Back to Town

"I don't believe it! You're telling me someone was in the dungeon with us the whole time?" Galaad asked.

The party of six were sitting at a table in the Two-headed Goat tavern, their respawn spot.

"Yes, and he attacked me exactly when I couldn't afford to move!" Morana answered, her fists clenched.

"So he… what? Just randomly stumbled upon the dungeon and went in after us?" BoneCrusha frowned, his hand unconsciously reaching over to touch Morana's bottom, only for her to slap it away.

"Are you stupid?" Saarkas snorted. "He didn't find us by accident. I bet a hundred bucks he was following us!"

"So he was in beta like us, and is after our stuff?" SilentDeath spoke up.

"What other reason can you think of?" Morana looked at him.

"We've been here two weeks, right? Did you guys see anyone?" The rogue looked at the rest of the party, who shook their heads "There's no one here but us! So this guy must have spawned in another village, leveled up there, and walked here. Why would he do that?"

"You mean…"

"And who did we meet yesterday? Cordelia! She showed up, then this guy showed up. Don't you find that suspicious?"

At the mentioned of Cordelia, Morana felt a sour taste in her mouth.

"Shit! Why didn't I think of that? How could that idiot have made her way here all by herself? She fucking had help! Goddamn it!" She clenched her teeth.

"Never mind that. What are we gonna do now?" Galaad asked. He had been silent from the beginning.

"We watch the gates! He'll be back here within the day. I doubt he's willing to sleep in the forest. Not with what he's carrying!" the witch said.

"Okay. Let's say we see him. What do we do then?"

"Ask him very nicely to give it back to us, or buy it back from him if necessary," she said.

"Really?" Galaad asked. This was way more rational than her usual self.

"Of fucking course not!" She snapped. "We'll track and kill the shit out of him until he drops it!"

"Oh, that's more like it!" he sighed in relief. "I thought you hit your head or something!"

"You shut up!" She glared at him. "Don't you get snarky on me! I haven't properly told you off for messing up our run yet!"

"Sure!" The cleric shrugged.

"Uh…" Oneshot said, holding up his hand. "If what you said is true, then… he stalked us from town to the dungeon and even entered the boss room without any of us knowing. You never know what hit you until you're dead. Did you really think we can ambush him?"

Morana wanted nothing more than smacking the ranger upside the head, but had to admit he had a good point.

"He was just lucky, and we weren't on guard," she dismissed his worry. "We didn't expect to find anyone else in this town. Now we won't make that mistake again!"

"What if he just leaves?" Silent Death asked.

"He won't!" Morana answered with certainty.

"How do you know?"

"He's got five more targets!"

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

"One down. Five to go." Manco thought absentmindedly as he stepped out of the hollow of the oak tree.

Under his feet, the oak tree's giant roots were covered with the withered parasitic vines. Looking up, he saw that the tree was mostly free from the vines and beginning to return to its healthy state. He could see numerous small leaves sprouting from the branches.

Touching the tree, he was met with a notification letting him know that a [Sacred Oak Tree Branch] had been added to his inventory. Nodding, he began the journey out of the forest.

As players could check their combat log to see who attacked them, Morana must have already learned his name, level and class. They would assume he was a beta tester and be on guard against him from now on.

He was too optimistic when he expected at least three of them to drop Beta Gear. They had made arrangements to minimize losses, so he only ended up with one. However, if he played his cards right, he might be able to exploit this. From how Morana behaved, he guessed she wouldn't take this lying down. Even if she didn't really need the monocle, she wouldn't graciously accept getting killed and robbed in such a humiliating manner. She would take this personal and want payback. Which was what he hoped for.

Manco didn't use the same path that the group had taken but followed a more roundabout one instead. As he moved, he did his best to avoid disturbing his surroundings and constantly checked for signs of other players.

He was quite certain they would not enter the forest to hunt him. This place was too large and visibility was poor; they would just waste their time and he could slip right past them. The more logical option would be to watch the gates to wait for him to return to town. However, he didn't want to take any chances.

It took Manco two hours to get to the edge of the forest. Crouching behind a dense shrub, he observed the town. From his position he could see the fields leading to Broken Hill's south gate. His mind raced as he tried to predict the opposing group's movements.

