‘It’s a +1 item!’

Even though it was still considered as an uncommon item, there weren’t many people in Feinan that were able to enchant an item!

Marvin felt happy. Holding the Kingfisher Jade Dagger, he couldn’t help but twirl it a few times, feeling overjoyed.

[Kingfisher Jade Dagger (+1)]

Quality: Uncommon

Attack: 6 – 9

Effect: Armor Break +5

Enchantment (+1): Parry +5

...

It looked like this dagger was used by that shepherd for self-defense. Armor break and parry properties were on two totally different sides.

"A dagger that can parry, what the hell…"

Marvin couldn’t help but want to mock the enchanter who added that property to this dagger. However, after thinking it over, he felt that this seemingly useless parry attribute might actually be useful depending on the situation.

Along with the fact that Marvin wasn’t a thief, even if he was able to keep up great offense and flexibility with a curved dagger in his right hand and a dagger in his left, it would still weaken the might of his two-weapon fighting.

As a result, Marvin could only use this dagger as a third weapon.

He replaced the common dagger at his waist with the kingfisher jade dagger. At a critical time, he could let go of his curved dagger and grab this dagger to attack

This gave him a wide range of attack patterns.

The only unfortunate thing was that the treasure chest hadn’t given a curved dagger.

If it had been an uncommon curved dagger, Marvin’s fighting would have gone up one rank!

‘After dealing with the problems with the territory, I must get a pair of first-rate curved daggers,’ Marvin thought.

Dual wielding rangers made a living through their blades. Wielding a pair of common daggers all day long… Isn’t that shameful?

...

Besides the bottle and the dagger, there was still an envelope inside the chest.

The envelope was sealed with wax. Well, this shepherd was already dead… After inspecting the envelope and confirming that there wasn’t anything like a trap or a curse, he opened it.

It contained a letter written in the shepherds’ special code.

Marvin searched through his Noble’s language mastery. But unfortunately, he found out that he wasn’t able to read the shepherd coded language.

This wasn’t surprising.

The Shepherd Organization, the Plague God followers and the Twin Snakes of Doom were all active evil forces in Feinan Continent. They had a special system and internal secret codes used for communication. And everyone who wasn’t a shepherd would find it quite difficult to pierce the coded language.

Their arch-enemy was the northern [Migratory Bird Council]. This was a powerful force formed by druids which had no lack of powerful legendary level druids.

The shepherds were sowing highly toxic seeds everywhere, seeds that agitated living creatures. This made the druids quite resentful.

As people in charge of maintaining nature’s harmony, they were giving their all to annihilate the shepherds.

Perhaps the druids would understand shepherd language.

...

After taking care of the loot, Marvin no longer needed to stay in the mine.

After checking the surroundings one more time to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything, he started going back toward the mine entrance.

He didn’t meet any earth spirits this time.

But he soon found out that when he arrived, everyone at the camp was already awake, and fully prepared for battle!

Most of the adventurers were hiding in gaps in the walls by the mine entrance, or behind obstacles in the camp.

Only the White River Valley garrison members were standing behind the fortification, ready to fight.

Far away in the darkness, a torch was raised. A few flickering glowing eyes could be seen along with it.

The gnolls had arrived!

...

‘They came so fast!’

‘I thought it would take them at least until noon tomorrow. I didn’t expect that gnoll Sorcerer to be so decisive. They actually came before dawn.’

Marvin quietly and stealthily walked to Anna’s side. He made some inquiries to understand the situation.

This pack of gnolls had rushed here and just arrived.

Fortunately both rangers were on lookout at the time, one of them an archer named Joey.

Joey had the same class. However, he had an innate specialty: [Farsight].

His eyes were very sharp. He was even able to detect the stealthy gnoll scouts in the dark.

It was thanks to this guy’s formidable power that they were able to avoid being sneak attacked!

Reportedly, there were four gnoll scouts stealthily approaching the camp.

But Joey reacted and ruthlessly shot them down!

