I held my sword a bit higher than my head while holding it with both hands. I wasn't a swordsman before but enjoyed watching many sparring and training, fighting for their lives against monsters.
"Come closer…" I held my place while that wolf ran in such fierceness and speed. It seemed angry that its prey challenged its authority and dared to raise a sword against it.
Wolves were slightly bigger than hyenas, but they lacked that annoying fur that defended hyenas bodies. They even had some bare spots without a single hair.
Unlike their low defense, their offense was terrifying. I didn't plan on evading it early on as they were famous for their sharp reflexes and high speed.
So I had to let it come closer to me in a range I would evade, attack, and it wouldn't be able to touch me at all.
"How!"
It underestimated me, and I knew it would. The moment it got into the range I wanted, I slightly pushed my legs to the right before suddenly putting all my weight to stop.
A feigning move, something to trick such a monster and made it realize I wasn't a mere walking like other humans.
My first move made it change its direction, but my second jump to the left after I stopped made its move sluggish.
"Slash!"
With my sword holding all my strength I hit its head and neck a couple times before retreating again. If I didn't, its mighty claws would have taken a good piece of my body.
"Grrr…"
"Now we are talking," I snorted when it gnashed its big teeth and showed how sharp they were. It was mad and in pain right now from the wounds I caused.
But they weren't enough even to let it feel weak, not yet.
"C'mon," I motioned with my sword while trying to taunt it, "I don't have the entire night to waste on such garbage like you."
"Howl!"
It didn't stand still and came fast at me. This time I knew it would be wary of my trick so… I didn't intend to trick it from the start.
As I kicked the ground to the left, it kept heading straight forward like I didn't move. Unlike what he expected, I didn't change my direction again and let my sword do the talking. This time I changed the posture of my sword while holding it like a dagger.
Slashing its body looked cool but it didn't leave deep wounds behind. Using the sword like a dagger made it easier for me to tear its strength and weaken it fast.
Couple more clashes like these and the big wolf with the bony outlining of the lower jaw slammed heavily on the ground. It had many wounds on its body and couldn't even stand now.
The black hair which looked like silk was now stained in a big spot of red blood. I inflicted over a dozen deep wounds and double that of superficial slashes. It was already over.
However, just as I got near it, I felt sudden danger.
"How can you come and break the challenge?" I welcomed a group of five wolves which dared to interfere. This was supposed to be a sacred fight between me and that alpha. However these dark creatures seemed to have no code of honor.
"Slash!"
"Stab!"
"Stab!"
If even their alpha couldn't stand a chance against me, how could mere wolves do? I moved my arms fast while trying to put up a good show here.
After all, my stamina isn't enough to kill all these monsters head on in a long battle. I needed to insert fear in their souls, so they would hesitate to come at me later on like these fools.
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
The five fell on the ground motionless while the other wolves looked at me in a threatening way. I turned my sword around, pointing it towards every wolf here as a warning.
I knew they acted out of fear. It wasn't a surprise, after all I got their alpha and five of their strongest wolves in no time.
"Oh, you want to run?" Just as I turned finally to my prey, I found it limping with a broken leg and leaving behind a long trail of blood. If I let it go, it wouldn't survive this. However I had to kill it here.
My main goal wasn't only to disperse this group of annoying wolves, but also to gather coins. Killing a normal wolf would give me around twenty up to a hundred coins at most.
So to gather two thousand coins I needed to kill around twenty to a hundred wolves. It wasn't an easy feat considering my low stamina right now.
"Time to end this," I ran directly towards that wounded alpha while killing any daring wolf that stood in my path blocking it.
"Splash!"
It only needed one hit from my sword before it finally rested in peace. I turned around while my body was covered in their alpha's blood, looking like a real devil.
"Ahhh!" I screamed like a roar and the next instant every single one of them ran away with their lives.
