With the ratman leader lying lifeless on the ground and the villagers suppressing the few that still lived, Arthur just then realized that he had killed something with his own hands for a very first time in his life.
In the midst of the battle, the adrenaline and the atmosphere made him think nothing of it, but now he was frozen in place– Hand extended, holding the spear in place with a grip that made his knuckles white.
“Arthur! We won!” Heidi came and slapped Arthur on the shoulder while the latter was still in trance.
“Huh? Oh, right.” Coming to his senses, he forcefully yanked the spear out of the defeated foe.
With a glance at the blood and tissue stained spear, he retched a few times before dropping it to the rocky hillside with unsteady hands.
A timely notification from the system both startled and took his attention away from the scene.
Achievement - One hit, one kill Passive skill- Critical strike obtained.
Increased damage to vulnerable positions.
Immediately all the nauseating feeling disappeared, and he strangely felt both happy and rewarded.
“Nick, Heidi. Any gains?” Regaining a bit of his smugness after obtaining the achievement, he asked the two.
“Yes, I got something pretty nice.”
“Yah! I got a message that I unlocked prerequisites for a new class called berserker. It asked me if I wanted to select it now, so I did.” Clenching his hands excitedly, he loaned the stone axe from Heidi and picked his own from the ground.
A light hue of red surrounded Nick, and he grinned as he walked unhurriedly next to a thick birch tree. After taking a deep breath, Nick released a ferocious flurry of attacks, far surpassing his previous performance against the ratman.
Within ten seconds, the birch tree started to creak and crack as the crude axes slashed at the trunk, until it began to fall with a loud rumble.
Arthur and Heidi saw that the birch tree was starting to fall towards them, and quickly ran away in a hurry.
The ground shook a little, whipping up dust and small rocks around the tree, leaving Nick standing in the sunlight with his hands on his hips.
“See? That’s the class skill: Furious strikes! Pretty awesome, right?” Proud and excited, he yelled.
“Nick you idiot! You almost killed both of us.” Veins started bulging on her muscular forearms as Heidi screamed from the top of her throat.
“Why can’t you warn before you do something impulsive, Nick?” With some anger in his voice, Arthur berated Nick while being amazed at the raw power the latter had just now displayed.
It usually took a long time for a team of two men to cut down a tree of that size.
With this in mind, Arthur began to long for a class of his own. He turned his eyes towards Heidi, and wondered what she had obtained from this battle. “Heidi, how about your gains?”
“I was going to tell, but this impulsive airhead ruined the moment. It’s just some skill that increases my agility by the percentage of my strength, nothing special.” Smiling lightly, she downplayed the usefulness of the skill.
All the smugness had disappeared from Arthur when he secretly compared the rewards. It was obvious to him that his passive was inferior to the gains of the two, so he diverted the topic quickly. “We shouldn’t waste time, we still have to find the missing hunters and tend to the wounded.”
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The expedition regrouped, tended the wounded and sent the seriously injured back to the village with some people accompanying them as escorts. It seemed highly probable that they could manage with a group of thirty, so Arthur made the call to split the group in two.
After assigning Heidi to lead the wounded back to the village, the rest made torches and started to search for the missing.
The cave at first glance seemed large and complex. Wide, damp tunnels intertwining with an echo of water dripping from somewhere made the group feel a bit eerie. Arthur led the group in an orderly file, with him and Nick in the lead. Illuminated by the light of the torches, he took curious glances at the walls while sniffing covertly. ‘Strange, I have smelt this before somewhere…But where?’ After racking his brain, he could not remember for the life of him where he had smelt the scent.
The tunnel path they had chosen curved downwards and to the right. With increasing moss and the sound of water dripping from the ceiling becoming clearer, the group stopped a while when Nick raised his hand. “Shhh. Do you hear that?”
Silence fell in the desolate cave, and the group focused on listening. Arthur’s eyes widened as he continued to listen and broke the silence. “I think I heard something muffled. Follow me.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Continuing forwards for a hundred meters into the dark cave, the muffled sound became clearer and clearer as they closed in.
