Laying on my bed before going to sleep, I checked my Attributes. Intelligence was lagging behind but everything was moving really nicely. These were amazing stats for someone my level but most of these were due to Alice's meddling.
Soul Scout (rare) Level 10 Strength 114 Dexterity 140 Endurance 132 Intelligence 71 Wisdom 121 Clarity 11 Charisma 12 Health (HP) 162 Mana (MP) 33 Stamina (SP) 113
If I wasn't a human, it would be all fucked up. Other species had fixed Attribute-per-level growth, with only a few points left to freely allocate. If I didn't have the Parallel Progression, I would be stuck with much less points. Only the one hundred and fifty from leveling up plus the free ten points from level zero.
At least my plan of adding more information to the quests worked. I earned some Attribute points when these monsters were killed. I later checked the records at the Guild Hall and saw the quests were completed.
It was slow but it was free power. I wonder if my father had the same Parallel Progression that I did. He never talked about it. People never talked about their Status Windows, even with close relatives. You could never be sure who was listening in. With people able to see and hear the past and future, the only way to keep a secret was to lock it deep inside one's mind. Sometimes, not even that would keep it safe.
On the other front, my little friend was steadily gaining weight, despite being still as relaxed and sleepy as ever. I wouldn't call him lazy. He now weighed two kilograms and a hundred-fifty grams, an impressive gain of forty percent body weight in just this short time. It's been two weeks since I contracted Melgart. He was happy to see the Wolfertinger pup grow but not as impressed as I was. He said that monsters could gain weight and grow at impressive rates.
Alice deputized one of the senior Receptionists and traveled to another city, most likely to negotiate the Wolfertinger corpses.
I used this time to get a lot of exercise. If I didn't work out now, my Strength score would soon make the weightlifting training gear I had at home obsolete. I would need to either buy heavier and more expensive weights and machines or join a gym. The training regimen I took was to adapt to my increased Attributes. A guy with a thousand points of Strength didn't suddenly start to crush every single egg they picked up. Nor did someone with a thousand points of Dexterity move at super speed at all times. The world would be thrown into chaos if that was the case.
The Attributes only raised your maximums. The people in my example could perform those feats but they had to consciously decide to use their enhanced prowess. But once someone gained more Attributes, especially at the start of their career and when it was a bunch of points at once, they needed to practice with their new upper limit until it became second nature.
For example, I could fire arrows more than twice as fast as back when I was delving into the Dungeon with Alice. But could I do it consistently? Shooting a lot of arrows only mattered in wars. Or when the target was so big you couldn't miss. I had to re-train my fast shooting skills and learn how to coordinate at these faster speeds.
And I was lucky to have Scout's Oath with me. The enchanted, soul-bonded bow scaled with me in two ways. First and foremost, it adjusted its draw strength automatically. I would never need to acquire another bow. Ordinary bows had a fixed draw and to make use of my improved Strength, I would need to buy a new, stronger bow. And second, it granted both the bowstring and the arrows a temporary minor resilience enchantment. My father joked that without that, he would soon need to get treated dragon sinew to use as a bowstring.
The need to swap equipment for one made of a stronger material happened all the time as people grew in power. Ordinary steel swords became as brittle as glass at around one thousand Strength. In the hand of a person that strong, a steel sword would shatter upon impact on a hard surface just like a glass sword would in the hands of an ordinary person, say when striking the glass sword against a rock.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Of course, the steel weapon would bend and dent, becoming unusable way sooner than that but the "shatter at one thousand points of Strength" was an easy-to-understand example.
I needed more points of Intelligence. Without more Intelligence, it would soon become impossible to make the best use of my ever-increasing speed. Right now it wasn't a problem and the training helped me bridge the gap. I just couldn't neglect to put points in that Attribute.
*
*
I talked to the deputy Guild Master and she agreed to withhold the publication of the extermination quest slips so I could scout them and add more details. And that was what I was set to do tomorrow. Go on a three-day and two-night trip into the southern wilderness to check on the monsters and update the quests for our Adventurers. This time, I made use of my improved Strength and packed a really impressive bag. I had to buy a porter backpack from Fizzlewhisper to fit it all but it was well worth it. The premium backpack was rated to carry up to a hundred and fifty kilograms of gear, had a metal frame, and a lot of attachment points for more stuff. I had two weeks of food and water for five days with me.
