“Pit pat pit pat”

“What is this sound? Is it raining?”

Jake blurted out with a sleepy voice. He rubbed his tired eyes as he stood up. The room was much darker than usual. He looked through the window on the opposite side of the room and saw the heavy rain pouring outside.

“What time is it? I feel like I slept longer. Oh no. Did I miss the meeting time?”

Jake quickly got up and prepared himself. He was slightly worried that he was late. There were no clocks or alarms to set in the morning. He usually relied on the sunlight to wake him up which was why he left the curtains open at night. However, today, because of the rainfall, Jake felt that he woke up later than usual.

He felt lazy but nevertheless got dressed and headed out. He ignored the rain and rushed to Eric’s house where the team usually assembled every morning. The house was much larger than the average house and accommodated six people; the original six members of Eric’s team.

He knocked at the door and was greeted by a tired-looking woman. Her name was Christina, one of the closest people to Eric.

“Oh? Hello Jake. Come in.” She yawned and invited Jake inside.

Once inside, Jake noticed that he was not the only one who decided to come here and who was late. There were ten people already waiting in the living room, including Eric. They were spreading a contagious yawn among themselves. The heavy rain made everyone lazy and unwilling to go out.

“Sorry, woke up a bit late today.” Jake said while greeting everyone.

“No worries. Take a seat and let’s wait for the others.” Eric replied in a friendly manner.

“Are we still going to the canyon today? The weather conditions are going to make things difficult for us. Cough Cough.” A slanky man asked, covering his mouth as he coughed.

“I don’t know. I do not want to waste a day doing nothing but at the same time, it won’t be easy to hunt under the rain. We do not have any coat or similar items to protect us and we do not know the effect the rain may have on the monsters.” Eric replied.

“Then, why don’t we take one day to rest?” A woman suggested. “It has been about two weeks since we came here and since then, we went to hunt out every single day. We can afford to rest for one day, right?”

“That’s a good idea. We have already made good progress and five of us now have enchanted weapons.”

“Cough Cough! Cough!!”

Seeing one of the children, Sonya, coughing loudly, Christina poured a glass of water and handed it to her. “Are you alright, Sonya?”

“Yes yes.” The little girl said weakly.

“You must have caught a cold from staying up late at night.” Christina reassured her. “I think taking a day off would do us a lot of good. We all need to rest if we do not want to be sick like Sonya.” She turned her attention to Eric.

The latter’s expression hardened. He recalled Alex’s words about the health of the children. At first, he paid Alex no mind as it was not unusual for someone to fall sick, especially for a child who was asked to hunt under the heavy sun for a whole day. However, now, after careful consideration, Sonya’s state showed no sign of improvements. Worse than that, Greg, the other child allocated to his team has also started coughing and a few other members of his team fell sick too. This was not limited to his team only either as Eric noticed that quite a few hunters from the other teams coughed or sneezed when they last held a meeting.

“Fine. We’ll take a day off. You can all go back to your house to rest. But also, please inform those who have not come here yet.” Eric announced after some thoughts. He then looked at Christina. “Take care of Sonya.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after her and I’ll start by going to the merchant tower to grab some hot food for everyone.”

Eric nodded and watched as those who did not live in this house left. He observed the small figures of the two children sitting next to each other.

‘Should I ask Alex to clarify what he meant by the children coughing and me giving them more mana stones? Well, that guy is probably busy sleeping from doing whatever he does at night. It will be better to look for him in the afternoon. It is his team’s turn to protect the village.’

“Sonya. Greg. How many points do you both have?” Eric asked.

“Points? I have 85 points.” The little girl answered.

“I only have 70.”

“So that means 155 points?” Eric murmured and fell into deep thoughts. ‘Alex mentioned the hospital. It should be the solution to helping those who seem sick. But this building cost 1000 points to be built. We will barely have enough at the end of the day if each team pays one sixth of the cost…’

‘Let’s wait and see.’

…

“Ting Ting Ting!”

The emergency bell echoed across the village, alerting its residents of the monster rush. It was still raining heavily but the bad weather did not stop the monsters from rushing for the tower. Jacob, Elisa and the other leaders of the different teams who were meant to protect the village today were already standing in front of the merchant tower, ready to fight.

Unsurprisingly, there were no spectators to watch the battle today.

“Where is Alex?” Jacob asked as he counted his team members.

“Don’t know. Is he late? Cough Cough.” Someone asked.

“Although he does not hunt with us, he never missed any monster rush. Did something happen to him?”

“Not sure. But for now, focus on the battle to come.”

Everyone voiced their opinion as in the distance, the dark silhouettes of the ogres appeared. “Let’s go!”

Standing at the back of the group, Lovin raised his new bow and picked up an arrow from his quiver. His equipment was brand new and he had yet to use it. He obtained it yesterday after his team returned from their daily hunt. The bow was enchanted with Power while each arrow was enchanted with Pierce.

