It took an hour or so to get used to having loose coins in his pocket, but it was easy enough to alter his gait to keep them from rattling against each other with every step. That did cause a few other problems with how he distributes his weight on the ground that Velik had to correct, but he was confident in his ability to get it all worked out, at least while he was walking around. Maintaining any sort of [Stealth] in a fight was going to be a different matter, and that was a problem.

While it was impossible for him to disappear completely against something that was actively trying to murder him, [Stealth] helped Velik keep monsters off-balance and vulnerable simply by making it more difficult for them to keep track of where he was. Most monsters he stalked and ambushed died in a single thrust, even the weaker elites, but against a pack or something that was legitimately strong like that massive flying squirrel, the coins were a liability.

Admittedly, they wouldn’t have made a difference in that particular fight. It was hard to avoid the notice of a creature that could feel everything around it through the very air it controlled. It hadn’t used anything so mundane as its eyes or ears to keep track of Velik’s position, but that didn’t mean the next elite would have the same abilities.

The fact that he’d encountered two elites in the span of two days was worrying. That had never happened before. It used to be months between sightings, and even with the way things had gone crazy over the last half a year, it still took a few weeks for another elite to appear. Something had obviously changed, but Velik had no idea what.

His original plan, to reach level 30 and unlock a new skill slot, wasn’t going to work. The way things were going, he didn’t have a month or more. By the time he was ready, there’d be two or even three times as many monsters in the forest, enough that they’d form a horde and start attacking the towns again. The simple truth of the matter was that he wasn’t killing them faster than they appeared anymore.

A new skill isn’t that important. I’ll make do.

With his decision made, Velik gathered his supplies, including the annoying pocket full of loose vitrunes, and started making his way north into the true wild lands. The lumberjacks and farmers thought they were at the edge of the civilized world, that they sweated and worked to push that edge just a little bit farther with every tree they cut down and every row they added to their fields. They thought they fended off the monsters that lurked out beyond the light of their lanterns and their torches.

They didn’t know what they were talking about. The forests around towns like Deshir and Celarut were tame, practically idyllic. The monsters were weak, barely even above level 10 on a bad day, and Velik could travel for miles between encounters. Even now, as bad as things had gotten in the last few months, it was nothing compared to the deep wood.

Nobody was out there, keeping the population down, pushing the monsters back. That was where they lived, where they fought and bled and killed – where they gained levels and power. There was a reason Velik had been planning to reach the next plateau before he risked another expedition.

The back-to-back elites were too much to ignore. He had to do something now before this whole situation got completely out of hand. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he was strong enough. I’ll just have to gain more levels on the way.

He shouldered his backpack, sealed off his tiny underground home, and started walking.

* * *

A status window didn’t display how close a person was to leveling up again, but everyone could feel it. Velik was close, closer than he’d expected to be, anyway. Killing two elites had really pushed him closer to his goal, the second one more than the first. Most enemies didn’t feel like they did much of anything, probably because they were so weak, but that titanic squirrel had been a different story. Three or four more elites like that would be enough, but hopefully, they’d be easier to fight.

With his remaining daylight hours, he charted a course straight north. He was still inside his normal patrol routes, where the enemies were weak and predictable, but the farther out he went, the less that was true. After killing a trio of level 17 mist toads, both of which were so overgrown and bloated that they could stare him in the eye, he decided to take it easy until it got dark enough for [Duskbound] to trigger.

As soon as it was night, he was off again, this time easily slaughtering anything and everything he came across. Velik didn’t let himself get distracted, though; he had a long way to go and he needed to find a place to hole up during the daylight hours. The monsters were already up into the high teens and low twenties for levels, but he didn’t encounter any elites. As long as they didn’t come at him in packs, he was fine.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

If only it could be that easy, he thought to himself as he crouched on a tree branch thirty feet off the ground. Ten worgs, all of them over level 20, prowled through the brush, their noses to the ground as they hunted for his unfamiliar scent.

