*FWOOOOOM-BABANG!!*
[User Slayed Level 10 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[User Slayed Level 12 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[User Slayed Level 9 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[User Slayed Level 8 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[User Slayed Level 9 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[Accumulated Experience Has Reached The Required Threshold]
[Level Up]
The five [Longtail Monkeys] who were sprinting across the leafy forest floor towards Philip were quite literally blown to bits. Although these monkeys were indeed higher level than the [Clawed Goblins] I had destroyed before, my Sorcery Stat had majorly improved, being slightly more than doubled since then.
The fireball wasn't even close to taking up all my mana either, and I felt as if I could perform approximately one or two more.
Philip hadn't been spared from the shockwave however, and he was on the ground struggling to get up, a side effect of my despera... impromptu plan. I quickly ran over and began dragging him away from the dangerous position.
The monkeys on the ground had been dealt with, however the monkeys descending via numerous rope-like vines had escaped the blast zone which was aimed at the ground.
Even the substantial shockwave that followed had failed to jostle their vice grip on the vines, and as I pulled Philip away I counted eight monkeys standing by above.
A few seconds after the explosion, the [Longtail Monkeys] continued their descent, landing on the ground at various locations around where Philip had been.
Thankfully I had managed to get him away from the potential encirclement, and now we had a comparatively safe distance of around 20 feet between us and death by monkey.
Without missing a beat, the agile primates sprinted directly towards me, while I had already started the process of gathering energy. I belatedly realized that I didn't have the few seconds it would take to charge a full power attack similar to the one I had just used, and my mind raced to find a solution while I continued collecting power in my right fist.
As all this happened, Philip grunted on the ground, struggling to reach into a pocket on his belt. From it he withdrew a small dark gray sack containing some powdery substance. The little thing had a fuse coming out of it's opening, with the opening having been tied shut around the fuse.
Reaching up to me, he handed over the strange object.
"light this..." *cough* "and throw it!"
[Fireball]!
As the energy converted into a dense ball of flames, I held up the small sack and touched the fuse to the fire.
As soon as the fuse lit a hissing sound began emanating from it, and I threw the unstable fireball after effectively using it as a lighter.
*BOOOM!*
My light brown hair flew into my eyes, vigorously blown around by the gusts of air that reached me.
I looked on as three monkeys were propelled into nearby trees, slamming into them with sickening crunches. Another two monkeys were heavily knocked to the ground, struggling to move and had ended up very much like Philip had, but at least they were out of the picture for the moment. The final three monkeys received only varying degrees of minor injuries, and continued on their charge without delay.
[User Slayed Level 8 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[User Slayed Level 11 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
[User Slayed Level 10 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
Now, I wound back my left arm which held the sack with a shortening fuse, and threw it at the nearest monkey.
The monkey I had aimed at moved to the side, slapping the sack away with it's long sturdy tail. However, the moment its tail slammed down against the item, the fuse expired and a cloud of dark smoke rapidly expanded outwards.
At this point the three monsters were only about 5 feet away, and in the next moment they would have been upon us, however when I saw the smoke I immediately rolled to the side. The monkeys who had lost their visual on me completely missed their one chance to trap me in a close combat situation, I didn't delay as I moved to grab Philip and carried him over my shoulder behind the nearest tree.
Even though I wasn't strong enough for combat with these guys, I could still use my 10 Force points for tasks such as these!
Those monkeys were much stronger and MUCH faster than me, but if they didn't know where I was what did it matter?
You can't stop me from dodging if you can't see when, and in which direction, I'm doing it! Dumb chimp brain bastards, eat smoke idiots!
Finishing the casting period for yet another fireball, I leaned out from behind our hiding spot and watched as the smoke slowly dissipated.
Wait... where did the dumb chimps g-
*HOOOOO*
Unknown to me, back when the smoke bomb had gone off, the [Longtail Monkeys] regrouped up in the trees, before descending down to our new location yet again!
Shit!
Fuck!
[Fireball]!
*POW*
I hurtled the crackling sphere of heat directly above me, and the resulting blast landed square on the body of an unfortunate primate, who promptly turned into numerous bite sized meat chunks.
[User Slayed Level 7 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
Another monkey got hit at a strange angle by the shockwave directly outside of the flames, its body spinning out of control as it accelerated into the tree, causing its neck to gain a nice 90 degree tilt.
