Finally, cutting the final leg of the Alpha Stealth Leopard caused it to fall to the ground. Unfortunately, after Nico was forced to dodge the leopard's falling body he noticed something strange about the leopard's legs.
'They…healed…'
"Of course, this damn cat has a healing skill!" He shouted in frustration.
His words didn't cause him to stop though, because the second he saw the leopard's legs healing he dashed on top of the beast's back, this time prepared to be thrown off. And that is exactly what the leopard attempted to do.
Jumping up and down like a raging bull, the leopard tried its hardest to get Nico off of its back, to no avail.
Waiting for the perfect time for them the Leopards front paws touch the ground, Nico leaped to the beast's head, coating his spear in flames once again he then stabbed his spear into one of the beast's eyes.
"RAAAAWWW!!!" The leopard screamed in pain and eventually shook Nico and his spear off of his body.
Landing with his back to the leopard, Nico quickly turned to face the beast and met its eyes. Nico could feel fear filling up the leopard's eyes, while it was looking at him.
That was when Nico got a notification.
[You have accomplished the unprecedented feat of making a beast, which is out of your combat capabilities, tremble in fear.]
[You have earned the Active Skill {Intimidation.lvl:1}.]
[Active Skill: Intimidation
Details: Releases an aura around the user which induces fear.]
'Sweet, another active skill!...Why not try it out.' He thought. With that thought Nico activated his skill.
[Skill {Intimidation}, Activated!]
When he activated his skill, Nico noticed the Alpha Stealth Leopard start to tremble but instead of running away it charged at Nico, with hopes to kill the 'monster' in front of it.
When the Leopard charged at Nico, he responded by waiting for the perfect time before dodging to the left and stabbing his flaming spear into the other eye. The beast then opened his mouth, but before it could yelp in pain, Nico shot a fire ball down its throat, killing it.
[You have killed a level 83 Alpha Stealth Leopard!]
[You have gained 72,356 exp.]
[You have reached level 23.]
[+32 strength +24 Health +30 Agility +27 Magic]
[Skill {Fire Origin} has leveled up to level 4.]
[Skill {Intimidation} has leveled up to level 2.]
[You have unlocked the {Spearmanship} evolution quest.]
After receiving all of the notifications, he felt a tingle go down his spine. It wasn't uncomfortable, matter of fact it was actually pretty pleasant. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Ella going through the same thing.
"How much experience did you get?" He asked.
"About 20,000, how about you?"
"About 72,000"
"Well, I guess that's fair, you did do more work after all." She said, with a slightly down tone but Nico could tell that she was just happy to be alive after that encounter. And who could blame her for that, encountering an Alpha is an extremely rare thing to happen and they happen to encounter one on just a normal escort mission, of course she was a little shaken up!
'I would have probably died if it wasn't thanks to him…' She thought while looking at Nico.
"Thank you…" Ella mumbled.
Nico could feel that she was in a fragile state at the moment so he decided against teasing her and just responded simply.
"I was doing it for myself as well."
Seeing that Nico didn't take the chance to tease her, she let out a warm smile under her mask.
"I guess we should probably go check on the other three."
"Yeah…"
They both then ran over to their other three escort partners. They saw that Leon was already healed, most likely thanks to a healing potion, and was just standing there looking at Nico in a daze.
"Did he hit his head too hard?" Nico whispered to Ella.
"No…What you did was really impressive, even I was in a daze looking at you for a bit~" She teased.
Nico was glad that Ella had gone back to her previous self and disregarded her tease. Then he turned his head back to Leon and the girls.
"Are you three alright?" He asked in a neutral tone.
When the three of them heard Nico's voice they flinched and looked down, seemingly scared to meet his eyes, before responding.
"Y-yes, we are fine…" Spoke Leon, while Trish and Riley only nodded their heads in agreement.
Nico had a suspson as to why they were acting in such a way.
'They must be scared of me…Oh well, I don't really care.'
Nico was right and wrong that they were scared of him. He was right because they most definitely were scared of him, but he was wrong because he had missed the point on just how scared of him they were.
They had just watched Nico damn near play with an Alpha beast and ultimately come out uninjured. A beast that normally took about three A rank adventures was taken out by a single man! When they realized this they all only had one thought.
'This man is more of a monster then that Alpha was…'
Anyway, Nico didn't really care too much about what they thought of him so he didn't mind their attitude, but that wasn't the case for Ella.
"He just saved your lives and you all are acting like this..." She mumbled to where she thought that no one could hear her, but Nico with his animal-like senses heard it perfectly.
Putting a hand on Ella's shoulder he spoke,
"They can think of me however they want…I don't care much about what they think of me." He said gently.
Hearing that Nico himself didn't seem to care, Ella decided to drop the matter before it got on her nerves even more. She just couldn't understand why they would be scared of Nico. He had just saved them but instead of saying thanks they shook in fear?
'Calm down, self…They weren't insulting him so I guess they can get let off.' Ella thought.
Nico on the other hand didn't think much about the other three's reaction, while he began walking towards the carriage Gertrude was in to make sure she was alright. Knocking on the carriage door, Nico spoke,
"Everything is all clear out here now, you can come out." He said, bluntly.
Hearing that everything was okay from Nico, Gertrude stepped outside and immediately bowed her head, not in fear but in thanks.
"Thank you, Nico" She then lifted her head and spoke directly to Nico's face. "I had the feeling you were strong but not that strong, it was truly impressive what you just did." She said with an intrigued smile on her face.
Gertrude had used to be a great merchant, meaning that she had gotten invited to many combat tournaments and she herself also had guards from her company at one point, but nothing she had seen so far compared to the combat prowess Nico had just shown.
But with her newfound admiration of her 'Grandson', Gertrude also had a newfound curiosity about the boy.
'That kind of skill can't just be because of a Passive Skill, no, those skills were forged from experience.' She mirrored the thoughts that Ella had while she was watching Nico as well.