As the sun rose, Lanek and Liv were already on their way out of the city via the south gate. The pair had decided to leave before dawn so they could have some time to pass through Laethon itself and explore. Additionally, the extra light would be helpful for searching the port town as well.
Like Lanek, Liv had summoned her armor. In order to keep the weight reasonable for Yuri, she had opted to spend her reward stones on a chain hauberk and lamellar cuirass, complete with gauntlets and shin guards. She also wore a metal helmet with nose guard. Rather than having the heraldry of the order on her armor, it was emblazoned upon her new round shield. The shield was of a similar size as her previous one, but her new one had a metal rim and a large metal boss in the center.
Her primary weapon was a long winged spear with an enchantment that increased its piercing capability. She had discarded her short spear for both a one-handed sword and a bearded axe. As for Yuri, she had opted for a nice saddle and lamellar barding. However, for Yuri’s comfort, she left the barding off for now. Lanek had chosen plate barding for Maximilian, with a similar color pattern to his own armor. Plate had seemed like a natural choice over lamellar or brigandine as Maximilian was not as naturally durable as Yuri.
Both Yuri and Maximilian had face plate as well, with Maximilian in particular having a single blade extending from it like a horn to aid in charges. To make matters even worse for their foes, the blade was sharpened on both sides to aid in slashing attacks once they were stuck in a melee. Lanek had been worried that it would get in the way, but reasoned that Maximilian could dismiss the head armor if he so chose as it was not connected to the rest of the barding.
Lanek’s gear had not changed, but he had spent a considerable amount of his reward stones upgrading them. His weapons were both more durable and sharper, increasing his chances of inflicting bleed and critical strikes. As for his armor, its durability had been increased as well, but the biggest change was an enchantment to make it far lighter so that he could regain some of the mobility he had lost when he had donned the heavier armor. The karuta yoroi now weighed about as much as a set of winter clothing. It had been unreasonably expensive, but worth it in the end. Besides, the System and Eldros had been quite generous with the stones when he had completed the new domain.
He had a fair amount left, so he was considering working on his attributes next, but he simply hadn’t had the time to dig through the store. If all went well, he and Liv would be spending the night in the hut he had created the last time they had come this way and he would be able to look through his options. However, both he and Liv were concerned about the presence of gaunts after having been chased to the edge of the woods dividing Laethon and Caelis.
Lanek suspected that the last few months would likely have pushed the gaunts past their fear of the Void shifters. If this proved true, they could very well be swarming the woods at this very moment since there was no longer any opposition. Kazuma and Sanguineus were traveling ahead at this very moment to scout the forest as the humans approached.
The two beasts had guilt-tripped Lanek into giving them their own gear, especially after they had seen Maximilian’s shiny new armor. They took it to a whole other level, however, when they saw Reaver and Yuri with gear as well. Giving in, Lanek had purchased four sets of what he could only describe as clawed boots or gauntlets for Kazuma.
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These boots not only provided metal armor for the cat’s paws, but also provided claws that were longer than Kazuma’s natural ones while also allowing the elemental strikes to flow through them. The rear boots also had a long metal spur that allow for slashing attacks. Sanguineus’ gear had been much simpler as it was a collar that boosted his strength and constitution attributes.
As they entered the forest, Lanek felt a brief stir from his bond to their scouts, only for it to settle down almost immediately. Whatever his companions had found, they had seemingly eliminated it or decided that it wasn’t actually a threat. Arriving at the former shifter den, they found Kazuma and Sanguineus waiting for them, a pair of corpses lying on the ground. One confirmed Lanek’s fears as it was a gaunt impaler. The other was not something he was expecting to see in the area, an orc. It was clearly a feral judging from its equipment. Had the orcs in the city been sending out patrols? I guess they would have to if they wanted to keep themselves fed.
“I say we get the hell out of these woods.” Liv spoke up. “I don’t want to end up in the middle of a fight between those groups. I also don’t want to get chased all the way to Laethon.”
“Agreed.” Lanek said, urging Maximilian to pick up the pace and only slowing down when he reached Yuri’s max sustainable speed. Lanek knew that the demigryph craved more speed, but the creature also didn’t want to abandon his companion. He was proud of Maximilian’s restraint.
They broke through into the open fields and discovered no foes awaiting them. However, the sun was beginning to set, so they made haste to the crossroads and the ruins of the garrison. Confirming that the hut was empty, they set up camp, but resigned themselves to a cold meal before bed as they didn’t want to risk attracting attention with a fire. This proved to be the wise choice as occasional gaunt cries echoed in the distance, although not in any great numbers.
While Liv settled down to sleep, Lanek looked over his attributes while browsing the store. If there was one thing that he enjoyed about losing the ability to level it was that he could now satisfy his inner outrage whenever he saw uneven numbers or grossly unbalanced stats every time he looked at his status. He might not have enough stones to sort it out completely, but it was at least possible. He didn’t feel the need to put any points into strength, constitution, or dexterity since they would go up for free when he increased his spirit attribute thanks to [Etheric Presence].
Due to that skill, Lanek knew that the best bang for his buck would be to spend his reward stones on spirit. This would also boost his mana in such a way that he could contact the dungeon when he returned to Caelis. He immediately confirmed the purchase of 110 spirit points, making the stat an even 400. As a result, his strength jumped up to 349, his constitution to 467, and his dexterity to 522. Most importantly, his MP jumped to 2,000. With his remaining stones, he brought his perception to 300 and his resilience to 400. He had a small handful of stones left, but they weren’t enough to purchase anything at the moment. As much as it would pain him to do so, his strength was falling behind to the point where he might have to throw some reward stones at the problem despite [Etheric Presence]. His perception was an issue as well.
That being said, there were a lot of reasons to save his reward stones, mostly because of the sheer amount of skills available to him. Hell, he still had to save up for some of the more advanced skills, like the mysterious one that Eldros told him that he couldn’t have for quite some time. Damn, there are so many choices and I can’t just spend the stones on skills just like I can’t use them all for attributes. I’m going to have to plan this out very carefully. Well, at least I won’t have to spend any stones on equipment for a long while. Everything the furballs and I have is more than sufficient for the foreseeable future.
As he tried to sleep, he heard a faint rustling in the darkness as Kazuma and Sanguineus snuggled in on either side of him. He felt soothing auras radiating from them, almost as if they knew how much he was stressing out over the future and were telling him to just relax and let sleep take him. Their efforts proved successful as Lanek’s eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep. Satisfied with their efforts, Kazuma and Sanguineus silently exited the hut, receiving a pulse of encouragement from Maximilian, and proceeded to race into the night.
There were gaunts nearby and they needed to be purged. There was no reason to bring this to the attention of the tired humans.