Chương 58: Chapter 59: Leveling up. Again.

Again.

The first thing I do is hand in my quests. I hand over the snake skins and the wyvern spikes, then I turn in the scout quests, and then I see where I'm standing. All the quests that I handed in are worth fifty five thousand experience points. That puts me at level 19 and gives me 93 stat points to spend. First I spend eighty of them to make up for the stat points that I lost, putting me back up to where I was. Then I take the other thirteen and put four into strength, six into agility, and three into vigor.

And I have to admit that while I don't like Thrax's plan, it's a good one. I'm already past where I was when I died, and if he's going to get me ten more levels before killing me again, I'm going to end up with absolutely ridiculous stats. I can understand how the god slayer was able to do it. I wonder how many more times I'm going to have to go through with this, and how much of a difference that's going to make. Right now, though, I need to find my friends.

They should be back in town either tonight or tomorrow, depending on how long I've been dead. I send El a message. How far out are you guys? It'll be another day, El responds. What level have you hit? Nineteen. I was at twenty nine, but I got killed again. Long story. Try not to get killed again. We'll level you up when we get there. Just relax for a while. I'll do my best, I say. Then I start looking at new quests. It turns out there is a quest for rhinoblade horns.

It's a hunter quest, and it's worth 25, 000 experience and 40 renown. That puts me to level 20, almost 21, and gets me eight more points to spend. I put two points into agility and the rest into willpower. There's also a quest for the snake fangs, but that one is only worth 8, 000 experience and 10 renown, which puts me up to level twenty one. I put eight points straight into agility; I skipped several levels with that last time around. Secret Quest: The Agile among us. Reach 100 Agility.

Reward: 10, 000 experience. There are also some scout quests that I've already done. Unfortunately, I can't just turn them in automatically; I apparently have to do them again. But I think I can. Scout Quest: visit the mountains. Reward: 10, 000 experience, 20 renown. Scout Quest: reach the ocean. Reward: 15, 000 experience, 25 renown. Scout Quest: find monster generators. Progress: 0/3. Reward: 20, 000 experience, 30 renown. That's not enough to get me back up to nineteen. I need some other quests as well.

I head over to the adventurer guild, and I almost immediately find something that I know I can do, and I know I can do tonight. Adventurer quest: clear the road. Walk into and survive an ambush on the road, defeating the bandits who set it. Reward: 20, 000 experience, 30 renown. I can definitely do that. It's early in the day. I can go out and do that one and probably make it back to Elmspire before dusk if I really want to. Then maybe I'll go out and hunt down a monster generator.

I head out of town, taking the road indicated in my quest. Moving along the road is even faster than moving through the forest. I consider just running down the road, but I'm afraid I wouldn't step into the ambush if that happened. If I'm going too fast, they may opt not to ambush me, to just let me run by at my breakneck pace. Still, it's nice to know that the road does facilitate faster movement if I need to get somewhere quickly.

I decide to stroll down the road, keeping my eyes and my nose out for the sign of bandits. But that gets boring pretty quickly. I realize that I don't want to just set off an ambush, and I'm not even sure that they'd bother with me. I'm one person, walking all by myself. If they scan me, they'll see that I'm really high level compared to them. They may opt to just let me go. It's not like I'm carrying a big sack of gold over my shoulder. Bandits are probably going to attack wagons or caravans.

Preferably ones without guards. In an ideal bandit ambush, the people surrender everything without a fight. There is no danger to any of the bandits, and no one gets hurt. The odds of that happening with a lone adventurer are low. So they may not even bother with me. Which means I have to find them, spot them before going through wherever they are ambushing. It also means that they are likely to block the road with something as part of the ambush.

So I should look for any downed trees as a sign that I'm getting close to the ambush spot. I step off the road and begin to move through the brush on the side of the road, going slowly and letting Camouflage help me stay hidden. I'm only about five feet from the road, but I'm hoping that will give me the vantage point to spot the bandits before they spot me. I sniff at the air, searching the scent of leather and oil, from a source other than me. I nock and arrow as I move, ready for when I do eventually find them.

It takes hours to find them, but those hours are not wasted. My alertness increases to 20, my sneak to 25, and my tracking to 20. I also spot a few trails that I might want to follow later. But eventually I find a smell that warns me that there are people around. It's a resin smell, kind of like glue. I recognize it from when I've made arrows. It's the smell of freshly made arrows. It's just a few minutes later that I spot the first of the bandits. Human Bandit Sniper. Rare Elite humanoid, level 10. HP: 2500/2500.

Sniper. That's new. And I see that there are three of them, keeping an eye on the road, their hands on their bows. They aren't looking in my direction; in fact, they're pretty exposed to me. They've got good cover from the road, though. It's a good thing I stepped off. Okay. If there are three snipers here, there are probably three on the other side of the road as well. But it won't just be snipers. There are probably warriors as well. Yes, I see them. Human Bandit Warrior. Rare Elite humanoid, level 10.

