Undercurrents

Esdras rolled over the body of the giant toad and made a run for it, when he was back in the cover of the woods he crouched down and took the arrow out.

[+22 EXP]

That EXP was from the giant toad. It looks like it was not the same value across all monsters of the same level.

He did not know where the archer was, he was in a bad spot. The archer might be at that pyramid-like building at the end of the valley.

It was too far for a mortal archer, if he was on Earth he wouldn't even consider it, only a modern sniper could make that shot. But in this world it was possible for an archer who had superhuman strength to do it.

But, even then, was it really from that far up there? He had no clue, it was just a hunch, he didn't think so. While thinking about that he took one of his heath potions to heal his shoulder.

He calmed down, relaxed his muscles and breathed slowly. He kept hiding, wherever it may be it might reveal itself to him on it's own.

After an excruciatingly long amount of time in which Esdras debated on just moving out to test the waters he finally heard a noise.

*whoosh*

Something was moving very quickly and disturbed the wind, at such an event Esdras quickly dashed out and dodged an arrow that almost skewered him alive.

He got a glimpse at his foe, it was clinging to the top of one of the ruins upside down as if it didn't feel the gravity. It was a pallid thing that watched him with bulbous, madness filled eyes and mouth filled with flesh-hungry teeth.

[Ageruus creeper Lv.3]

It was like a monkey gone wrong with that human-like face and build, of course it had no skin and elongated claws for limbs. How it uses a bow was a mystery.

Esdras knew right away that it was too far and he wouldn't be able to make it before it increases the distance again, so in a flash of brilliance or stupidity he hurled his own mace at it.

It must have been caught off guard because it froze in place, but the mace didn't get a direct hit. Instead it shattered the already fragile ruined building and caused it to collapse.

Esdras sprinted to the scene and kicked the monster in the gut. It had somehow not been crushed under the rubble. Fortunately Esdras had an extra weapon, a dagger.

He slit it's throat at once.

[+35 EXP]

Using the same dagger he opened it up and a chest appeared after it exploded without hurting him.

[Eye of Ageruus creeper]: a common grade item, by imbuing one of the eyes with personal mana, it is possible to use it to observe and even transmit sound in the area surrounding the other pair.

Very good, this item might not seem like it was powerful but it could be very useful for spying.

The giant toad gave out two health potions.

Although he would have liked to continue he already spent too much time here. If he wasn't wrong then it was almost sunrise by now.

He had no choice but to retreat to the first floor and return to the tent. Seeing that he was right he hurried to sleep for whatever time he could.

Unfortunately he closed his eyes for what felt like a moment when he heard a commotion outside his tent and the sun was shining on him brightly.

Feeling sore everywhere he decided to find some way to organize his time properly. Doing things like this won't do him any good.

The new day began and Esdras lead the company to scout on this day without doing much else.

He them verified the findings and frowned, the goblins have settled here too quickly. It was very weird. Even if they were eyeing this territory before it was still too abrupt.

"Sir, it's as you've guess, the other areas are saying the same things." One of the soldiers reported at sunset.

Esdras had sent him to check on the situation in the other areas, it was not likely that their team alone almost exterminated the monsters, others must have done something similar.

And yet, other monsters from the depth of the forest have immediately taken the place of the old ones. It was inexplicable. If it happened once then it was a coincidence but more than that…

Anyway he just had to do his job and suppress the monsters quietly, the more complicated things can be left to the True mages.

But… taking some precautions was never wrong.

In the next few days Esdras didn't go back to the dungeon instead he lead the team to suppress the goblins in the area.

He made sure to instruct them not to go too far in killing the goblins, they were to kill three out of five and let two go as a general rule.

Bran and the others were baffled by these rules but they knew better than to question him. Actually they were even more baffled that Esdras didn't mess with them as much as they thought he would.

The first week was almost over and other than some strange orders and a little bit of hard work he didn't do much. So them met in the woods and talked in secret after everyone went to sleep.

"Hey, isn't it weird that he didn't do anything to us?" Theo asked.

"To be honest I also felt that it was strange, on the first day he seemed hellbent on taking revenge." Agreed Bran.

"What are you even surprised about? He's still that pathetic loser Esdras did you forget? Just because he got a little taller doesn't mean anything!" Hissed Tara.

"If I had that kind of authority I would have already taken revenge but he's just spineless, as usual. Hahaha. Remember that one time when we made him crawl out of the class?"

Everyone laughed in mockery. Just because Esdras didn't abuse them they felt that he was a pushover.