"Good, I doubt I can fight a hundred of you now," I felt tired and rested over the dead body of that alpha. I looked around and felt little pride in myself. "Yeah, I can be strong if I had a chance to."
I still couldn't believe how a classless one like me ended up having such a chance. I held some doubts about my ability to prove myself. What if I was living in the illusion of being special and I wasn't?
Seeing the dead wolves scattered around and this dead alpha made me feel confident. "No, I can do it!" I muttered to myself while clenching my fist.
"So I got one thousand coins from killing that alpha… Not bad," I checked my profile and was pleased to see my balance exceeding two thousand coins.
[You got enough to obtain one stats thanks to the beginner's pack. Do you want to convert them into stats now?]
"Sure," I didn't hesitate to accept it before one stat point was added to my profile. "Now let's add more coins to my account."
I moved slowly while taking everything these monsters could offer. Cores, claws, even teeth and skin… I took them all and put them to the market to be sold there.
[You put an alpha grade core in the market. You can put it in auction if you desire for more coins. Auctions take one hour to conclude]
"Oh," my eyes shone before I hurriedly agreed. Putting anything in the auction meant that thing was recognized to be valuable. "So killing the alpha won't only give me a good chunk of money, but also this core," I muttered while watching a small window with the description of the core and a timer next to it.
"When I put it there, it was worth five hundred coins. And that auction started with that value. So in the worst case scenario I would gain the same amount with zero losses."
It felt good right now. After all the more coins I gathered the more stats I could collect.
I didn't need to store much coins in this quest. However if that core was sold at double the price, why not turn to a wolf hunter and make more money?
As I extracted the materials without doing much labor I felt my body being better now. The museum wasn't that far away from here, I knew it. But something seemed off at the moment.
"I knew they survived in big numbers there, but I don't know how," I muttered while walking towards the east. The sky was still dim and the lights were almost gone. However I couldn't spot any buildings in the distance.
I thought they might have used a trick of light like myself, but I was wrong. "They should discover it in later quests, but the records didn't tell how they managed to survive the early stages."
I knew there must be a reason. Was everyone there a traitor? That couldn't be possible. After all there was no special human left in that group considering that the old man didn't mention them at all before.
Besides I knew they would die before reaching quest five. So a large group of people who couldn't survive the fifth quest, how could they have survived the earliest four then?
I wasn't worried about myself as I was already stronger than anyone else. As I wanted to cover up for my real goal here, I wasn't objecting to going there and checking on this group.
But just after walking for ten more minutes, I felt a strong killing intent coming from one side. I looked around and found small trees scattered there, but I knew what I felt.
"Someone is watching," it was obvious to be one of the two kinds of monsters dwelling in this quest. But unlike my expectations, I didn't get any attacks at all until I finally saw the museum from far.
In fact I found it not thanks to anything but the large group of hyenas fighting there. Just from a single look over the number of those monsters I could tell that at least a hundred humans were inside, if not more.
"Roar!"
"Roar!"
"Clang!"
The sounds of fight started faint before it became stronger the closer I got. I clenched the hilt of my sword while being ready for any sudden fight.
That killing intent kept lingering around my steps. Even after coming this far the monsters trailing me didn't attack.
"Do they want to just track my steps or what?" I felt annoyed about this. I didn't want anyone to follow my steps or hinder my path.
But going directly against such unknown danger. "If you don't want to show yourselves, then I'll lure you out," I started to hasten my steps towards the large number of monsters there.
Hyenas were now a piece of cake to me. However to others they were still frightening monsters. When I got closer, I saw the brutal fight between the monsters and humans, a scene that made me frown.
The museum held a much bigger number of survivors than I initially thought! Around five hundred youths were fighting neck to neck with hyenas and wolves.
"This… How can this even be possible?!" I didn't know how to explain this scene. However it wasn't time to talk right now. "Let's kill these bastards first," I held my sword while the dull edge was used to hit the weakness of these monsters.
Compared to wolves, hyenas were like a walk in the park, literally.