This made Marvin have a whole new level of respect toward him.

These guys had some skills indeed.

"He used a six-arrow scatter shot; of them four arrows hit their targets," Anna whispered. "This kind of marksmanship is rarely seen even among pureblood elves."

Marvin nodded.

He didn’t need Anna to say a lot, as he also knew that this kind of ability was outstanding.

Also, apart from [Farsight], Joey definitely had another amazing specialty or he wouldn’t have been able to do that.

‘Such a talented person, ah...’ Marvin had this thought.

"What do we do now? After the gnolls’ sneak attack failed, they decided to be cautious and didn’t attack again," Anna asked, whispering.

She made the adventurers hide in the mine, where the gnolls couldn’t see.

That way they only displayed a part of their strength, the garrison team members and Joey.

This was a very smart move.

"Roughly how many gnolls?" Marvin asked.

As there was no moonlight tonight, his vision was around 0. Unable to see the amount of enemies was normal.

"I don’t know." Anna gravely shook her head.

Their group only consisted of ordinary humans with no dark vision.

Joey only had relied on his perception to notice the scouts, nothing more. He wasn’t able to tell how many gnolls were eyeing them.

"It doesn’t matter, we can wait. It’ll be dawn soon. If I’m not wrong, this pack of gnolls will attack after dawn!"

"We follow the original plan," said Marvin after thinking it over.

After saying that, he found a bunker and took a proper rest.

...

Why would the gnolls attack after dawn?

It’s simple. Their eyes were similar to those of wild wolves. In the middle of the night they would glow with a weak green light.

And humans are able to completely hide themselves in the dark.

Thus, they would turn into live targets if they failed to sneak attack. They would suffer a lot more.

That gnoll Sorcerer wasn’t a fool. On the contrary, a Sorcerer able to control a tribe was usually very clever.

He would certainly not waste the lives of his own subordinates.

They would attack after dawn. It was the best alternative.

Little had he imagined that Marvin had already set up a bigger trap.

...

Everything went just as Marvin expected. With the failure of the sneak attack, they didn’t have to worry about the gnolls attacking.

They were resting and reorganizing outside the northern part of the mine. Aside from a few mutated aardwolves howling from time to time, the rest of the gnoll troop was waiting.

This kind of situation was actually quite rare.

Because it didn’t match the gnolls’ characterics.

Marvin was actually quite happy about this because those always unruly gnolls being organized like this meant one thing.

That gnoll Sorcerer was among their formation.

‘That guy came. Don’t even think of leaving!’

Marvin was quite excited, even though he was still taking a nap.

A 1st rank Ranger killing a 2nd rank Sorcerer was actually quite challenging, let alone on a chaotic battlefield.

Thinking of this made his blood boil. Even with Marvin’s strength and experience, he also needed some luck.

But if it actually failed, Marvin still had a way out.

He had faith in his skill and strength, but he had even more faith in his brain.

In Marvin’s opinion, a real expert would never hesitate when fighting.

Rather, he would firmly raise his weapon, while having already thought several moves in advance...

Marvin was definitely that kind of person.

...

Time slowly passed by and dawn was about to arrive.

The garrison members picked up their weapons one by one and made battle preparations. They were mostly in charge of close ranged battle. There were only two archers among them.

After all, archer training had high cost, and they still needed to be born with talent. And as for expenses… Arrows were quite expensive.

Fortunately, Joey was also an archer. Not only did that guy have impressive shooting techniques, he could also provide a large amount support.

The gnolls in the distance began to get restless.

Suddenly, six aardwolves howled and broke away from the gnolls’ formation, charging at the frontline!

"A greedy one indeed!"

"He actually wants to use aardwolves to take care of our frontline, destroying our defenses in one move."

An idea popped into Marvin’s head.

Indeed, mutated aardwolves’ charging power was quite astonishing, but Marvin already had a way to counter that!

He suddenly broke out into a sprint and shouted to Joey, "Help me find that Sorcerer hiding within the pack!"