November 2, 2022
Day 13
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You have killed a Level 9 Saltwater Crocodile. 47 experience earned.
Ten minutes and uncountable stabs later, Matt and Rahul were greeted with the above notification, splitting the 90XP almost equally between them.
They were tired, sweaty, out of breath, and panting like dogs, but Maya and Charlie could see the glint in their eyes and weren't at all surprised when Rahul stopped heaving long enough to get a sentence out.
"Let's lure in the crocodiles again. "
More gasping for breath.
"Two this time"
As so, five minutes later, the same scene repeated, this time with Maya and Rahul circling one crocodile and Matt and Charlie circling the second. Maya and Charlie weren't going to be in the thick of battle, but with just four of them, they all needed to get to a minimum level of competence, enough to be able to fend for themselves in an emergency. At the very least, they shouldn't freeze up if a crocodile lunged at them out of nowhere.
So they all practiced together, progressively increasing the number of crocodiles they lured in.
Before long, both Rahul and Matt were confident going head-to-head with a single crocodile alone, and soon they were juggling two crocodiles each. Maya and Charlie were taking longer, but no one rushed them. After some time, Charlie got his first solo crocodile kill, and Maya got hers not long after. After they had done that three more times, Rahul spoke.
"In about an hour of our practice, we have, somewhat unintentionally, caused quite the carnage to the south. Most of the floats there have a dozen or two reptiles left at most. Let's target the biggest one, but instead of killing them all at range, we will leave about fifteen alive. This time, we won't lead them to the training area. Instead, we'll fight them right here. In case of any real danger, we'll retreat and fall back to skirmish tactics. If we are confident enough to deal with one float with just melee, then we will go back to a mix of arrows and melee and exterminate all the crocodiles in this vicinity. "
There were no objections, and so they peppered the largest nearby float until exactly fifteen crocodiles remained, and then simply waited for them to crawl into melee range.
Then, surrounded by fifteen deadly reptiles, the four sets of feet moved in a delicate dance of death as they pushed themselves and broke through limits.
They had increased in levels. They had improved their stats. But they had failed to fully understand the true implications of their stats.
On the island, the group successfully applied their increased strength and skills with the bow in both their battles. They had pulled their bows with superhuman strength and shot with unnatural accuracy, hitting faraway targets and tearing through multiple preys before losing momentum. Few had used bows and arrows before and so they had little preconceived notions of their limitations. Even the few seemingly hard-to-comprehend details were explained away by skills and stat points.
But when they had swung their swords, they had been unable to let go of their former notions of what was and what wasn't possible to do with a sword. They had wielded their swords as if they were just fitter, stronger versions of themselves. But that wasn't the case at all. Their strength, dexterity, and endurance were at a level far surpassing the strongest humans, easily rivaling the strongest predators from before integration. And to make full use of their capabilities, they had to learn to move in ways no human swordmaster had thought of before.
The skills would take them halfway there, but the footwork and movements and feints and tactics would only come with actual life-and-death battles. Not from slaughtering frogs or birds, but true predators.
The crocodiles fit the bill, and against their thick hides and deadly lunges, the four surpassed their self-imposed limits and began to realize the potential of their increased stats.
And so as they struck down their foes one by one, in a deft dance of dodges and counterattacks, no one noticed the translucent rolling stone on Rahul's shoulder.
But they were affected by it all the same.
Rahul sidestepped as a crocodile lunged at him from behind, his movements far more refined than the crude and exaggerated ones only an hour ago. Back then, he had been afraid and his dodges had created more than a foot of distance between himself and the attacking reptile. This time, the crocodile passed just inches from him, and Rahul could feel the air displaced by its passing on his skin.
As a result, when the crocodile landed, it wasn't many feet away from him. It was just to Rahul's front and right, and its tail was well within his sword's range. However, in another contrast to what happened earlier this morning as Rahul and Matt fought a long crocodile together, Rahul did not attack the crocodile's tail.
His body was a blur as in a single movement Rahul switched to a two-handed reversed grip holding the sword upside down, took a step closer to the reptile's head, raised his hands, and then stabbed his sword downward with all his strength and enhanced stamina.
The blade met the crocodile's scale, but the vertical angle of attack was not suitable to find a gap between the scales.
Not that it mattered, as the stamina-infused stab shattered the reptile's scales and penetrated right through its brain.
You have killed a Level 8 Saltwater Crocodile. 80 experience earned.
Rahul pulled his sword free and rolled away from an approaching crocodile. He cursed at the wasted movement which led him way too far from his next target, but didn't waste any more time groveling about it. He quickly checked his stamina. It was at 139/270, that single attack had cost him 29 stamina, more than a tenth of his total stores.
