by Pegaz
He wanted to leave the impression that he was overwhelmed by the death of a “friend”, and merely wanted to get some time away from this place.
When the quest was registered to his name, he left the building in a flurry, pausing just outside of the entrance. With a single drawn-out motion, he swept his gaze up to where Tom's office was. He clenched his fist tight, glaring up at the window and cursing fate.
Whether this was part of an act or not, he wasn’t entirely sure.
Chapter 24
Halfway There
BANG!
John smashed a giant spider to bits, using his bare hands. The monster was four feet tall and fifteen feet wide with its legs spread out. Its main body was only one foot by two feet, though. It was pitch black with a white pattern on its back.
This was called a Black Lace Weaver by the system. This type of spider shot webs at its targets to slow them down. It had two huge fangs that were dripping with what John assumed to be poison. It had more than eight eyes, but John didn't bother counting them.
For the most part, John's body was strong enough to ignore the webs they shot. They just snapped from the pulling force he generated, as John carried on running at the spider.
After killing the spider, it gave John 1h 20m in the Time Pool.
John pulled off whatever web was left on his body after the fight, and walked back to the carriage where the merchant was. From this vantage point, John watched the other four adventurers in their party take down another spider.
"Aren't you going to go help them?" The merchant watched John lay down in the carriage. The defenceless client was still scared there might be more spiders, as his head kept twitching around nervously.
"There aren't any more enemies around, so you can relax.” John nodded back at the other escorts and added, “plus, they need to fight more monsters for more experience. How are they going to grow stronger if someone's there holding their hands every time something happens? If it endangers the whole group, then I'll help them."
John tried to calm the merchant down. He used Life vision to check the surroundings, there were a hundred spiders in the forest on either side of the road, but none were close.
I really want to kill all two-hundred-something of these spiders for the Time Pool, but it would take a while if I went off. Something might happen to the carriage, and then I could fail the quest and lose the rank promotion too. I've got to give up so much for this quest. John sighed and kept an eye on the fight outside using Life vision.
After roughly five minutes, the fight was over. None of the adventurers were injured, and well-coordinated teamwork had helped kill the spider quicker.
Over the past month on this quest, the other four members of the group had grown closer. Since leaving the town, John still refused to fight with them. He was usually sleeping inside the carriage as they travelled.
The only reason that no one spoke against this was because whenever the carriage came under attack, John was the first one to act. He usually handled everything by himself, they could tell that he was much stronger than them. With another month of the quest to go, they doubted his attitude would change.
In this past month, Level 25 of the Bone Density skill had taken over thirteen hours with a total of forty-four Idle workers in it. John worked it out in his head. With 440 seconds per second and half the time from Idler Speed level 9... It would have taken 1y 5mo 1d 12h worth of time at the start.
He experimented during this month. He got each skill to Level 25. When the Muscle Elasticity’s Skeletal skill hit Level 25, he could feel the difference in strength, but nothing happened to his Attack points.
It was the same with all the others until he reached level 25 in Flesh' Strength. With this skill, he watched in delight as his attack jumped another 150 points, bringing it to 750 Points. That was ranked B by the system!
After that though, he put all Idlers back into Maximum Idlers again. He now knew the real value of multiple Idlers. If he could get 99 into one skill, it might get a skill to Level 100 in a matter of months.
John worked it out that the thirty levels in all 5 Power Levels listed on his Attack List are what got multiplied for the points. He'd have to get to Level 30 in both of the Defensive skills to see if his guess was correct.
The other good news was since he’d got to Level 25 in the defence list's Flesh Strength, Organ Strength, and Bone Density skills, he finally reached 120 Points in his defence. This brought his score up to H rank.
If his guess was right, with the way the system worked, as long as his Defence points were higher than his enemy's Attack points, he could stand there, and his body would be unharmed by any of their attack.
From now on, if there were any Continuous Bear's left, he could stand there and do nothing, their claws and teeth would be unable to hurt him. Even if the bear fell on him again, it wouldn't even knock him over, since he could exert around 5 metric tons of strength now.
The reason why John didn't help the adventurers was because he couldn't control his strength. If he pushed someone out the way of an attack, he could very easily kill the guy on accident.
"This is still the F Rank area, and they are struggling to kill F Rank monsters... What will happen if more than one E Rank monster comes along?" The merchant’s voice shook with paranoia.
"I can kill it quickly, as long as I can get close enough to it,” John replied flatly. “Though, if it flies or digs underground, I'm screwed. If it can breathe fire, shoot water or anything like that, then I'm screwed too.”
‘Ding!’
ToolTip - As long as you've got a breath in you, you'll recover from severe burns or ice piercings etc.
SCREW THAT! Sure I might survive, but it will be hell on earth again just like the bone's shifting back into place!
‘Ding!’
Congratulations for thinking up a valid add-on skill, we have included the add-on.
