Chapter 23: First Boss.

"What?! This man is built like a tank!" Evan was in denial.

"It says Stealth Hunter in his description so it has to be an assassin type." Kennen reafirmed.

"Man…you know what? I don't care… this lizardman looks like he can be a tank too." Evan laughed.

Kennen knew his friend wasn't serious and was only joking around.

However, Kennen understood that being the only frontliners that could take a hit must not be a good feeling and Evan also had a lot of pressure to block monsters.

As the other frontliners, Frank and Brandi, couldn't occupy a monster like a real tank could.

Frank could dodge the attacks of the monster he had the aggro but he had to be perfect in his movement as the moment he failed to dodge something was the moment where the line collapsed.

Brandi could potentially be a tank but her lack of focus and nervousness make it that she made too many mistakes that would potentially threaten her life.

She also was physically not up to part to fully parry a blow with her sword. The crystals she absorbed didn't only improve her sword's durability and sharpness or swordsmanship or even only gave her another skill, it also improved her physical fitness.

However, the boost was nowhere near at the level of Frank or Evan, it was only noticeable in Brandi's case because of the number of crystals she took and also because of how weak she was at the beginning.

"So what can it do?" Enzo asked curiously.

"It can go in stealth apparently." Kennen replied as he touched the skin on the lizardman.

The skin was quite smooth and not as hard as he thought it would be.

"Can you go into stealth?" Kennen asked his new summon.

The lizardman growled.

It couldn't speak human language but Kennen could understand it as the lizardman was also smart enough to communicate clearly.

It demanded Kennen to bestow a name and indicated that he was a male so Kennen could take that into consideration when naming him.

Kennen was taken aback by this as his goblins never asked to be named so he was put a bit under the spot.

"He needs a name, help me come up with one." Kennen told his friends.

"I don't know… that's on you, maybe Curtis?" Rafael said.

"Mmh, maybe Naga?" Enzo suggested.

"I vote for Bob!" Evan laughed.

"Oxyotl, known as the one who hunts unseen. It comes from a game, it suits him perfectly!" Frank also gave it a try.

"Oh perfect name, Frank!" Kennen thanked him.

The name sounded like it would come from a lizardman too.

Sensing that its name had been decided, the lizardman got down to one knee and waited for Kennen.

Kennen wasn't sure what he was supposed to do exactly so he just did whatever felt right and appropriate for the situation.

"From now on, you shall be named as Oxyotl."

He then tapped on Oxyotl's shoulders and lastly on his head too as if he was knighting him.

With that done, Oxyotl stood up and roared loudly to the sky.

"Damn, he's really happy huh?" Evan said.

"You'll be happy too if people called you by your name and not by your race." Rafael said.

Kennen could feel how happy Oxyotl was via the connection they shared and how much getting a name meant for him. It was like a proof of his existence and the marking for the start of his life.

"We need to see him in action now." Frank showed a bit of excitement.

"Can you go into stealth?" Kennen asked Oxyotl.

Oxyotl growled back, in affirmation.

Then his new summon slowly turned invisible as if he was being faded out of existence.

"We can't see him at all!" Evan exclaimed.

And Frank even went to where Oxyotl was but he touched nothing but air.

Kennen also lost sight of him but he could feel exactly where his summon was.

The lizardman moved and was behind Enzo now.

"AH!" Enzo yelped when Oxyotl patted his back, "What the hell! Don't do that!"

"Holy… that's creepy." Rafael said.

"Hmm, how are you supposed to counter this?" Frank pondered.

"Like any other invisible enemy, zone attacks, throw a bunch of dust or paint to mark the target or be on the beach. I'm sure you can see the footprint." Kennen gave out some idea how to counter this from the top of his head.

"Can he maintain it indefinitely?" Frank asked him.

"Nah, it consumes stamina."

Kennen suddenly felt weak as if he just ran a marathon.

This was probably the after effect of summoning a new monster as well as Oxyotl going into stealth.

"Talking about stamina, I'm feeling weak after all of that." Kennen told his friends and plopped to the ground.

"Let's go back to the hotel then. We'll resume in the afternoon after some rest."

Frank decided to end the expedition right there since Kennen was tired.

With that decision made, everyone went back to the hotel.

***

Kennen needed a three hours rest before he felt back to form again.

After getting ample rest, they setted out again in hope of finding enough crystals to rank up the next person in their team, which was Frank.

He still needed 11 crystals to reach the count of 50.

So to ensure they at least get Frank to 50 today even with the drought of monsters lately, Kennen suggested they raid the park east of the hotel, where the giant wolf was.

With the addition of Oxyotl, Evan and Rafael's new skill, it was pretty much guaranteed that they would slay the giant wolf unless there were fifty wolves in there.

So they headed toward the park and it took them six to seven minutes to reach it as no monsters impeded their path.

At the park, Kennen couldn't see any monsters at the entrance so there was no need to worry that there were too many wolves.

They walked into the park and looked around, the giant wolf was there and near it were seven other wolves.