“There! I can see someone!” Nick broke into a run as he saw two of the hunters bound to bedrock by a strange, green substance.
Underneath a slanted stalactite, the imprisoned hunters recognized some faces from the group entering the wide, open area, reflected from the flickering light radiated by the torches.
The cave echoed with relieved but still muffled cries as they wept the tears of relief.
Arthur told Nick to grab some of the group and search for the remaining hunters, while he would release the imprisoned. It was easy to remove the gag that prevented the prisoners from screaming, but the goo was a different story.
As he tried to release the hunters from the substance, he found that it was a very hard thing to do. The green goo seemed to be extremely hard to remove and had superb adhesive properties as Arthur found out about it when trying to separate the villager from the bedrock.
The spear was stuck in the goo firmly and Arthur required a few more villagers to help him to pull the spear out.
With teamwork the progress was slow, but steady. The bound hunter slowly but surely could move his arms and after a while, he was free.
“Thank you, thank you so much.” Sobbing, the man hugged Arthur emotionally.
Gently tapping the man on the back, he couldn’t imagine what these poor people had gone through, so he chose to be silent. With one of the hunters released, the second time seemed to be a bit easier.
With his people freed from the goo, Arthur led the group to meet Nick and others. The cave had many side tunnels, but it was simple for them to find a correct direction based on sounds.
Following the commotion made by Nick's group, Arthur found the rest quickly and saw Sinde chatting joyfully with Nick.
“Glad to see you alive, Sinde. When we get back to the village, you can explain what happened in detail.” Arthur quickly approached him and gave him a bear hug.
“My dudes, I…am glad to see y’all.” Getting emotional, he sobbed and hugged Arthur back.
Feeling the similarities between the captured hunters, Arthur began to think, was it so bad? They were strong hunters, both mentally and physically.
Taking a sneaky look around the open area of the cave, he shuddered as he imagined their conditions.
Trapped in pitch black cave, no certainty of rescue, bound to the ground and only the sounds of dripping water and muffled cries to listen. It would be hard for anyone to keep their sanity in the long run.
Apologizing to them mentally, he counted the hunters rescued and all except Hamil and Farad were accounted for.
“Where’s Farad?”
Sinde lowered his head and was visibly upset. Even without words, Arthur and the rest knew what that meant. A moment of silence ensued and Arthur lowered his torch and eyes.
While looking down, he saw reddish, dustlike sand underneath his feet.
After he waited an appropriate time, he picked some of it up, he finally remembered the familiar, strange smell from before.
‘My old car! The familiar smell of my red 2004- road devil with 65 horsepowers! This must be rust!’ Jolted by the thought, he was shocked.
“Arthur, are you all right?”
Placing a tiny amount of the rust on the tip of his tongue, he exclaimed. “Yes, yes. This is rust! Do you know what this means?” Excited, he raised his arm with the reddish colored sand for display.
The group looked at the sand, and shook their heads in confusion.
“This means that there must be iron here! With enough iron, we can make miracles happen!” Fairly sure of his conjecture, the cogs in Arthur’s head started to turn.
From basic tools to advanced mechanisms, the presence of iron or a metal similar to it was irreplaceable.
The discovery of iron would bring about a new technological revolution to the village. No longer would he be stuck with stone axes and spearheads, but true weapons that reigned for thousands of years during the history of Earth.
The quality of life would improve and the building of more complex and grand structures would become possible.
Holding down his excitement, Arthur briefly described the possibilities and changes that the discovery would bring in the future.
After listening to Arthur, the group seemed to be re-energized and started to search for any reddish colored loose stones they could find.
Within minutes, two of the previously said rocks were found and brought in front of Arthur.
“I hope I’m right…” With a somewhat uncertain expression, he scraped some of the rust off with his axe from both of the rocks, picked them up and smashed them together.
Bright 'Cling' resounded and echoed throughout the open area of the cave.
The somber expression on Arthur's face rapidly changed into one of excitement. He turned to the villagers and said. “Prepare to welcome a new era.”