John opened the system up to check the final add-on.
Resistance - Idlers 0/99, Elemental - 0/5, Status - 0/1, Emotional - 0/1
Resistance:
Elemental: Fire, Water, Earth, Metal and Wood resistance, as long as an attack is made up of these elements then you are immune.
Status: Automatically removes any condition that can alter the body in any way. (Petrify, blind etc.)
Emotional: Always stay calm with this skill.
Now, that’s more like it! I won't have to worry about being burned alive, no matter how much I get burned!
John turned off the Continue option. He wanted these resistance skills to level up as soon as possible. In the back of his head, he was afraid of going through such a large amount of pain ever again.
The four other adventurers came back to the carriage after cleaning up the battlefield. They were tired but still clutching their weapons, ready to fight at a moments notice. The merchant was happy upon their return. "This is roughly the halfway point in between the two areas, and we're well ahead of schedule because of you guys. Normally, we have to stop to fight the spiders for an hour per encounter."
Apparently, the four adventurers killing the spiders in roughly five minutes classified as quick. And here John had believed them to be struggling.
"You should be fighting with us to deal with these monsters!” One of the four adventurers complained. This particular party member had proven himself to be brattier than the others. “Together, we could kill them even faster, and get promoted sooner!" What kind of argument was that?
John sat up and stared him in the eyes. He was in a good mood until this guy had to ruin it.
"Sorry, I'm not the type of person to hold your hand just in case something goes wrong,” John sneered, “You're an adventurer, so man up and deal with the problems head-on. At least, you've got team members who fight with you. I go charging on my own because I know I can deal with the enemy. Meanwhile, I always let you lot fight to get experience for improvement. If it came down to it, of course I would help if you desperately needed me. B
ut if you're only arguing to impress everyone else in some way, then no, it doesn't work that way. Impress us by action rather than trying to mouth off."
As he finished with his rant-turned-lecture, John stood up and got down from the carriage. He bolted to the right side of the road and through some part of the woods.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Everyone felt the vibrations through the ground. Even the horses stopped and whimpered.
John came back, his clothes had green blood from spiders all over them. He wasn't worried about that though since they had the self-clean rune installed.
"See, this is the type of thing you could be doing,” John said smugly, “So fight these spiders whenever they get too close, or can't you tell when they're close unless you see them first?"
After saying this, he went back to the carriage, lied down, and started sleeping again.
The other adventurers were stunned. They couldn't see any spiders and couldn't tell where they were either. The adventurer who tried to argue was stunned silent for the rest of the evening, a little paler than usual, too.
Back on the battlefield that John left behind, one could see bits and pieces of spiders scattered inside four considerably sized holes in the ground. It was evident that John had used his full strength to vent his frustration.
Chapter 25
Have I Passed?
After punching those enormous holes, John figured it warned the rest of the spiders to keep clear of this carriage. They did not suffer another attack. Without a hitch, it was smooth sailing until the next area.
Here, the highest ranked monster was E Rank. There were quite a few different F Ranks in the mix, too. John kept track over the first hour in the area, during which, of course, they were attacked continuously.
During this fight and the duration of the entire quest, John had to put in a lot of effort to keeping the carriage safe. Because of that, however, he started questioning things. For example, he suspected that the carriage drivers actually an undercover high-ranked adventurer, sent along the quest to monitor his and the other four’s progression with this special type of quest. Even when they made it, if this staff member didn't think that they were ready, then the five of them wouldn’t get promoted at all! It was really irksome, and John hoped he was wrong about the whole thing.
Glancing up, however, the driver looked pale and scared due to the onslaught of attacks. Maybe he’s not a high-ranking member after all...
Finally catching a break from the monsters, John checked on the cargo to make sure no food was attracting anything. That's when he noticed a half burnt stick, still just barely alight, stashed away under a few pieces of ore that the merchant was planning on selling at their destination.
John used his Godly Analyser skill on it.
Pheromone Stick:
Has 50 different pheromones inside which will attract male monsters once lit.
Fuck, someone's trying to get us killed.
John picked up the stick and rushed out of the carriage. At a rough glance, there were about seventy different creatures to his right, but only about thirty to his left.
With all his strength, John flung the stick towards the right side, using the baseball pitchers sequence of lifting his left leg up.
‘Whoosh!’
The stick went very far, very fast and the animals on the right side all followed the smell that travelled through the air. Satisfied, John turned to the left side and began his massacre.
The strongest monster here was called Gliderpus. It resembled an octopus with eight legs, but instead of suction cups, the legs held small round objects which made them glide over the ground.
Gliderpus:
Attack: 490
Defence: 180
So it was still a one-hit-kill for both parties. John needed to get his defence up as soon as possible. One unlucky hit and he would be dead. Speed and attack strength wouldn’t matter then.
