The tension was palpable, and Nathan couldn't resist exercising his shoulder in a rotating motion. No doubt the stiffness of that part of his body was due to his sleeping arrangements.
I probably should've gone with the cot.
With a barely concealed sigh, Nathan continued trudging through the path. Deep down, he knew that he'd made the sensible decision by choosing the cabin. The decision had offered him warmth, water, and a potential place to place a bed if he could somehow figure out a way to construct one from scratch.
Plus, he pacified himself with the fact that everything that had an advantage had a disadvantage. It was simply the way the world works; the best way to pick was often to weigh the pros and cons at the moment, and he'd done that as best as he could. Besides, no matter how often he complained about the cabin floor cramping up his body, he was still satisfied with the purchase overall.
Humming a random tune, he continued to walk towards the Incursionist camp, sword in hand. The chirps of the birds and sounds of other insects obliterated the silence he'd witnessed on his first days on the island.
Of course, Nathan wasn't going to be bothered if the forest was silent; he had gotten used to things like that. He highly doubted that there would be anything or anyone on the island that would be able to go toe to toe with him and survive.
Even if there was one, he'd either kill it or find a way to escape with his life. Just like he'd done with the Incursionists. They'd been higher leveled than him the last time he'd seen them, and his common sense had told him to avoid them. An action that he'd nearly failed to execute multiple times but had eventually made it back from scouting relatively unharmed and unidentified. Two things he'd need if he planned to attack the settlement later; for now, though, he'd just stick to scouting.
If the system hadn't dropped off the newest batch of humans at the settlement—which he suspected was the case—it would've dropped them somewhere close by. Meaning that if they weren't at the camp, they should be somewhere close to it.
Nathan hoped he could get a chance to talk to them before the monsters on the island did. An average level of nine surely wasn't going to be able to compete with the monsters he'd been seeing on the island. Heck, the bunny would have no problems biting off their heads if it so wished.
These were things that passed through his mind as he continued to walk towards the settlement. While Nathan had no interest in leadership, he had to at the very least give the humans a chance at survival. He'd tell them to steer clear of the Miners if they weren't already in their clutches, and if the stars aligned for him, they'd exchange information.
Nathan would give them all he had on the locations of the F-ranked dungeons, and they could help him out with information they'd gotten from the tutorial. If everything went according to plan, he'd send them on their way, and everyone would stay on their own little part of the island.
The Miners mining whatever it was that was inside the cave, the humans doing whatever they wanted to do—preferably away from him—and him, on the other hand, finding ways to get stronger while simultaneously improving Blood-Rock.
Where did the sound go?
He didn't pause in his steps as the question came unbidden to the core of his mind. Instead, he kept on walking. The sounds that had dominated the forest before seemed to have receded to nothing but a muted sound. His footsteps were the only thing that tore through the silence of the forest as he walked.
An unconscious grin spread across his face. Every time he'd encountered something that could really quicken his pulse and give him a challenge, the forest was silent. If Nathan was reading the mood right, there might just be a fight in store for him very soon.
A couple of minutes later, Nathan understood why the forest had become silent. A fight seemed to have broken out somewhere close by; he could hear voices from where he was, and the curious cat in him couldn't wait to find out what was happening.
Going in the direction of the voices he heard, the voices became much clearer, and he was a little unsurprised to find out who the voices belonged to: the dwarf and the gremlin.
"Just one more kill, please," the dwarf begged.
"Remember, you owe me one for putting me in this mess, and I say they remain untouched unless they choose to fight," the gremlin responded.
"But the girl burnt my eyebrows off," the dwarf whined.
Nathan tuned them out and instead focused on the important things. For one, he'd not thought about it earlier, but it seemed like for some reason he could perfectly understand what the creatures were saying, even though he'd bet his life that the pair weren't speaking English or anything close to it by the pitch of their voices.
The second thing he saw was the humans that were currently being held hostage—if you could even call it that. The situation seemed a little off to Nathan. There were seven humans against the two, and by the looks of things, the humans seemed to have given up.
Looking around, he spotted why. Two other humans were on the floor, dead. One looked like its skull had been crushed, probably courtesy of the dwarf, while the other had a clean but yet lethal-looking hole in its neck, probably the gremlin's handiwork. The demoralizing part of the endeavor for the other humans must have been having to watch their two assailants publicly bicker on what strategy to employ in handling them.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Boy, talk about arrogance.
He was behind a tree line a couple of yards away from the confrontation, but he could tell that the humans certainly weren't a match for the pair, even with their overwhelming numbers. This meant that the dwarfs' and gremlin's display of outright arrogance was merited.
As it was, they were still at least a couple of minutes' walk from the settlement, which meant Nathan could try to save the other humans without fearing that the pair would call for reinforcements.
He sure hoped that the gremlin and dwarf had insurance; they'd need to because they'd pay for taking human life. With a certain swagger that Nathan didn't know he possessed, he walked out from the tree he'd been using to spy on them and headed towards the bickering pair. Surprisingly, it wasn't them who noticed him first; it was a wiry boy holding a dagger in each hand while gritting his teeth and looking at the bickering pair as he planned on killing them with his eyes.
