Ed watched as the goblins chased Adam into the forest. “That guy might be an idiot, but when it comes to creating chaos, he might as well be Einstein,” he muttered with a smirk. Once the last of the goblins disappeared from sight, Ed gathered the dry twigs and leaves he had collected earlier and moved toward the hamlet. His figure blurred slightly thanks to his sneak skill, allowing him to remain unnoticed. "If only my skills weren't reset," he mused, "I could have walked right in front of them without them ever noticing." Still, caution was warranted—there could be stragglers.
Reaching the gate of the hamlet, Ed slipped through and quickly ducked behind the nearest hut. He surveyed the area, making sure no goblins had stayed behind. “Looks like Adam really did take the whole camp with him,” he observed, satisfied.
He entered the hut he was hiding behind and laid out the twigs and leaves in a line leading to the wall, lighting the end of it. “This should give me enough time to hit the other huts before the fire spreads,” Ed thought, watching the small flame flicker to life. He exited quickly, repeating the same process at each hut as he moved cautiously through the camp.
Eventually, Ed reached the largest hut. In front of it stood two poles carved from bone, and atop each one rested a skull with five eyes and three horns.
Upon seeing the skulls, Ed cursed under his breath. “Shit, this is a Vegork skull.” Vegork, the king of ogres, was considered a deity among his kind. Goblins and hobgoblins were essentially the lesser cousins of ogres, but they didn’t worship him. The skull’s presence meant only one thing: “An ogre must be the leader of this camp... and probably the boss of this dungeon.”
As Ed considered setting the large hut on fire from outside, a garbled, angry shout echoed from within, and then a female looking hobgoblin stepped out of the hut. The hobgoblin shouted like she was calling for someone, and when she wasn’t met with a respond, she looked around and moved in the direction of one of huts. The one Ed was hiding behind.
Ed seeing the hobgoblin coming closer to the hut he was hiding behind, stilled his body and grabbed his daggers. When the hobgoblin was about to round the corner where Ed was hiding, his dagger flashed cutting her throat in one fluid motion. The hobgoblin was so surprised she didn’t register what happened until she saw Ed. She tried to scream but her vocal cords were no more, shocking on her own blood she attempted to run but Ed without producing a sound brought her to the ground as she bled out to death.
[You killed Hobgoblin Level 11 You Gained EXP]
[You have leveled Up x3]
[You Have Gained Stats Points x3]
[You Learned Small Weapons Mastery Level 10]
[Your Small Weapons Mastery Can’t Be Upgraded Due TO Level Limitation]
Upon seeing the system message Ed was sure the hobgoblin was dead. Letting go of her, he wiped the blood of his hand on her body and disrupted his stats. He put all of them into agility, and then moved to hide behind another hut, the closest hut to this on.
Ed waited patiently, the fire was going to spread soon, anytime now the first hut he started with was going to catch fire. He should have been gone by now, but he wanted to see what type of boss they were going against, so he waited. After a bit of time another figure emerged from the hut, but unfortunately it was another hobgoblin and not the ogre. Just like the last one, the first thing this one did was shouting and just like the last one when she didn’t get a replay, she moved towered the hut Ed killed the first one.
Ed was hiding on the hut opposite to the one she heading to just in case this happened, when the hobgoblin was about to reach the place where he killed the first one, he started to move.
The hobgoblin rounded the corner and was met with a corpse of her friend, being smarter than goblin she understood something was wrong and she needed to report this. Unfortunately for her the moment she gave her back to Ed, her life was forfeited. Emerging from behind the hut he was hiding from, Ed jogged in the direction of the hobgoblin, his whole body as silent as death itself. And in a moment, he was upon her. Before she even had the chance to turn around, he brought his hand to her mouth, while his dagger passed through her back and into her heart.
