The World of Tactics

Chapter Eleven I: Another Nightly Monster Magnet

"The world's monsters all had a common trait and among those common traits. Some had innate traits that none other monsters had before. However, the commonest trait was their ability to evolve when reaching a certain perimeter. Throughout history, even till now, research has found nothing evident at all. However, through various and vigorous studies. We have concluded that when a monster evolves from a lower spectrum, its species completely changes in the race. This is known as the Hobgoblin Effect." -Written by a Monster Researcher.

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Last night, John Smith had prepared everything except something sharp. Helpless in his endeavor, he went back to camp and kindly took the bronze sword within his grasp of Mike. It was a piece of cake to take a sword from the sword noob like Mike when Mike was sleeping. At first, he did not butcher the wolves. He was an amateur when it came to gutting wolves. Due to his inexperience, he burst open the wolf's intestines and his face immediately retched in disgust. The horrifying smell was just a bit too much for his current self, who was used to the clean and fresh air.

The harvest of the first wolf was not a good experience at all because he stained the wolf's fur with smelly colon gut juices. Since he had limited amounts of water, he did not clean meat stains with the gut juices and directly wasted a good amount of wolf's meat. The next part was much more intense. He did not want to do this at all, but he cut off the neck of the wolf. Killing the wolf and cutting off the wolf's head was something else. The two differences can not be related at all, but it must be done.

In the end, he had to search through the organs of the wolf and, at last, he found that the soul core was situated in the heart of the wolf. He had expected that the soul core would be inside the brain or something, but it was odd indeed. There is no reason not to have a soul core within the brain because it is like the center of control of the whole body. This world is odd and he is not going to question the science of this world at all. Nothing makes any sense anyway.

As for the edible meat (that he judged), he skinned off the leather from the wolf's headless body and wrapped up the guts along with the head, and tied it into an awkward ball. He had no use for those because he did not know what to do with them. He cleaned the bronze sword and dissected the meat portion of the wolf and hopped them on top of the fireplace while adding some more dried wooden branches. He will let the meat cook while he works on the rest of the wolves.

With experience from the first wolf, he was able to go for the second wolf this time. However, he realized that he had not done anything to the first wolf. He forgot to drain the blood from the first wolf. With no other choice, he carried the remaining four wolves and hung them on the lower branches of a nearby tree. With ease, he chopped off three of the wolves' heads and the blood riddled the ground of the tree red.

It was tiring to finish up on the first wolf and the four remaining ones. He started on the leading wolf's second because it had its blood drained nicely. He then went to gut it first and this time, with a little bit more experience, he cautiously was able to decently gut the leading wolf. He did not fashion himself some teeny meaty tails nor private parts and those were looped off as well. Overall, this second cleaning for the leading wolf was quite satisfactory. The furs were stained with a bit of blood, but overall, the furs were all fine and dandy. And this time, no meat was stained with any gut juices.

He directly put the leading wolf back into his inventory to keep it as fresh as possible. Then he moved on to the third one. Just gutting two and he felt that he was a bit more professional. It ended up quite badly since this one was one of the two wolves that broke his spine. The moment he opened up the stomach, some of the organs were already broken and the worst part was that the intestines were also ripped. He had to spend a lot of time scraping the meat off the ribcage and practically leaving the whole body of meat intact. He only gained four legs of meat and that was it for the third one.

The next one was the wolf that he had purposely tried to break his spine to deal with another critical hit. Since it was not a critical hit, he was able to gut with better ease than the previous one. As such, it was also another challenge, since the wolf's spine was broken. It was quite a novel experience. The last one was pretty normal, so he also managed to get it better than the last four wolves. In the end, he had to at least bury the corpses of the wolves or something to not attract other predators.

The bronze sword was a bit too small and flimsy, so he quickly cleaned it up with some water and directly put it back into its sheath. Next, he felt a bit bad for Mike, but he snatched the iron broadsword and began digging much faster than before with the bronze sword. As a result of keeping the wolf's meat cooking and the digging adventure. He was dead tired by the end when he buried the useless parts in the hole. He looked back at the mound that raised a bump on the plain. He laughed at the disorganized grass that was stomped and mowed through while in battle. And that was how everything settled down when he woke Mike up for night duty.

He was feeling a bit uncomfortable since he had not gotten a good shower from the stream. His neat hair was like a bird's nest and all curled up in whatever way he turned while sleeping. His only saving grace was a good morning splash of water from his canteen. He knew that he should not be wasting such precious water, but he just could not help it to stop that uncomfortable need for a shower.

The most unbelievable out of yesterday's night battle, Dork did nothing and gained a total of one hundred experience points that directly level Dork up (Dork, EXP +20, EXP +20, EXP +20, EXP +20, EXP +20). Surprisingly, because of Dork's growth rate, Dork was able to increase maximum health points, magic, and defense. Those three stats were the only ones to increase by one point each. Nothing was strange considering that those three had the highest percentage of growth compared to Dork's growth rate. He did not know how to be happy for Dork because Dork contributes nothing and yet gains a level.

However, that was fine when he thought of the benefits that Dork had contributed yesterday. He had some wolf meat in his inventory even though he had not removed the furs from the meat yet. He plans to do so tonight if they have not reached the capital and tries to help down the levels of one of the wolf souls that he got in his inventory. Even so, he felt quite useless and unbearable for the wolves' soul core. Only the leading wolf soul core was the only one that was a few points higher than the rest. So, tonight he plans on training the leading wolf soul core. He had also decided to name it Uzi.

