Abel thought he would have it easy after joining the expedition, while at times he would certainly be busy with cooking or repairing equipment, he never imagined the battles would be so intense!

The first few kobold teams they took out upon entering the dungeon lulled him into believing this would be an easy and enjoyable experience. He thought he would increase his cooking and weapon proficiency skills all while leveling up like a rocket. While this was all entirely true, the manner in which it was happening was a first for him. He knew the shield warriors could hold the line, but he never thought the pressure on the archers and other attackers would be just as immense. He had been firing arrows non-stop for close to 20 minutes!

He was thankful he had hundreds of arrows in his spacial bag but even he would eventually run out if every floor had such an area. The only reason he didn’t burn through his entire stock was due to the time he took to aim. He would try and shoot at kobolds that were on the verge of death or those that were ganging up on one of the melee soldiers.

The kobolds were like rats scurrying away from a flood but instead of running to dry land they were running toward the 4 shield warriors blocking the choke point of the path they entered from. The shield warriors utilized all sorts of skills to hold the line while the spearman and swordsmen would dance around in between them, attacking any kobold in range.

Abel, Roy and Kaelin would only pause to get more arrows out of their personal spatial storage but otherwise, they didn’t let up in their attacks. Abel had long leveled up in the first few minutes of battle and the silent notifications of his proficiency increasing didn’t let up but he couldn’t afford to waste his time checking it out. The monsters would be cleared soon and every second wasted looking at his interface would just be more EXP flying away.

Finally, the kobolds within the vicinity seemed to have dried up as the floor was drenched in kobold blood with piles of carcasses before them. This was one of the few times when Abel hated the realistic immersion and wished he didn’t have the Adaptive Eye skill. The rusty and pungent smell of monster blood and the gory sight of flesh and guts strewn around was stomach churning to say the least. Although he had slaughtered hundreds of stone-toothed rats, they would always be in batches of 6 and not over a hundred like right now.

‘I’ll have to get used to this, it’ll only get worse in the future….’ Abel put aside his inner disgust as he bent down to start skinning their kills.

While Bruni, Aberon and Darin were much faster than him, even they would take quite a lot of time to get through this many carcasses’. In fact, Roy and Kaelin also got to work and started skinning alongside him but their speed was just slightly faster than his own. A few of the other men also started helping out with their speed varying. While Abel slowly skinned one monster after the other, he took the time to inspect his recent upgrades.

‘Open Character Stats. Open Skill Menu’

Name: Red Sky
Level: 11
Profession: Battlesmith
Alignment: Neutral
Title: Rodent Ravager
Reputation: 80
Health (HP): 620 (+100)
Mana (MP): 450
Attack: 172-177
Defense: 72
Strength (STR): 93 (+19)
Agility (AGI): 66 (+34)
Endurance (END): 72
Toughness (TGH): 54 (+8)
Vitality (VIT): 52
Wisdom (WDM): 20
Intelligence (INT): 45
Resilience (RES): 17
Dexterity (DEX): 64
Luck: 10
Satiety: 71
Stamina: 63

All Weapons Proficiency (expand/collapse all-): Basic skill in all weapon types, allowing the Battlesmith to wield a variety of arms with some degree of competence.
Basic Sword Proficiency (Adept 0.3%)
Basic Pick Axe Proficiency (Trainee 1.8%)
Basic Longbow Proficiency (Greenhorn 37.8%)
Basic Short bow Proficiency (Greenhorn 87.2%)

‘Damn! My EXP bar is already 40% full… ugh my defense is starting to lag behind. I should upgrade my helmet, arm bracers and other low-leveled armor when I get back. It’s good I only have to attack from the rear for now. But it’s a pity I don’t have a longbow, if I practice the basics of both bow-types to the max then it should turn into intermediate archery when my skill advances.’ Abel decided to fully upgrade his gear and practice more of his weapon skills once he was done with this quest.

