Chương 51: Solo Grinding

The hard part about getting levels alone is that it's just me. I don't have other people I can trust to help me out, to have my back. I have to go out and fight on my own. And that's not easy. I can't take on huge groups of monsters by myself, or I'm going to end up even lower level than I am now. I've made up for the loss of stat points already, but I've still got a long way to go before I'm back to where I was. Those levels make a big difference, in a lot of ways.

The only good thing about this is that my talents are still good. I still have the talents for levels twenty and twenty five. I won't get new ones, but that's okay. I'll get a new one when I hit level thirty. And when I do, I think I might go with the toughness talent. It might be worth it after all. If I'd had twenty two hundred hit points and Shell, I probably could've killed that last bargheast without any trouble. Before I leave the city, I go to the scout guild for more quests.

As usual, they have a seemingly endless number of them, and I pick a few that I think I'll be able to do by myself. Scout quest: catalog monsters of level 15 or higher. Progress 0/5. Reward: 20 renown, 10, 000 experience. Scout quest: Find enemy strongholds in the forest. Progress 0/3. Reward: 30 renown, 15, 000 experience. Scout quest: trail a monster of level 20 or higher back to its lair. Reward: 20 renown, 10, 000 experience. And then from the hunter guild, I grabbed a few hunting quests. Wyvern spikes.

Retrieve spines from a wyvern's tail. Progress: 0/5. Reward: 20 renown, 10, 000 experience. Snake skin. Retrieve giant snake skins. Progress 0/5. Reward: 20 renown, 10, 000 experience. If I manage to do all these quests in the next three days, it'll be worth more than fifty thousand experience. That's enough to get me back to level 23 or 24, I think. Plus whatever else I kill along the way. I just have to be careful, because I'm working without a safety net. I don't have friends there to help me.

But I'm built to work alone. My sheet is, at least, I have a lot of skills and abilities that let me work by myself, and I just have to be careful with them. I head out of Elmspire maybe two hours after coming back from the dead, moving in a new direction from the last time I left town. I'm not going to run into my friends on the way back, and I already know at least a little of what's out that way.

I don't think I need to go nearly as far afield as I have in the past, but I still need to put some distance between me and the city before I'm going to find prey that is up to my level. The bears and the wolves aren't strong enough to be worth my time. I can probably stop and kill some shadow wolves, but that might not be a good idea. I need things that are in small groups or solitary hunters. That's why I took the wyvern quest.

I'm hoping that wyverns are solitary hunters, and I'll be able to track one back to its nest without any trouble. That'll get me two with one blow. I am able to move faster alone than I was when I was traveling with Gigi and El. Being twenty percent faster means I can get clear from Elmspire much faster. I'm moving an extra mile an hour without difficulty, and that's while paying enough attention to the tracks that my tracking skill goes up to 17.

I'm about three hours outside of Elmspire when I come across some humanoid tracks. They're big, bigger than the elves and bigger than mine, and they're pretty deep. Judging by the tracks, whoever put them here is at least seven feet tall and weighs in the three hundred fifty to four hundred pound range. But they're not moving like they're overweight. That movement is determined, even athletic.

The prints are far enough apart that it looks like the person was running, and they kept up the running pace for a pretty long time, judging by the trail that I'm following with Find Path. I activate Camouflage as soon as I hear movement, and I freeze where I am. In addition to movement, I'm sure I heard talking. And there it is in front of me, maybe sixty feet away through the trees and the brush. Ogre. Rare advanced monster, level 18. HP: 1800/1800. There are two of them so far.

I sneak a bit closer to see if I can tell what they're saying. I can. I understand their words. It seems like they're talking about their patrols, seeing if the other one spotted anything, and talking about being hungry. That doesn't surprise me. But I do wonder if I can take them both out. They have more hit points than I do, but I still feel good about my chances. There are only two of them, after all. I set up for a Sniper Shot and let the arrow loose. It does 623 damage, and causes bleed.

The two ogres draw swords that are bigger than my torso and begin looking around for the source of the arrow. I fire off a Distraction to get them looking the wrong way. They start to search in the wrong direction and I move with them, staying slow so that my Camouflage will keep me hidden, waiting for the forty five second cooldown to pass before I take another shot. My second Sniper Shot kills the first ogre, the bleed from one arrow being almost enough to take it out.

