Samuel had barely gotten any sleep due to the spirits tormenting him. At least even if he woke up mentally exhausted from nightmares, his body was still fine. Now, however, not only was Samuel physically exhausted, his mind was just as exhausted, if not more.
Due to the exhaustion, Samuel's face had twisted into a nasty expression that fit a gang- oh right, he didn't have a face anymore. He yawned as he awoke from another nightmare due to falling asleep for almost an hour when the sun was rising.
Through that entire night, Samuel had not seen the family of three return. The two beasts didn't keep going late at night, and had seperated around sunset, so maybe they just decided to stay elsewhere temporarily, but it was merely a passing thought. Sure, they saved him and didn't steal his items when he was unconscious, but them not reappearing just meant that he didn't have to pay his debts to them anymore.
Samuel grabbed a metal shield and used it as a wok to cook up some food, deciding to bring out his pets and have his meal with them.
"I forgot to ask yesterday, but what is a flood dragon, system?"
[You want the long definition or the short one?]
"Keep it quick."
[A worse water dragon.]
Samuel rubbed his chin as he saw the system's answer. Eh, he knew how much it liked balance and all that jazz, so just getting a dragon— even if it was just a fake dragon that got its name from people was better than not having one. Shifter was also repeating all the words Samuel was saying, its voice getting dangerously close to Samuel's despite having heard a total of four whole sentences. Samuel would have just put on some videos for it to learn english, but his internet wasn't working.
Samuel stretched out and as the clock hit 10 in the morning, Samuel made his pets go back into the pocket dimension after a little fighting and reassuring them that they would be let out to fight, he spread his wings and left the warehouse to look for targets to fight.
Five minutes later, Samuel saw a group of people fighting a few giant scorpions of different colors that had most likely escaped from a pet shop. Not wanting to be treated as a hostile entity, Samuel took a seat on one of the buildings nearby to watch.
They looked like a rather balanced team with a tank at the front using a mace and shield, a man using a sword and another using an exotic weapon he hadn't seen before— an urumi, along with a bowman and a mage at the back. He didn't see a healer with them, which he thought was normal. Not only would the job of a healer be stressful, they would have to rely on others to do the killing and getting skill books and equipment for them, yet they were still perhaps the most crucial part of the party.
Fifteen minutes later, the party was finished with their fight, and surprisingly, none of them were wounded. Samuel was bored from watching such a long fight, and ignored them, deciding to fly elsewhere to look for an area more densely packed with monsters.
On the ground, though, the party of five were still very tense as they waited for their bowman to say something.
"Okay, it's gone."
The five breathed a sigh of relief as they received the news of Samuel leaving. The bowman had alerted them in the middle of battle thanks to his minimap skill that an unknown being was approaching, making them more cautious in dealing with their opponents so as not to get surprise attacked from above.
"What even was that thing? I could hear voices in my head even when it was so far away." Said their mage.
"I don't want to know, but we gotta report it to the boss." Responded the swordsman.
Back in the sky, Samuel had finally found what he was looking for, and it was at a lake with four exits where over thirty herbivores were gathered. Cows, Sheep, bulls, and the like that probably escaped.
He landed on a nearby building and summoned Argon, which looked ready to battle, quickly establishing a party with it.
"Argon, when I give you a signal, I'm gonna need you to fire there." Samuel pointed to the park. "Start with something that has a wide range, then do more focused attacks when they scatter." He said.
Argon nodded, and Samuel went down placing Moon and Sun to guard one direction, Newt alone to guard another, Shape and Shifter to watch over the last, and once the bovines were scattered, he would drop Venus into a lake and go watch over the final exit.
Samuel shot a flame ball into the sky to alert Argon, who proceeded to rain down cannon balls into the more densely packed areas. Sent into a panic by the attacks they didn't know which direction they were fired from, the cows tried to run, and Samuel flew down close to the lake to drop Venus who immediately got to work, firing water magic at the targets.
Those who got outside were intercepted by either their own shadows coming to life and attacking them, being vaporized by a ray of light, burnt to a crisp by fire, or by being mauled to death by Shape and Shifter.
The few that thought they were safe by escaping in the empty direction were intercepted by Samuel, whose feather storm cut them into pieces of meat that only needed to be put on a grill.
It took less than ten minutes to kill all of their targets, which resulted in the others barely reaching level two, while Samuel remained at level one due to sharing the experience. Their levels didn't go up much, but neither did their items, only dropping five common items, being a sword, two health potions, and a shield. It looked like the drop rate was about 15%.
"This is too inefficient."
*Of course it's inefficient, you're in a party of eight.*
"What do you suggest then, smart guy?"
*Hunt in parties of two or three at most.*
Samuel listened to the death knight's words, and could only sigh as he felt his words were right. Deciding to listen to his advice, he gathered the seven and spoke to them.
"Form parties of three members and go hunt any non-humans you find. Run away if you encounter any trouble. Argon's with me."
Samuel put Argon back into the pocket dimension because there was just no way to carry him while flying, and he took Argon with him because he would slow down the others' hunting efficiency significantly due to being a tortoise.
As Samuel landed elsewhere and engaged some monsters, he felt some gazes on him and his turtle. He thought it was just paranoia until the death knight spoke.
*Ten guys. One guy built like a brick wall, the high schooler you met yesterday, six gangster looking guys and two girls.*
Samuel was prepared to intercept them, but they didn't come to take advantage of his fight.
[You have levelled up. Gained +10 stat points.]
[Your familiar "Argon" has levelled up.]
He heard footsteps as he was finishing up his fight and gathering the one drop he got, which was a metal helmet. He turned to look at the one clapping, with Argon ready for combat.
"Hold on, hold on, I don't mean you any harm. I would've jumped in when you were fighting but I didn't."
"I don't think I quite believe you, but sure."
"I'm here because I want to make a deal with you, but I don't think a street littered with corpses of slimes and goblins is a good place to talk business. Their cores aren't worth much either."
"They have cores?"
"You didn't know? Oh yeah you just awakened yesterday. They have cores that can be used to power things or give equipment extra attributes and even skills if you kill a Rare Elite monster. If you manage to put a core into an equipment it has synergy with, its effects increase. Weaker monster cores like goblins and slimes only serve as batteries, however. We use them as money."
'So the death knight's core is probably worth an unimaginable amount.'
*Of course. I'm worth more than your chicken brain can imagine.*
"You said Rare Elite monster? Can you specify what you mean by that?"
"Creatures are seperated into different ranks by the system. At this moment, we know about Common, which would be the equivalent to a slime or unawakened man, Elite, like those giant dogs, Rare Elite, and Special Elite. That's all I can tell you."
"How do you know all of this?"
"That's a secret."
"Fair enough. Lead the way to your base."
"You're not gonna take the cores?"
"I don't need them."
The buff man couldn't help but shrug before taking Samuel back to his base, which was 20 minutes away by sprinting. Dumbfounded, Samuel looked at the base in front of him.
"THIS is your base?"
"Yeah. Welcome to my base, Samuel boy."
Before his eyes was a luxurious mansion of an unparalleled size. He thought he had it well, but the man was living the life of luxury in the apocalypse. Samuel quickly recomposed himself before stepping in.
[You enter "Boss Jin"'s base.]