Rune looked at the lake next to the class. He sighed as he rested his head on his hand. He noticed that he was doing basically the same thing he had been doing when he was a high schooler. He turned his head to look a large, pale creature.
It had a long tail with a barbed stinger at the end and had spikes protruding from its back as well as three pairs of translucent insect wings that were sprouting from its back. It had red eyes and long, pure white fangs. He saw that it was humanoid in shape and had two arms and two legs, but that was where the similarities pretty much ended. He could see that it was having a hard time sitting down and listening.
Indeed, this was his friend, Tyler, who had become a Bone Devil. His tail was thrashing back and forth as he struggled to pay attention to Ms. Flustern, Erryn the teacher who had become a Banshee. Rune turned his attention to look at her as he adjusted himself in the sand.
Ms. Flustern continued with he speech and information collecting and now had chosen to have everyone group up in a buddy system of two or more people. The one who answered her was Will who had become a Goristo, a hulking monstrocity that looked like a biepedal boar with red fur. He spoke in a gruff and deep voice as he spoke up.
"I am!! I am level 5!!"
Rune used telepathy to tell the others. After the one man raid on the goblin camp, he had gottent to level 6 and had gained some moderate materials that he wanted to start using in crafting or in other works or experiments. During the speech, Rune had been using the new skill he got from the blue dye the goblin king had which gave him the [Lesser Transmutation] magic skill. He had started to infuse one cleaver with lightning and wind magic crystals to give it both of their attributes and the other with Light and Dark magic crystals.
With all these backing his stand, he was the strongest, but he definitely looked weak compared to most of the other monsters. Thus why Will started to argue.
OH YEAH?!?!?! Prove it! Fight me right now!"
Will started to get up and the other classmates moved to make a circle. Even tyler who put his hand on Rune's should and spoke to him quickly. His voice was raspy and dry, but you could still make out the words even in his soft voice.
"My condolences..."
Rune grasped one cleaver, the one infused with Light and Dark attributes. He pulled it free from his back and held it in his right hand, his left ready to use magic. He moved into a fighting stance and was ready to strike. Will moved to the other side of the circle and seemed ready to charge.
Ms. Flustern tried to stop them as things were already out of hand, but the crowd's cheering with telepathy and guttural noises drowned out her words. She gave up and hoped that no one would die in this fight. She stared to watch the events unfold before her eyes.
Everyone thought that Will would win, being the large demon boar that he was, but contrary to their ideas, he lost in a moment. It seemed as if Rune had teleported to the other side of the arena.
Rune had moved right as Will had started to charge and thrust his sword into his shoulder. The point went right through to the other side and black blood gushed out from both sides of the wound.
The momentum from the sword made his start to spin, but Rune was already behind him and he put a hand on his back. Then he started to use [Frozen Touch]. Ice started to creep up and down Will’s back as he struggled to get free, but his movement was obstructed by the spell on the sword, [Bind], from the darkness magic crystals he infused.
Soon the pain of ice and cold became near unbearable to Will and he started to scream in agony as blood dropped from his mouth.
“Gah!! I surrender!! Uncle!! It is your win!! Just stop!!”
Rune couldn’t grin, but he was extremely happy to know that he was the strongest here. He removed his hand and started to drag out his serrated cleaver from his shoulder as blood poured from the wound.
Will had started to lose consciousness when Rune starts to heal him. A green light expanded to make a large sphere which originated from his hand. The wound on Will started to close and fur grew back as he started to breath normally again.
Everyone was silent as the battle ended within a minute. Only Tyler had the gall to start clapping and Ms. Flustern started to use telepathy.
The Banshee nodded as Lisbeth, still a small Fenrir pup, and Riley, a red and green serpent with wings known as a Couatl, moved towards him. They seemed to be afraid, but also had a look of admiration in their eyes.
Monty had the special ability of [Shapeshift] and Kelly had [Channel] which allowed them to cast Shapeshift on everyone to give them another human form permanently. To Rune, it was quite convenient for everyone except him. It obviously wouldn’t work on animated objects that were not living.
Around him, the monsters turned into humans with animal features. It seemed like it also didn’t affect Ms. Fluestern, a Banshee, and Brittany, a Dryad, and Stacy, a Fallen Angel, and Stella, a Succubus. This was because they were all humanoid to begin with.
Lisbeth became a girl who was a bit small, but still kept the upright, white ear and fluffy, white tail. Riley turned into a girl who had a red and green serpent tail and bird like wings that could fold and unfold on her back. They seemed to be extremely cute as well as the other girls. The guys also became good looking, but nobody really paid them as much attention as they did the girls.
Rune just shrugged because he was more interested in money and power. He still had an interest in women, but he wasn’t a playboy. Thus, he started to ask the most important question that he had.