HP 2500/2500. I can see three of them as well. Assume as many on the other side of the road. Twelve bandits. I think I can take them. The snipers are close to one another, but I don't think they're looking at one another. Can I pull this off? I take aim at the farthest of the snipers, and I use Sniper Shot. It's my first shot with my new bow. Let's see how well it does. I let loose, and watch the arrow fly through the branches of the trees and hit the bandit dead on, right in the throat. It deals 1, 673.

He makes a brief choking sound, then dies. I wait, holding absolutely still, and watch the other two snipers. When neither of them move, I let out a breath and watch my cooldown timer. Forty seconds later, I shoot at another of the snipers, pinning him to the tree by his neck. He makes a louder choking sound, and this time he is heard. The other sniper looks around wildly, desperately putting an arrow into his bow. He doesn't shout for aid, and that, really, is what kills him.

I use Rapid Shot on him, then shoot him with a normal shot. He twitches as the six arrows hit him. He looks down at all of them, then looks up. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then slumps over and dies. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. But he falls out of the tree, so the other warriors see it. They don't see me, not yet.

"We're under attack!" one of the warriors shouts. They all draw their weapons and begin looking around frantically, waiting to get an idea of where I am. They didn't see the direction that the shots came from, and since the sniper kind of twisted in the air while he was falling, they don't think to look for me in the right direction. Just in case, I use Distraction to throw them off even more.

Then I Sniper Shot one of the warriors, my arrow catching him in the back of the neck and puncturing through the front of his throat. He falls over as soon as the bleed kicks in. And while he did fall, he fell to the side, so it's harder to figure out where I'm coming from. They'll narrow it down soon enough, but I might be able to get one more shot off before they do. Or I could use Rapid Shot again. But I'm actually a little bit worried about the snipers on the other side of the road.

I look through the foliage to try to spot them. I can't find all of them, but I do see one of them. He's scanning this side of the road, bow drawn and ready to fire as soon as he sees me. I use Trick Shot and shoot out his bow string. He lets out a scream of surprise and a little bit of pain as the bow suddenly snaps out of its arc, the string flying everywhere. I'll be amazed if he took more than a single point of damage, but I like that I finally got to use Trick Shot. And that it worked.

The only way to find the other two snipers, it seems, is to draw them out. That might even mean crossing the road. I don't trust that even Camouflage will let me do that unseen. Even with an effective sneak of 50, I don't think it'll work. It's broad daylight, and they are actively looking for me. As soon as I step out of the cover of the trees, they're going to see me. But I can move a little bit forward, hoping that will give me a better view of the snipers.

If I can get all of them out of the fight, I'll be very happy. But if not, I'd like to get just one more of them unable to shoot me once the others find me. As I creep forward, the bandits are starting to fan out to look for me. They're not panicking. They're organized and they're calm, despite that fact that I've already taken out four of them. They don't know how many people are attacking them, but they're getting close enough to one another that they aren't going to be able to be sneaked up on.

Close enough that I have one more Sniper Shot, and then I'm probably going to have to switch to melee combat. I can feel an itch, like time is running out before they see me. My sneak is effectively really high, but there's still that chance that they'll spot me, and it feels like that chance is becoming more and more of a certainty as time goes on. Especially as I continue to move around. It's easier to hide without moving. Movement can give you away. Like that! Right there.

I just saw one of the snipers move, trying to get a better angle to cover his compatriots. I don't think he sees me. I let loose my final Sniper Shot, hitting him right in the eye and blasting him down to the ground.

"There!" someone shouts. I draw my sword and whirl towards the voice, towards the two warriors coming at me. I could cast Mab's Rage if I need to. I tell myself that as I stand up straight and put my back to a tree, hopefully protecting me from the one remaining sniper with a functioning bow. There are five warriors and two snipers left. They could surround me. If they do, I can use Mab's Rage. For now, though, I have other tricks up my sleeve.

I throw a Fire Bolt at one of the warriors, dealing 170 damage and slowing him enough that his companion gets to me before he does. I move faster than the bandit by a pretty significant margin, thanks to my agility reaching 100. He slashes at me, I duck under his blade, and then I stab upward under the leather of his armor, right into his arm pit. It does 442 damage, which I'm pretty sure is a critical hit, and it starts to bleed.

I quickly use Bleeding Strike for another 287 damage while he staggers back, trying to recover from the first blow. I don't chase him, because I don't want to lose the tree at my back. It guarantees that I can't be completely surrounded and attacked by five of them at the same time. They might be able to come at me three at a time, but not more than that. The one I hit with the Fire Bolt steps forward and stabs at me, moving just as slowly as his companion.

