I ended up joining my team for a couple of hours and together, we hunted the coyotes. They listened to me after I ran the numbers and I chose to join them as I had no interest in hunting the slimes for now. The fourteen teams divided themselves equally between the two regions of the canyon; seven were hunting the coyotes and seven were hunting the slimes.
With such a tough competition present, I would have at most earned myself twenty points which compared to last night’s harvest was nothing. I would rather much save my energy and go out hunting again tonight. Furthermore, I would avoid getting into conflict with the other groups. I doubted they would think highly of me if I hunted alone.
By now, it was evident to me that rules were going to be imposed on the hunting groups as from tomorrow. According to Jake, all the leaders of the teams were asked to reconvene this evening.
I fought half-heartedly as I watched the show taking place.
“Hey! Our team found this coyote first, it should belong to us!”
“No way! Our team killed it. You let it escape and we caught it!”
Similar scenes became more and more common as time went by and as we waited for the coyotes to appear. Frustration was slowly building up, even among my team. Not only were they not finding a lot of coyotes to kill, but it was also depressing for them to watch the hard-earned points being snatched by their fairy. It was a long grind, but they needed to persist.
As we hunted the coyotes, I somehow ended up as the coach of the team, giving them advice and reminding them to use their spells from time to time. As the concept of spells was new to my teammates, it has yet to become a habit for my teammates to rely on them. It was not necessary to use spells to deal with coyotes, but it was a good habit to always have your mana pool gathering mana.
The only team member who had already become used to using spells was Lovin. He chose only one element: Wind. The basic spell for Wind was [Breeze]. The spell was weak and useless in most cases but not for Lovin. He was an archer and by using [Breeze], he was almost guaranteed to never miss his shots. It allowed him to make minor adjustments even after the arrow was shot.
“Alright. I think I will stop here for today.” I said after stabbing a coyote with my spear.
“What? But you did not even hunt for two hours. Even I only made twenty points today.”
“Yes. You can continue to hunt. I will go back to eat something and take a nap.” I did not explain any further. I did not want anyone to discover that I was hunting at night; it was a secret I had to keep for myself until it would not be as profitable. I did not want others to ruin it.
While I could hunt at night thanks to Levi who was guiding me, the others did not have this option. They would have to rely on torches and lamps which could either scare away the monsters or attract them all. I would naturally not inform them that their fairy could also be used to assist in hunting.
That day, I was the last to go to the canyon and also the first to return to the village. There was a couple of hours before the monster rush; I had time to kill.
I chatted with the clerk of the merchant tower while browsing through the interesting items he had. A few caught my attention but without points, I would be unable to purchase them. These items triggered an internal debate on whether I should delay my departure to purchase them or I should just ignore them and continue ahead.
I returned home to rest and only came out upon hearing the emergency bell of the merchant tower. It was time for today’s monster rush.
While it has already been decided that only half of the teams would fight, everyone had returned to the village to observe the battle, partly because they were not confident in the strength of their allies and partly because the village was the safest place to be during a monster rush.
The same monsters as yesterday appeared. Eric’s team naturally went straight for the golem while the rest took care of the other monsters. The human formation was a lot less dense than yesterday; it made it easier for them to manoeuvre around the monsters. The coyotes and the slimes perished very quickly under the arrows of the archers while the ogres were slightly more persistent, after having faced them once, the hunters now knew how to deal with them.
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The seven teams worked together and were able to quickly deal with the monster rush. Surprisingly, having fewer people made the battle easier as everyone had more space to move. Naturally, there were a few more injured but no casualties yet.
A few hunters cheered as the three healers got to work. At the same time, the voice of the tower spoke.
[Congratulations. You have successfully defended the village.]
[The daily ranking shall now be updated.]
[1. Alex. 298 Points]
[2. Eric. 0 Points]
[3. Eliza. 0 Points]
.
.
[The daily bonus will now be awarded. Updating the daily ranking]
[1. Alex. 327 Points]
[2. Eric. 0 Points]
[3. Eliza. 0 Points]
.