If it was him, he would post one player at the church's bell tower, which was smack dab in the middle of town and had an unobstructed view to all the gates. Another four players would each keep their eyes on one gate. They had three casters, so there should be three Vigil spells being cast within the town, probably in the tavern district, the craftsman's quarter, the market, or some place he was likely to stop by.

He looked at the sky. The sun was hovering over the mountain range to the west. In about twenty minutes, it would be dark, which was the perfect time for him to sneak in. He could probably show himself and challenge them, but that would lower his chance of success.

"…And it's less fun," he concluded and opened his inventory to inspect his finds and kill time.

〔Memory Crystal: Vampiric Touch〕

- Tier-2 Necromancy

- Casting Time: Instant

- Mana Cost: 150

- Cooldown: 2 minutes

- Classes: Witch, Wizard, Mage, Priest, Cleric, Paladin

- Target: Self.

- Duration: 1 minute or 5 strikes.

- 30% of the damage dealt by your melee attacks is converted to Darkness element, and you regain hit points equal to 50% the amount of Darkness damage dealt.

—.—

Manco held the crystal to his chest, prompting a confirmation.

〔Would you like to learn the spell 「Vampiric Touch」?〕

"Yes"

〔Warning: learning the spell will destroy the crystal. Are you sure?〕

He selected 'Yes' again and a ball of light flew from the crystal into his body, leaving behind the empty crystal which crumbled into a handful of fine dust.

〔You have learned Vampiric Touch. To use the spell, visit a resting area to assign it to a spell slot.〕

Ideally, he would give that spell to someone using a melee class with spellcasting abilities such as paladin or cleric. For someone like him, who preferred fighting at a distance, this was not as useful. However, he expected to be by himself in the foreseeable future, and didn't want to rely on other players yet. It would be best to have multiple spells for different situations. This one would be perfect should he be forced to fight in close quarters.

"Hmm, speaking of that…" he opened his spell book to check the other spell he just learned.

〔Spatial Displacement I〕

- Tier-2 Conjuration

- Casting Time: 2 seconds

- Mana Cost: 150-450

- Cooldown: 3 minutes

- Classes: Witch, Wizard, Mage, Priest

- Target: Self or an inanimate object.

- Teleport target to a selected destination, which must be visible and no further than 15 meters from the caster.

—.—

There were several teleport-type spells and abilities in EoL such as Blink, Dimension Door, Portal and so on. Each had its own quirks. Spatial Displacement could only be learned from bosses, and would be a player's favorite for the reasonably short cast time and the ability to teleport objects. Its drawback was that the user could not teleport to a place he couldn't see, so teleporting through walls or similar maneuvers were not possible. The Mana cost varied based on the distance and the weight of the object being ported.

Manco could have waited until he get to a big city to learn Blink, but he needed it right now for the coming confrontation.

Having done checking the spells, he inspected the other items.

The ring 〔Wight's Band〕 provided small bonuses to Mana regeneration and Shadow-type spells. Its most interesting feature was the "Float" ability.

Putting on the ring, he found out that Float turned him weightless for a few seconds. Jumping then activating the ability would keep him moving at the same direction and speed. Using the ability while falling from short heights, on the other hand, broke his fall and allowed him to land quietly.

"This is pretty nice!" Manco smiled as he put on the ring. This was an unexpectedly handy find. He could already see several uses for this.

The 〔Necromancer's Robe〕 provided no physical armor whatsoever. Instead, it gave bonuses to Necromancy spells and some resistance to Darkness damage.

"Should I use summoning spells?"

As a solo player, having his summons hold back the enemy while he unloaded his area of effect spells sounded quite appealing. In addition, Necromancy summoning spells were quite cheap and plentiful. There are, however, several drawbacks to this build. The first was that summoning type builds needs a lot of things to be effective. He needed half a dozen spells just to call and strengthen his minions to an acceptable level, which ate up spell slots and reduced his personal offensive power. Secondly, summons were generally dumb and required micromanagement, otherwise they would be wiped out during PvE, to say nothing of PvP. This was why the most successful summoners only specialized in summoning and didn't do anything else during battles. That was not to mention the tedium of having to collect and keep creatures' body parts around to use as spell materials.

"I'm probably better off with a single, powerful pet!" He shrugged.

The darkening surroundings stopped his introspection. He looked around. The sun had just set, shrouding everything in darkness.

For a brief moment he couldn't see the town. It was only when the torches were lit that he could make out the south gate and the walls.

"This should be dark enough," he left his cover and began making his way toward the town.