—————

Congratulations, you have discovered [Wind Cleaver].

—————

Once more, the wind gathered. However, instead of the strong wind that he summoned before, a gale force wind seemed to come stampeding down the cliff face.

When it reached Wilbert, it did not congregate around his staff like before but just carried on. Although, Wilbert did seem to sense that the wind narrowed when it passed him, sharpening its edge.

—————

There were not enough runes in your inventory.

Training Staff (Wind) hidden skill has been used—[Overdrive].

[Overdrive] Uses Remaining: 2

—————

The gale blew past Wilbert and collided with the encirclement of wolves. Instantly, the front two rows were hurled into the air, dead before they hit the ground.

The back row was also knocked back, but like those wolves that had been hit by [Wind Cutter], they were only slightly injured.

Those wolves glanced at each other and their dead comrades before turning back to Wilbert and snarling, the saliva on their sharp teeth spraying towards Wilbert as they did so.

Having no time to pay any attention to the notifications that were being announced in his mind, Wilbert attempted to summon another [Wind Cleaver].

He sensed the same magic pathways as before, felt the blood-like circulation in his body, and imagined it coursing stronger than ever.

"[Wind Cleaver]!"

Like a majestic high wizard, Wilbert waved his staff along with his shout.

He did manage to summon wind, but…

Parrp!

Rather than a gale, it was just the trapped wind from one of the dead wolves.

[Skill on cooldown—14:21]

Sensing that nothing had happened, Wilbert paid attention to this notification.

"Well fuck me… Guess that means I can't use this spell for some time," he muttered beneath his breath, feeling bizarrely embarrassed by his previous failure.

After glancing at the remaining wolves and seeing that there were only about half a dozen, Wilbert immediately drew the bow and quiver. Given that there were about thirty metres between the two parties due to his [Wind Cleaver], Wilbert made the snap judgement that he could fire some arrows off quickly before engaging in close combat.

"[Quick Shot], [Quick Shot], [Quick Shot]!"

Wilbert fired several shots in quick succession. The first shot hit a wolf in the eye, finishing it off. The second narrowly missed its target, as did the third.

Given that [Quick Shot] prioritised speed over accuracy, along with the current, high-pressure situation, the fact that he had fired one so accurately was impressive.

Two of the wolves on the edge had reached within ten metres of Wilbert, so he threw those weapons aside and summoned his sword and shield.

As the melee weapons appeared in his hands the wolf on the right lunged at him. Wilbert could only pull his shield to the side to block the attack forcefully. The collision caused a small ache in his arm, but it was not as bad as he had expected.

[Jante Vicious Brown Wolf (Level 12) has dealt 2 Damage to you.]

'2 Damage… is that a lot?' Wilbert did not even have time to think of a plausible answer before he had to deal with the second wolf, which had lunged, as well as the first wolf, which was already back on its feet.

Now that he had his weapons in his hands, Wilbert managed to deal with those two as he had done with the previous wolves. He executed [Basic Shield Bash] on the second lunging wolf and then used [Basic Jab] to finish the first wolf before it had time to attack again. Once the one wolf was down, he killed the stunned second wolf.

Just as he prepared himself to face the remaining four wolves, Wilbert looked up and realised that the wolves were already dead, with arrows lodged in their corpses.

…

"What's so unusual about an NPC being here?"

"Yeah, there are elven tribes here. That's nothing strange."

"He's probably delaying us so that his companions can find the treasure."

The crowd did not seem to be convinced by the red-haired spearman's words. Some started berating him, whereas others 'saw through' his ploy and ran to search for the treasure.

"Please listen to me. He's a normal villager NPC; he shouldn't be here. I believe he might have the treasure on him."

"A villager? Are you sure it wasn't an elf?" one of the players nearest the spearman asked.

"Certain. While I was on my way here, I saw him battling two wolves. He used the basic sword and shield skills taught in low-tier cities; elf NPCs are either rangers or mages, right?"

"That really doesn't mean much. Why am I wasting my time listening to you?" typed an angry player, whose avatar was bulky and hairy.

"WhY aM I WasTIng MY tImE LiStEniNg to YoU?" mocked another player. "Kid, listen to the guy. He might have found something, which will save us some time. If he hasn't, we'll waste a couple of minutes listening to him, and I doubt any can find the treasure that quickly since we have twenty-four hours. It's not going to be a simple find and fetch task."

The red-haired spearman used the [Applause] emote. "Exactly. Now, normally, I would have dismissed this as well. However, I happened to watch a video a while back where a streamer tried to feed a villager to the wolves in the forest. He managed to lure the NPC to the edge of the forest, but the NPC couldn't enter.

"It seems the devs made the vegetation here solid for the NPCs but not for us. This means, if an NPC is in this forest, it's either a resident or part of some hidden task. Since he's not a resident, he must be part of the treasure hunt."

These details seemed to have won the spearman the crowd's favour.

"That makes sense."

"I remember watching a video like that, so he should be saying the truth."

"But why would you tell us all this?"

With a smiling emoticon appearing next to his head, the spearman replied, "It's just a game. I only hope that whoever finds the treasure will share what happened with me. I'm more interested in the story than becoming the strongest."