"Are we sure we can handle two of them?" Kiera asked. "We had some trouble with the first one."

"I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve," Tom said. "Let's handle these mostly the same as the others. I'll help keep them off of us."

Everyone moved into position again and Jay took off to disappear. Tom activated his tattoos after pulling his sword out of the dead ogre. The familiar feeling of strength flowed over him and he charged toward the first ogre. Seeing something this small coming right for him gave the ogre a moment of pause. That was all Tom needed.

He activated his new skill, Fear. Tom felt something press out of him as he looked at the ogre. As though his heartbeat was throbbing loudly in his ears and he could almost make contact with the mind of the creature. The ogre, which had been lifting its club after shaking off the moment of pause, stopped again.

Its eyes suddenly grew wider at the sight of Tom and it began to back up, first one step, then another.

"LLLLLEEEERRRROOOOYYYYYY JEEEEEEEEEENKINNNNNNNNNNNSSSSSS!!!!!" Came a yell from the right as Kevin came running in straight at the ogre that was backing up.

The ogre physically recoiled in fear at the sight of Kevin, who proceeded to run straight at its leg and, waving the greataxe, swing right at its knee severing it with one blow. Topping to the side now that one of its legs could no longer support it, the ogre went crashing down to the ground.

Reaching down to grab at Kevin, the other ogre just barely missed him as he rolled out of the way. Not watching Tom, the ogre paid for this with an eldritch blast to the face, which set its hair on fire as well. It flailed wildly about as the fire burned its skin. Derek bashed it's knee from the side this time and it went down. This time, however, when it went down, it flung its arm out and managed to hit Derek on its fall.

Derek managed to raise his shield to take the impact, but he was still sent flying backward and into a building where he crashed to the ground. Kevin saw the whole thing happen and went absolutely berserk. Swinging his axe around in wide arcs, he first took off the ogre's arm which he had taken the leg from, and then slit its throat with a second swing. The ogre died with a look of absolute terror on its face.

Tom had not been idle either and when he heard gunshots firing at the second ogre, he raced over to it with his greatsword. Placing its arms over its face to protect from the gunshots, it couldn't see Tom as he raced over. Swinging his greatsword down in an overhand chop across the ogre's arms which were crossed over its face, Tom managed to sever both arms at once midway up the forearms.

Howling in pain and frustration, the ogre tried to stand up again to run but collapsed when it put weight on the knee that Derek had bashed. As it crashed to a knee a crossbow bolt erupted from its eye as well. It fell over dead, joining its fellow ogres.

Tom rushed over to Derek, who was already getting up.

"Are you OK this time?" Tom asked.

"Sure, I'm the Cleric remember? I can heal too." Derek replied.

"What a relief. But, Kevin...what the hell man? How were you able to do that?" Tom asked.

"Oh, easy, I just put all my points into strength I got from leveling up in the goblin and first ogre fight really fast," Kevin replied. "I already knew where they were going to need to go, so I just dumped them all in."

"Does that mean you have a class now?" Tom asked.

"Not yet. I just dumped the points really fast for the fight." Kevin replied.

"That's for the best. It would be good to get back to the center before we choose that." Tom said. "That goes for the rest of you as well. Wait until we return."

Everyone nodded, showing they understood.

"That skill of yours is pretty powerful, Tom," Derk said.

"Well, it's charisma based. I'm pretty sure those ogres have a really low charisma and that makes it work better on them. At least that is my working theory." Tom said.

"I'm glad it did! That gave us the opening we needed to win that fight." Derek said.

"You guys didn't give me a chance to get in on that one," Jay said walking back over to the rest of the group.

"Sorry, Jay. But like my family says on Thanksgiving, if you wait to get in line for the buffet, you'll go hungry." Tom said.

"Yeah, next time don't just go scuttling off and stay and help with the fighting," Kiera teased.

"I wasn't scuttling...I was sneaking," Jay retorted.

"Whatever the fuck you call it, you missed out. Try harder next time." Kiera said.

"I didn't exactly see you giving a lot of help. Shooting off the crossbow once the beasts were already down." Jay said.

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"At least I got two kill shots. Better than the alternative of just sitting on your ass and watching." Kiera replied.

"Get a room you two. We get it, you love each other." James jeered from off to the side of the group reloading his magazines.

Kiera glared daggers at James. She turned bright red and stormed off to the car. The others laughed and then began to head back to the Tahoe. On the way back, James saw a pigeon sitting on top of a street sign and pointed his gun at it. Firing off a round, the bird exploded in a shower of feathers, blood, and bird parts. Checking his inventory he was shocked to see a common monster core showed up from the kill.

"You guys! You aren't going to believe this, but I just shot a pigeon off that sign and it gave me a monster core!" James called to the group.

"What? No way. Extras never give off loot like that in games." Tom said. "It should only be the main monsters that are giving cores. Unless of course, they are monsters brought here with the mana as well."

