Aftermath(1)

Soze was silent as the dozens of Moss Wolves dashed away below him, not a single one noticing him in his hiding spot. A few glanced upwards, but he quickly activated his [SNEAK] Skill, causing their eyes to pass over him.

Once the wolves passed, he waited for a few seconds before dropping from the tree.

"Hooo," he sighed, letting himself relax after having maintained his concentration from the moment the massive pack of Moss Wolves appeared. Soze opened his menu to check his remaining SP.

[NAME]: Soze

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 13

[EXP]: 5335/1800

[STATUS]

[ARMOR]: 13

{HP}: 180/180

{SP}: 10/180

[END]: 18

[STR]: 10

[AGI]: 21

[DEX]: 26

[PER]: 20

[REMAINING ABILITY POINTS]: 2

[SKILLS]

[ANALYSE] Lv.10

[ARCHER] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase attack speed with bows by 30%.

[DANGER SENSE] Lv.10

[HUNTER] Lv.10

[KNIFE FIGHTER] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase attack speed with knives by 30%.

[SPRINT] Lv.10(Master)

[SNEAK] Lv. 10(Master)

(Active Cost: 5 SP/sec) Greatly reduces the user's presence.

When the wolves began the attack, Soze had quickly activated his [SNEAK] Skill and was able to stealthily make his way to the wolves' backline. From there he had intended to begin picking the wolves off with his arrows and knives, but after hearing The Wise One's howl and seeing its effects, he knew that he needed to find it and take it out.

Closing in on The Wise One had been difficult since he needed to manage his SP consumption, but eventually, he was able to get close enough to see a single Alpha Wolf standing alone, facing the battlefield with rapt attention. From there, he was able to [ANALYSE] the lone wolf and began attacking while hiding in a tree.

"I knew Sneak was good, but this settles it. Sneak is broken," Soze decided.

It wasn't as if [SNEAK] made him invisible or anything, it did exactly what the description says, it reduced his presence. At first no one, not even Soze, really understood what that meant, but after experimenting with the Skill around the village he realized its potential.

By reducing his presence, Soze became the visual equivalent of background noise, still detectable but not consciously recognizable. When he walked around the village with the Skill active, no one ever heard him approach, their eyes pan over him without ever stopping to recognize him, sometimes when they walked past him they would step aside without realizing they were doing it.

The Skill's biggest flaw was that being too overt would cancel out the effect. Walking directly at someone, making eye contact, speaking too loudly, and even moving too aggressively could make you noticeable again. Furthermore, players were naturally out of place in the woods, so animals also had an easier time seeing through the Skill than when using it around the village.

Overall, players could sneak well enough just by being stealthy. It wasn't perfect, but they didn't need to be to creep up on their usual hunting targets. To the others, [STEALTH] seemed like a waste of time, but Soze didn't agree. He had dealt with wild animals in reality, and he knew how valuable effective stealth was for survival.

'Honestly, without Sneak I don't think we can take that thing out,' Soze concluded, thinking back to the abilities of The Wise One.

[NAME]: The Wise One

[SPECIES]: Alpha Wolf

[LEVEL]: 12

[STATUS]

{HP}: 400/400

{SP}: 400/400

[END]: 20

[STR]: 20

[AGI]: 31(15.5)

[DEX]: 22

[PER]: 40(+20)

[SKILLS]

[AGILE] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase AGI by 50%.

[COMMUNICATIOR] Lv.10

(Passive) The Unique Skill of The Wise One. Allows The Wise One to more efficiently communicate ideas and commands.

[DANGER SENSE] Lv.10

[OBSERVANT] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase PER by 50%.

[SPRINT] Lv.10

It was the first named monster the players had discovered so far, and to call its abilities intimidating would be an understatement. Its stats were incredibly high, much higher than its level would suggest. It had far more Skills than any other animal they had seen, including two stat-boosting Skills, which no other animals seemed to have.

