Chapter 29

Chapter 29 . Lizard Swamp (1)

No players hated easy-to-hunt, experience-rich, and item-rewarding monsters .

However, players naturally flocked to hunting grounds where monsters like these spawned . For Warlord, which had difficulty incomparable to those of normal console or PC games, it was much worse . Furthermore, Warlord’s death penalty was greater than in normal games . It was only natural for players to choose safe and easy hunting grounds .

But once one experienced being in a hunting ground where there were more players than monsters, and experienced getting into conflict with another party over a monster, a thought must have crossed his mind .

That rather than just looking at other players, it’d be better to hunt in unpopular areas .

Of course, when such thought was carried to action, most ended up seeing blood .

“Fuck! I told you, we shouldn’t have come here!”

“You’re the one who suggested it!”

Two players currently crossing a swamp was exactly in such a situation . They weren’t originally two . No parties came to hunting grounds with only two . If there was such a case, one or two members must have died, and the two remaining must be on the run .

Having lost their friends, no good words came out of the mouths of the two players running away .

“What kind of a hunting ground is this? Fuck!”

“Can you stop saying ‘fuck’? Do you need to say that in every sentence?”

“What? Want to fight?”

In a situation where foul language went back and forth, it was only natural for a fight to break out .

In that sense, the Lizard Swamp served as a good hunting ground for party members to reaffirm their relationships .

Lizard Swamp was a level 30 hunting ground where Green Lizardmen spawned . However, players ranked Lizard Swamp as a late level 30 to an early level 40 hunting ground . There were two reasons for its high difficulty rating .

First, Lizardmen were hard monsters to hunt . As they walked on two legs and carried swords, they were a vastly different type of monster from the usual . That said, they didn’t fight like humans either . As such, no one had any experience with their fighting style . One could only experience fighting with monsters like Lizardmen in VR games like Warlord .

The second reason was the nature of the swamp environment . In swamps, it’s much harder to fight or to run away . If a battle didn’t go as planned, the entire situation quickly became worse . For this reason, tank-type players were much more prone to dying in swamps .

However, setting aside these two reasons, the attack, defense, and stamina of Lizardmen weren’t particularly higher than normal .

In other words, if one had the experience and ability to deal with these problems, the Lizard Swamp would be a good hunting ground .

‘Is this the next point?’

Hyrkan checked the ground as he rolled his ankle . The ground only left a light footprint, proving its hardness .

‘Alright, here’s point C . ’

Hard ground .

That was the core idea behind hunting in swamp areas . Rather than thinking of how to fight in swamps, one needed to think about how to get rid of the disadvantageous effects of swamps . Further, it was better to have multiple areas that could do so . Once these areas were found, players would need to plan their activities around them .

It was the basics of hunting . Just like how fishermen knew where to fish, players needed to know the best places to hunt . Jumping straight into hunting grounds without knowing where to fight was simply foolish .

Players then needed to know how to lure their prey into their areas . In Warlord, it was extremely important to know how to lure monsters . Tanks with excellent luring ability often received special treatment from guilds and parties .

With that said, luring was not Hyrkan’s specialty . Luckily, it was easy to aggro Lizardmen . Luring them wouldn’t take extra effort .

‘What a shame . ’

Because of this, Hyrkan felt rather disappointed as he made his preparation in the Lizard Swamp .

‘If I made a highlight video of me hunting here, I would easily hit 10,000 views . ’

Many signs hinted that his fights would be easy . There weren’t many Lizardmen, and there were many areas he could use . It was easy to tell that Lizard Swamp’s difficulty level was exaggerated .

Enough conditions were met to make a good video .

Even so, Hyrkan had to restrain himself .

‘I can’t believe I have to suffer so much because of shitheads I don’t know about . ’

Hyrkan just did not have the ability to make enemies of famous or high-level players .

‘Fine . ’

He could only hold it in .

