Chapter 15
#15. Euphoria
[The time of the wolves has come.]
The notification window that suddenly appeared was accompanied by a resounding wolf howl.
-Awooooooo!
At the loud howl, the shepherd girl and I both jerked our heads up at the same time.
This is a safe zone, so there’s no need to worry about being attacked by wolves, but the atmosphere is anything but normal.
[The detection range of all wolf-type monsters has been increased to the maximum. This change will last until dawn.]
Come to think of it, the sun had already started sinking low before I knew it. I had heard that wolves become stronger at dusk.
But their detection range increasing to the maximum—that’s a little more significant.
I’d heard that wolves’ detection range isn’t that wide under normal circumstances, but if a challenger is in a bleeding state, they can detect them regardless of distance.
Right now I’m being hunted by every wolf-type monster out there, and if their detection range also expands to the point where distance doesn’t matter...
That would practically mean every wolf in this field would come straight for me. Including the field boss, the King of Wolves.
Tsk.
If that happens, I’ll have to give up moving entirely until sunrise.
I can’t move while protecting the NPC from hundreds of wolves.
Good thing I ran all the way here to the safe zone without stopping to rest. If I’d hesitated, the quest might have ended in failure.
How did the first-generation hunters who took this quest when they first reached the 2nd Floor clear it?
-Flap.
I took a blanket out of my inventory and spread it on the ground. It was something I’d used in the 1st Floor labyrinth area.
Back when I was raising my one-handed sword mastery, I even slept and ate inside the labyrinth to improve hunting efficiency by even a little.
To rest properly, you eventually need a bed, but a few blankets like this are enough to camp out for a day.
“Um, adventurer... what are you doing?”
As I was setting up camp, the shepherd girl spoke to me. Come to think of it, I’d been treating her like part of the scenery.
I know she’s different from the NPCs in the 1st Floor village, but even knowing that, I still end up not paying attention.
“…The sun has set, so the wolves will become more active. Let’s wait until dawn before heading out.”
Even while saying it, I wasn’t sure I was speaking properly. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I should have practiced more often.
“Ah, camping. Flanders and I used to spend the night outside sometimes, too.”
-Woof!
“F-Flanders, saying it like that makes us sound so pitiful. Let’s think of it as camping.”
Since I was dealing with a shepherd girl who could understand even dog talk, it felt like I could probably say anything, but...
**
The shepherd girl took some simple food out of the pouch at her waist and laid it out.
It was jerky, chunks of cheese, and biscuits that looked like hardtack. Just looking at them, they didn’t seem very appetizing.
I took a White Roll out of my inventory and bit into it too. After brushing off the crumbs and popping it into my mouth, its distinctive sweetness spread across my tongue.
I’d been sick of it for ages from eating it every day, but I still couldn’t give up the level 3 luck buff it grants when consumed.
“Wow...”
As I ate the White Roll with a grimace at its annoyingly sweet taste, the shepherd girl sitting on the blanket looked at me with sparkling eyes.
Does she want some?
Come to think of it, this irritating White Roll had originally been a dessert close to a luxury item.
“Here, have some.”
I had more than enough of them in my inventory anyway, so I took out a few more White Rolls and handed them to the shepherd girl.
The shepherd girl refused while drooling all over the place, but after I urged her a few more times, she pretended to give in and accepted them.
Then, as if nothing had happened, she lit up and gnawed through the White Rolls at hamster-like speed.
She eats it like it tastes amazing. Anyone watching would think she’d been starving for days.
I left the shepherd girl alone and opened the Open Community, swallowing White Rolls one after another.
[2nd Floor Field Area Monster Guide ver.3.3]
[King of Wolves Robo Pattern Rundown & Guide]
[2nd Floor Field Boss Tips.txt]
I searched the community for information on the 2nd Floor area monsters, especially the wolf-type monsters, which I’d only skimmed and moved on from before.
I skipped over the newer materials and strategy posts I’d read a few times, and gathered information mainly from the old posts written by hunters from the earliest days.
Then I burned the monsters’ information written in those posts into my memory one by one, and started memorizing their combat methods and patterns from top to bottom.
There was still plenty of time before the sun rose and I could move again.
And I had no intention of letting that time simply slip away.
[The detection range of all wolf-type monsters has been increased to the maximum. This change will last until dawn.]
Why would I only bother stopping the wolves that approach the shepherd girl? Aren’t all the wolves coming for me anyway?
The wolves can’t enter this safe zone anyway.
