Breezy Meadow Town - Abandoned Storage House
A certain Geode Rank adventurer lay on the ground, his body a bloodied mess, littered with cuts, his typical mage robes now crimson soaked shreds.
"Damn, you really had to ruin his gear like that?"
"Dude shut the fuck up, It's just some shitty robes, we still got all his money and equipment."
Five figures stood around the area, going through what the corpse had left behind.
One of the individuals who had yet to speak pitched in,
"Hey, we're doing 60/10/10/10/10 right? Just out of curiosity how'd you bring this guy in?"
"Hm? This moron? Classic skill book scam, just flash something suited towards their class and they'll ignore any and all red flags, it's hilarious."
"You must have got him in a public place though? He obviously trusted you a lot so there's no way you picked him up off the roadside."
"Yeah, I like to go risky and get them at Guild Posts, higher success rate and all."
"You're gonna get busted one of these days, boss'll be pissed if he hears about the way you do these scams AHAHA!"
"It's fine, I just use that big suit of armor and no one remembers your face even if they saw you with the guy, its all they can remember, hides your body proportions and other features too, its a good investment even if that's all I use it for. Although..."
"...?"
Another person's head perked up at this, the tone of the armored man's voice at the end communicating something they could easily guess at.
"Don't tell me you left a witness and still went through with this shit? You realize we're not going to help you get out of that just cause' we work together a lot? Take your 60% share for being the lurer and get out, you better not ask me to 'help out' or some garbage."
"Yeah I know I wasn't going to... there's this one kid who probably won't be forgetting my face, even though he'll never see me in that armor outside of a scam he could most likely pick me out of a crowd even without it due to the circumstances..."
"Are you OKAY in the HEAD?! Why did you bring this guy back if someone is gonna realize you were involved the moment they hear about it? Just give it up at that point retard."
"Well... I've kinda been needing the extra money, and the dude had already fallen hook, line and sinker for it, so I didn't want drop it. I only brought him here after hiding outside the post and seeing the kid leave town, I was going to go out and find him after this."
"...so you took a gamble because you thought that you could take care of the kid before he hears about this dude going missing?"
Another spoke,
"If none of us see you by next week, imma tell the boss you got caught by some guards cuz a kid sacked your dumb-ass."
"..."
"This duuuude..."
The man in the armor spoke again after a short silence.
"I'll be going now, feel free to do that, but you better know there is no way I fuck it up with what's on the line. Plus I can always run off, or even if I don't catch him maybe the kid won't even see that the guy went missing."
"As if, the guild always knows shady business when it sees it, if that kids a guild member than he'll hear about it, then your ass is grass mate."
And another joined back in,
"We all know you're the last one here who would dip out... don't lie to yourself just to feel better."
"...I'll be going then."
---
I walked into the Mahjinaki Woods located north of the town, the same place I had seen the horde emerge from in the Emergency Quest.
In my first minutes as I walked into the forest I was surprised at the weakness of the creatures, who were pathetic to the point where energy I could regain in literal seconds was all I needed to kill each one.
[User Slayed Level 1 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 1 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 2 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 1 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 3 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 1 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
I wondered why these guys hadn't joined the horde, which I now realized originated from far deeper in.
A theory popped into my mind that their stats were so low they most likely just got either scared or trampled to death.
Either way I didn't even stop to give them a second glance, only wasting the effort of casting a [Fireball] at the ones who aggroed onto me, small pods of goblins dropping left and right as I advanced.
...
I swiftly proceeded further and deeper into the woods, wondering when I would find something new just as a different foes finally appeared.
[Giant Chipmunks]!
[Luscious Wolves]!
[Fireball]!
Boom!
The new enemies appeared just as quickly as they became plant food, only requiring two quick casts and subsequent finger flicks of [Fireball] to clean them up.
[User Slayed Level 4 Entity - Giant Chipmunk]
[User Slayed Level 3 Entity - Giant Chipmunk]
[User Slayed Level 5 Entity - Giant Chipmunk]
[User Slayed Level 6 Entity - Luscious Wolf]
[User Slayed Level 5 Entity - Luscious Wolf]
[Accumulated Experience Has Reached The Required Threshold]
[Level Up]
I must have been pretty close to a level up, as I was surprised killing just a few of these guys, who were all basically ten levels below me, ended up in a level gain.
Even a normal person wouldn't have a massive issue dominating a few monsters who were more than 3x weaker than them, much less ME, who was constantly getting a fat x10 on top of the 10 level advantage and the extra firepower from being forced to go all in with Sorcery.
I kept on moving, killing whatever came into sight, as I started to gain some actual experience in what certain changes in control had on the spell itself.
For one I learned how to aim better then before, but I also discovered that the more mana I condensed the larger the spell would be.
This confused me due to my experience from the time where I made a very small fireball that seemed almost like a grape which proceeded to annihilate a closely packed group of [Clawed Goblins].
I realized this must have something to do with the 'quality increase' of magic that happens when the Sorcery stat goes up.
The small amount of mana I had remaining when the curse took effect creating a powerful fireball was the result of the quality increase from the x10 multiplier.
So you could put the same amount of mana in than at a lower Sorcery stat level, and get a fireball that is identical in size, but packing more power than it should be.
Essentially, half of the effective power increase is in the extra capacity, and the other half was the increased effectiveness of the exact same quantity of energy.
I could put in more energy than before, and the energy itself was better somehow!
Very cool!
'It kind of feels like Sorcery is OP now that I'm forced to put everything into it!'
'that's probably just due to the multiplier though...'
I continued to absolutely mow through any monster I came across, marching deeper and deeper in search of Geode Rank beasts that I could exploit for EXP gain.
Although... I had to wonder why I felt sad every time I killed a [Giant Chipmunk]
They were clearly hostile and very obviously actively trying to murder me...
but it just... felt like I was doing something bad...
I wonder why?