Choice - 23
I managed to stay in the river for whole day, continuing with my unusual thod of fishing, even as the beasts got stronger and stronger, though not as much to prevent from handling them from a strike from my sword.
[ 54 Experience]
[ 130 Experience]
[ 71 Experience]
[ 30 Experience]
"At least, it was not all bad," I muttered as I pushed back to the surface. More confident, now that the darkness had fallen once more, not afraid that I would be noticed by the occasional flying castle or fortress that was in the sky.
The number of Flying Fortresses alone had reached a dozen, while the smaller castles had reached almost three digits, further highlighting the capabilities of the world I had found myself in.
Hiding was getting better and better.
At least, until Isuddenly felt a presence underneath ! One that recognized as the weight of the Charisma, though it hit differently than Toross' aura of trust later replaced with so kind of madness or Falael's pressure of obedience.
It was more like a call to distraction, asking to swim closer, just like the tales of the siren. I was glad for that, as without that presence, I wouldn't have noticed the stirring in the river bed until it was too late.
I swam to the shore as fast as I could, though I barely moved a few feet away from the radiating point.
So kind of ambush predator, I realized even as I stretched my new skills to the limit to avoid its attack. If it wasn't for the early warning, I would have been taken down by the beast, which wasn't exactly good news.
I wasn't able to catch its appearance, as the mont it burst out of the bottom, the mud and sand spread, turning the river into a turbid ss. However, even with my impaired vision and the challenges of dodging underwater, it hadn't been particularly difficult to avoid the attack once I had moved in the opposite direction the creature wanted.
I moved towards the shore, though I swung the sword in front of preemptively, in case it could quickly correct its direction.
Instead, I heard the sound of a huge body bursting out of the water, and falling back in. I continued to move towards the shore, and my perception stretched to the limit. When it attacked again, it once again ca with a warning, the sa pressure that I easily ignored thanks to Resilience.
It only helped to predict its charge, nothing more. When I felt the water move, the sword was already moving and sank right into its huge open mouth.
Unlike the previous tis, the hit of the magical sword didn't result in a sudden burst of experience, just another wave of ntal pressure, more primal and much stronger yet still easy to ignore. The voice commanded to fear, but I just gripped the sword tighter, which gave leverage to avoid its huge jaws.
It charged, ignoring the injury, and I held the sword, ignoring the fear. Its linear charge worked to my benefit, and before it could slow down, I felt ground beneath my feet. I didn't know if the beast was intelligent enough to understand the tactical implications of that mistake, or if it was driven by instinct, but it started pulling back.
But the way it suddenly twisted its head, the pull was strong enough to drag back if I didn't react by releasing my grip. As the beast retreated back into the water, the pressure was once again easily ignored.
The beast tried to attack again, but I was already at the shallow edge of the river, and I threw myself to the side.
I pulled myself out of the water, and even dashed away, ignoring the cries of the beast and the pressure it radiated, and instead quickly pulled the daggerfrom my small pack. Though, I couldn't help but feel a pang at losing the magical sword in the chaos.
Soon, its cries had subsided, along with the thrashing in the water, even enough to avoid my Perception. I might have even believed that, if it wasn't for the constant pressure, begging to get close.
"Fascinating," I muttered as I started walking toward the hill first, glad that there was a nice little hill not too far away, blocking my view, swinging my dagger to take down a bird that decided to dive down to kill .
[ 13 Experience]
I was tempted to run along the riverbank, dipping underwater whenever there was a caravan close by, but the presence of the creature that could still be felt was enough to dissuade from it.
Whatever pull the chaotic fire was radiating to distract the stronger monsters, it was far enough away that even the stronger creatures were out of its range of pull.
It was ti for the next phase of the plan. I did my best to squeeze my clothes dry, then put them on though after ripping the silver symbol on the chest, another rip was sufficient trade to make the robes look even more ordinary. I even grabbed a handful of dust to spread along my clothes, giving an even ssy appearance.
Since the robe had many signs of damage, it was better for them to look imdiately.
Then, I climbed to the top of the hill and took note of my surroundings. The first thing I noticed was the number of caravans below the hill. I could see dozens of caravans sprawled around the relatively flat landscape, even the smallest caravan with more than a few hundred tents and campfires.
I swung my blade once more to deal with another little bird that decided to attack was the best idea.
[ 3 Experience]
"Interesting," I muttered as I continued my observation, trying to decide which caravan to try and infiltrate.
Luckily, of all the camps I could see, the one that was closest to the river gave the best opportunity to sneak in. However, it was not a coincidence, as I could see several caravans, positioned in layers, the outside ones looked more chaotic compared to the groups that were on the inner side of the camps.
I had a feeling that it was less of a coincidence and more of an intentional structure. The camps at the outer layer were under a constant siege of creatures, most small, so large, almost constantly battling. Surprisingly, while they had so ranged capability, they were only using that against the larger beasts, and dealing with the smaller ones exclusively through close combat.
Not that shocking. Facing that many creatures, conserving ammunition was clearly a reasonable goal.
The layout implied and their state confird that the outer camps were inferior to the inner ones. Conveniently, even among the outer camps, the worst camp was the one nearest to the river, though it was bigger than most camps.
An interesting change from my world, in which being close to the river was a great advantage. However, not surprising in the light of my own experience in the depths of the river. They had good reason to be afraid of the water, especially when combined with the ntal assault of the beast.
Inner camps had a sense of discipline. Their tents were larger, mostly uniform, and set up perfectly, and they had ard patrol groups moving around, ready to defend, but there were almost no animals attacking them.
Order was clearly a foreign concept in the outer camps, especially the one I was planning to target. The camp itself was dispersed, with several groups of tents sprawled around far too widely to be reasonable in a monster-filled world.
Unless the mbers were more afraid of each other than the monsters.
Among the twelve distinct camps I could see from the hill, the one closest to the river was by far the worst to be a part of. Which ant, it was the perfect place for to poke around.
Naturally, I didn't co directly down the hill and rushed to the camp. I double-backed for a mile and then started to walk toward the camp. Trying to sneak into the camp was risky, but not as risky as going forward blindly with no information.
If the worst had happened, I could have just dashed back to the riverside, hoping that the magical commands of the monster would be enough to deal with the followers.
As I started to get closer, I started to notice more accurate details. Like the fact that there were almost constant movents between two groups, but it wasn't an equal flow.
I noticed that, after killing the beasts, they didn't leave them on the ground, but dragged them toward a large tent, so kind of large butcher station, where several people continuously worked on the beasts, separating various parts.
And, after a sufficient amount of choice cuts were collected, a small group of couriers piled them into a cart and brought them to inner camps. Occasionally, so people from the camp arrived to pick so for themselves as well, but most of the beasts were thrown onto a huge bonfire, to be destroyed.
It was against the principles of hunting to waste such a great amount of material, but considering it was the beasts that were constantly attacking the group, I was willing to cut them so slack.
As the monsters, I decided that it was a good mont to check the current state of my abilities. I closed my eyes, and called the System
[Class: Hero
Level: 10
Experience (0/43,500)]
[Health (3/225)]
[ Experience: 98.436]
[STATS
Resilience: 30
Vitality: 15
Strength: 18
Agility: 17
Perception: 15
mory: 3
Charisma 1
LOCKED]
[Stat Points: 1]
[SKILLS: Archery of Destruction (0X)]
[ABILITIES: Elevated Life - Basic - Human ]
[Alignnt: Unaligned]
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