Then all I have to do is leave the shepherd girl here and go out to fight.
If I wipe out every wolf in the field tonight, it’ll be perfectly safe until respawn time, right?
There’s no need to do separate mob pulling—how convenient.
**
After telling the shepherd girl to ‘stay right here,’ I grabbed my sword and shield and stepped out of the safe zone.
Even if aggro itself is drawn from inside the safe zone, an enormous number of wolves were waiting outside.
There were so many that I couldn’t even count them all by sight. There really might have been a few hundred.
I came out looking confident, but was it really possible for me to kill all these wolves by myself?
I didn’t know.
Even if I could finish each of them off in one hit, I’d still have to attack hundreds of times if there were hundreds of them.
It made me think of that pointless internet post I saw before: ‘McGregor vs. 500 Grandmas.jpg’
There were all kinds of conditions attached, but the conclusion was that the grandma legion could win with about a fifty-to-one trade ratio.
There was another similar pointless post: ‘100 bat-wielding Lee Dae-hos vs. 1 African elephant’
That one split opinions a lot, but most people seemed to see the Lee Dae-ho legion as the favored winner.
In the end, this was a matter of endurance.
How long can one strong person keep peak condition against a multitude of the weak?
The stats I can check in the status window are only four: Strength, Agility, Endurance, and Intelligence. Stamina or health aren’t listed separately.
Of course, I could feel my stamina improving every time my stats went up, so it was clear that some stat was affecting it.
Would my stat values, equivalent to level 50, hold out until I brought down hundreds of wolves?
Well, there was no way to know until I actually fought them.
**
-Crunch!
I swung [Kingdom Knight’s Straight Sword] and took the wolf’s head clean off.
Even without using a skill, most wolves can be dealt with in a single blow like this.
But sometimes there were wolves I couldn’t finish off in one hit. It wasn’t because my attack power was lacking.
-Grrrr!
A large black-furred wolf leaped up and pounced on me. I wanted to dodge, but the field was already packed with wolves on every side.
With no choice, I thrust out my shield to take the force head-on, then shoved the straight sword in my right hand into its throat.
“Hup!”
Then I pulled the sword free, raised it again, and hacked once more at the neck I’d already pierced.
Only then did the black wolf completely collapse and vanish in a ring of light.
These kinds are the problem. They’re simply too big physically, so I can’t take their heads off in one strike.
If the angle works out, I might be able to one-shot them somehow, but that’s not easy when wolves are surrounding me on all sides.
I need a bigger, stronger weapon. [Kingdom Knight’s Straight Sword] can’t handle monsters this size.
-Thud!
In the end, I had no choice but to pull out [Graksar’s Bone Axe], which I’d thought would be useless.
Its attack power was a little disappointing because I still hadn’t enhanced it, and its overall performance was lower because it didn’t benefit from mastery.
Just because it was big and heavy, though, I could bring down large wolves more efficiently than with [Kingdom Knight’s Straight Sword].
-Crunch!
I chopped the neck off a large black wolf with the bone axe in one go. Then I stabbed the small brown wolf that came charging in right after it with the straight sword.
[Graksar’s Bone Axe] has low base durability, and unlike [Kingdom Knight’s Straight Sword], it doesn’t come with a spare.
So I couldn’t just use the bone axe recklessly; I had to switch between it and the sword and swing it only at the right moments.
“Hoo, hoo... ha, fuck, hoo.”
Breathing out my increasingly ragged breaths, I stowed the shield in my inventory and took a weapon in each hand.
With wolves rushing in from every direction, there was no opening to block with a shield and counterattack. This was probably better.
-Graaah!
“Fuck!”
I stabbed and killed yet another wolf that came rushing in without giving me a moment to rest. Damn it, this is insanely hard. Should I just go back?
It felt like my lungs were shrinking. My side throbbed as if it were being wrung out. My mouth had a sweet tang, and my lips were drying out.
Thanks to my high defense, I hadn’t taken any major wounds, but the backs of my hands and my face had been scratched by claws and were burning hot.
“Heh, heh.”
But once I casually checked the level I’d gained in the meantime, my thoughts were quickly overturned by the surging exhilaration.
I can still do this. It’d be a shame to miss an opportunity to level this fast. I said I wasn’t going to stop, didn’t I?
“Come at me, you bastards.”
Whipping my tiring body onward, I kept cutting down and killing the wolves that kept surging at me.
[Passive Skill : Combat Persistence Level 2 has been acquired.]