I was quietly hiding behind a bush. When they reached near the wall, they threw ropes with one of their ends attacked to a hook on it. Specifically, two ropes. The ropes were thrown side by side, and when they confirmed that the hook has attached itself to the wall, they began climbing it. Two at a time, the people on the outer side of the town moved inside. When about ten people have crossed over the wall, I started hearing the screams of the residents. It seems that they have started their attack. I was overcome with an urge to rush at that moment, but somehow I held myself back. It would have been over for me if I attacked recklessly. I waited for my chance.

The people waiting on this side of the wall started moving quickly. There was impatience in their movements. However, it was not the king of impatience I was feeling. If I had to guess, it was similar to the impatience of the child whose friends were playing games near him but he could not play with them for whatever reason. The rate at which people were crossing over the walls increased. I moved closer to them. They were not even paying attention to their surroundings. Only waiting for their chance to come, so that they can enter the town. When about fifty people have crossed over, I noticed that now there were sounds of weapon clashing as well mixed in among the screams. When I looked to the walls, there was light coming from above them. It was a light that was impossible to be created unless there was a big fire on the other side of the walls.

Gradually, the people on this side of the wall were reduced to only four. Two of them started climbing the rope. I tightened my grip on the dagger in my hand, steadied my breathing. Now, there were only two people on this side of the wall, and they had started climbing too.

I resolved myself and rushed out from behind the bush. The two of them were about two feet above the ground. I ran towards them with all my might, and as I was nearing them, I decided to attack the one hanging from the left rope. They seemed to notice me, but it was too late. I was close enough to them to attack,

"Huh?....AAAAAHHHH!"

I sliced at the knee pit, and there was a spurt of blood as the man cried out and fell to the ground on his back. I did not hesitate as I moved closer to him and stabbed the dagger in his neck. The man struggled for a while before his breathing came to a stop. I pulled the dagger out of his neck, and stood there in a stance.

I killed someone. I actually killed someone. I killed someone for the first time. No, well that's not right. I had killed before this. But this is the first time I killed someone while not in a rush. As I was standing there basking in the emotions, I suddenly felt a chill. It was an instinctive action, I rolled to the side. And just as I rolled away, a sword passed through where I had been standing before.

I looked up from my crouching position and saw that the other man who had been hanging was standing there with his sword out. My body was feeling tired, perhaps because of having moved in extreme nervousness. It was only then that I noticed that the man I thought dead was actually breathing. Although it was very faint, I was certain of it.

The other man swung his sword again at me. This time I retreated back.

A downward slash from my left, I dodged left, a horizontal swipe at my neck, I ducked. This game of tag continued for a while, but slowly as if losing his patience, the man tried to kick me. This time, I did not try to dodge his attack by moving out of the way.

I stepped forward, and just as his knee was about to hit me, I moved just enough to avoid getting hit. Then, the man put down his leg, bringing down the sword he had raised overhead, however, I had already moved in, he could not swing his sword as freely as he had before. The sword missed its mark and I got struck on my shoulder with his forearm.

Apparently, the man was irritated by this, and tried to elbow me in the neck, however, before he could, I moved the dagger in my right hand to a backhand grip and slashed at his stomach. I felt the dagger in my hand digging into his stomach, the feeling of cutting through flesh filled my hand. This time I felt it clearly, not having lost my mind in the trepidation. And all of a sudden, all the hesitation, all the aversion that I had in my mind to kill a fellow human, was lost.

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The man too lost his strength, and his elbow which was meant to be an attack to knock me down, came down a little harder than a tap. In the next instant, blood started coming out of his mouth. His face was distorted in pain, and he was looking at me in hatred. However, surprisingly, I did not feel anything even when I looked into his eyes, except for pity. Pity for him, because he was suffering in unimaginable pain. My head started to calm down from the excitement of the battle, my breathing slowly returned to normal.

cough, cough.

The man started coughing up blood, and in the face of that excruciating pain he must be feeling, even the hatred in his eyes was gone. He was just there, waiting for his own death in fear. I moved, and with the same dagger I used to cut his belly, I sliced open his neck. In that instant, the light of life extinguished from his eyes.

Seeing his body fall to the ground lifelessly, I turned my eyes to the other man, who was lying there looking at me in fear. I moved, and crushed his neck under my foot. The result - he died. I think his other arteries were cut by the bone in his neck.

Once I had seen a slime, and my mother had killed it instantly. Of course it would die instantly. She crushed its core with her bare hands. That day she told me that all living things had at least one important organ needed to support its body. For the slime, which was one of the simplest life forms, it was his nucleus. As the body structure got complicated, these organs increased in number. And of course, the became more vulnerable as well.

For a human body which was one of the most complicated, these organs would be their intestines, kidneys, heart, neck, blood, brain and the like. Even if only one of them was damaged or removed, it will become nigh impossible to survive for even a complete minute.

I stood there silently for a while, listening to the announcements of level up that were going on in my head. When they calmed down, I noticed that on level up, something would come gushing out of my body, and once I had grasped that feeling, I could feel it flowing through my body, although very faintly. And I knew what it was.

It was warm, it was rejuvenating, all the fatigue I had felt from fighting with my life on the line, all the tension in my body and mind, every single bit of it was gone. I could feel it filling me with energy. I could feel it flowing through every part of my body, as if it was competing with the blood in my body to see which one is faster. Once I grasped this feeling, I could feel almost every corner of my body. It was mana, which I was oblivious to until now.

In my feeling of high, I climbed over the wall in a hurry. Hurry to find people to kill so that I could feel that amazing sensation again. I wanted to level up. I wanted to feel that again. I wanted to drown myself in that feeling. However, once atop the wall, I froze. In front of me, there was the town, a part of it burning. The clashing of weapons and cries of people roused myself from my euphoria. The light coming from burning houses showed me the reality.

And among those sounds, I heard the sound of footsteps. They were like a drum, a drum being beaten by someone gone mad. I turned to face in that direction, still in disbelief at what was happening. What I was there was, people, weapons, torches. A massive number of people with weapons in hands and torches lighting the way in the night were coming towards here.

They were raising cries to increase their morale, and their march was like a storm. It felt like one of the stories of war I had heard from the elders in our village had come to life in front of me. I saw it, the enemies heading towards us in large numbers. When I looked around inside the town, I saw that some of the soldiers were here. However, they were engaged in a struggle against the few enemies who had infiltrated the town.

Seeing this, I was certain that there was no way that this town would survive against the people who were coming. There were just too many of them. And I made my decision. With Klan, I will get out of here. Staying here would be suicidal. There was no way to survive if I tried to fight them. If there were only these hundred who had infiltrated the town, I could, maybe after losing a hand or two, survive. But not against this many. So I got down from the wall and shouted for Klan.

There was no reply. Or rather even if there was, it was highly unlikely for me to have heard it. The surrounding noise was just too much. I ran inside the town looking for him. There were some people who got in my way, but I dealt with them. With an increased level, it was not too much trouble. And when I turned another corner, I saw him.