Chapter 8: Human Settlement
— A few hours later —
Alaric was currently inside a 10 storey building, to be precise he was at the fourth floor. Hiding behind the broken glass, Alaric was watching a group of teenagers walking and talking together. He had found them an hour ago, fighting a pack of huge rats. Rats that are at least 3 times bigger than what he knows.
With little difficulty, these group of teenagers managed to kill all the rats. They had excellent teamwork, Alaric guessed that they have been together for a long time. Right now, he was observing them.
He wants to follow them, to see if they know more humans that have survived whatever events transpired in this world.
***
"We acquired quite a lot today haven't we?" Estes, the leader of the group, said while looking at his Inventory. "Thank you for the hard work everyone."
"Hehe, you don't have to thank us leader!" Zia, a cheerful girl said with a bashful smile.
"Mm, she's right, Est. We couldn't have done it without your leadership." Loyd said, the other members agreeing with him. There were a total 6 of them, a balance 3:3 ratio of boys to girls.
"Alright. Everyone, tomorrow we take a break. We've been exploring for the past few days." Estes smiled at his teammates words, offering them a break, a well deserve rest.
He was thankful for having such great teammates.
"Woahh, finally a break!" "Yeyyy" "I'll sleep the whole day hahaha"
He received different positive responses from them, further lightening their mood. They were all ecstatic about their incoming break, they have worked really hard after all.
The group continued their merry talk, unaware of the impending doom.
Meanwhile, Alaric sighed. 'That thing is going to ruin my plan'. He thought disgruntled. A few meters away from him and the group of teenagers, a boss level beasts is coming. It was coming from the left side, making the teenagers unaware of it.
Alaric's plan was simple, he follows them to their hideout, wait for a few hours and meet with them. Introduce himself as someone who got lost and have nowhere to go. It was almost perfect, all he had to do was carry out.
Yet, yet that dumb beast is about to ruin it all. Alaric clicked his tounge in annoyance, the boss was getting closer. He run downwards at his top speed, not caring about anything. He had to make sure they were safe.
He was strong, stronger than the incoming boss but he wasn't strong enough to negate the fall damage if he had jumped from the fourth floor. Each passing seconds was precious, in just a minute he had already reached the first floor.
Meanwhile, the boss was getting even more closer, it was eager to devour the teenagers.
Woosh!!!
A blurry shadow pass through the group of teenagers, followed by a strong gush of winds. Before they could comprehend what happened, several loud explosions were heard. There were no smoke, just pure loud noise similar to an explosion.
— A few seconds earlier —
As Alaric passed through the group, he immediately went towards the boss. The moment he got closer, he slammed his fist onto its face, sending the boss flying. Although it was big, it was swatted like a fly with just one punch. It's fall made a loud noise, attracting other beasts nearby.
It tried to stand up with its four shaky leg, only for Alaric's two fists to slammed down on it, burying its huge body in the ground. Ever since he had reached level 30, he never unleashed his full strength. He only unleashed it now because of the urgency.
Another loud noise was made as the beast was slammed down mercilessly, completely at Alaric's mercy. Summoning his Sea Empress Sapphire Blade, he activated Flow Cutter, beheading the huge beast like it was butter.
[You have killed a Level 25 Boss! +250 UP|+250 EXP]
(AN: I made some changes. I decided to introduce some lvl 25 beasts(not bosses) in the near future, so decided to increase the rewards from bosses.)
Storing the dead body and opening the store, he went to the Skills&Spells section and bought a skill he had long set his eyes on, Sense for 5UP. He currently has 320UP, he wondered if he should summon another Avatar, however he decided not to in case he needed it. Earlier he had discovered that UP can also be used to upgrade his stats. Hence why he only has 320 left, he used 5UP to his Physique stat.
(AN: 250+30+250=530-200-5-5=320)
Using Sense, he found that the teenagers was quite far away now, this would have been a relieved except that there 15 beasts following them. There might be even more. Since he only needed to increase 3 stats, he was no longer stingy and used 195UP, increasing all his stats to 150.
His strength soared, his body hardened. His body became even lighter, his eyes becoming more and more clear. His thoughts were faster. Such was the effect of increasing his stats.
With a speed surpassing his previous speed, he ran. He ran towards every beasts, crushing them with his brute strength alone.
He dispatched them all one by one with ease. In fact, none of the beasts were able to react on time. A series of notifications rang, but he chose to ignore them all and decided to focus on killing.
Alaric, with his reckless actions caused several loud noises. This further scared the teenagers, causing them to run at full speed, fearing that something bad might happen to them.
Few minutes later, everything went silent. Yet this silent made them even more unease. Alaric, the reason for their fear was completely unaware of it. He had kiled a total of 24 beasts, giving him enough UP to summon another Avatar and buy a few things from the store. Most were cheap. If he ever ran out of UP, he could just go boss hunting anytime he wanted to.
As Alaric activated the gacha, the teenagers neared their destination. A small settlement, protected by a thin yet sturdy, blue barrier.