Everyone waved each other off as they left and Rune, with Lisbeth and Riley, headed off to seek a city
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By the time they had reached a road, it was already dark and they had started a campfire in the plains next to the road. They had seen a carriage move down the road quickly, but they disregarded it.
It seemed to them that this road would likely lead them to a city or at least a village, but they wanted to level up first.
The reason why Lisbeth and Riley were the weakest was due to everyone at least being level 4, but these two didn’t seem to have good combat or defensive skills other than Lisbeth’s [Lightning Manipulation] which could only cook things for food. They had decided to fight the ogres that were on the plains.
In the morning, Rune set the two girls against a single ogre while he set off killing the ogres surrounding the area. After a tough struggle Andy multiple hits, the ogre was defeated by them and they rejoiced.
Rune used telepathy even though everyone else could speak. He walked up to them, a mountain of corpses behind him with a river of blood flowing down. He was putting their weapons and their bones into himself and had put the magic crystals into his storage pouch.
His gauntlets were dripping blood. His feet had chunks of flesh covering it and his eyes had turned from orange to red as blood seeped into his armor. He felt as if he had gotten stronger from taking in blood.
Every one of the ogre had multiple gouges in them from when he took their bones and magic crystals. He was, indeed, a ruthless monster.
They nodded quickly as they realized that their small achievement of getting to level six was out ranked by him becoming level 8 and building massive corpse mountains. They wanted to get strong as fast as possible to reach his strength.
They marched onwards as they slaughtered ogres. Though they had pity and mercy of giving them quick deaths, Rune just slit their throats or pierced their hearts in such a manner that they died after bleeding too much. He was, in fact, leaving a path of bodies in his wake. His kill count was likely over a hundred in the plains alone.
He was a person who, during his days on Earth, had played video games and practiced martial skills to use for combat. He used several different killing styles and knew how to use most of the basic weaponry as well as assassination techniques. He was a living weapon and even more so since he came to Arborea.
His goal was power and money. Most would say that he has more than enough power, but his response would be “Who knows what dangers there will be in the future” and he wanted to prepare for that. As for the money, he was greedy.
During the breaks when Lisbeth and Riley would rest, he would fuse magic crystals to create different weaponry and armor. He had even created a chain that had [Bind] and [Weakness] on it. he absorbed it and then it became a part of his body that he could wield. He moved it as one would move a tail, except he had more control and his gains were faster. They were on his arms and legs and he practiced using them on ogres until they were killed in a single hit or were unable to move.
The way he fought was like a wild beast, but he also incorporated fighting techniques among his deadly attacks. Lisbeth was using he claws and [Lightning Manipulation] to fight the ogres and Riley was shooting out fire and poison to kill the ogres.
After the day was over, they camped again and decided to go to the city the next day. Everyone was excited by this development and they anxiously waited for the next day.
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In the morning, they got up and packed the camp up. Then they trudged to the road and started moving in the direction that many carriages went. Several wagons passed them and had tried to obtain the two girls for themselves, but, when they looked at Rune, they left. It was likely due to all the blood and flesh bits covering him.
At one point, the trio was walking along the road and saw a small group in the distance. It looked like a wagon and several people in front of it. Rune ran towards them and analyzed the situation.
A group of bandits wearing leather armor were corner a girl. She had plate mail and was holding a longsword in both hands. Her hair was a blonde color and she had her hair up in a two pigtail style. Her eyes were light blue and looked scared as she was surrounded.
The bandits were made of 4 men and 2 women, but they all laughed at the little resistance and moved forwards. They readied their weapons as they closed in on the girl who was backed up against an overturned carriage.
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Rune just stared lazily as they didn’t seem like much of a threat. Then he walked forwards, only glancing back for a moment to see what the other two were doing.
“Hey you!! Give us your stuff or we will hurt you!!!!”
A bandit pointed his finger at him and yelled loudly. It was clear that these bandits were evil and they had threatened him. Then an arrow glanced off of Rune’s arm and embedded itself in the ground.
One of the bandits had shot him with a smug look. As Rune believed in the idea of “An eye for an eye”, he picked up the arrow and chucked it at the one who shot him. It went straight through his gulley and went into the person behind him’s knee.
The man who shot Rune now had a hole in his throat as he fell and spurted blood all over his comrades. They looked in horror as he landed in a puddle of blood. And the other man who took an arrow to the knee sunk to the ground.
Rune stepped forward once, then he moved so quickly, it seemed like he teleported behind them. In a single strike, he beheaded three of them and their heads flew into the air and tumbled to the ground. The last man tried to escape, but was met with a cleaver in his face.
The man with an arrow in his knee started begging and crying, but it was terrifyingly obvious that Rune’s intention was to kill him. And so he did with an ax kick to the neck which collapsed it.
The girl who had backed up against the carriage was now shaking in fear as he turned towards her. She shivered at the sight of a bloody suit of armor and a being that literally murdered 6 people in a couple seconds. Although it was not illegal, the problem could be resolved peacefully.