One of them crossed directly under where he was crouched, and Velik saw an opportunity. With no other monsters within fifteen feet, he let himself fall, spear leading. The worg died in a single strike, prompting a system notification to confirm the kill.

The remaining nine worgs noticed immediately, of course, and the closest two were already on their way in before Velik even ripped the spear free. He darted to one side, just in time to avoid snapping jaws coming at him with unnatural speed. This one’s got some sort of movement skill.

Mentally marking it to be wary of its next attack, Velik pivoted in place and dragged his spear across the next worg’s flank. The shaft of the weapon shortened and the tip curved to give it more of a slicing edge, allowing Velik to easily cut deep enough that the worg’s back leg practically fell off at the joint.

Then the rest of them joined in, and Velik proved why it had been a wise decision to wait for nightfall. Everything was chaos for the next three minutes, with snapping teeth and scrabbling claws coming at him from every direction while he put every single point of his physical and mental stats to work keeping ahead of the worgs. Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed as he whittled their numbers down, Velik started landing hits.

By the time the fourth worg was laying on the ground, its chest rapidly rising and falling as it wheezed out its last breaths, he was firmly in control of the fight. Soon after, the first of the worgs tried to slink off into the shadows, only to be pinned to a tree as Velik danced past two other monsters to run it through. No one gets away, he thought grimly.

The remnants of the pack broke when he brought their numbers down to just three. Things got trickier then. Only the closest worg failed to break away, having instead received a spear blade across the throat for its efforts. The last two went in opposite directions, and they were fast. Velik chased after the one without the injuries if for no other reason than the other one was going to leave a blood trail for him to follow later.

It barely took two minutes to run it down and behead the monster when it broke through the brush onto an open trail. He’d beaten it there by about ten seconds and perfectly predicted where it would force its way through.

[You have slain black hallowed worg (level 23).]

One more. Now where are you?

He wasn’t worried. It wouldn’t get far before he caught up with it. Unfortunately, the first worg’s frantic flight had drawn some unwanted attention. Four different monsters were closing in on Velik’s position, two from the south, one just a hundred feet away from the east that would get there first, and, unless he greatly missed his guess, some type of elite that had picked up the trail when he was still chasing the worg. It wasn’t fast, but it was coming straight for them.

The closest one burst out of the trees at a height of about nine feet. Velik had just enough time to pin it as some sort of rabbit, only fifty times bigger than normal, with jagged bone spikes poking out of its fur and eyes like two puddles of blood. Then all he saw was a mouth full of needle-like teeth coming directly at his face right up until he put his spear into it and slung the monster sideways. It slid off the blade and crashed into a tree before falling limply to the ground.

[You have slain flash maw hare (level 19).]

The two paired monsters appeared seconds later, a set of identical black bears, each about four feet tall at the shoulder and covered in armored plates instead of fur. One of them charged in, all aggression and flashing claws, while the other circled through the brush to come at Velik from behind. His spear skipped off the bear’s plating, barely drawing a scratch across its surface, but he wasn’t worried.

There were plenty of gaps to exploit, and a series of quick stabs proved that he could still draw blood from them. The problem was that these particular monsters were going to take too long to kill, and the elite he could feel approaching was almost on them.

The cracking of trees as they gave way filled the air. One right next to the trail splintered, then pitched over to crash against its neighbor, revealing something that slunk in, close to the ground on four legs and covered in shaggy brown and black fur. It had intelligent eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth that it bared at all three of them. Is that a monster version of a wolverine?!

[Predator’s Visage] was screaming at him to be careful, that this monster was stronger than it looked, and the sudden fear in the two armored bear’s behavior confirmed that belief. It studied all three of them for just a moment, then leaped at the closer of the two bears. Rising up on its back legs, it lashed out with both claws, easily tearing through metal and ripping the monster’s face off.

[You have helped slay a steel pelt bear (level 22).]

Oh… Shit. It did that quick.

The monster turned to face Velik.