Seeing another pigeon a short distance off, James fired at it as well. Again he was rewarded with a monster core in his inventory.

"Now I know it's happening. I just watched it appear in my inventory." James said again.

Tom watched a bird in flight and reached up, casting eldritch blast at it. The bird burst into greenish flames and fell to the ground. Sure enough, a monster core appeared in his inventory as well.

"Well I'll be damned," Tom said. "He's right. Time to kill us some birds people!"

With that, the party began to point out birds while James, Tom, and occasionally Kiera fired at them. They had killed about fifty birds in total before a system message appeared in all of their visions.

System Update:

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes, but the Grand System has informed us of a glitch where the local wildlife of Earth was awarding monster cores. Monster cores should only be granted from creatures classified as a monster. The issue has been fixed and those creatures will no longer offer monster cores. Due to this being an error on the part of the system development team, all those who have received cores will be allowed to keep them. Thank you for understanding.

- The Grand System Administrators

This prompt had a golden border and was decorated with swirling filagree and sparkled slightly in the background. Clearly, this was an important message. It also meant that there were beings working on the system itself. They were even calling themselves administrators. Tom was immediately interested in how this worked and wanted to know more. Unfortunately, there was no way for him to be able to find out more at the moment. But that was something to work toward.

Dismissing the thought purely out of a lack of a way to gain information, Tom and the others went back to the vehicle. Driving around for about another hour, the team found several more packs of goblins and one pack of wolves. These were the first wolves that anyone had seen except Jay. Goblins were easy to mostly run over with the vehicle. They practically threw themselves at the Tahoe not knowing what it was. The wolves, however, were another story. They ran out of the street and didn't get too close to the SUV.

James and Kiera shot at them and James was able to kill one, but they got wise to their tactics and began to move behind cars for cover. With no alternative, the team filed out of the vehicle and took up a position so that Derek covered the front with his shield, Kevin the rear with his greataxe, James and Kiera were in the middle, and Jay and Tom took the flanks.

These wolves were clearly smarter than the average predator. They began to circle the team as they moved in closer. Having discussed the plan of attack in the Tahoe, the party was ready and waited for the first to attack. It came from the side first, charging toward Jay. Kiera fired a crossbow over his shoulder and it hit the wolf in the left front shoulder.

It whined as it tried to pull back, but it was too slow. Jay gave the wolf a short sword to the side for its effort. This left him exposed so another wolf moved in to take advantage. Unfortunately for it, James was ready and fired at it. It took one shot to the back and then one to the head before it died.

Another wolf charged Kevin, not wanting to tangle with the shield, and was promptly cut in half as Kevin swung his axe through the air as it leaped for him. Becoming more timid, the wolves started to look for a way to escape. The party didn't let them get it as they pressed their attack and moved to hunt the wolves instead. They began to turn to run, but one was shot down by James, and another took a bolt to the back of the head from Kiera. That one was an especially gruesome death as the bolt came out of the inside of its mouth, spraying the ground in shattered skull fragments, blood, and brain matter as it also choked on its own blood that ran down the back of its throat for a few seconds.

Derek jumped in front of a fleeing wolf and bashed it first with his shield to stop its momentum and then brained it with his mace to kill it. The crunching sound it made as the flanges of the mace made contact with the top of its head was loud enough to echo back off of the buildings around them and it bit its tongue off from the force of the blow forcing its head onto the pavement.

Tom surprised one of the wolves that had tried to escape but was cut off by Jay. It turned to run but found its path cut off as he jumped out from behind an abandoned vehicle. Slicing out with his greatsword, he managed to cut off one of the legs of the beast. It growled at him and made a final death leap at him. pulling his sword up to block the attack, the beast landed on the sword driving him back to the ground.

Struggling to keep the biting jaws away, Tom took one hand and held the sword between him and the creature. It's jaws moved to the right and bit into his shoulder. He cried out in pain as the teeth sank deep into his flesh and it wrenched its head back and forth tearing the muscles. He had managed to get his other hand to firm the pattern for a spell though before it bit him. Gritting his teeth against the pain he cried out, "Uthas per mishtu!"

A ball of dark purple light erupted from his hand, which was placed on the wolf's belly and rocketed the creature off of him. This of course ripped open his wound even further, but it did manage to kill the wolf by blowing a hold in its abdomen where all of its internals fell out. Laying on the ground in pain, Tom cast Dark healing on himself and his shoulder began to knit back together. Watching in fascination as first the muscles, then the tendons, and finally the skin grew back into place as though nothing had harmed him, Tom had to cast the spell a couple more times, but it was truly amazing how it could heal so much so fast. Before magic, he would have been out of commission for months.

The last of the wolves were finally put down and there were smiles on everyone's faces. This had been a successful hunt and it was time to go back to the center to check on the survivors as well as look at their gains from this excursion. With these numbers, they should be able to get everyone in the party classes as well as gear. They were really beginning to look like a real adventuring party.