Chapter 08 - Problem or Opportunity?

 It didn't look like the trolls dropped anything… while most things looked like a game, maybe it was too much except for things such as drops.

 Regardless, Jason approached the corpses of the man and the woman who died and didn't find anything with them that could be useful. The guy had a rifle, but it broke during the fight. Two bullets in the stomach didn't stop one troll and didn't cause much damage either, so hoping that firearms would help was a waste of time.

 When Jason decided to depart, he suddenly made some weird noises… when he looked around, he was surprised to see some trolls coming from the distance he was heading to. They were running, and they looked pissed, as if they knew what had happened.

"This is unexpected, but… no time to think about it," Jason returned to the trees and then tried to hide behind one of them.

 The trolls were running pretty fast, and Jason couldn't think that he could be faster than them. They didn't have a skill or title that granted them extra speed, so he couldn't tell how they were that fast.

 Either way, when the monsters arrived in the forest, they were welcomed by a single Mana Arrow. The target protected its head with both arms, but the Mana Arrow still passed through it and killed the beast. Jason increased his magic by ten points.

"I don't have time to waste firing more than one arrow against each one of you," Jason thought while running toward another tree.

 Another problem was that he could run out of mana. Jason could tell that the trolls could detect the death of their allies somehow, so unless he dealt with them as quickly as posing, he might find himself being hunted by who knows how many of them… Jason decided to prepare for both scenarios.

 Jason hid behind another tree, and the beasts followed him… they were surprised to see him far ahead. He didn't hide there. He used the tree to change directions and gain some more distance. That gave him enough time to turn around and fire another arrow toward another troll. While they were twenty meters away, they didn't have enough distance to react.

(You obtained 100 experience points.)

(You obtained 10 SP.)

 The other two trolls dashed toward Jason one behind the other… They were smart. They were planning to sacrifice one of them as a meat shield to catch Jason… he couldn't tell based on their appearance alone, but they were brilliant, even when they were enraged as well.

 Jason also had a surprise for them. Instead of running away, he planted his feet on the ground and then transformed his weapon into a spear. When the first beast was about to collide with him, Jason thrust the weapon forward and impaled the monster's body. His thrust attack stopped the charge as well.

 Before Jason could pull it out, he saw the final monster jumping over the other beast and almost landing on him. Jason transformed the spear into a dagger, which solved the problem of pulling the weapon. At the same time, he pointed it toward the final beast and then thrust it toward the monster's heart.

(You obtained 100 experience points.)

(You obtained 100 experience points.)

"Ugh…" Jason muttered in pain when he felt his shoulders almost being smashed.

 Jason killed the beast, but he was unable to dodge the attack… that made him lose one-fourth of his HP, and since he wasn't completely healed from the boss, he began to sweat cold.

 After a while, Jason got used to the pain and then took a deep breath. He was starting to learn a lot from combat, so he had a few ideas on how to avoid that kind of situation again. Still, he felt that he didn't have time to waste analyzing what he had just learned. The atmosphere in the forest suddenly looked more ominous.

"This feeling… is the same thing I feel when I sense the trolls' anger," Jason thought. "More of them are coming? Why? This is too fast…"

 As far as he knew, trolls weren't good trackers and didn't have a particularly good sense of smell. Also, if they were reacting to their boss's death, that reaction was a bit too slow. Something was off.

 Jason wondered if it was because his sword was drenched in their blood, but that seemed unlikely… At the same time, he didn't bleed that much, either.

"This could be a problem, but it could also be an opportunity," Jason said while looking around. Using too many points without knowing what kind of build I want to make would be stupid, but freeing the area from those beasts will help a lot. Also, if they keep coming at me, it would be foolish to leave them alone."

 Jason opened his status screen and then added twenty points to Dexterity and twenty more in Perception. He immediately fell and noticed his body changing. His field of vision seemed large, and he could see things in more detail. At the same time, he felt like his body got lighter and like he was finally free from some chains that were hindering his movements.

"I will never get tired of this…" Jason smirked. And I know how to kill them with relative ease now."