The wolves also noticed them the moment Kennen and his friends saw them.

Grows and howls were heard as the wolves showed their teeth to them, clearly ready to charge at any moment.

Everyone was expecting the wolves to charge right at them but the wolves just stood there. It weirdly felt like a Mexican standoff.

"Ah shit, let's get this done with."

Evan said in impatience and just charged in.

Brandi and Oxyotl followed closely behind while Enzo already killed a wolf with a well timed power shot.

The seven wolves accompanying the giant wolf were quickly hunted down as Oxyotl showed skillful use of his trident to slay them before they could even get close to him while Evan was dealing with the giant wolf.

Evan learned his lesson from last time and tried to not let the giant wolf catch him as he would just end up being flung away even if he could tank the bite.

However, he wasn't very fast and would have been caught already if it wasn't for Amelia and Rafael's help.

With the other seven wolves taken care of, Rafael used his newly obtained skill, Five Binds, on the giant wolf.

Five ropes of light came out and binded each leg of the wolf and the neck too.

Unlike his normal binding, Five Binds was able to fully restrain the giant wolf in place.

And that gave enough window for Evan to strike a point blank range Shockwave on the giant wolf's head.

The power strike made the giant wolf wobble as it puked some blood out, it looked like it was about to faint.

The giant wolf was trying his hardest to stay on his feets but it ended up falling to the ground, unable to get back up as the giant wolf couldn't stay steady and would just slip down the ground again.

Seeing this, Evan decided to finish it off with another shockwave.

With the fight ending, they just had to wait for the crystals to appear.

It didn't take long for them to appear but the crystal coming from the giant wolf was of different color from the usual crystals.

Usual crystals were red but the one appearing from the giant wolf's corpse was orange.

"Weird… why is it different?" Evan asked.

"Maybe it's a better crystal?" Kennen suggested.

"Makes sense. This wolf looked like a boss anyway." Enzo agreed.

"Frank, take it and see how you feel." Kennen said to Frank.

Frank nodded and without hesitation, he reached out and touched the orange crystals.

The process was the same as the red crystals as the orange crystals turned to dust and entered Frank's body.

It also took the same amount of time before it was done.

"How is it?" Kennen asked his friend.

"It certainly gives a more noticeable boost than the red crystals." Frank said as he rolled his shoulders and moved around.

"However, I'm still rank F so the orange crystal still wasn't enough or worth 11 red crystals."

Frank's crystal count was at 39 before this so it was unknown how much of boost the orange crystals were.

"Well, there's seven red crystals there." Kennen pointed at the wolves' corpses, "Take them one by one, maybe we'll be able to figure out how much the orange one is worth."

Frank nodded and went to absorb the crystals.

"Oh! I've ranked up!" Frank exclaimed right after taking one red crystal.

"The orange one is worth ten red then." Kennen came into the conclusion, the math was quite easy.

"What's your new skills?" Enzo asked in eagerness.

Everyone got a new skill so far at 50 crystals so it stands to reason that Frank also should receive one.

"Nothing…" Frank just chuckled dryly.

Kennen and the others were all speechless, none of them knew what to say.

Frank's power was sure unique.

"It's just like when I ranked up at ten crystals, just a significant boost in my physical aptitude."

Frank tested a bit and was noticeably faster than before but they needed more tests to see exactly how strong he was.

But as they were about to test Frank's ability, Kennen heard something whine.

It seemed to have come from under the big tree where the giant wolf was.

They approached where the sound came from and saw two wolf cubs.

They looked very cute and harmless.

"I feel bad now." Enzo muttered.

"We shouldn't, those wolves slaughtered a bunch of humans." Rafael said.

"What are we going to do with those pups?" Evan asked.

"Can't we take them in?" Frank asked and turned his head toward Kennen.

"We should totally! They're so cute!" Amelia and Brandi each too a cub into their arms and looked at Kennen with puppy eyes.

"Why are you looking at me?" Kennen felt the pressure from unrealistic expectations out of him.

"Can't you raise them?"

"Yeah… it'll be so sad to let them die just like that."

"No way I'm killing these little guys."

They all tried to convince him to take them in.

"Wait, I'm a summoner, not a tamer! I don't know how to raise them!" Kennen immediately rejected the responsibility.

He never even had a dog before so raising some demonic cubs was way out of his skillset.

"You guys can take them in and raise it yourselves if you guys want to." Kennen said.

"Will we really be able to raise them? We have a lot of things on our plate already." Rafael gave his opinion.

"They are super cute but can they even be tamed?" Evan questioned.

Amelia, Brandi and Frank looked sad as they understood that they didn't have the luxury of trying to tame monsters cubs when they could barely take care of themselves.

This was when Oxyotl growled,

He was volunteering himself to raise the two cubs and assured he would be perfect.

"Huh… Oxyotl said he can raise them." Kennen translated for his friends.

"Yay!" Amelia and Brandi cheered and rubbed their faces all over the confused cubs.