Demonstration Part 1

The group of a dozen players all stared at Kirou after he removed his hood and introduced himself to them. They took note of his human-like features and his darker skin tone and just dismissed Kirou as another human player with nothing strange about him. As for the tribal tattoos signifying that Kirou was a halfling with Lycan blood in him, the current armor that Kirou wore hid most of it, and the parts that the group saw were thought to be part of the armor design.

As the group observed Kirou, so too did Kirou observe them. Looking over the entire group, it was a mix of both elf and human players, with just one female dwarf player on the side. Kirou wasn't sure if he should think that the higher-ups for Sanming were biased towards the humans and elves for their beauty but this lineup before him just doesn't allow him to think otherwise. This was especially so when he noted that only the dwarf amongst the group seemed like a bonified crafter.

Shaking his head free from these unimportant thoughts, Kirou was the one who broke the ice between both sides as he spoke up, "Now that everyone has had their fill of looking at the other, would you guys mind explaining how we would go about doing this demonstration? I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I've got some things to work on and I can't pull myself away from them for too long." Although Kirou's words were reasonable, the complete disinterest with how he said them and the complete lack of respect he was showing to the group irked quite a few of them.

Luckily there was someone like Navi in the group that could see the situation ahead of time and intervene before it escalated. Before any of the members of the group could say anything, Navi turned to the human male with brown hair wearing plate armor and spoke, "Boss, why don't head over to the shadow wolves area and have the demonstration take place there."

The brown-haired warrior contemplated Navi's words for a moment before he spoke up, "Very well. Let's go over and take care of this so that everyone can get back to their own things." Following those words, the brown-hair warrior turned in another direction and started to walk away.

Navi took a glance at Kirou and gave him a wink, prompting him to return a shrug as they both followed behind the brown-haired warrior. The rest of the group were still miffed about Kirou's comment but the warrior's words had to be followed, so they stifled their anger and followed as well.

Within the group, while everyone else was busy being angry or showing contempt towards Kirou, there was a player who was examining him from the start, as if trying to judge whether or not he was the real deal. Kirou became aware of the gaze the moment the person started staring and had already identified the player, a female elf thief. Kirou wasn't just why but he got the odd sense that the elf thief was similar to Navi.

Shrugging off his uncertain concerns, Kirou and the group traveled southwest from their position, traveling in the direction of a strange forest nearby the edges of SC Pier City's territory.

*******

After roughly twenty minutes of walking in silence, the group finally made it to their destination. It was a forest, unlike the ones they usually travel in. The reason for this difference stems from the fact that this forest was covered in a mist, creating an environment filled with shadows. While the group traveled, besides Kirou, the dwarf, and a few players tasked with their protection, the rest dealt with all monsters found along the way.

Although they don't look like it, this group of players was quite strong. From Kirou's observation, each member of the group he was traveling with was at level 20 at the moment. Not counting the priest and shaman who were being protected with him, all the players that fought showed off powerful moves and had an amazing battle sense. They were allowed to have pride in their skills as even Kirou had to acknowledge the strength of elite guilds if this set of players were considered the average ones of their elite teams.

That being said, acknowledging the group's strength and being impressed by their current showing were two different things. If given the chance, he would have pointed out quite a few unnecessary things that he noticed the fighters doing during combat. In fact, he was highly tempted to but Kirou managed to hold it in while displaying an impassive expression on his face.

A few persons noticed this expression on Kirou's face. Besides Navi who took glances at Kirou's face from time to time, both the brown-haired warrior and the elf thief snuck a glance or two at Kirou during the fights, trying to gauge his reactions or read his thoughts. While Navi was somewhat aware of Kirou's standard and could guess his thoughts at the moment, neither the brown-haired warrior nor elf thief was able to figure out anything from Kirou reaction. If it wasn't for the occasional movement that Kirou made to draw his weapon, both would have assumed that Kirou was ignorant of the ways of combat in-game.

After another five or so minutes, the group of thirteen players had finally found their target; a small pack of shadow wolves. Looking at the creatures, Kirou found them similar to his mount, except that they were smaller and without the slight blood aura.

At this point, all the main fighters, Navi, the brown-haired warrior, and the elf thief included, unsheathed their weapons and prepared for combat. Apart from them, both the shaman and the priest that have done barely anything during the whole journey equipped their totem and staff respectively. Kirou raised an eyebrow at this before taking a closer look at the targets, only to have a look of understanding form on his face for a moment before it returned to its impassive state.

Monster: Dark Forest Shadow Wolf

Monster Level: 23

Health: 18,630/18,630

Attack: 120

Defense: 25

Skills: Shadow Movement, Lunge, Intimidation Stare, Bite, Claw Strike

After level 20, it seems that all creatures will now have their attacks and defense values given in the data revealed to players, granted that they are at a high enough level to view it (this is within ten levels higher than the player, with some stats being hidden when the monster is five levels above the player).