I slash at him for 220 damage, cutting open a gash on his face that makes him step back and reconsider. Then one of them pulls out a throwing knife and throws it at me. It hits my Shell for a grand total of 3 damage. But even just three damage is going to add up if I don't step up and fight them. I'm reminded of the battle with the lava lords. If they're going to use ranged weapons and I don't do the same, then eventually I'm going to lose. Probably. Luckily, I still have throwing knives of my own.

And mine do 108 damage every time I throw them. And the ones of theirs that hit me, I can always throw back at them. In fact, I manage to catch a knife thrown at me, taking no damage from it, and throw it back for 108 damage. I feel like Jack Burton. And then immediately feel like a giant nerd. Oh well. At least I hit the guy who threw the knife. That'll show them this is not a winning strategy for them. They move in again, hoping that their swords will have more luck hitting me.

But I'm so much faster than they are that it looks like they're moving in slow motion. I realize as I'm fighting that Thrax may not be so far off in his idea. I'm faster than I've ever been. My agility is higher than it's ever been, even at level twenty one. I've been eight levels higher, but I never had this much agility. I never had this much strength or this much vigor. None of my stats are low, all of them are much higher than they should be. This method breaks the game.

No wonder whoever did it was able to kill a god. I've died three times and I'm this far ahead. Imagine how much further someone would be if they'd died a hundred times. Imagine how high their skills would be. How powerful their spells and abilities would be. I shake my head at the prospect, barely paying attention to the two people attacking me. I knock their swords aside, I lean out of the way of a slash, I dodge a stab, and I riposte with a chop that does 221 damage every time I swing. They do hit me eventually.

Fighting against two people, you're bound to get hit. But they only do 21 damage when they hit me, and I still hit them each twice for every time one of them hits me. By the time Bleeding Strike comes off cooldown and I use it again, they're both under a thousand hit points, and my Shell is still almost at a thousand points. When the third warrior comes to join them, with two more waiting in the wings, the tide does turn a little bit. But only a little bit.

They still aren't doing enough damage to really matter to me. If they manage to get through this Shell, I'll put up another one. And it's going to take them more than five minutes to bring that one down. Then an arrow hits me for 78 damage. That's a surprisingly high amount. Must have been an ability, like Sniper Shot. Something with a multiplier. At least, I hope that's the case. Because if he can keep shooting me for that much damage every few seconds, I might have to use Mab's Rage just to save my ass.

But the next arrow does 20 damage, so I'm pretty sure that first shot was just an ability. Even still, I want to make sure that I can get through these warriors and stop the sniper from continuing to use that ability when it comes off cooldown. And to stop them from turning me into a pincushion, should they ever get through Shell.

I concentrated on the more damaged of the warriors, accepting blows from both of the other warriors while I slash him across the chest twice in rapid succession, then take a swinging blow that decapitates him. Cutting off his head would be more important if he'd been at full health, but by the time I actually took that swing, it would've killed him either way. So it's more of a flourish than anything else.

I hear some crazy movement through the brush not far from me, but there's nothing in that direction when I glance that way. I wonder what caused the noise. It sounded like someone just crashing through the underbrush, like they were charging. But no one came charging at me, so I'm not sure if I heard it right. I focus on the warriors in front of me. The one I killed has already been replaced by one of this two fellows, and we go back into the dance from before.

I can hit one of them three times for every time they hit me. So it's only a minute later when I kill the second warrior. Another arrow slams in for 78 damage, pretty well convincing me that it is literally Sniper Shot, but I don't have time to worry about that right now. I've taken about two hundred damage in the time it took me to kill those first two warriors. My Shell can handle that. I fight my way through the other three warriors over the next few minutes, and then turn to the two snipers. One sniper.

He's standing there with his bow, taking careful aim. That's going to be another Sniper Shot. The timing is about right. He'll be aiming for my chest, especially now that it's just him and me. I can move my head too easily. He'll want a body shot. He lets loose the arrow, and I catch it. Sort of. I take 5 damage to my actual health, and I look down a the arrow to see that the shaft has some blood on it. I apparently caught it a little bit too early, and it sliced up my hand a little bit. But I caught the arrow.

I step forward and run the sniper through with my sword, digging the blade upward as it goes into his stomach. I twist the blade to make it bleed, then pull out and chop at his neck. He takes 442 from the first strike, and does start to bleed. He manages to get his hand up to block the strike at his throat, taking the blow to his arm, very nearly cutting his hand off. Blood splatters everywhere. He screams. My next two blows silence him. I look around for the other sniper, but I don't see him.

That's not a good thing. Not being able to see him means he could be lurking somewhere, hiding and getting ready to shoot me.