That was the fourth time he had used that stamina-infused strike, and Rahul had to admit, it was getting addictive. While he had only used that strike when he had a clear opening to attack the crocodile's heads and had gotten immediate kill notifications every time, he still felt the stamina cost wasn't justified.
But it was so much faster, it saved him so much effort, and it was so damn addictive.
Getting the right angle and pushing through the gaps was slow, tedious, and honestly quite difficult with so many crocodiles around. It took patience and more often than not, it took multiple stabs to kill the crocodile. He had only managed to kill three crocodiles the right and painstakingly slow way, four if he smugly counted the fast-approaching crocodile that Rahul had just rolled away from, and was about to kill.
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Yeah, he'll make it four, Rahul determinedly thought to himself and he moved slightly to the left and stabbed at the lunging crocodile just as it passed next to him. The crocodile noticed the blade approaching its neck and turned its head to bite at Rahul's hands, but its own momentum carried it away and his jaw clamped shut inches from Rahul. The sword, however, found its mark and stabbed into the reptile's neck.
But not deep enough, Rahul thought, as he got no kill notification as he pulled out the sword that he had to let go, and the crocodile shook in pain. Then it turned around and lunged furiously at Rahul.
He tsked in annoyance, having to deal with a foe that would already have been dead if he had enough stamina reserves to supercharge every strike. Resignedly, Rahul saw the crocodile lunging to repeat the exact same attack, and decided to repeat his own maneuver, sidestepping and pulling his sword back to stab at the reptile.
Just as he was about to plunge his sword into the crocodile's neck again, he ducked and completely fell to the ground, only narrowly avoiding the flick of the crocodile's tail.
The crocodile had improvised, and Rahul had barely avoided getting thrashed by its tail. The impact itself would have been bad, resulting in bruised or even broken ribs. But the possibility of getting thrown at the jaws of another crocodile was much worse.
Rahul quickly got back to his feet and saw the crocodile lunging at him again. Once again, he stepped out of the way, but this time he didn't stab at the crocodile. Instead, he swung his sword horizontally at the approaching jaw with as much stamina as he could infuse in one strike.
The crocodile saw the sword coming at its open jaw and immediately tried to snap its jaw shut.
Too late. The sword almost bisected the crocodile in two, starting from its gaping jaw and stopping midway through its torso.
You have killed a Level 9 Saltwater Crocodile. 90 experience earned.
Rahul pulled his sword out from the corpse and wiped the blood off his face. The rest of his body too was covered in a spray of blood and guts, but there wasn't much he could do about it at the moment.
In any case, Rahul didn't get any time to brood on his unfortunate state of being, as another crocodile lunged straight at him in a blatant frontal attack.
Rahul looked at his stamina. 39/270. That last attack consumed a whopping 100 stamina in one go. He couldn't afford another stamina-infused attack. But was in no mood to play tag with the crocodiles either.
Inspired in part by his previous strike which passed right through the crocodile's open jaw, and in part by foolish recklessness, Rahul decided to take a risk.
Instead of dodging, he got on his knees to lower his body and waited, holding his sword behind him in a death grip. At the last moment, he pointed it forward, right at the approaching maw of the crocodile. It all took a split second, but Rahul was sure he saw the crocodile's eyes widen as it realized what was happening. But it was in mid-air, and there wasn't much it could do to get out of the way. The thought of snapping its jaw shut occurred a bit too late to the crocodile, and as just as the sword was entering the crocodile's jaw, Rahul tilted his wrists a bit and adjusted the sword to point toward the crocodile's brain.
You have killed a Level 9 Saltwater Crocodile. 90 experience earned.
Rahul painfully wrested his sword and his hands-free of the crocodile's jaw. He belatedly realized that his hands were covered in blood, and not all of it belonged to the last two crocodiles he had slain.
As he looked at the bloody jagged lines of flesh on both his hands, the lines where his skin was cut open by scraping against the crocodile's teeth, the sheer stupidity of his attack dawned on Rahul. The realization was followed by a dull pain at first, but as Rahul looked around and slowly regained his senses, the adrenaline started wearing off, and the pain came for real.
Rahul tried to hold back his scream of pain, but he couldn't. So he screamed. That shook the others awake from their battle trance too.
As Rahul saw the number of crocodiles surrounding them, he called for an immediate retreat. Not that it was strictly necessary, as they all had slowly started inching away from the thickest mass of crocodiles.
