Sneaking Around

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Nothing too clever, really, just a very humble ambush.

I know I am not a smart-ass strategist like one from a novel, so I just abuse my overpowered abilities and what I have in hand to get the results I want.

But ambushing the bandits at the village would be horrible because we would be letting them get too close to us.

We moved towards the direction Tina told us, as my senses only took us so far before some kind of magic effect suddenly canceled the noise.

I came accompanied by the Goblins Warriors, which was the main team that came with us for the Bandit raid.

They had leveled up a lot, and I think they might even be close to hitting max level.

The chief said he was at Level 12 out of 15, so at 15, they probably can evolve into hobgoblins or something.

I have to feed them some easy kills before that, and then… boom! The Goblins will be able to defend themselves way better than before. So, when I am gone, they can begin hunting wild monsters more frequently before using their new strength to gain even more EXP and help their other members level up.

Everyone wins!

And now, we lurked across the forest in the bright and early morning.

The sun had already risen into the sky, and the day was as clear as ever… it was a beautiful day to be honest.

Well, a beautiful day to slaughter…

"Here are the three rivers. They're very thin, but they are indeed rivers… How could we have missed them?" The Goblin Chief pondered.

The little Tina was more than right.

There were three rivers, each one was as thin as half a meter, and were separated by small patches of dirt and grass- actually, it is just a larger river that is separated by small island-like masses of dirt and rocks… but it does make it seem as if they were three rivers.

After crossing through it, we sneaked around a bit more, and then we found a large, old tree.

It was completely different than the other younger trees, which were rugged and filled with wounds. It even seemed as if it was struck by lightning a few times…It even had a big hole atop, where there was lots of dry grass.

I floated a bit upwards to see what was there and found four beautiful howl chicks sleeping with their parents, who looked at me with their eyes wide open.

They began to rain me with peeks, but I evaded and flew away.

That was both cute and terrifying.

"It's here,"

As I told everyone this, I suddenly felt the presence of something lurking around.

I glared into the distance and found a…

Huh? A skeleton was walking alone.

It resembled a normal low-level one.

[Skeleton Soldier: Lv3] [Rank: E+] [State: Scouting the Area]

Oh, he is indeed just a little soldier, and he's scouting the area… Huh.

"Alright, guys, time to get the plan going! Get in!"

I expanded my shadows as everyone jumped inside through [Shadow Storage], one of the most broken Skills I've learned thanks to Supreme Magic and my Dark Affinity.

I had heard from Lucifer that it would take dozens of years for a dark mage to learn such a complex spell… heh.

After that, I used [Shadow Sneak] and activated my stealth-based skills before waiting in the shadows of the forest as the skeleton got closer… and closer…

And…

Gotcha!

I opened my [Shadow Storage] and grabbed the skeleton before throwing him down.

And he disappeared! Heh…

"Gang up on him, guys! Get all the EXP!"

The goblins roared fiercely.

"Aye, aye!"

"Take this, you pile of bones!"

"ORRAAA!"

CLASH! CLASH! BOOM!

The goblins ganged on the poor skeleton until it was turned into a pile of shattered bones.

They all gained a little shared EXP, and so did I, and then, I took the faint phantasmal soul of the skeleton and ate it.

Chomp.

And then, I managed to gather a few memories it had…

Through it, I was able to see that the skeleton came from the temple right around the corner, and it really was an abandoned ruin. It looked like an old shrine that someone used to worship gods or something.

Anyways, the thing is, we were able to find the damn bandits. They were all leisurely relaxing around the temple, preparing and drinking their potions with other Undead as a Skull Knight laughed like a madman- Wait, what?!

They were drinking the dark potions! Why? You'll get a stomachache! And they were drinking multiple ones… Some even drank three.

As they drank them, they began to turn crazy, but the skeleton knight was somehow able to control these wild berserk bandits…

Holy shit, this is an EXP fest.

I-I mean, it is a very serious thing!

They also had slaves, and they were forcing them to drink the potions and adding them into the army of beastly like beings…

And…

As I popped my head out, I sensed a small magic barrier being formed around the temple.

A Skeleton Wizard raised a staff and created a soundproof barrier so we couldn't detect them.

Smart move, skelly, but it won't work on me as I can see you already.

There's no time to waste…

I saw that the slaves were all made into insane berserkers, but there should be a way to heal them back…

Emeraldine and the others also said they go back to normal after some time but suffer horrible sequelae… I have to catch them separately, knock them out somehow, bring them to us, and let them rest.

That's gonna be a pain, but if I put all my effort into [Shadow Manipulation], it should be possible to separate my [Shadow Storage] space into two or three different smaller spaces.

Like this, I can dedicate one to store the slaves, the other for the bandits to be slaughtered by the goblins one by one, and another for emergencies or something else…

Preparing my shadow storage space took me two minutes, and it was quite tough… But I did it, nonetheless.

And silently, I began to sneaky sneak through the shadows before reaching the ruins…

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