With the Wolfertinger pup sleeping just underneath the backpack flap, I set off.
The southern part of town was more deserted than the northern woodlands, full of rocky hills that went up and down, with several valleys and lakes between these hills. The terrain was unsuited for farming but held a lot of mines. For centuries, these mines provided vital ores for the city's economy but since the resources didn't respawn like the inside of a Dungeon, they were abandoned. These mines now were the breeding grounds for a lot of monsters and some of the bigger ones had their own ecosystem.
Only some brave shepherds dared use this area for any economic activity nowadays. Most of the quests I was set to validate came from them. It would be easy to just leave this region alone but the city couldn't even think of doing so.
Leaving monsters alone to breed in the abandoned mines was a huge mistake. As the population increased, so did the danger and levels of the monsters. Once the number of monsters reached a critical point, the stronger ones would expel the weaker monsters and force them to find food on the surface. And every monster's preferred food was people.
Mr. Mc Donovan was really lucky he didn't become Wolfertinger food.
The rocky terrain actually came in handy to train agility and leaping around. I once heard someone saying that our planet's gravity was too strong. People jumped lower and were more prone to injuries from falling from heights. I could only confirm half of it. Even with the innate body-strengthening magic everyone used and the System Attributes boosting our physical abilities, falls were still dangerous.
I was on top of a hill overlooking one of the abandoned mineshafts below. The place was crawling with kobolds, humanoid monsters with scaled bodies, a lizard's tail, and vaguely draconic features. Some Kobolds could attain sapience and join society but they were so few that I couldn't remember seeing one in the city.
I hid my pack between two boulders and covered it with smaller rocks. The pup was rolled up in a blanket and safe in a small backpack that fits beside my quiver.
Outside activity meant these kobolds here were the weakest in the warren below. The money could contain anything from several dozens to thousands of kobolds. The kobolds carried rocks outside the mine, probably clearing sections they dug. The damn dumb humanoids didn't recognize the minecarts. They could haul sixteen tons and stop wasting so much time breaking their backs. These kobolds were as dumb and savage as they got.
I counted the kobolds. Sixteen. I readied my quiver and knelt. Stillness settled in my mind. A pause before bursting into action. Sixteen targets. I took a lungful of air and held my breath.
Then I fired. And fired. My eyes stopped at one target for a heartbeat and then moved on to the next. Scout's Oath was an extension of myself.
The notifications came. They flashed at the bottom of my field of view as I kept putting high-velocity arrows in the air.
> For killing level 12 Kobold, you gained 144 Experience points.
…
> You gained a level.
> For killing level 11 Kobold, you gained 100 Experience points.
Two kobolds managed to run into the mine before I could shoot at them. The fourteen kills almost gave me two levels. I adjusted my Attribute points per level back to the nine Strength and six Intelligence by placing twelve in the former.
Wasting no time, I hopped downhill, going from rock to rock. Down there, I retrieved my arrows and searched for hidden entrances. Kobolds might be uncultured and savage but they were cunning. I saw two spaces between slabs of uncut granite that could be secret accesses.
But I didn't have the time to inspect them. I could already hear the screaming kobolds coming up the tunnel. With haste, I made my way back up but this time in another direction. I used a thin trail to climb out of the mine pit.
kobolds poured out of the tunnel. They first stared at their dead brethren. They had their backs to me. The two that escaped my ambush pointed at the hill I shot from. I picked that hill exactly because reaching its top was not a trivial matter.
This time, I counted sixty kobolds. They had weapons this time. Salvaged or stolen weapons. The hilts and hafts weren't sized for their small hands.
I had only two bundles of arrows with me, already counting the one in my quiver. Not enough arrows for these kobolds even if I could kill two with a single arrow on occasion.
Yet, I could guarantee I was faster than them. I surveyed the kobolds, trying to find those with the fanciest weapons or decorations. These primitive societies followed the rule of the strongest and those on top demanded the best for themselves.
They say that the third time's the charm. For my young self, it didn't hold true. All I saw was the Experience points floating around. My rationale was that they were worth more than the PP Attributes.
The force that pushed me to draw my bowstring was greed. A desire to get as much power as possible, to grow and stand on the firmament with legends like Alice, my father, Liliane Fade, and Clotilde.