After about ten minutes of fighting, the other adventures were lying down, tired. The driver was smiling, happy to have survived through this. He decided to start cooking a meal as celebration.
John walked up to the driver while the man was preparing some food. He leaned in to whisper.
"Carry on what you're doing and don't panic or tip anyone off."
The driver paused for a split-second, but carried on with his task at hand as nothing had happened. John pretended to help him with the food, whispering as low as possible for only the driver’s ears.
"We've got a problem. Someone's setting us up."
John looked at the driver for any reaction as he said that, but the driver was stunned. He's either a good actor, or genuinely surprised. John couldn't tell.
"I found an incense stick that attracted those monsters here. I threw it away, and a ton of the monsters chased after it. It was already lit up when I found it, so obviously someone had just done it not too long ago. I know I didn't do it, so that leaves you and the adventurers as suspects. I'm telling you this because you're the least suspicious, but don't get the wrong idea. You're still a suspect."
John still suspected him to be more than just a driver. He might be from the guild as an examiner, or maybe he was an assassin trying to get rid of their party for some reason. He saw the types of quest that E Rank and above had. It often included things like escorting merchants, being a bodyguard, trainer and so forth. It wasn’t uncommon for people's lives to be on the line, at times. They needed to be at a specific level of strength to protect people, anyway, otherwise they would just bring them down. This was why John suspected that their current situation was a test of some sort.
While being an assassin was less likely, John couldn’t completely dismiss the theory. After all, if someone was to get rid of newbie adventurers, then they might have a better chance of success in their own endeavours, with fewer people to compete with.
Brain still working overtime, John went back into the carriage and pretended to sleep. He turned Life Vision on and kept an eye on everyone. Even if he couldn't see details, he could see if anyone separated themselves from the group for too long.
This lasted for a month and fourteen days until they reached the town. During that time, no one acted suspiciously or didn't break away from the group. John was ninety percent sure the driver had been the cause of the incident, somehow.
On the way here, John had completed the Maximum Idlers Level and got the Resistance’s Status and Emotional skills completed. Each of them disappeared from the list. Currently, he needed three more days to finish levelling his Elemental skill.
John killed quite a few ranked E monsters, accumulating almost two hours of Time Pool per kill, which he spent all on the Resistance skills.
It seemed like each kill gave an extra twenty minutes per rank. While that didn't sound like much, if John managed to kill a thousand creatures, it would be almost two weeks’ worth of time extra per each rank increased.
When they got into the town of their destination, the carriage went to a great inn that even had a backyard for the horses. John and the other four adventurers went to the local Guild Hall to turn in their completed quests. Inside the hall, they sat in a waiting room for the staff member to call upon them.
John decided to report the whole ‘suspicious driver’ thing. If it was an examiner, then it would look good on his records. If it was an assassin, it would still look pretty damn good. After they killed or captured the guy, of course.
The only downside was that he couldn't remain low key. But if it really was an assassin, one whom he notified of his status as a suspect, then John figured he wouldn't last long without some help. He REALLY needed to get his defence points up.
The staff called each of the adventurers one by one, John was last. He didn't see any of them come out of the office, so maybe they were in the back room or something? John walked into the back office while being guided by a pretty woman.
When he got into the room, a person was sitting at the centre of a long table. Four oth
er people sat down on either sides of this person. One of the men on the left was the driver; he wasn't captured, but sat there leisurely. The man at the head of the table stood up and started speaking.
"Congratulations, you caught on. Yes, this was a test, one that not many people do well on. It’s not a condition for passing or failing, though. So long as those on the quest are strong enough or can work together with a team, that alone can determine if an adventurer is ready for the next rank.
"We've all seen different types of adventurers, and you belong to the lone wolf type. You'll fight alone, die alone, and won't allow anyone to command you. Not many adventurers are like that, nowadays. They all think teamwork is the best, but those with true power will easily kill a team that works well together if they are individually weak."
The other four people all nodded their heads at this statement. John decided to check their stats.
The leader.
???
Attack: 1,450
Defence: 1,890
1st guy on the left.
???
Attack: 1,010
Defence: 940
The driver who John never checked even though he was suspicious of him. When John realised he forgot, he cursed at himself for not doing an obvious thing.
???
Attack: 1,200
Defence: 1,100
1st guy on the right.
???
Attack: 1,330
Defence: 800
And the last person is the only woman in the group.
???
Attack: 1,400
Defence: 600
The guys on the left and at the head of the table are more rounded in stats... The leader might even be a tank. But the man and woman on the right are pure fighters who don't use defence much. Must be some weapon specialist since I've never seen anyone else use hand-to-hand combat. Each of these guys is S rank in the system, so I'm guessing their guild rank is SS at most. SSS is not possible.
"Does that mean I've passed? Then, thanks." John wasn't the type to brown-nose people, so he spoke very directly.
