Chapter 68 68: Frog In A Well
After his failed experiment, he went to check his loot from the silver chest that dropped. While he grabbed his things, he gave Arachne and Fenrir a mission, which was to grab the hearts from the corpses of the zombies.
He sat a green orb off to the side. He had received every color besides that, he could only assume it was agility, perfect for Arachne.
Next he pulled out a pair of what he would consider to be brown sneakers that had a imprint of wings on the side of them.
His eyes brightened when the thought of flying entered his thoughts but then he calmed himself. He didn\'t really believe the shoes could allow him to fly but the thought was sure enticing. Before he did anything else he quickly removed his bloody boots he had on to put on the new ones. The ones he had now felt almost weightless. It may not have been as durable as the boots before, but when he checked his stats, he saw that the shoes increased his agility by 5 instead of the boots two.
After that he picked up some leather armor pants that were the same ugly brown as the shoes with the wings logo. It wasn\'t really something he would want to put on over what he already had so he decided to stuff it into his bag.
When he was done recovering the little bit of the gold that was within the chest, he noticed a medium sized pile of bloodied crushed hearts piled close beside him.
\'Must\'ve been Fenrir\'s handiwork…\' Noah thought while taking a glance at his two creatures who appeared more proud doing such a simple task then actually killing monsters for him.
"Haha~ you both did great, go do whatever you want while I\'m doing this but don\'t go far.
From his connection with Arachne, he could tell that she felt extremely proud of his praise, while Fenrir, well Fenrir\'s actions alone was enough to figure out that he was happy. But surprisingly Arachne didn\'t go off to eat like he thought she would and she walked over by his side and made herself comfortable.
\'Well I can\'t expect her to always eat, she has to get full at some point and that fat thing should\'ve definitely satisfied her. But I have no words for him…\' He looked over and glanced towards Fenrir, busying himself with the two bodies of the vultures. Noah was seriously doubting that he could ever get full, but when he considered his size then it made everything seem more reasonable.
He didn\'t waste time to quickly rummage through the hearts to obtain their cores and stuff them in his mouth like candy before quickly shuffling through his notifications at the end and checking to see the improvements in his mana.
[Player: Noah
Race:Human? Chimera
Class: monster tamer
Gold: 381->426
Lvl: 9
Exp: 943/6400->1053/6400
Health:50%
Stamina:49%->50%
Mana: 16/116->15/122
Attributes
Defense: 25
Strength:24(26) [8]+5
Agility:36(40) [12]+7
Constitution:53(58) [17]+10
Stamina:27(30) [9]+5
Magic: 53->56(61)
Spirit: 103(113)
Skills
Active
Monster taming(lvl 0)progression:75%
Killing instinct (lvl1) progression:4.7%->8%
Decree of Equivalent Exchange (lvl 0) progression: 100%
Undead Webbing(Lvl 0)6.2%->6.4%
Elusive(Lvl 0)progression:0%
Passive
Rodeleros(lvl 0) progression: .6%
Soul cage(lvl 0) progression: .76%
Stamina regeneration (lvl 0) progression:100%
Immortal body (lvl 1) progression: 6.4%->10.1%
Budding feeder (lvl 0) progression: 100%
Subservient Hierarchy (lvl 0) progression: 100%
Genetic Synergy(lvl 0) progression:50%
Taming proficiency(lvl 0)N/A
Unity through pain(lvl 0)N/A
Insatiable Hunter(lvl 0): N/A
Monster tongue(lvl 0):N/A
Spiders Alertness(Lvl 0)10.9%->11.1%
Sensory Spines(Lvl 0): 9.7%->9.8%
Titles
The Fallen, Subjugator]
\'Not being able to upgrade my skills without that stone might become a problem. Maybe that\'s what the quote \'a jack of all trades, a master on none\' means. Having too many skills isn\'t always better, I\'ll have to really consider what to level up next when I obtain another one.\'
He was about to get up to leave, but when he noticed the increase in stats from wearing the new shoes, a thought crossed his mind. Something that he has overlooked this entire time. He looked down towards the eerie sword in his hands with a frown.
"This was from a boss monster and it doesn\'t give me anything except being ridiculously heavy and sharp? No…There has to be something to it…lets try…"
He ran one of his fingers along the blade of the sword, easily causing blood to appear since his constitution is not as high as it used to be. He then used the bloody finger to smear the blood on the blade and some on the hilt for safe measures and checked his again.
\'….Nothing? This sword is just too good to not have any effects or stat boost. But I can\'t spend all day thinking about it if I don\'t even have an idea of what to do.\'
He gave up for now and prepared himself to leave and was about to call out for his companions when he noticed the wound on Arachne. He rushed in a hurry, even though the wound didn\'t seem to bother her at all. Noah wasn\'t aware of it, but Grims death left a small trauma in his heart, but since he has never dealt with anything like this, he didn\'t realize the change.
The wound stopped bleeding quickly and began to heal visibly, his skill compared to the healers he\'s seen before couldn\'t be compared with how high his stats were. Sadly the skill could only be used on creatures.
Noah didn\'t hesitate to move on after that, his next step was to head past the building leading to the main lot. If nothing came out from the open doors of the center by now, he was sure there was nothing that could danger him within.
On the way there he was able to make out the smoke in the air more clearly, alarms were blaring nonstop from the cars, The only thing he realized was missing were the screams.
Having made it past the other side, he was met with a chaotic sight. Cars piled on top of another while dead bodies laid inside the vehicles and many were scattered through the lot. There were many cars that were emitting smoke and some that were on fire or already exploded.