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[You killed Hobgoblin Level 10 You Gained EXP]
[You have leveled Up x2]
[You Have Gained Stats Points x2]
[You Learned Backstab Level 10]
[Your Backstab Can’t Be Leveled Due TO Level Limitation]
Ed pulled his dagger and slowly lowered the lifeless body into the ground, and cleaned his dagger on her body before sheathing it. He wanted to stay longer to see the boss, but his time here has run out. The huts started to burn down, and before long the smell will alert the boss. Ed was skilled, one of the best even, and that why he knew he didn’t have a chance against an ogre. They were at least level 25 and compared to someone with a second-class upgrade, and as skilled as he was. Without even attaining his first class he wouldn’t stand a chance, there was a reason players attained class upgrade at intervals such as 10,25,50 and 100. Monsters at those intervals were a completely different beings from the ones under them.
So, with nothing more to do here, he turned around and left the hamlet. As the distance between him and the hamlet grew, hut after hut started to catch fire. When he was halfway to their original hiding spot, an angry howl echoed from the hamlet as smoke kept rising to the air. “Well, he is definitely angry now.” Ed smirked as he ran to their hiding spot and waited for Adam to come back.
Back in his hiding spot, Ed kept watching as fire kept spreading and the hamlet burned down. When the smoke rose high to sky, the group of goblins returned, just to be met by fire. The goblin rushed to the hamlet and tried to put the fire using dirt, but the fire was past that point, and when heat soared even more, they were left with no other choice but to back away.
“You know my mother never warned me about lunatics, but she always warned me about people who played with fire. So, I think you are worse than me.” Adam was back.
Turning around to face him, Ed smirked. “Well, my mother always warned me about lunatics and how I need to avoid them, so, no you are worse”
Shaking his head Adam looked at the hamlet as the fire consumed it. “So, what now? Wait till they get angry and come find us?” He asked.
“Something like that.” Ed shrugged, but then the smirk disappeared from his. “But we might have a problem.”
“What do you mean? Everything went as planned” Adam asked, the smile on his face disappearing too.
Ed leaned on the tree and said with a serious tone. “The dungeon boss is an ogre.”
Adam laughed. “Haha, you got me worried there for a second man. Look at you serious and all. If the boss is an ogre we just need to kill too, and the problem is solved.”
Ed looked at the sky with a sad look and murmured aloud. “Mom now I understand why you kept warning me about lunatics, they don’t have brains. Please forgive your son because he didn’t listen and now, he is stuck with the king of all lunatics.”
Adam gave him a nasty look. “What you looking at the sky for, your mom is alive I heard your cousin mention her. And stop being melodramatic, the ogre is just a bad match for assassins like with his regeneration ability. But for me once I get my first class he might as well be another goblin.”
Ed scratched his head. “Well, I guess you are right, maybe I overreacted because am usually the one who do the hard job. What your current level by the way.”
Adam opened his status window he himself wasn’t sure after the chase.
Name: Adam Vlahos
Race: Human
Class: N/A
Stigma: Abyssal Soul
Level: 7
Strength: 12
Agility: 20
Constitution: 15
Wisdom: 10
Intelligence: 10
Willpower: 15
Stat points: 5
Skills: Hand To Hand LV 10 / Small Weapons LV 2 / Dodge LV 10/ Novice Swordsmanship LV 10 / Runing LV 10
Adam looked at his status and smiled, it’s finally starting to look somewhat proper. He even got an extra level and skill during the chase, he just hated how the more he leveled the harder it gets to do so, and it will get even harder once he reaches level 10 and get his class. Without thinking much, he put the stats point into strength. “Level 7, what about you? Am sure you killed something while you were there.”
“Level 5, so 3 more levels till you get your class. There are 5 hobgoblins and 96 goblins left, so both of us will be able to get our class before fighting the boss, but the goblin won’t give much EXP if any at all after we reach level 10. So, if we killed all of them before fighting the boss, we will likely be level 12 or 13.” Ed said as he looked at the quest objectives.
“That would be more than enough if you ask me.” Adam said as he looked in the direction of the burning hamlet. “But I think we need to go now because they are coming.”
Ed turned to look too. “So, they are Scattering to find us like we expected. They really are dump.”
Adam chuckled. “If they are dump for splitting up to find us, what does that make us? We are splitting to hunt them after all.”
“If we stayed together, we will just end up hindering each other with our contradictory approach to this, but I guess you are kind right. You are as dump as them.”
Adam turned from him and headed to the forest. “Don’t die asshole.”