The reason why the leading wolf's soul core was called Uzi was that the strength of Uzi could pack a punch while having a rapid-fire rate. Thus, Uzi has the same similarity to a real Uzi. Sadly, across all categories. Uzi's base stats have decreased by two compared to the living one. This is the same as Goon's soul core, but the difference is that Goon's soul core has only lost one stat point on the status screen. It was not that big of a loss anyway, since he might not even be able to summon five wolves together in battle in any sort of way. Not only that, but Uzi also lost the [Pack Buff] skill. It was a shame, but Uzi's status screen is listed below:

[Status]

[Name: Uzi][Race: Wolf][Level: 11/20][Rank: 1][HP: 16/16]

[STR: 4(9) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][] ]

[MAG: 0(4) / [][][][] ]

[SKL: 3(9) / [1][2][3][][][][][][] ]

[SPD: 5(12) / [1][2][3][4][5][][][][][][][] ]

[LCK: 0(10) / [0][][][][][][][][][] ]

[DEF: 2(8) / [1][2][][][][][][] ]

[RES: 0(4) / [][][][] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 9][MOV: 6][SKILL: ][EXP: 0/100][WEA: Innate: D]]

He recognizes that the base stats of Uzi are much better compared to Goon, mainly because of the speed stat. It was five for the start. The strength, including the Uzi's jaw's might, was already comparable to seven attack damage. Currently, Uzi has a lot more utility than Goon. It was also because of the unnecessary need to have to replace weapons every single time after a battle. Essentially, Uzi does not need to have any weapon replacements.

Not only that, the 'growable' part within the innate weapon of Uzi is interesting, since as long as Uzi's innate weapon mastery is increased. The stronger the claws and jaws of Uzi. This directly translates to Uzi having weapon enhancement during battles. As long as Uzi gets higher innate weapon mastery, the stronger Uzi will become. Doing so would have to take a lot of time, but as long as Uzi's innate weapon mastery increases in rank, the longer Uzi's usefulness becomes. Like canned food that has a longer shelf life, the higher quality the can is.

The other importance of Uzi was that it could fight against the Hobgoblin he encountered in the stream if he managed to increase Uzi's speed and strength to a higher degree. At level eleven now and a limit level of twenty, he could max out Uzi's speed and still have two points left to increase his strength. On the other hand, he could max out Uzi's strength and keep enough speed for Uzi to double attack some fools that wanted to attack him. As for damage sustainability, he has not thought of it yet because, by the time Uzi sustains enough damage, the battle would have been over already.

He opens a bag stuffed full of wolf strips of meat. He took four out and started to munch on them. It was now becoming a habit after getting a taste of it. He purposely enjoyed the taste of meat just to pass time. The sun is too hot and the air distorts all around, while no water source is nearby. As for the dude walking behind, he felt that Mike was in the worst condition. He looks back just to make sure, but he sees that Mike has already collapsed way behind. Ops, he forgot that Mike's leather canteen was not enough for a two-day journey. Luckily, he coincidently looks back now and then to check up on Mike. Otherwise, he would have been the only one to reach the capital.

He had to tell Dork to go back and hop down. He easily picked up Mike and hung it on top of Dork while ensuring that Mike would not fall off. He began to walk now. It was a nice change of pace since they were only at the walking pace and Dork could not run that fast either. After finding some shade off the road, he left Dork to roam around while he splashed some precious water on Mike's face. The s***h did a good job of waking up Mike.

He did not mind Mike's absent face and gave the third canteen that he got to Mike. One look at Mike's cracked lips and he knew what was going on. He had already checked the empty leather canteen of Mike's and there was no water at all. Mike gulped down the water like it was a potion of life. Well, it was the water of life, so it's kind of like the same thing. After seeing that, Mike had drunk close to half of it. He rudely took back the canteen water. He could not let Mike sponge the water like that.

After a bit of thinking, he finally let Mike have the canteen water. He moves to lean on the tree in the cool shade. He kept munching on some strips of meat while Mike also began to do the same thing as well. Even though he is not generous at all, he can not just watch as Mike suffers like this when he has enough resources to provide for both of them. The time moves on while they rest in the moving shade. The break lasted more than an hour but under two hours. He did not keep track of time at all.

Along the way, though, it just seemed like monsters like goblins and wolves just disappeared. It seems that there are no ordinary monsters on this kind of road that is close to the capital. The knights or the soldiers would have done their homework and cleared off most of the dangerous monsters around. It was a good thing too because he did not plan on having multiple exhausting battles on such a hot day. There were also Dork's nightly battles as well, so it would have been better if there were no monsters on the way.

This time, he walked while Mike rode on top of Dork. His butt was numb from all of the rides and he needed some sort of exercise as well. This way, Mike would be able to regain some strength and both of them could switch over after a while. Mostly, the reason why was because he could not handle his numbing butt at all. This situation lasted until the sun was close to sunset. He decided that even though the trip was a bit slower than he had expected. At the very least, there was a good amount of progress. He checked the leather map and, by his estimation, they should be able to reach the capital tomorrow evening.

Who thought that he would have landed this way? Not even he, himself, would think so. He felt quite bored since Dork could not talk and neither was Mike willing to do so. He whistled while on the way to the capital. He remembers quite a few popular songs and tried to mimic some of the songs while whistling. His mood improved greatly before they started camp. He had Mike find some dried branches while he was also doing the same. Nothing could beat the feeling of making fire from dried wood.