And around all of this were zombies scattered through the area. It wasn\'t a lot, maybe a little under seventy, but considering how many people had the idea of leaving through this particular point, the number was small.
\'Well I was expecting this, All the noise is on the other side so of course they wouldn\'t stay here. But still…I won\'t let this experience go.\'
Gunshots!*
Noah was about to start moving again when he heard sounds again on the other side. And not just any sounds, the sounds were of multiple guns shooting like an automatic weapon.
\'The police? Or is it the army?\' Were Noah\'s first thoughts, he had half a mind to find another way out if it were any of the two. He felt that people in law enforcement or anything that had to do with the government would try to use him and justify it by saying he owes it to the people because he was strong.
Plus they had guns! He was unsure regarding Arachne and Fenrir, but he believed that guns were still lethal to him especially during the time of him recovering.
"Aaahhhhh!"
He was about to find another exit when he heard screams over the sounds of the gunfire.
\'What the hell are they fighting?\' It was too late to unhear it, Noah\'s curiosity peaked once again. He began to make his way through the maze of cars. To make it easier on himself, he began to walk over them instead of around them.
"Fenrir, Arachne! Help me finish up the zombies here."
Even though he was interested in what was going on the other side, that didn\'t mean he could ignore the experience trying to make their way towards the sounds too.
Thud! Thud!
The sound of two heavy objects landing on the roofs of cars could be heard. Arachne and Fenrir were naturals of parkour as they began to make their way to their prey. Noah wasn\'t going to participate in this fight, he was already struggling to traverse across the cars while holding his sword.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
"Don\'t stop shooting! Just maintain your distance, idiots! If it can\'t reach us the-"
A man could be seen shouting orders to his group of people wearing all black and carrying Weapons ranging from pistols, sub machine guns, to assault rifles.
However in the middle of him talking, his voice was cut off and stood there in a daze. The people that were with him stopped firing to see what was going on before slowly his body back to split perfectly in half from top to bottom.
No one there saw what exactly happened at the time, but they knew who the culprit was. Even in their shock, they all turned and began to fire again.
"Kill that bitch!"
The group became riled up even more to take down the one responsible. Their group amounted to over fifty people all suited with guns, they didn\'t seem to be related to the military or the police, but they weren\'t the only ones.
Another set of cars arrived from the other side of the road, and groups of people hurried out, all wielding guns as well. But unlike the group before, everyone drove in a black SUV compared to the other groups whose cars ranged from different colored luxury cars and models.
They didn\'t immediately fire, but kept their vigilance up around them to observe what\'s going on and they waited for their leader to give orders.
Out of all the cars, there was one car that wasn\'t a SUV, but was a black hummer. Instead of the door opening, the window rolled down instead before an older man with all grey hair and neat trimmed beard poked out his head.
"Don\'t worry about the others, just kill that beast so we can go find my princess!" The old man\'s face appeared calm but his voice was anxious.
His group nodded in acknowledgement and edged forward with their weapons out. They couldn\'t show it, but they were feeling afraid when they saw what they were supposed to kill.
In front of them was a woman that turned into a zombie, they think? But the term woman and zombie was too light of a way to describe her, she literally a freak of nature. Tentacles, that was the first thing they saw when they spotted her. It wasn\'t the kind of tentacles you would see from an octopus even though they were similar. The monster\'s tentacles seemed to be made out of muscles and tendons.
And it wasn\'t just a few, the tentacles would emerge from her back like bees from its hive. The tentacles stretched for Meters and they were fast! But that wasn\'t what made her so frightening. The tentacles could cut through a person like butter and whenever bullets approached her, she would surround herself with tentacles to protect her vitals.
But they had guns! Even though they were afraid, holding the guns gave them courage to take on anything. They had the courage to trek through the city to get here because of their weapons. The zombies and animals they met so far were easily put down when shot in the head, allowing them to level up with ease and grow stronger.
With their newfound strength and weapons, they ignored the accumulating fear and rain down bullets on the monstrosity before them.
Seeing that another group appeared to help, the group before became more feverish in their attacks, screaming as they shot.
Whoosh!
The monster had to cover her face from the bullets so she couldn\'t see, but she could feel through the bullets impacts where the bullets were coming from while shooting out a tentacle in a sweeping motion in that direction.
The second group wasn\'t aware of the speed or range she could attack, but with their stats, some of them could still react.
"Duck!"
"Get back!"
Different yells sounded. Most of them were able to react in time, but five people hesitated and could only feel something swipe across their mid sections. They looked down in confusion before blood splurged out from their lips first and then they found their bodies tilting over on their own.
....
"...."
\'I\'m not prepared for this shit!\' Four pupils stared through the gates watching everything transpire.
Noah could clearly tell that this creature was one of the zombies that \'broke its limits\' the god mentioned before. Originally he thought that his stats were high enough to still contend against these so-called superior creatures. However as he watched the one sided slaughter, he realized that even if he recovered, there was still a chance he could die.
Noah watched in shock, after he saw a few more people die, his gaze grew solemn. He saw what he needed to see, he turned back around and began to make his way back to the campus with a determined expression.
His creatures were still busy watching the monster slaughtering the people that it took them a few seconds to realize that Noah was walking away. Noah was too deep in his thoughts to call out to them.
\'Just reaching level ten won\'t help me…If I\'m going to do this on my own then I need those two to evolve as well. It seems that the tutorial stage is over.\' He took one last look back before making his way to an area he was sure there would be something to kill. He just hoped it wasn\'t similar to the monster he just saw.