congratulations! You have learned the Skill Crafting - Level 1. Huh. That's interesting, I thought. Does this mean I can craft something else now? Indeed, it meant I could craft something else.

Another item had appeared on the crafting list. Wild Alpha Spear (F) - 1 Wood, 1 Alpha Wild Hyena Razor Fang. I crafted it and this came back: Item - Wild Alpha Spear (Rank - F) - Level 1 Description You pried the head off a starter spear and lashed an alpha's fang where it used to be. With your own two hands. Look at you. The fang is the real thing — it holds an edge no tutorial weapon has any right to, bites deep, and won't chip on the first thing you put it through.

The rest is the same cheap shaft the System handed all of you. So: a mediocre spear with an excellent tip. Which, frankly, is a step up. Still F-rank. Don't let it go to your head. When I finished crafting, Bluemont told us that the sun would soon go down.

"You guys should just rest. You're not going to hit any haven if you go out now. Well, that's a guess. I can't really tell you. But as your guide, just stay put and rest." Honestly, the entire group was very open to that suggestion. We also had new levels and achievements waiting, received while we were out in search of the Alphas. Congratulations! You have reached Level 5! You have 6 unspent Status Points. Strength: 24 → 30 My Spear Mastery had climbed to Level 5. New Achievement - Animal Abuse!

You have killed a monster in a horrific way! If PETA was still around, you'd be on their kill list. Reward: D-Ranked Animal Abuse Chest! New Achievement - I'm an Alpha, Baby! You have killed your first Alpha! No one believed in you—still, no one does—but you did it! Now, you can tell your friends you're a cool guy. Maybe a cheerleader will go out with you. Wouldn't you like that? Reward: E-Ranked Alpha Chest New Achievement — Well Done! You hit an Alpha so hard it stopped existing.

The corpse, the loot, the grass, the general concept of the animal — gone. Chef's kiss. Do bear in mind, going forward, that loot is also flammable. Reward: None. You incinerated it. That's sort of the whole joke. The Animal Abuse Chest — a rusty D-rank box with, I swear to God, a little cartoon paw print stamped where the lock should be — coughed up a single item. You have opened a D-Ranked Treasure Chest! Item - Pet Biscuit (Rank - D) - Consumable (1) Description A biscuit. For pets.

Feed it to a monster and, assuming you survive getting close enough to do that, the monster will decide you are its favorite person in the world, forever. I turned it over. It looked like a dog treat and smelled like nothing. I put it in my Inventory and opened the next chest. You have opened an E-Ranked Treasure Chest! Item - Wizard Hat (Rank - E) Description It is a wizard hat. It is exactly as stupid as it looks and it will not make you cooler. Upside: +5 Intelligence. Downside: you have to wear a wizard hat.

Intelligence, +5 I tried the hat on, but when I checked, it only gave me three more mana points, and I didn't think it would be practical to go around with this thing on my head. It didn't feel very stable, and since I was a melee fighter, it could fly off at any moment. Instead, I decided to do something more useful with it. I went up to Tina after opening my chest and said, "Tina." I put the hat in her hands, and her eyes went wide.

"Is this for me?"

"Yeah, I got it from a chest from killing the alpha, but it's not really good for me. I don't think it is for Lucas, either. Lucas will probably understand. You can probably shoot better mana balls with it or something."

"Oh, this is so cool. I love Harry Potter," she said, putting the hat on.

"And look what I got." She shook her wrist. There was a thin silver bracelet on it.

"This was from my own alpha chest. It's plus five Willpower. So now I have more mana and I regenerate mana faster."

"That's great." I smiled at Tina. I wanted to go sleep a little, but I noticed that the sun had finally dropped to the edge of the prairie.

"Oh, it's almost dark." I saw that there was a guard tower inside the haven, and I climbed on top of it. Tina and Lucas followed. Lucas had just come out of a hut after opening his own chest. He didn't say what he had gotten. There were two hyenas not too far from the haven. I wondered what would happen to the monsters once the stronger ones came out. The answer was not what I had expected, and rather unsettling. There was no new monster coming out. Well, not literally coming out or appearing.

The two hyenas started shaking. Their bones started snapping and their muscles enlarged, pushing against their skin and threatening to split it open. I almost felt sick at that sight. But most importantly, soon the two hyenas were on two legs and had taken on a humanoid form. [Gnoll - Lv. 16] The two gnolls were seven feet tall, and spears had materialized in their hands out of nowhere.

"Fuck me, those two things look dangerous."

"You can say that again." I turned and found Bluemont right behind us.

"Jesus, where did you come from?" I asked.

"I wanted to see what you kids were up to. Well, now you've gotten a good look at why you shouldn't go out at night. Don't get any ideas. A lot of people die because they think they can take those monsters. They think they will become stronger faster if they kill the night monsters. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they just die. And not good deaths. Gnolls have a taste for human flesh." I frowned.

"So this is what's waiting for us on the next floors?"

"Oh, this is just the beginning. Now, come to the inn before you go to sleep. The Streaming Show is about to start."