To Rune, it was just an act of self defense. Except this self defense had a powerful person get hit by an arrow that wouldn’t hurt him and that powerful person murdering the life out of 6 bandits within an impossible time frame.
Rune straightened up as he saw her shaking in fear and looked over to Riley and Lisbeth who were running over as fast as they could.
Rune asked them using telepathy so that only they could hear him. He wanted to get this misunderstanding out of the way as soon as possible. Another reason being that he was basically incapable of talking as he was just a suit of armor.
When the two of them reached the area they started to explain to the girl Rune’s intentions and they spoke what he told them. In the end, the girl, Charlotte, was a daughter of a noble who became a noble by working his way up the ranks as a knight. Apparently, his daughter was trying to do the same and was going to a knight and magic school in the capital.
Luckily, the city they were heading towards was the capital and they could easily become adventurers there. This information was incredibly important to Rune who had wanted to get or find out his class from the adventurer’s guild.
“T-thank you for saving me.”
Charlotte curtsied to him as she thanked him. He nodded and looked at the carriage. The horses were gone, the reins were cut, and the driver had no life within him. It looked terrible, but was not as bad as the massacre near the carriage. Rune stretched his joints and started stealing the stuff from the bandit corpses.
He motioned for her to turn around and she did so reluctantly. Then he had Riley and Lisbeth turn as well. He didn’t want any of them to witness him taking out the spines and skulls from the bandits. When he did so, he could hear a sound like slurping when he slid the spine out. Then he cast fireball and burned them.
“Um, you can turn around now.”
When they turned around, they saw 7 piles of ashes and one of them was larger than the rest. Rune had piled the scrapes and heads together and burned them together. Charlotte and Riley looked like they wanted to throw up, but controlled themselves.
“Are… Are you three going to the capital as well?”
“Yes. We are planning to register as adventurers.”
Charlotte asked and Lisbeth answered as they turned towards each other. It seemed like these two would become great friends.
“I can’t believe that you three aren’t adventurers. You two must be as strong as… him.”
“He is Rune, I am Lisbeth, and she is Riley.”
“Ah! I see! Rune!”
Her face brightened after she became a bit disappointed that she forgot to ask his name. After she learned their names, Lisbeth continued with the conversation.
“No no no. We are not as strong as him. He is waaaayyyyyy stronger than us.”
“Really? What level are you? I am happy to say that I am level 3!”
“Um… I am level 6 and so is Riley, but, uh, Rune is now level 9…”
It seemed as if she had exclamation marks above her head as she wheeled around towards Rune. She was too surprised to talk for a moment and was trying to make words. Her speech came back to her after a brief moment.
“Th-that’s amazing!!! Most B class adventurers are level 9!!”
Rune became somewhat disappointed. Only as strong as a B class adventurer. He had more motivation to become even stronger. He thought only one thought now: Where are more monsters…
Lisbeth and Charlotte started walking with Riley behind them. Charlotte and Lisbeth were becoming friends and were conversing with each other so much that they didn’t realize why Riley was looking around.
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
“Can’t you see?”
“No?”
“Exactly!! Rune is missing!”
Rune had taken off, but was still monitoring them on the map. He wanted to take his disappointment out on something. By taking his disappointment out, he was going to try and find at least a town sized monster camp to massacre.
He moved directly to the right of the road and started running extremely quickly. His speed was faster than that of a horse and he was bounding through the plains in search of things to kill.
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He soon found smoke in the distance and he looked closely at it. It seemed like a small village. When he got closer, he saw that there were spikes driven into the ground and there demi-humans chained to them.
Although they were still alive, they seemed starved and beaten. He could see that, in the village, there were men in metal armor joking and laughing to each other. They seemed to be enjoying themselves with feasting and the people. If Rune had a face, he would most certainly make a disgusted one that looked down upon the fools.
He silently crept up to several of the spikes encircling the village and started to write in the dirt. Out of the four near him, only one demi-human seemed to understand what he was asking. In a weak voice, the elderly man started to speak.
“Yes. They are evil. They killed and enslaved many in the village and they must be stopped. Please! They will ravage all the women here, including my daughters. I beg of-”
He was cut off by Rune holding up his hand, then nodding. The elderly man grinned wryly and sat back down in the dirt. It seemed to the others that a hero has arrived. Of course this was a misunderstanding. Rune wanted to know if the village or the attackers were evil and didn’t want to mess with anything that would hurt him later. The second reason was that he wanted experience and these people in armor seemed strong.
The people in armor each held a dagger and a halberd and had donned iron armor in which they moved easily in. They seemed to be more coordinated than the bandits and they had enough power to overtake a village, even though it was small.
Rune stood up off the ground and walked to one of the walls. None of the armored people could see him and he wanted to assassinate most of them before heading in like how he did with the goblins.