But once I've fired a second time, the remaining ogre knows where I am and starts moving towards me. He hasn't spotted me directly yet, but he's moving in my direction. I fire Rapid Shot, hitting him for 890 damage. He sees me and roars. I fire another arrow for 170 damage. He makes it three steps closer before dying. You have defeated ogre x2. You gain 3600 experience. That puts me within striking distance of level twenty, and I haven't even tracked them back to their stronghold.

I don't know if I can take out a whole stronghold of ogres, but there is a chance. It depends on how many there are. I continue to Find Path and track the two ogres back to their encampment. When I get close, I start camouflage again so that I can sneak closer. I get notified that I have officially scouted out the encampment when I see that there are nine more ogres, though the tracks suggest that there's another one that's still out, probably scouting like the other two that I took down. I sneak closer.

My sneak increases to 21, and I wish I'd gotten to keep that ring that gave me five levels of sneak. Oh well. I guess you only keep one item when you die, unless they're soul bound. And all things considered, I'm pleased to have kept the bone bow. It was my best weapon, all things considered. As I get closer, I get a notification that my Observation ability has increased, and I get a chance to look at what I was expecting to find: a boss. Ogre boss. Rare Elite monster, level 20. HP: 5, 000/5, 000.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. There it is. The real question of the day. Can I take out the ogre boss as well as all the other ogres? Mab's Rage does 36 damage per second for a minute; that's enough to kill all of the ogres, so long as I can get them all within 33 feet of me in any direction. That shouldn't be too hard. But that will leave me one on one with the ogre boss. Can I defeat him by myself, sword to sword? Only one way to find out.

If this doesn't work out, I'm going to be level one again, and I'm going to be very, very pissed. Maybe I'll spend the next few days just crafting and try to get myself some better gear. Because if I can't take out one ogre by myself, then I definitely need better gear. I'll work on getting that better gear, and then let my friends power level me a bit when they get back. Or I'll kill all the ogres, right here and now, and level up at least once, maybe twice. And get a bit of my confidence back.

Yesterday I wouldn't have thought twice about this battle. I still use Sniper Shot and then Rapid Shot on the guard at the edge of camp, taking him out before he can call a warning to anyone else. Then I walk forward, shooting at random into the group of them, waiting for them to get closer, to surround me, so that I can activate Mab's Rage. I want to make sure that the spell takes out as many of them as possible. I don't want to have to fight three or four on one because some of them stayed back.

When I get to the edge of their encampment, I switch from my bone bow to my new sword. I then charge forward, trying to break through their lines like I'm trying to get something on the other side, making sure that I'm surrounded on all sides by ogres. There are still eight of them, including the boss, and I need to get right in the middle of them all. As soon as I'm in the middle, I cast Mab's Rage. Then I go on the offensive.

I don't stay long enough to really engage anyone, darting around and trying to dodge while also being a threat to as many of them as possible. I get hit for 46 damage by one of those massive swords, and it nearly takes me off my feet. Probably would've caused bleed if not for Shell. But I'm ready to go with Shell up, and with the cooldown already passed, so I'm ready for another one. I have a lot of hit points. More than I should need to deal with these guys.

They keep swiping at me, and I keep doing my best not to get hit. I'm not even trying to hit any of them; I'm just waiting for the time to pass. I can handle 51 damage here and 44 there. I can even handle 62 from the boss and another 48 from one of the subordinates. I can take 55 and 46 and 44 and 41 damage as thirty seconds goes by. And I can handle it that they deal another 450 damage to me before they all die.

Because when it comes down to me and the boss, I still have about a hundred points left in my Shell, and he's down to 2840/5000 hit points.

"You die now," he says to me, his voice a grumble like rocks rolling down the hill. He nearly takes my hand off when I raise my arm to try to deflect his blow with my shield, only to remember that I don't have a shield anymore. Take 99 damage from the hit, but thankfully my arm doesn't come off. I don't know what I would do if that had happened. I slash at the ogre boss and deal 201 damage, breaking the two hundred mark for the first time ever with a single strike. He grunts, and I have to smile.

Finally, I'm doing the kind of damage that actually matters. Finally, I'm doing enough damage to really hurt my opponent. I use Bleeding Slash, which deals 269 base damage, eventually bleeding to do a total of 534. He swings at me again with his giant sword, and I duck underneath it, slashing at his wrist for another 199 damage, putting him below two thousand hit points as he kicks me for 34 damage, getting a bit of space between us where he can use his longer reach to his advantage.