Of course…

‘You’re all dead when I become a Ranker . ’

Hyrkan didn’t plan on holding himself back forever . He was progressing at an excellent pace . He had the foundations to grow faster than he could have ever imagined in the past .

Once he had enough power and ability, everything would change .

Thinking about the future, Hyrkan smirked .

As he did, he took out and wore his hahoe mask .

★★★

A green-scaled Lizardman flickered its tongue as it glared at the enemy in front of it . In front of its eyes stood a Skeleton Warrior with a Lizardman skull .

The two only glared at each other with their swords held out in front . They showed no signs of wanting to clash .

What urged these two on…

Snap snap!

Was the sound of finger snaps .

Once the sound rang out, the Skeleton Warrior made its move . It held its sword up as it lightly and quickly closed its distance with the Lizardman . Then, it slashed down .

Clang!

The Lizardman did not hesitate to fend off the Skeleton Warrior’s sword .

Immediately after it hit its sword away, the Lizardman swung its sword towards the Skeleton Warrior’s chest . The Skeleton Warrior bent his body back to dodge the attack and began stepping backward to distance itself from the Lizardman .

The Lizardman had no plans of letting it get away . It followed the backstepping Skeleton Warrior and swung its sword . In order to block the slash, the Skeleton Warrior swung its sword .

Clang!

A metallic sound rang out once again as the two swords exchanged blows .

Within the metallic sound…

“Helm On . ”

A chant was heard .

“Bone Armor . ”

Watching the battle, Hyrkan chanted . Then, two horns spouted out of the Skeleton Warrior’s forehead . Its rib cage and spine began to expand, and the previously empty insides of the rib cage began filling in . The Skeleton Warrior transformed, looking as if it was wearing a white plate armor .

At the same time, the Skeleton Warrior’s flame eyes turned from blue to red .

Its aura changed as well .

Unlike before, it stepped forward and began swinging its sword aggressively .

Clang, clang!

The Lizardman did not dodge this abrupt swarm of attacks . It also swung its sword and fought back .

The continuous metallic ringing only stopped when their swords stopped in deadlock .

Kiik!

The screech of interlocked metal began to fill the surrounding air .

In this noise, Hyrkan made his move .

In an instant, Hyrkan approached the side of the Lizardman . With a quick motion…

Stab!

He stabbed his sword into the Lizardman’s scaly skin .

Having moved stealthily, there wasn’t much strength in his attack . Even the sword had only penetrated about an inch of the Lizardman’s skin . Taking the Lizardman’s size and skin into account, it was hard to expect much damage from such an attack .

However, that was enough .

Hyrkan made a satisfactory smile under his hahoe mask .

Lizardman reacted to Hyrkan’s attack . Still in a deadlock, it turned its head to glare at Hyrkan .

That was it .

Although the Lizardman flickered its tongue and glared angrily, that was all it could do . It wasn’t in any situation to attack Hyrkan .

In fact, it was a mistake to even turn its head aside .

Hyrkan’s sword had been imbued with Demon Curse, and its effect activated immediately .

Lizardman’s stats decreased by 10 percent .

With the 20 percent buff of Madness Helm, the Skeleton Warrior could fight evenly with the Lizardman . Now that it had lost 10 percent of its stats, the Lizardman was no longer on even footing .

Kiiik!

The Lizardman’s sword began to be pushed back, and it quickly turned its head back towards the Skeleton Warrior .

Stab!

Hyrkan once again stabbed his sword into the Lizardman’s side .

Ching!

At that moment, the Skeleton Warrior pushed aside the Lizardman’s sword .

An opportunity arose .

Swish!

With that, the Skeleton Warrior freely slashed his sword . The sword cut the Lizardman’s shoulder joint, and a deep wound could be seen along with huge amount of blood .

Even at this moment, Hyrkan was doing his work .

Stab stab!

Hyrkan stuck to the Lizardman’s side, continuously stabbing the same spot and digging up the wound .

Chrrrr!