Touché.
"Gentlemen, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Nathan said.
He watched as the pair turned to face him—heck, everyone else who was there turned to face him—but he kept his eyes on the two. Satisfaction flooded his being at the fear that flashed through their eyes as they focused on him, probably analyzing him in the process.
The emotion was fleeting, though, as both creatures' faces settled into one of grim determination. No doubt they'd realized he was higher leveled than the both of them, but instead of running away, they'd decided to stay back and fight, probably fancying their chances in a two-on-one.
Nathan wasn't scared one bit; hell, he was looking more towards fighting the pair more than he'd known. The urge to test his new stats was at the back of his mind, and it was all he could do to keep his mind clear and his sword at the ready for the attack.
"Bahhhh!"
Predictably, it was the dwarf that led the charge, the gremlin right behind him. Not doing its temper any favors, the dwarf swung its hammer, aiming for his head, but he simply sidestepped the attack, avoiding it completely.
That's my dexterity check completed.
The dwarf had overextended itself in the attack, leaving it open to a counterattack, but Nathan didn't go for it. Why? The gremlin's attack soon followed. An upward strike, the gremlin probably aiming to give him an uppercut with its pickaxe.
Clang!
Nathan's sword met the pickaxe mid-strike, the strength behind his strike dislodging the pickaxe from the hand of the gremlin. Shock spread across its face at the sudden loss of its weapon. That wasn't Nathan's concern as he turned to face the red-faced dwarf heading for him.
Like the first time, it was going for an overhead swing, hoping to crush his skull or at least stun him long enough so that the pair could easily take him down. But Nathan had no plans of giving them hope.
He was going to utterly and ruthlessly crush them to the point that they'd come to the conclusion that they were outclassed just before they died. The dwarf was the brash one amongst the two, and he knew that he'd rather deal with it first than with the gremlin.
An attack fueled by anger or humiliation was always easy to evade if one knew what they were doing, and Nathan certainly did. He took a step to the right, leaning in that direction, as he watched the dwarf's massive Warhammer meet nothing but air.
As was like the last time, the dwarf had overextended, putting in the kind of force that would unbalance the person behind it if there wasn't any contact—something that Nathan had every intention of capitalizing on now. With a casual swing of his sword, he cleaved through the dwarf's arm with ease, his strike cutting through flesh, muscle, and bone without pause.
Thud!
Nathan watched as the arm that held the massive Warhammer fell to the floor alongside the weapon. The dwarf looked at the severed limb in disbelief, his gaze shifting between the severed stump leaking blood and the arm on the ground.
The dwarf opened his mouth to let out a scream, but only a wet gurgle came out. Nathan's sword had pierced through its throat, killing the dwarf instantly, and he didn't have any regrets about it. The dwarf had just killed a human like him and had been arguing with the gremlin for a chance to take another life before he stepped in; it deserved to die.
Thud!
Nathan watched the body hit the ground, his face expressionless. Turning around, the gremlin had a very easily identifiable expression on its face: rage.
"Graaaahh!"
The gremlin screamed as it charged at him. Apparently, somewhere along the line when he was fighting the dwarf, the gremlin had recovered its weapon—not that Nathan thought that it mattered. The weapon wasn't going to help the gremlin in the slightest.
He stood still and let the attack meet him, much to the surprise of the gremlin. The pickaxe sank a good two inches into his side before stopping. A scoff escaped Nathan's lips as he stared at the offending gremlin, his sword blurring as it cut off the wrist that held the pickaxe.
"Grahhhhhhhhh!"
He wasn't for one second bothered by the cries of the gremlin. His sword flashed again, cutting off the gremlin's legs from the kneecaps, its body falling to the ground. With a stoic expression, Nathan pulled out the pickaxe still embedded in his right side.
With a look of disgust, he discarded the pickaxe and hand still attached to the side, crouching down to get in the face of the terrified gremlin. No hint of emotion on his face.
I bet I look badass right about now.
Nathan had to prevent himself from outright chuckling in the face of the dying goblin as he tried to maintain the serious and tense atmosphere. Somehow he managed.
"How do I take down the Portal in your settlement?" Nathan asked the gremlin in a clipped tone, going straight to the point.
"I-i ra-t-thhe—r di-e th-an hel- p yo-u."
What was it with henchmen and dying breath loyalty, like this was supposed to be the best way for them to screw over their boss with no repercussion whatsoever? Nathan was still trying to think of how to force the dying gremlin to give up the information when a shadow was cast upon him. Before his mind could catch up with what he was seeing, two daggers flashed and embedded themselves in the gremlin's throat.
"Then dieeee!"
Nathan looked at the culprit, which turned out to be none other than the wiry guy who had not only disrupted his chances of getting crucial information but had also stolen his kill. Nathan managed to maintain the same expressionless facade he'd shown the gremlin, but inside he was a second away from attacking.
Vultures.
BOOK 1 COMPLETED ON PATREON.
BOOK 2 POSTING HAS BEGUN.
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