[User Slayed Level 12 Entity - Longtail Monkey]
With only one monkey foe remaining, I watched as the final survivor landed directly beside me, my heart filled with unwillingness as its powerful tail slammed against my head.
I lost vision and hearing for a short moment as my body ragdolled against the ground, bouncing multiple times as I skidded away.
An intense pain rushed over me, and I felt glued to the ground below, finally getting a taste of my own medicine.
I was certain I was higher level than this thing, but I also knew there was a 100% chance that its strength surpassed my vitality.
All it needed was one well place strike to knock me out of the fight, and I helplessly lay there in a half-conscious state as I waited for what would happen next.
However... I heard nothing.
Nearly a minute passed and I had already recovered from the initial shock, when I heard a voice at my side as someone lifted me up by my arm.
*oomph*, "damn you did a number on my ribs, you know that? That's the second time this has happened!"
Philip slung my arm over his shoulder, and led me back over to the tree, helping me to sit down and use the tree as a support to stay upright.
I could see an incredibly dead monkey some feet away, a large gash having been drawn across its throat.
"Man, we were so nearly screwed, sorry but I used its attack on you as a chance to get up and maneuver behind it."
"n-No, that's fine. But go back to the path... there were survivors... should be getting up soon if not now."
"Ooh, damn. Let me go take care of that."
Philip left and came back a minute later with two bloodied daggers at his side.
"Are you gonna be ok, Einer?"
"Probably, feels like a massive migraine though, how about you?"
"I think its just some bruising from when I got knocked over by your fireball, let's just rest for a bit."
After ten minutes of lying down, Philip got up and explained that he was going to go cut off the ends of the monkey's tails as proof of subjugation. I told him I still felt pretty out of it, and so he left me to relax for a while longer.
The tips of their tails could be identified as belonging to the correct monster fairly easily, and there was only one per monkey so each one proved a kill. Anyone could also pretty easily identify how fresh the parts were, so adventurers somehow reusing 'proofs of subjugation' was out of the question.
Now that I thought about it, the situation was pretty abysmal. Usually adventurers could only take on one monster of similar level at a time. Even with my boosted Sorcery stat, my build seriously lacked balance, and this caused issues during real combat.
Sure I could kill something above my level due to the x10 multiplier, but this was a situation where I was facing many enemies at once. Even with the area of effect styled attacks, the enemies were still too dispersed for me to deal with them all properly.
Normally you would need at least a five-man well-balanced party of people my level to deal with that situation, and even then they would have ended up in a similarly unsightly state.
Philip interrupted my thoughts, returning with a slightly filled bag.
"of the bodies that were intact, and even some that weren't, I managed to recover 12 tails."
He continued, "We got a pretty good haul from just that fight, and we're all battered up, so I say we head back. You know, go home."
I snapped out of a slight daze and responded, "Wait what? That's only 36 Dali worth though..."
"Uh... yeah... split 50/50 and that's 18 Dali, which is more than Stone Rankers typically get on an average quest."
"But the emergency quest..."
"The emergency quest is way different, it's called an emergency for a reason, they compensate extra due to the circumstances. If we could bring the monkey corpses back with us then we could make a lot more, but that's obviously not going to happen unless you bring an entire carriage with you."
"...yeah"
And so, we decided to call it a day, and as we carefully made our exit from the Temperate Woods, Philip consoled me by saying that things like this happened every once in a while, and it was part of the risk involved with the job.
If those monkeys hadn't been in an abnormally large group, we could have continued hunting and made much more money.
I wasn't even thinking about that anymore however, as I had realized something completely different.
Normally a single member of a party wouldn't get that much exp on a single quest, since each member would be responsible for a much smaller portion of the kills, and leveling up once every day is already a terrifying pace.
'However, is that really all I'm capable of?'
'Considering the fact that I have trouble against large groups due to inherent limitations, I'm better suited to taking on more powerful lone monsters with my enhanced Sorcery. Combine that with the source of how I earned so much from the emergency quest and gained nine whole levels at once, the [Bladed Centipede], I can't help but reach a certain conclusion.'
'Taking on Stone Rank monsters was truly a waste of time in the first place. With my build, the most efficient way for me to level up and make money all along was to fight significantly higher level entities.'