LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 8: Predator
The Guild referred him to one of the cheaper blacksmiths in the area, where he bought a 14,000 vals sword this time, along with a backpack for carrying more magic stones. This set him back nearly the entirety of his savings from the last day and a half or so. But that wasn’t a serious problem. After the forced shopping break, he had recovered enough Mind to head right back to work.
He had grown more cautious, but there was no way that he was going to be scared off by some lanky freak with steak knives for fingers. If anything, he was just angry. He continued to dice his way through the upper four floors while assassinating what fifth floor targets he could. He spent longer in the Dungeon than usual, not even coming out for dinner. He honored his deal with Hestia, though, and finally left by midnight. Only to train all the harder with Aiz the next morning.
After he finished with that, he stopped by a specialty shop that he had heard some other adventurers talking about and left with a few round, brown covered packages. Once he got to the fourth floor, he exposed one of them to the air in one of the larger rooms on the floor. And waited. Soon, monsters began to gather in the room, drawn to the scent of the lure that he had placed on the floor. But he was waiting for them. Kobolds and Dungeon Lizards came after him in steady waves, but he cut them down in uncompromising fashion.
His training for the last few days had paid off and his new weapon cut through the enemies with relative ease. He needed to pull this scheme with the lure to keep the pressure on with the enemies from the fourth. When one lure ran out, he uncovered another one and continued the slaughter.
A week passed like this. Eventually, after all his stats besides Agility hit H, he began to explore the fifth floor in earnest. The monsters of this floor were still much stronger than him, but the difference wasn’t so overwhelming anymore. He took on Frog Shooters and cut their tongues off before they could reach him. He encountered a few War Shadows, but they were fortunately few and far between. They always nearly killed him, and he wasn’t sure that he could handle more than one, but he always came out on top against them regardless.
It was after another near-death encounter with one of these monsters that he felt something click.
He sat up against the wall, watching the War Shadow fade to ash and nursing a cut on the unprotected portion of his arm, that he felt something fall into place. It was a purely metaphysical sensation, though he felt it like a burning on his back, and he wondered about what it was. Though there was an easy way to find out.
He gathered up his belongings and headed home early for the day.
The clock showed 8:30 as he made his way down the night streets of Orario. The city tended to party at night. The streets were lit by lights strung out from rooftop to rooftop and lamps glowing in the windows of the bars and taverns running up and down Main Street. He mostly avoided these establishments and slipped between the gathering crowds of barhopping people, heading home.
He wasn’t worried that Hestia would be doing any of this partying herself. She wasn’t much for these types of distractions either, and he found her sitting on the coach and reading the newspaper by lamplight. As he predicted.
“Back so soon?” she questioned, looking up from her reading, “Finally learned how to take a break?”
“Could use a status update.” He said, ignoring the question. When she raised an eyebrow he added, “Please and thank you. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
She set down the paper and did as he requested, sitting him down shirtless on the bed. The update started as usual, with records of numerous monsters defeated. But this time, these records of his kills seemed to coalesce with the many others that had been slain in the past. They weaved together in a concrete record of a truly shocking number of victories, all attained in a short period of time.
When she was done, she saw what Tim had sensed before coming home early. She handed the document to him, for him to see for himself.
Timaias Adama,
Strength: H-159 -> H-164
Defense: H-134 –> H-138
Dexterity: H-148 -> H-152
Agility: I-98 -> H-101
Magic: H-150 -> H-154
Spells:
Rippling Sword
Swift Strike Magic
Skills:
Predator
Increased Growth
Killing Monsters provides increased Growth.
Killing more Monsters in a short period of time results in an even greater bonus
“Predator, eh? Not bad.” Adama muttered while reading, a smile spreading across his face. “Makes me sound right scary, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed, it does.” Hestia said, her voice a little shaky. He looked at her quizzically, but she wouldn’t meet his eye.
Little did Adama know, skills to increase growth were the stuff of legends, and typically produced all sorts of extraordinary events. Plus, Tim was one of the hardest working adventurers Hestia had ever heard of. With this skill in his pocket…
“The only cloud on this sunny day is this sorry excuse for a blade.”
