Fighting back (1)

"If you don't know how to use your Soultraits, open the status screen and speak the name out loud. Your Soultraits will be triggered and you may instinctively feel what you can do with it," Liam explained hastily before adding yet another instruction to the weary looking humans.

"Use your Arcanium to increase your Strength and Agility!"

Even if it was not polite to tell others what they were supposed to do, Liam did so nonetheless.

If the students were already strong enough to fend for themselves, he would not be required to save them. And, it was quite obvious that the students were already struggling to eliminate a single huge rat.

Liam was slowly getting tired which was also why he accessed the Arcane System to quickly purchase something.

[2x 『Energizer(F-Rank)』have been purchased. 2 Arcanium have been deducted!]

Two small reagents filled with yellow liquid materialized in front of Liam and he had to act quickly to catch them in midair. He barely caught it in his left hand while maintaining a firm hold over the battle-axe.

It was difficult to hold everything together but there was no time to complain about the trivial discomfort of holding too many things at the same time. If that were to be his only problem, Liam would be quite happy right now. He used his teeth to remove the lid of the vials before he gulped down the bitter liquid.

After that, his Stamina consumption seemed to decrease rapidly and it felt like his energy was increasing.

Liam shot forward again, using the corpse path to block the strongest rats from making their way up to the students. They were currently forced to experience their first kills, the first lives they took while wielding cold weapons whose sole purpose was to take lives.

It was only obvious that the students were beyond shocked but the psychological burden that was forced upon the students was too hard for many to handle.

Thus, Liam acted as the temporary spearhead of the ground and filtered out the massive threats. He blocked the strongest and taunted most rats to pull toward him, leaving less vicious ones for the students to tackle. His mission said that he had to protect the natives to the best of his ability and that was exactly what he was doing right now.

However, that didn't mean he would go out of his way to protect them. Sacrificing himself by jumping in front of the rats that swarmed at him from all possible directions was not something he would do.

He had to be alive to protect others, and he was not willing to risk being injured just to protect them either.

Rather than sustaining injuries, or going out of his way to protect the students, it was much better to let himself loose and improve his compatibility with the weak-ass physical strength that restricted him from going all out.

It felt like an eternity since he had been so weak and useless. Even ordinary Circleless monsters were able to fight against him head-on. In fact, they were all stronger in terms of stats. Even the strength of the ordinary huge rats seemed to be higher than his. Liam was only fortunate that he was not in need of an extremely high-strength stat to drive his razor-sharp steel weapons into his opponents.

'I will just finish this fucking mission and then leave them for good…' He thought while taking a glance behind his back to see how the students were faring.

Too late did he notice that he had long since walked down a different path than he told himself. It was not necessary for him to protect everyone, yet he chose to fight the rats outside the school building rather than turning the school into an impenetrable fortress.

This would have made things so much easier and the sacrifices would have been mere humans, strangers from a completely different realm.

Yet, seeing the way everyone looked at him with hope and a glint of reverence as he massacred dozens if not more than a hundred rats right in front of their eyes made him feel he was not abandoned.

It was as if time had slowed down right in front of the students. They could only see the rapid movements of the masked man and the raindrops that continued to fall onto the ground in a steady downpour.

Blood, body parts, and intestines littered the ground and the schoolyard was slowly filling up with corpses, that had now begun to pile up.

"Let's go inside!" The teacher shouted all of a sudden. He had just killed his second ordinary huge rat and was slowly getting the hang of the situation. His blank mind was slowly filled with well-construed thoughts and a rough understanding of their predicament along with steps to avoid it flashed through his mind.

It was too dangerous to stay outside the school building because the horde of rats seemed to be infinite. Even if it may not be much better inside the school building, it would certainly be better than staying idle in their current position, out in the open.

However, nobody moved in accordance with the teacher's words. They were all staring at Liam, who was slowly overwhelmed by the number of opponents that flocked in his direction.

The teacher could tell what his students were thinking because he was exactly wondering about the same. The unknown human who wore the mask of a devil was powerful. It was obvious to everyone that the masked man was someone with extensive combat experience, someone who was not afraid to kill for his own survival.

Even if the teacher didn't want to acknowledge it, they needed this strength…they needed the masked man!

"Sir, follow us inside…we can hold them off much better once we're in the school building!" The teacher shouted while turning to the school gate. He dragged a few students up from the ground, ignoring their miserable state of utter fear, and rushed inside with them.

At least that was what he wanted to do as all eyes followed him when a Blazing Tooth Rat emerged in front of the teacher.

'Is that how I am going to die?' He wondered, cursing his misfortune that was tailing him since a young age when something flew past him with a humming voice.

A moment later, the Blazing Tooth Rat squealed out painfully as a battle-axe with a large blade lodged itself deep inside the shoulder of the monster, pinning it to the ground.

Liam rushed past the teacher with nimble steps and pierced the Blazing Tooth Rat's heart.

[+0.5 Arcanium]

Afterward, he pulled the battle axe out of the monster, just to respond to the teacher in an impassive voice.

"Alright…let's go!"

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