Then, once everyone was clear, they all ran as one towards the center of the dry land.
When they had gained enough distance, everyone except Rahul took out their arrows and started firing at the chasing crocodiles. Rahul pulled out a bottle of healing potion from his belt and took a small sip. It might have been unnecessary for a flesh wound, but as the cuts on his skin closed and the pain subsided, Rahul told himself it was worth it.
Except for that uncomfortable but buffeted fall from the roof this morning, this was surprisingly the first time Rahul had suffered an actual injury since the integration began.
And it hurt. A lot.
In his former life, the most pain Rahul had felt involved scraped knees and other small injuries as a child while playing sports. And that usually involved him crying and running home, where his parents would clean the wound and bandage him. As an adult, Rahul had never been in any major accident or had any other health condition that caused severe pain. At most, he got headaches after working on his laptop for too long.
So the pain of getting his skin torn open from his wrists to his elbow was not something he was prepared for. And he definitely could not shoot arrows and fend for his life in that state. His wrists were hurting too after he had pulled them out of the crocodile's mouth. It was probably the odd angle at which he had held the sword, coupled with the fact that his wrists probably absorbed a lot of the momentum of the lunging reptile.
The potion had thankfully fixed it all, and the lack of pain gave Rahul a chance to think clearly. How long had they been fighting? How many crocodiles had they killed? The initial fifteen they had been fighting must all be long dead by now. More must have reinforced their numbers. Rahul looked at the sky and estimated that the sun was at most an hour from setting. Rahul wanted to ask the others about their kills and so many other things, but he never got a chance as Matt and Maya spoke at the same time.
"What's that rolling ball on your shoulder?"
"You need to take a bath, ASAP"
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"Everyone ready to go?" Daniel asked
Upon receiving three nods, he set foot on the gnarled mangrove roots and started walking east, toward the closest island in that direction. He was followed by Alex and Helena, with Ivan guarding the rear.
Not that their rear was particularly vulnerable. They were surrounded by marshes on all sides and if crocodiles were hiding beneath, they could be attacked from any direction.
Thankfully, there were no hidden crocodiles. Over the past few hours, the swamps had been thoroughly denuded of any reptilian life, and the four humans walked unmolested over the uneven root system that covered a large part of the mangrove forest.
For half their journey at least.
The moment the group was halfway to their destination, they were greeted with a notification, and the otherwise sedentary reptiles for miles around them immediately started swimming in their direction.
New Quest Received : Eliminate the Alphas
You have entered the territory of one of the alpha crocodiles that live in this mangrove. Eliminate this and all other alpha crocodiles to complete this dungeon. Eliminating an alpha will provide dungeon points and open a portal that can be used to exit this dungeon.
Progress - 0/4 alphas eliminated
The team took a moment to skim through the notification, but then focused on the more immediate problem.
"If we run, we should be able to reach the island before the crocodiles swim to us. "
Ivan said with unmistakable urgency in his tone.
"But there might be more crocodiles waiting on that island, and we would get sandwiched on both sides. We can instead make a stand here and fire at the distant crocodiles. We should be able to take care of most of them before they even get here. "
Alex immediately countered.
"Most, but not all. Still, on the island, we have the alpha to contend with, that's an unknown factor. "
Helena added.
Daniel listened to them all and nodded, but did not reply immediately. He went over all the possibilities and arrived at a decision. Knowing that there was no time for consensus building, Daniel spoke with command in his voice.
"Fallback to our starting island. "
In their panic, Daniel's three companions had missed that seemingly obvious solution, and for a fraction of a second, they looked uncomprehendingly at him. Then they nodded and the party retreated.
Within a few minutes, they reached the shores of their island, and the closest crocodiles were still at least a minute away.
"Fire at will"
Daniel shouted, and immediately felt embarrassed at his choice of words. However, noting the lack of reaction from his colleagues, he shrugged it off and equipped his bow.
And so, it was almost as if the four software engineers were back on the walls of their castle, raining arrows at waves of approaching enemies.
Ten minutes later, the waves of crocodiles stopped, and in that time, the four of them together had killed nearly 200 crocodiles.
Fortunately, none of them had any injuries, as not a single crocodile managed to get close, all dying to arrows instead.
Unfortunately, the enhanced stamina put a huge drain on stamina, costing a minimum of 5 SP per shot, and many crocodiles took more than one arrow before they died. As a result, the whole team was forced to drink half of a stamina potion each in the middle of the battle, and by the time the battle ended, they were low again.
"Let's rest, eat, drink, and recover our stamina. Then we'll go pay that alpha crocodile a visit. "