He guessed that by then he would be able to use level 15 equipment. His pants, boots, helmet and arm bracers were only level 5 goods so they brought down his defense immensely. Another thing he noted was that his luck stat would no longer increase. He found out online that the luck stat wouldn’t go above 10 points while the gaming company didn’t release a statement about it. In truth, he didn’t even know what this stat supposedly did but he didn’t care much about it. He guessed it might influence loot or something like that but that didn’t matter as much with his current title.

“Um Kell… I wanted to mention this earlier but I didn’t get the chance…” Abel spoke up after they finished skinning all the monsters.

The task of skinning all the monsters had taken 8 of them close to half an hour to finish but the area was looking much better now, though the stench remained. Thankfully, the captain seemed to have some large military-grade spatial storage treasure that could keep all the loot. They would only discard some of the useless things like the wood from the monsters’ crude weapons or the meat left over from skinning.

“What is it Red Sky?”

“Well if you give me some time, I can enhance your weapons.” Abel finally mentioned his weapon enhancement skill and went on to explain further “It’s nothing extravagant but it should provide a 10% boost. I wanted to mention it earlier but the battle started too quickly… I didn’t get the chance to speak out.”

“Hmmm… we can’t delay our attack on the caverns to the side, the kobolds would have more time to set up traps. You can do this after we’ve cleared out this floor.”

Abel nodded and took out his canteen to wash his bloodied hands with some water. The men were afforded 5 minutes of rest to pull up their stamina but they were quickly pushed into action after the short break. The huge cave had 8 caverns to the side that led to smaller areas and then another path at the other end which Abel assumed led to the sole kobold shaman on this floor.

Each cavern would hold some kobolds but in comparison to the central area, they weren’t really a threat. There were around 50 kobolds down each path but it took the men more than 5 hours to clear them all. The traps along the way hindered them from clearing them quickly but it was only time consuming and not dangerous.

They would gather all the loot after every battle with a short break afterwards but they didn’t stop for a meal, making due with some dried biscuits or bread. Splitting up would have made the task faster but also added much more danger due to all the traps along the way. Besides, it went against the army’s protocols.

Kell had told Abel that their main mission was to advance to tier 1, clearing the dungeon came as a secondary objective. He was hoping at least one of them could advance by the time they finished clearing this level and pitching their tents for the night.

Abel obviously didn’t prepare a tent because he didn’t need one in the first place, he would use the time the men rested to repair and enhance their equipment then log out for a couple of hours to get some sleep in the real world. Thankfully, he was too weak to be posted with night duty so he didn’t have to worry about that either. The men would rotate this duty among themselves and didn’t bother Abel with this boring chore.

After they finished clearing the last cavern, they headed back to the central area and went down the only other path left. It was a narrow passage that was 2 meters wide, barely allowing 2 men to walk side by side. Abel walked alongside Lard at the very front so he could see if there was an ambush up ahead but it seemed unlikely.

“I can’t see any scouts or traps… there’s a bunch of large eggs and a weird green skinned kobold up ahead as well as… 12 warriors and… 8 archers. I’m guessing the green skinned kobold is the shaman?” Abel said as they reached the end of the path.

“Indeed, that’s the shaman. Good job, now step back and let Darin take your spot. Be careful of the shaman’s curses and earth-based magic spikes. It’s just like training everyone so let’s take care of these fella’s so we can all have a nice meal…” Kell asked Abel to head to the rear as they entered the last area.

The suffocating passage opened up to an expansive area that held many eggs and the monsters Abel just mentioned. As soon as the soldiers appeared, the shaman exploded in a rage.

“HUGHMAN SEEK DEATH ARGHH” The shaman shouted out loud as a he lit up with magical energy while the kobold warriors sprung forth in attack.

“Inspect”

[Kobold Shaman] (Normal Monster)

Level: 22
Magical Attack: 145-159
Defense: 104
HP: 2,700/2,700

Skills: Earth Spike ???, Hex Curse ???, Healing Hand ???, Erupting Ritual ???