Adama cut through her thoughts, gesticulating at his sword, which he had pulled out to examine critically. Strangely, a web of fine cracks had appeared all throughout the blade, starting from the center and moving to the edges. He wasn’t running around bludgeoning the monsters, so that type of damage was bizarre, and it jeopardized the structure of the weapon. The smith that he took it to for maintenance had been baffled by the damage, and had done his best, but the sword’s days were numbered in the single digits. Adama had even taken to carrying around a spare, but if his blade broke in the middle of combat again, he could be in serious trouble.
Hestia looked at the blade, eyes misted over in thought:
“Maybe it has something to do with your magic?” She suggested, “You sort of channel it or direct it with your blade, right? Maybe this cheap blade can’t handle it well?”
“Oh. Like a…”
Oops. He had almost said “Like a construct that had madra it couldn’t handle channeled into it.” He wanted to keep hints of his origins on the down low. For now, at least.
“Like a stomach that’s been filled with too much food. It’s starting to get damaged.”
“That’s a gross analogy, but yes. You need a blade that can handle your magic.”
“Well, we have a decent amount of money saved up. Maybe we should go shopping tomorrow for something really solid.”
He had been spending a good amount of the money he earned on potions and recovery elixirs on the sly. He didn’t want to worry Hestia by coming home bleeding, but he also wanted to keep up this fast-paced training. He had also needed to replace his clothes and armor in the past week, due to all the minor damage that he had been accumulating while fighting mobs of enemies. Not to mention the backup sword. Sometimes he felt like he spent 90 vals to earn 100. But even so, he had socked away a respectable 30,000. However, Hestia was shaking her head slightly:
“You’ll buy a 30,000 vals sword now, only to have it break when you get a bit stronger. It might be best for the long term to nip this kind of thing in the bud right now.”
Her eyes gleamed as the looms of her mind spun up a plan, “And I think I know exactly how to do just that.”
She took 10,000 vals from the savings, without elaborating, saying that she needed to do some shopping tomorrow and that he didn’t need to come along. She also let him know that she was planning on going on a trip in a few days, so he should do as much training as he wanted to within that period. She wouldn’t be here to update his status while she was gone.
The next morning, Tim informed a distressed Aiz that he would be putting their morning training sessions on hold. She pouted a bit, but he told her that it would be just for a few days, while he did as much training as possible in the Dungeon.
Predator only worked on killing monsters, after all.
They days practically flew by. His sword finally broke after a use of the Rippling Sword, but he pulled out his backup sword quickly and wasn’t put in any serious danger. Though, he was then forced to purchase a backup to that backup, something he did with some annoyance. He was getting tired of being yelled at by the smiths for not treating his weapons properly, in their minds.
Beyond that hitch, he continued buying lures for the monsters of the fourth floor, but that was starting to be less and less helpful. He began to roam the fifth floor for most of the time, then the entirety of the time he was in the Dungeon. His growth rate really had increased, and, by the end of the fourth day since getting the skill, he was roaming the fifth floor with near total impunity. Even War Shadows were no longer a huge threat to him one-on-one, and he cut through everything else with relative ease.
The evening of Hestia’s departure, he ended his Dungeon diving early so he could see her off and get one final stat update.
Timaias Adama,
Strength: G-218 -> G-227
Defense: H-193 –> H-198
Dexterity: G-206 -> G-214
Agility: H-167 -> H-172
Magic: G-203 -> G-210
Spells:
Rippling Sword
Swift Strike Magic
Skills:
Predator
Increased Growth
Killing Monsters provides increased Growth.
Killing more Monsters in a short period of time results in an even greater bonus
He gave a slight sigh in contentment. Now this was a bit better. This Predator skill was allowing him to maintain swift stat growth, even as he was moving into G-grade stats.
“You’re doing great Tim. Really, almost too well.”
He looked up to eye Hestia as she spoke. She was in a beautiful long black dress, trimmed with a saffron thread that matched her eyes. Her long black hair was done up in a pleasant, girl-next-door braid, and her makeup was lightly applied and very tasteful. She gave a twirl and smiled at him:
“What do you think?”
She was stunning, but flowery praise had never been his way:
“You look like you’re going to go coax some poor sap into giving you something. It’s a good look, you should try it more often.”
She pouted a bit before giving him a wry smile:
“You really aren’t wrong, all things considered. But anyways, as I mentioned, you’re doing great. Consider resting. Leave some of the heavy lifting to me for once. But no matter what you do, stay alive.”
He nodded and reciprocated when she gave him a hug, after which she went up the ladder and disappeared into the night.