'First the Iron Ants and now a named monster,' Soze thought, making his way back to the others, 'we need to get back to the village, ASAP.'

~~~~~

When the piercing howl returned, Yang hadn't expected it to be calling for a retreat. She watched from the water as every wolf scattered and fled, still unnerved by so many animals acting in near-perfect unison.

As they cleared out, Yang could finally get a clear view of the battlefield. Alexx and Zed were surrounded by wolf corpses. Alexx's forearms and shins were covered in small cuts, the Moss Wolves apparently hoping to slowly disable his ability to fight back.

Zed had taken less damage but was breathing far more heavily. Unlike Alexx, whose entire body carried deadly force, Zed could only threaten the wolves with the tip of his spear, making the wolves far bolder in their attacks. He was skilled enough to deflect their attacks with the shaft of his spear and agile enough to avoid what couldn't be blocked but fighting against so many enemies had pushed Zed's mind and body to their absolute limits. Even now that the battle was over, Zed held his spear at the ready, eyes frantically looking around for the next opponent, teeth bared in a manic grin. His expression calmed down as he realized that the fight was over, and soon his entire body fell to the ground like a sack of rocks, not moving except for the rise and fall of his chest.

Yang didn't see Loran or Soze at first, but turning upstream her blood went cold as she saw Loran's legs lying flat in the blood-stained grass.

"L-Loran!" Pulling herself out of the water, she began to run towards him.

"I'm not dead," he said in a labored voice. His torso had been obscured by the body of a wolf next to him, so Yang didn't notice that he was still breathing. She calmed down slightly and continued to approach, glad that he wasn't dead, but took a quick breath as she finally got a good look at him.

Of the three guys, Loran was easily the most heavily injured. His leather armor was shredded and nearly every part of his body was similarly tattered. Most of the wounds seemed to be minor but there were just so many of them. The bleeding didn't look too bad, but it was clear that without the game systems making their bodies more resilient he would've been dead a while ago.

"Holy shit, Loran don't you dare die!" Yang pulled a handful of Wolf's Boon off one of the nearby bodies and began applying it to some of the worse-looking areas.

"Well I was planning to bleed out in about a minute but since you asked so nicely," he smiled sarcastically but winced as the motion strained a long cut on the side of his face. "Just keep applying the moss, I'd help but I'm feeling….weird right now."

"What's your status? I don't have Analyse."

"Uhhh…. Okay, fuck, you may want to hurry with the moss, I think I'll actually bleed out soon. In fact," he raised his head and looked around, "pull that wolf closer so I can help, I can still move that arm."

"Yeah, about that," Yang looked at his upper arm as she pulled the wolf body closer, "what happened?"

The armor on Loran's left shoulder had been torn away, and while there wasn't much bleeding the area was heavily bruised and bent at a weird angle.

"One of the bigger wolves went at my throat while I was mid-swing. I was….I was able to move enough to protect my throat but it yanked hard on my arm." His eyes focused on his menu for a moment. "Yep, that's a… that's a Dislocated Arm debuff. Oh, also Moderate Blood Loss."

"Well, that's not surprising."

Loran was trying to help with applying the moss, but he clearly wasn't able to focus as just blindly rubbed the moss into his chest.

'The blood loss must be getting to him,' she thought nervously. "How's your Bleeding?" she asked, not noticing any more wounds that were actively losing blood.

"It's uh, it's gone. I still have Shredded Flesh though, I'll need more moss."

"Well damn," exaggerating her movements as she looked around, "I'm not so sure if we have any extra right now."

"Shit, getting back to the village is gonna suck."

"....Dude, I was joking, you guys killed like thirty of these things."

"....Fuck I can't think right now."

"What happened?" Yang heard from behind her.

Turning, Yang saw Soze making his way across the field, running towards Loran and her.

"He got messed up by the wolves and now a Blood Loss debuff is fucking with his head, he isn't dying anymore though."

"My arm is dead too."

"What do you mean dea- oh I see," Soze said as he sat next to Loran's dislocated arm. "Let's see…" He [ANALYSED] Loran and suddenly his eyes went wide. "Okay, this debuff is just evil."

"How bad?"

"It lasts three days, reduces HP and SP regeneration by half, increases susceptibility to the Fainting debuff, and causes Disorientation which is another debuff that locks his sense of balance."

Yang's eyes widened. 'Okay, that Dr. Zhang or whatever isn't just a psycho, he's a fucking asshole.'