The Lizardman flickered its tongue as it writhed . Hyrkan then distanced himself while the Skeleton Warrior once again threw its body towards the Lizardman . Now out of battle, Hyrkan summoned another Skeleton Warrior . Then, the fight continued .

The Skeleton Warrior under the effect of Madness Helm continued its battle with the Lizardman, while Hyrkan and the newly summoned Skeleton Warrior repeatedly attacked from its flank .

The sound of scales being torn, flesh being cut, and bones being scratched rang out in a mix . The sound of the Lizardman’s death began to slowly fill the silent battlefield .

★★★

‘1 minute 22 seconds . ’

In front of the melting corpse of the Lizardman, Hyrkan checked how long the battle took .

“Wow . ”

‘I’m amazing, aren’t I?’

The time it took the level 20 Hyrkan to kill the level 30 Lizardman did not exceed 90 seconds .

The Lizardman wasn’t a boss monster . It didn’t have high stamina or defense, nor was it a large-type monster . It was a monster a well-coordinated 3-man party could kill in 3 minutes . In other words, Hyrkan’s current battle prowess was well over a well-coordinated 3-man party .

Even Hyrkan was surprised . If he had chosen the swordsman class like he did before, he would have needed at least 5 Unique-rank item parts to have the battle power he currently had . Plus, his weapon would have had to be Unique-rank .

Furthermore, Hyrkan was practically under no risk during this fight .

‘I didn’t think Madness Helm and Bone Armor would go so well together . ’

It was thanks to his Skeleton Warrior playing a good tank role .

Madness Helm turned the summons’ personalities aggressive . There was no such thing as retreat . Thanks to Hyrkan’s training, the Skeleton Warriors showed high close combat evasion, which directly influenced their fighting capabilities .

Finally, the Skeleton Warriors acquired defense power through Bone Armor . Thanks to that, Skeleton Warriors took significantly less damage, and, consequently, the amount of mana they used decreased as well . Although Bone Armor’s mana cost wasn’t small, there was still a net mana gain . It would be especially helpful when fighting monsters stronger than Lizardmen .

In any case, aiming for the weak points when a tank was holding up a monster was Hyrkan’s specialty .

‘Best formation complete . ’

This was the type of battle Hyrkan wanted .

The feeling of everything going as planned made anyone elated .

It was the same for Hyrkan .

‘No need to stop here . ’

Occasionally, days like these came . Days when hunting just went so well! It wasn’t a common occurrence . Thus, it was important to make the most out of days like this .

‘Alright, let’s leave the egg searching for tomorrow . It’s not like I can do anything about it now anyway . ’

Hyrkan . He started his Lizard Swamp hunt in full scale .

And it didn’t take long for his battles to attract the attention of others .

★★★

“I told you, we shouldn’t have come here . ”

“I’m so tired . Unni*, let’s just go back . ”

[TN: Unni is a younger girl calling an older girl; it’s like onee-san . ]

“Yeah, let’s just go back . ”

This 3-man party was rather unique . It was a party made of only female players . They didn’t look good . The splashes of mud all over them showed that they had their fair share of troubles in the swamp . Other than that, their looks were quite decent . Of course, although faces of Warlord characters deferred greatly from reality, they were still pretty enough to be hit on when they walked down streets . These three were beauties in their own right .

“Think of what we went through to get here . We can’t just go back after five Lizardmen . That’s too huge of a loss!”

At the complaints of two, the third member, who seemed like the leader, raised her voice .

“For now, let’s move . Get up . ”

“I’m tired . ”

“We’re in a game . How are you tired? Get up!”

Reluctantly, the two girls stood up, and the party continued walking . In the end, they were able to make a certain discovery .

“Wow! Look at him!”

“Who is he? Wow, he’s so skilled . ”

They stood astonished as they found at a player fighting a Lizardman in an unbelievable battle .

Looking at his battle, the party leader’s mouth showed a meaningful smile .

“Let’s stick with him . How about it?”

Like an epidemic, the meaningful smile of the party leader quickly spread to the other two .