He cast [Water Sphere] with a hollow inside and several small holes facing towards him. Then he cast [Fireball] and burned a hole in the wall with the sound being absorbed by the water around it. Then he disabled it and quickly thrust his hand in.
He pulled out a surprised warrior and Rune covered his head with [Water Sphere], but also dragged him towards the elderly man. Rune held the warrior in the ground who was still struggling. Then Rune grabbed a spike that no one was chained to and pierced the man’s heart.
After doing so, he stopped his magic after the man died and looked at the elderly man. Rune wrote in the ground with his finger after he crouched.He wrote: “Here is what you want, right? I will kill them, no holds barred.”
The demi-humans around him shrank away from him as Rune looted the man of his supplies, but left armor and weapons for the enslaved. Some of them tried to thank him in a weakened state, but he held a finger to his mouth to tell them to be quiet and he headed into the village through the hole.
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Billy had signed up to be a knight, but, before he knew it, he was forced to go through grueling training. Then, when he had become level 5, he was sent to an elite group where they were going to “do the right thing”.
The group had went around doing what they wanted, whenever the wanted and had started to deal with the slave trade. It was illegal to pillage villages and take slaves if there was no reason, but they still did so anyway. They partied and drank and had their way with the women for several days, then they sold the slaves to faraway lands and completely destroyed their villages leaving no trace behind.
Now, however, it seemed like karma had come to bite them in the rear as Billy looked around. Everyone, the commander, the troops, his friends, they all were thrown around the room. Organs littered the grounds and chandeliers. It seemed like decor and ribbons, but with intestines and blood and bones. There was a single man standing in the center of it.
He wore raven black colored armor and he could see eyes that were glowing red. Blood oozed into his suit as it sprayed onto him. His cleavers were dripping with blood and had intestines on one of them. The man turned his head to look at the carnage of heads on tables and dismembered limbs all around and a legless person with their head smashed into the wall. They were all dead except Billy.
Billy was silent as he tried to feign death, but the man turned to look at him, but turned away. Then he seemed to cast a spell and fire started spreading throughout the hall. The man left and Billy started to get up. He was crying and was too afraid to stay. He ran outside and the last thing he saw was a bloody cleaver.
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Rune sighed as he gained three more levels. Apparently these people were great for experience points. He left the flaming hall, but heard the pitter patter of running feet. Rune turned around and swung his cleaver into a person’s face, the blade sinking over halfway into it. The person stopped moving and slid off the side of his blade.
Rune had already looted the bones, armor, and stuff from the people and headed over to the enslaved people. He saw that they were freeing themselves, but there were still hundreds left to be freed. Rune ran through the field of spike and, when he stopped, the chains were all broken.
Character Attributes:
Rune Samuv: Level 12 104,500/204800 Class: none
Endurance Mobility Strength
84 64 72
Magic: 9500 mp
Magic Gain Per Second: 95 mp/s
Skills:
A -Lv 3 [Extreme Stroke]: A single strike that uses 500% more damage for magic or weapons.
B -Lv 9 [Frozen Touch]: An effect from the armor allows user to freeze what is grabbed.
F -Lv 8 [Harden]: Hardens the owner’s skin or armor.
SSS -Lv 9 [High Absorb]: Can take in non-living objects and use their properties.
D -Lv 6 [Protection]: Protects owner from weaker status affects.
F -Lv 7 [Sharp Extremity]: Can cut through even obsidian or cold steel.
A -Lv 8 [Storage Greater]: Can carry large items.
Magic:
F -Lv 5 [Blindness]: Blind an enemy temporarily.
F -Lv 6 [Earthen Wall]: Create a wall of dirt.
F -Lv 9 [Fireball]: Create a small fireball to chuck at enemy.
S -Lv 5 [Greater Transmutation]: Can fuse inanimate objects and change its shape and small properties..
F -Lv 8 [Heal]: Cure small wounds and small status effects.
F -Lv 7 [Ice Dagger]: Create a small Ice dagger to throw it through the air.
F -Lv 7 [Light]: Shine a dim light that lights up several feet around him.
F -Lv 8 [Shocking Grasp]: An electrifying touch.
F -Lv 4 [Water Sphere]: Create a sphere of water.
F -Lv 9 [Wind Strike]: Send wind to cut an enemy.
Titles:
-Goblin Slayer: Knows attack patterns of goblins and knows their strength and weaknesses.
Storage:
-3 Copper Coin
-42 Wind/ 54 Fire/ 35 Light/ 39 Water/ 40 Darkness/ 35 Earth/ 46 Ice/ 52 Lightning/ 37 Healing Magic Crystals
-567 Bones
-2 Greater Battle Axes
-2 Large Battle Cleavers of Lightning and Wind / Light and Darkness
-4 chains of bonding and weakness