[Kobold Warrior] (Normal Monster)

Level: 19
Attack: 132-142
Defense: 115
HP: 2,250/2,250

Skills: Battle Roar ???, Rage ???, Leaping Lunge ???

[Kobold Archer] (Normal Monster)

Level: 19
Attack: 129-137
Defense: 97
HP: 2,150/2,150

Skills: Envenomed Arrow ???, Ricochet Shot ???, Evasive Manuever ???

‘Oh shit I used it too soon… Serpents Dance’ Abel quickly activated his movement skill and jumped backwards then rolled to the side. He had used inspect too early, aggroing all the attacks towards himself!

It had happened once before in one of the side rooms and the attacks he aggroed instantly took out half his health and he also got poisoned from the kobold archer’s envenomed arrow. Fortunately, he had stocked up on a lot of healing potions and supplies before heading out.

He barely dodged the earthen spike that came out from where he was just standing and rolled out of range from the arrows coming his way. The shield warriors blocked the melee attackers that locked onto him. In fact, the spearmen took advantage of their rage at Abel to inflict serious harm from the onset.

“Heh, I thought you said you don’t repeat mistakes Red Sky?” Roy chuckled from the side as he shot one arrow after the other but Abel didn’t bother replying.

When he got back up again, the aggro was no longer solely on him. He took a deep breath as he notched an arrow, aiming for the spellcaster. He didn’t fire right away but waited for the monster to start chanting in some foreign tongue. The second he heard the weird language, he let loose the arrow hoping to disrupt his cast.

Whoooooosh

-70

‘YES!’ Abel celebrated as his attempt succeeded. Although the damage was insignificant, the ominous looking mana around the shaman started dispersing like a fog under the bright rays of the sun.

But this seemed to only anger the kobold shaman further. He started casting in gibberish again but instead of mana converging around him, one of his hands exploded in a gory and bloody mess.

*Ding*

Kobold Shaman has used [Erupting Ritual] – all allies stats +20% for 2 minutes.

‘No wonder its called erupting ritual…’ Abel lamented at his failed attempt to disrupt this spell but he couldn’t get it right all the time. His last shot was more of a lucky hit, he was more than 10 levels weaker than this monster so the hidden stats at play like critical hit chance were overwhelmingly in the shamans’ favor.

“Red Sky, leave the shaman alone and attack the archers. Their poisonous arrows are eating away at the shield warriors health!” Kell spoke out in the midst of battle, he needed all the archer taken care of first. The shaman, being the strongest monster, could be taken care of at the end.

Abel dodged a ricochet arrow coming towards him and switched to attacking the 3 remaining archers. Evidently, Roy and Kaelin had taken 1 down already while another one had low HP. He held off from firing his arrow right away. When Roy shot at the near-dead kobold, the latter dodged out of the way with its Evasive Maneuver and Abel took this chance to take his own shot.

Whoooosh

-81

*Ding*

+890 EXP

Even though he hadn’t attacked this monster before, getting the killing hit had granted him a decent chunk of EXP! Unfortunately, his celebratory mood took a turn when he got hit with a ricochet arrow that came from his blind spot.

-93
-10…

*Ding*

You have been poisoned. -15 HP every 5 seconds for 1 minute.

Abel started moving around and unknowingly, he was shooting arrows while moving! When the poison wore off, he consumed a minor-health potion, bringing his depleted HP back to full. He kept firing off arrows without rest and just 3 minutes later, the 2 kobold archers were taken down. He had no idea how the other battles were going as he was concentrating solely on the archers before him. Suddenly, mana started converging into the room and Abel’s head turned to look at the shaman.

‘What the hell’s going on now… What the-‘

Surprisingly, instead of heading to the shaman that was casting curses and earth spikes, the mana started converging upon two different directions. One went towards Lark that wasn’t looking so good at the moment while the other headed towards Kell, the captains’ son.

Captain Carson revealed a look of joy and pride at what was happening but it went unnoticed by everyone.