.
.
“What the f*ck! That person already obtained 300 points?” Somebody exclaimed.
I could feel the despair and frustration growing in his voice. Everyone was staring at the stone pillar, unwilling to believe that I had already pulled so far ahead and would continue to do so for a while.
Eric, who stood on top of the remains of the golems, closed his eyes. “Unbelievable. He obtained so many points, but I did not even see him hunt for more than an hour today. Does he have a secret?”
“It is fine, Eric. You will catch up to him in no time. Once we finish paying up our debt, things will get better.” A woman from Eric’s group said.
“No. Even today, we only managed to get a hundred points and that is after taking some risks with the ogres and fighting during the monster rush. That guy on the other hand, did not do anything all day. I suspect that he is more active at night, but I have no way of proving it.” Eric fell into deep thoughts and his teammates did not know how to improve his mood.
“Daman. Are you here?” Eric asked absentmindedly.
A fairy magically appeared next to him. “What is it?”
“I want to know where the man called Alex obtains his points.”
“Oh? I can give you this information. But it will cost you 50 points as usual.” The fairy answered casually.
“50 points? I am still 250 points in debt but that is the cost of information.” Eric mumbled to himself.
“50 points are nothing for this information. His method is more efficient. He obtained two hundred points in one day while you obtained only a hundred. 50 points is a fair price to know the correct method of gathering points. Don’t you think?”
After a moment of hesitation, Eric conceded and increased his debt to 300 points.
“Excellent. Then, if you don’t mind, I will take my leave and tail this guy for a while.”
Eric was not the only one curious about my abnormal increase in points. A few opportunists also resorted to similar methods to learn my hunting method.
…
That night, I went out with Levi once again to hunt the monsters. The fairy had become friendlier since he obtained a few points from me and instead of overworking me, he planned the route between each monster nest appropriately.
The monsters had yet to realise that somebody was hunting them during the night and were still defencelessly lying around. That night, I increased my points to 502 but gave 50 points to Levi to keep him in a good mood.
Using all the mana stones I acquired, I expanded my mana pool to be able to cast Heal 15.4 times. This kind of growth rate was unheard of; in just four days, I had almost reached the first threshold.
On the next night, I only managed to hunt about a hundred monsters, pushing my total points to 593 after giving Levi his usual 50 points. I was not stingy with him as I knew my poor performance could not be blamed on him. The monsters had started to realise that sleeping outside at night was not so safe after all. And some monster nests even put a few lookouts near the entrance of the nests.
Hunting at night would no longer be as profitable as it was a few days ago but it did not matter to me. I had already achieved my goal of obtaining 500 points. I could purchase a storage item at any time and start exploring the canyon for treasures.
However, I was now facing another dilemma; should I exchange for the storage item now or wait a little bit and let the daily bonuses accumulate? I was earning 10% of my total points every day; It was 59 free points for doing nothing. And this number would keep increasing.
Fortunately, during the day, as the daily ranking was being updated, an event took place that made my choice clear.
[Congratulations. You have successfully defended the village.]
[The daily ranking shall now be updated.]
[1. Alex. 593 Points]
[2. Eric. 0 Points]
[3. Eliza. 0 Points]
.
.
[The daily bonus will now be awarded. Updating the daily ranking]
[1. Alex. 652 Points]
[2. Eric. 0 Points]
[3. Eliza. 0 Points]
.
.
[For the first time, a hunter has accumulated over 500 points. Building blueprints shall now be available for purchase at the merchant tower. Purchase the blueprints to return the village to its former glory and unlock buildings with special uses.]
As soon as the announcement was made, Eric quickly gathered the leaders of the teams and together, browsed through the building blueprints. By now, everyone was already aware of my identity and many were eyeing me greedily.
I had a bad feeling about what was going to happen. I vaguely remembered a similar event in my past life, but it took place much later in the tutorial. I had forgotten about the trigger of this event. In my past life, many people were already earning points and contributed to unlock a few buildings. But right now, I was the only one who could do so.