—–
I had rushed forward with everything I had, and things ended… incredibly quickly. Not only the wolves became strong enough to easily kill Imps and Gray Wolves, but the Orcs combined attack against the Wild Boar plus the two Spores helped at weakening the Oni. Eleanora and I finished him off quicker than ever before. I suppose even Onis don’t seem to be a big threat to us. Not like I will go around lowering my guard in front of demons, you never know what sort of crazy thing they will come out next with.
After slaying all the foes, I made sure there was nothing else around through Hawk Eye and Mana Sense, and there were indeed a handful of Imps with Gray Wolves running around, so I sent my Fenrir to catch them, and in just half a minute, they brought all the runaways’ corpses. Their kills are my kills, so I gained all the EXP.
In total, I had slain roughly 21 Gray Wolves and 26 Imps, alongside 1 Red Oni and 1 Wild Boar. Gray Wolves and Imps gave approximately 200 EXP each, while the Red Oni gave 10k EXP and the Wild Boar 5k. Not bad at all, all the EXP combined plus the [Hard Worker] Skill at Level 2 made it for an even larger amount.
Ding!
[Calculating EXP…]
[You gained 34160 EXP]
[Your Level has increased from Level 6 to Level 7]
[You gained 10 Skill Points and Stat Points]
[Level: 7 / 10] [EXP: 23380 / 60000]
[You learned the Skill [Intimidation: Lv1]
—–
[Intimidation: Lv1]
Your presence naturally frightens others, slightly lowering the foe’s stats. The Skill effect increases in power if those you met do not know you. With enough intent, the intimidation can cause problems in the psyche of a target, or even cause temporal Fear Paralysis, although it is a low chance. The intensity of the Intimidation and its stat debuffing effects increases with each level.
Its passive effect can be toggled on and off
—–
I gained a new Skill out of nowhere… Intimidation, huh? it might prove to be nice, although if I am chasing down weaker prey, it could be detrimental to me, so it doesn’t seem to be the best Skill out there. Although it could prove to be useful if I am in a closed space surrounded by foes.
This was a fruitful harvest; I have slain a lot of monsters and demons all gathered together. It could be said I was incredibly lucky in that regard. But there’s probably a big reason why they were all here together ambushing these knights…
“Oi you all, can you move?”
[Intimidation: Lv1] has been activated]
“GYYAAH!”
“D-Don’t get close!”
“W-What sort of dark aura is that?!”
“Is he… something worse than a demon?!”
“K-Keep your composure!”
Ah… Intimidation activated right away; they’re frightened. It would certainly be nice if I could kill them and get more EXP out of it. They have seen my powers after all. Yes, seems… like the right course of action.
…But I won’t do it.
They’re knights given the task of protecting the village, killing them will only make the village even less protected. Even if this group of incompetents were surrounded by Imps, I cannot just kill them.
They’re useful assets, I could even help them train to grow stronger or something, that might even let me enhance my magic and skills as well and see the capabilities of humans here.
But a kid teaching these grown ups? I suppose I am dreaming too much.
For now, I toggled off Intimidation and quickly calmed them down, all while Eleanora grabbed my bag and stored all the corpses laying around, they were all ours of course.
“Calm down, I mean no harm.” I said.
“T-That’s the voice of a child?”
“I thought he was some sort of halfling…”
“Are you a kid?”
“Why… you’re so damn strong?!”
“That was amazing!”
It seems that Intimidation was really frightening, the moment I toggled it off, they went back to normal for the most part.
“I am a wandering hunter… I work with my familiars and my spirit… Why are you all here? If it wasn’t because I arrived in time, you would all be dead.”
“T-That’s…”
“Well, you’re not wrong.”
“We got trapped in the demon’s tricks… we were chased down, cornered…”
“Our general… sniff… General Clancy… He… he died so suddenly!”
“General! General…!”
The group of knights began to cry like babies as they recalled their general’s death. It seems they had it rough. I decided to not move them out of here yet, and quickly used the Ember spell to create a small bonfire. I took out some pots and plates, and quickly decided to cook a quick stew. Using the dried meat I have for my travels, water using magic, some herbs I had saved, salt, pepper, some bones, and potatoes and carrots, everything started to boil rather rapidly.
I also began to boil some herbal tea to calm their minds. I wanted them to tell me everything that happened so I could get a better perspective. I decided that the first thing I had to do was feeding them, they seemed all malnourished and almost starving. I covered the two corpses of the soldiers left with some mantles so they wouldn’t disturb them so much.
“Come, let’s eat something together. You all look malnourished, there’s no way you’ll make it back like that.” I said.
“T-Thank you…”
“You’re so nice…”
“Is this okay?”
“Yes, it’s okay, come quickly.” I said, almost ordering them to break the ice, they were overly childish and I dislike crybabies.
“Asmodeus, is this alright?” Wondered Eleanora.
“Yeah, I don’t see why not. I am hungry anyways.” I said.
“O-Oh, then let’s enjoy a meal together. We can ask them what happened then.” Said Eleanora.
“Precisely. I think the demons… are beginning to evolve and become more coordinated. There’s no way they would had been able to do this to them so easily without prior planning.” I said.
“Yeah… this is all way too shady.” Eleanora said, as I saw that the stew was almost ready.
—–