With five such creatures now facing them down, Kirou understood perfectly why everyone was getting ready, but even then, he didn't feel threatened by the creatures. The only other person present besides him that hadn't drawn a weapon was the dwarf. Kirou attributed this to the fact that the dwarf player wasn't brought to fight and was instead there to compare notes with him on monster corpse harvesting.

Kirou watched as the dwarf player took out a giant war hammer to defend herself with. Looking at the giant hammer, Kirou remembered the skills he had obtained in Stone Mount Village but hadn't had time to try them out yet. It seems that he should look about getting a great hammer of his own sooner or later, either by buying a cheap one or crafting his own.

Lost in his thoughts for a moment, Kirou missed how the fight was started but he quickly regained focus after the fight went into full swing. From his position, Kirou saw the brown-haired warrior standing shoulder to shoulder with another warrior, both armed with a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. Both warriors were blocking the path of the five shadow wolves while the rest of the party got in position. In fact, the brown-haired warrior went even further with his actions.

<Shield Toss>

[-220]

[-205]

[-250]

Tossing his shield towards the wolves and having it bounce off of a few of them before catching it upon return, the brown-haired warrior was able to build up hate on himself while dishing out three attacks dealing over 200 points of damage each. As for the other two wolves, the second warrior managed to secure their hate using a shield toss of his own, albeit less impressive as he was only able to hit two targets with it.

Following this action, on one side of the field Navi, the elf thief, and another thief player all reappeared from random areas via <Stealth> and stabbed the wolves facing the brown-haired warrior, dealing some serious damage before they backed off. As for the other side, while a fourth thief had acted, his attack wasn't in a soft area so his damage was only average.

After the two sets of thieves backed off, it was the wizards' turn to take the spotlight. They each focusing on a relatively simple single-target spell, <Fire Arrow>, but each strike was met with an amazing damage figure.

<Critical>

[-470]

<Critical>

[-540]

<Critical>

[-420]

Due to those figures, the wolves wanted to break off and dash towards the wizards to return the favor. Alas, they never had the chance as the brown-haired warrior was successfully able to use his taunt to get the three to focus back on him while the priest and shaman took turns in restoring his missing health while providing buffs to both him and the other fighters.

At the back of the group, Kirou watched as the group used their teamwork to systematically grind away the health of the five wolves before them. Since they looked like they had the situation under control, Kirou decided to turn his sights towards the dwarf with the giant hammer standing beside him. Looking at the size of the hammer and the dwarf wielding it, Kirou found it comical but managed to keep a straight face while looking.

As if sensing his gaze, the dwarf player turns towards Kirou and spoke with a pout, "Is now really the best time to be looking at me and my giant hammer? Can't you see that the others are in a serious fight where anything can happen?"

Kirou gave the dwarf player a once over before he responded with a smile on his face, "I believe now is the only time I'll be able to do so. With how this team fights, I don't feel the need to even unsheathe my knife. Besides, if a creature really does slip through, there is a mighty dwarf with a giant hammer right next to me to take it on, no?"

While the dwarf player wasn't good at fighting, with Kirou's words a trigger, she managed to calm herself down a bit and took a look around the battlefield. Looking left and right, taking in how the team was dealing with those shadow wolves, even someone as inept in combat as her could see that they had the monsters under control and would soon be able to finish them off.

Having observed this for herself, the dwarf player turned back to see Kirou still looking at her comical appearance and couldn't stop herself from puffing out her cheeks, which looked quite good on a female dwarf in Kirou's eyes, as she spoke, "I get it, this hammer looks funny in my hands. It's not my fault. I don't have any other weapons I can wield and I'm not even that good at using this."

Kirou chuckled at her words before speaking, "I'm sorry for staring, but I'm quite curious about this hammer, you see. Would you mind if I borrowed it for a moment? Or borrow another one if you have a spare?"

Taking a look at the fight going on ahead of them, the female dwarf hesitated a minute before she initiated a trade with Kirou and gave him the hammer as she spoke, "This is the only one I have with me at the moment so please be careful with it." As she said this, she looked at Kirou as he had bullied her into handing it over.

Seeing this expression prompted Kirou to start laughing as he never thought it would look so cute on her. Just as he was about to say something funny in return, however, he noticed something nearby, and a schadenfreude smile formed on his face as he spoke, "Well, short stuff. Why don't I show you how to make use of this hammer of yours?" Following his words, Kirou equipped the war hammer, surprising the female dwarf.

Just as the female dwarf was about to ask what he meant by that question, something jumped out towards her from behind. Before she could even scream, however, she was greeted to a sight reminiscent of old school cartoons. Even in such a serious situation, the female dwarf player found it so funny that she laughed out, stunning the other members of the group slightly and prompting them to look, only to see another shadow wolf being sent away after being hit over the head with a comically large hammer. What made the situation even funnier was what came out of Kirou's mouth next.

"FOOOUUURRR!!"