I use the distance between us as a chance to recast Shell, boosting my defenses back up and basically doubling my hit points. I keep my feet light on the ground, dodging to the side as he slashes at me, his sword digging a furrow into the ground between us. I slash him for another 206 damage and dart out of the way of the back swing. He grunts in annoyance and frustration, and I smile again. I'm winning this fight. I can take him. I'm going to get some of my levels back.

A slash across my chest for 56 damage reminds me not to get cocky. I can probably draw this out another five minutes and get another casting of Shell, but if I'm careful and direct, I won't need to. I can dodge his attacks and then chop at his massive arm for 207 damage, trying to take his arm the same way he tried to take mine.

"You're going to lose," I say to him.

"You going to lose!" he shouts back. Okay, so witty repartee isn't in the cards for this particular fight. I understand that. I keep moving, darting as fast as I can around his increasingly wild slashes. I'm hitting him five times for every time he hits me, and for nearly four times as much damage. This isn't going to last all that much longer. He chops at me, and I deal 200 damage. He slashes at me, and I chop a slice down his face that does 207 damage.

He hits me with the flat of his blade for 61 damage, and I cut off one of his fingers while dealing 205 more damage to him. He grips the sword with both hands rather than just the one that's missing a finger. I look down at the finger on the ground. It's about as thick around as my wrist. I'm kind of impressed that I was able to chop it off. I slash across his chest, cutting from shoulder down to belly.

Then I quickly do a cross slash across his stomach, hoping to cut through the layers of muscle and fat and force him to hold his insides in. He then hits me with a backslash that deals 140 damage. Apparently he does more damage swinging with both hands. That makes sense. But he's down below my hit points now, and it's just a matter of time. He roars at me and charges, clearly intending to take my off my feet and trust on his weight advantage to help him.

I dodge to the side and cut him as he goes by, quickly slashing at his legs and sending him tumbling down to the ground. It's then a simple matter to finish him off, stabbing him in the head for the final blow. Something thuds into my shoulder blade as I make the killing blow, and I remember that there was one ogre still out scouting. He must have come home. I look over my shoulder to see that the impact was a thrown spear. It makes me think of El and her javelins.

I look up and see that the spear hit was probably a critical hit, as it did 138 damage. Turning towards the source of the spear, I see an ogre aiming another spear at me. I raise my hand and cast Fire Bolt at him, dealing 165 damage to him as I close the gap between us. He throws the spear, but I jump aside, casting another Fire Bolt at him before coming in with my sword, swinging it like a baseball bat at his head. If the angle had been better, I might have decapitated him.

But the ogre is almost a foot and a half taller than me, and the angle to get at his neck is at best awkward. I manage a nasty cut and deal 207 damage, my maximum amount, but I don't kill him outright He's down to about thirteen hundred hit points, and more or less so am I. But now that we're toe to toe, he has to rely on his cleaver sword, and it just does not do as much damage as my blade.

And he isn't as fast as his boss was, so it's less than a minute and fewer than a hundred points of damage to me before I finally kill him. You have defeated Ogre x9. You have defeated Ogre Boss. You gain (16, 200+5, 000) 21, 200 experience. You have gained 2 levels. You are now a level 21 tracker. You have 16 points to spend. I decide to put ten points into charisma, two points into manipulation, and then two each in agility and strength.

This puts it so that even if I die again and lose ten from every stat, I'll at least still have a base of ten in manipulation and charisma. I'm not sure what either one is really used for, other than haggling and negotiating, but I don't want to have penalties in either of them if I die again. Fighting on my own is a lot more dangerous, but it's also a lot more lucrative. I like not having to share the experience that I gain. This might be worth doing.

First and foremost, though, I need to loot the bodies and the encampment. The huge cleaver swords might me worth something, so I gather all ten of those. Then I add the three throwing spears that I recovered from my final opponent, and then I go looking for money. I'm not expecting to find much, but I hope that maybe I'll get lucky and find a chest. I don't have any lock picks, though. I need more of those. I should make a few.

There's a workbench inside the fortification, and I use that to construct a bunch of lock picks, basically taking one of the swords and shattering it into pieces, then molding those pieces into lock picks with my hammer and the heat of their little forge fire. I wouldn't trust that fire for forging anything all that important, but lock picks are basically just strips of metal with a little bit of fine work on the ends.

They don't need to be super strong the whole way through and they don't need to be reliable in combat. They just have to work to help me get a chest open.