Lovin drew his long bow and carefully aimed for the ogre at the front of the monster rush. He closed one eye and took his time. It was not easy to aim under the rain and he did not want to miss his first shot.

[Breeze]

With a faint murmur, Lovin used his trusty spell that could create a faint air current. It was not enough to push away someone but could influence the trajectory of his arrow. Then, he released it.

The arrow flew across the battlefield and embedded itself in the leading ogre’s skull. The ogre was shocked; it did not have time to react. It never expected such a small projectile to not only hit him but also pierce through his hard flesh and skull. It lost its balance and fell backward.

Lovin widened his eyes, pleasantly surprised by the power of his bow. It was the first time he was using an enchanted weapon.

The monsters ignored the fallen ogres who was struggling on the ground. They rushed forward and clashed with the hunters. Quite a few were now armed with enchanted weapons, making it easier than ever to take down the monsters.

Anjali side stepped to avoid the bite of a coyote before swinging her new whip at the beast. The whip was enchanted with Sharp, an enchantment that could turn the whip into a flexible blade, able to cut through flesh like butter. The coyote perished with a single attack.

While the human’s side became much stronger with the help of their new weapons, the monster rush became stronger by increasing its numbers. There were now two golems attacking at the same time.

“Elisa. It’s whenever you’re ready.” Jacob exclaimed as he rushed forward. He glanced at his partner who nodded back in acknowledgement. He faced one of the golems alone as a few other hunters surrounded it. The golem angrily raised its rocky fist and punched toward Jacob. The latter gulped down but did not falter; he trusted Elisa. The woman waited for a second before activating her spell: [Pause], the first spell of the time element.

The golem froze in place, its fist stopped in the middle of the punching motion. Jacob let out a sigh of relief as he jumped onto the fist and used it as support to reach the golem’s head. [Pause] could only last for a second but it was more than enough for Jacob to stab the golem’s head with his dagger. He held onto the golem’s head while stabbing it with the dagger. At first, the dagger was unable to pierce through the stone but a few seconds later, the stone started to melt, allowing the dagger inside the golem’s body. The dagger was enchanted with Corrode.

The golem furiously shook its body in an attempt to get rid of Jacob, but it was quickly assaulted by the other hunters.

The other golem faced Yadav and his group. He agilely found a way to climb onto the golem where he activated his spell: [Store]. The space element’s first spell that gave him access to an independent storage but instead of storing an item, he pulled out a giant heavy rock and let it fall. He jumped off without hesitation, letting the heavy rock crash on the golem.

With the sudden weight being applied on its body, coupled with the attacks of the other hunters, the golem lost its balance and heavily fell on the ground.

“Quick! Kill it!” Yadav shouted.

Despite the rain, the hunters made quick work of the monster rush. They have improved their coordination after working together for a few days and now, rarely had conflicts with each other.

[The daily bonus will now be awarded. Updating the daily ranking]

[1. Alex. 387 Points]

[2. Aditya. 123 Points]

[3. Park Soo Hyuk. 113 Points]

[4. Sonya. 93 Points]

.

.

The daily ranking was updated as usual, but people did not really take it too seriously anymore. They were used to seeing the same names at the top. The only interesting part of the daily ranking was to see who was able to come out of debt and already, about twenty names were in the positive.

Now was time for the loot distribution. Jacob and Elisa rallied the members of their team as everyone picked up the corpses of the monsters they killed.

“Still no sign of Alex…”

“Yes. Maybe we should visit him in case something happened to him.” Elisa said with a low voice.

Together they walked into the merchant tower and sold the corpses, splitting the points with the rest of their team. They were about to exit the merchant tower when suddenly, Jacob felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Jacob.”

“Yes?” He asked as he looked at the person calling him. Unexpectedly, it was Eric.

“I did not see Alex fight today. Do you know where he is? I have a few questions to ask him.”

“You are looking for Alex? We were also wondering where he was. We were going to have a look at his house. Come with us.”

The trio headed to the first house of the village that was not very far from the merchant tower. Eric took the lead and knocked on the door with force. However, to his surprise, after the first knock, the door opened by itself.

“What?” He confusedly looked at Jacob and Elisa who wore similar expression.

“Alex?” He called loudly but received no answer.

“Did something happen to him? But his name is still on the ranking; he should not have left yet.” Elisa pointed out.

Eric frowned lightly. After waiting for a moment, he decided to step in without being invited and as he expected, found the house completely empty. “Alex’s door is always locked when he is here or not. I doubt he just happened to forget to lock his door today.”

“Do you mean that…”

“I don’t know. But one thing is certain: he is not going to be happy when he returns to the village and finds his house in this state.”