Then she paused tilting her head and giving him a long look And also I’ve known you for less than a week Randidly If you hadn’t come back it’s not fair to make me cry over someone I’ve known for less than a week
Randidly scratched his chin awkwardly Why does it matter to you
Lyra promptly kicked him in the shin Then she stormed off Scratching his head Randidly turned around shocked He had received a new notification
Congratulations You Soul Plant Lvl 3 has absorbed enough blood to level
He saw his plant some distance away along the treeline ripping through two or three imps
Congratulations Your Thorn Lvl 3 is ready to level up Due to exposure to the forbidden tongue of Ep Tal he has gained profound insights into the world Shall he have mastery of the Land or Sky
Apparently Thorn had done enough with the tongue to get an extra bonus huh As for the choice Although Thorn flying would be amusing wasn’t this also a pretty straight forward choice
Thorn is now Lvl 4 Magical Aptitude has increased by 1 Brain Function has increased by 1 Particularity has increased by 3 Thorn has learned the skill Dig
So now it could dig Shrugging Randidly looked once more at its Status screen
Thorn (Blood)
Lvl 4
Survivability 8
Physicality 7
Magical Aptitude 2
Brain Function 4
Particularity 7
Battle Ability 11
Special Skills Flexibility Strangle Dig
It had certainly been effective at Lvl 1 when it had grown within the skull of the sphinx so Randidly was hoping for something similar in the future What was pretty interesting was that its Battle Ability now put it on the same level as something Lvl 11 even though it was only Lvl 4 by its own standards That was reassuring although it was hard to tell how accurate that was
Obviously Randidly had no level and could handle 100 level 11s It was a question of quality of the fighter rather than level But it served as a decent way to understand strength
After playing with Thorn a bit and impressing on it the importance of not eating humans Randidly left heading to talk with Daniel and Donny about what was to come Better invite Sam too and Decklan and Dozer because they would be the ones on the front lines
Randidly grimaced Why did it seem like the stronger he got the more people he had to talk to
Wasn’t this why he let Donny found the village in the first place
The group of 6 stayed after The Ghosthound left Daniel Donny Sam Dozer Decklan and Mrs Hamilton They stayed silent for several seconds as they listened to his departing footsteps
The first one to speak was Donny who turned to Sam Have you had a chance to look at the body he brought back
Sam grunted Yea and what I’ve seen Let’s just say that unless you have the strength of Dozer it’s a real chore to cut the thing up even the hide And that was mostly turned to swiss cheese almost useless now The bones and claws are a different story and I have a few ideas about how I can use them
Daniel coughed He means if what Randidly says is true and there is another one of these out there waiting can we handle it
After a few seconds of thoughtful silence Sam said If we are there to meet it in formation probably But out of all of us Probably only Dozer Clarissa and Lyra can damage it If we can keep it locked down for long enough sure
The room fell silent at the unspoken truth of that statement if it came upon them in the night while they weren’t ready
Decklan smiled crookedly We still have a day Let’s up the training Daniel how much can we improve the dungeon
Daniel checked his notes We are currently just short of 9000 SP by noon we will get there If you would prefer we focus on the dungeon instead of upgrading the Village itself we can push it up to Lvl 14 That is an almost 3x increase in difficulty Is that What you all want
Donny Dozer and Decklan made eye contact and nodded Mrs Hamilton closed her eyes and shook her head slightly
This might not be quick enough She said But if Ms Northwind’s group joins us a lot of them used to be nurses They could be taught healing palm and become a healing corps Having a designated healer with each squad would increase the success rate
That’s a good idea Daniel said slowly rubbing his chin In addition I think we should initially just raise the Lvl to 10 to let most people go through it Even still I expect some casualties You can’t account for everything For the more elite troops they can wait and head into the Lvl 14 dungeon
Donny laughed awkwardly shaking his head The rest of the group looked at him confused
It’s not the dungeon plan Well not the method It’s just Donny looking suddenly like the teenager he really was scratched his ear awkwardly Can you believe that we are talking about this Risking our lives If this had been two weeks ago
Everyone remained silent as Donny continued to speak And yet I can’t stand still Because I know that if I wait or hide something big and mean is eventually going to show up and I won’t be ready for it So I train and risk just to prepare It’s like The Ghosthound says The only thing a spear can do is move forward thrusting into the future ’ It’s just strange how much we’ve changed in such a short amount of time
After that the group dispersed slowly drifting apart alone with their thoughts considering how the world changed And changed them in the process
Chapter 59
It was around 2 o’clock in the afternoon when Glendel followed Regina and the rest of their group driving their convoy down the road towards Donnyton While it had been cleared by some enterprising individuals in preparation for Donnyton’s expansion but it hadn’t been very professionally done and the road was quite bumpy
But still they made it to the town and slowly headed up a group of 60 some women and Glendel following after Regina
To their surprise the attitude at Donnyton was grim as they arrived Almost the entirety of the village almost 1200 hundred people gathered around a tall pole that was erected on the slope between the NCC village and the Classer Compound
Through the crowd they saw Mrs Hamilton and Regina walked over Miranda what’s going on
Miranda Hamilton turned to the group of new arrivals and smiled I apologize this has just been a very intense morning The kept dungeon was improved to level 10 and when it reached that level there were some changes Increased difficulty but also increased time compression So you needed to spend more time there Apparently up to a week The first group to go in when they realized they weren’t going to be kicked out after 24 started rushing for the boss to escape before they ran out of food
Ultimately they were able to make it but Mrs Hamilton’s eyes were slightly wet as she looked to the monument where three names were being carved into it by a serious faced Sam Their squad leader died defeating the boss He was He was one of the original 12 or so that received a class from Donny on the first day It’s just a sobering experience
Regina nodded slowly a sympathetic expression on her face Death is always difficult
Especially when it comes so cheaply Mrs Hamilton said bitterly But then she wiped the tears from her eyes and turned to the group But I won’t trouble you with the details Come I’ll take you to Donny and Nul
When they got to Donny Daniel was also there and Daniel took the time to explain a little in regards to classes what little they knew about the three options and where they came from He also explained the mentor system Then he proceeded to talk about why some individuals were currently just raising their skill level in the hopes of getting a better 3rd option
Actually Ma’am A voice interrupted If you would like to wait a few minutes and let us ahead of you in line we can finally test this hypothesis
An older man with short grey hair and two axes strapped to his back walked up with a portly bearded man
What do you mean Sam Daniel asked
But Sam didn’t respond He was just smiling slightly at Regina Who in fact was smiling back her mouth creeping ever wider
As long as it’s no trouble Sam said slowly