I

She woke at first light later in the morning. The lack of sleep wasn’t really an issue as her improved Stats meant she needed an hour or two less of it to feel rested. That had been true towards the end of the Training and was even more true now that she had around three times the Stats. Sleep was fun, but she could probably stay up for a day without too many issues or assistance. The lack of food she’d brought with her was likewise not a problem. The amount of food and water she required daily was around half as much. She’d had enough the night before to last her most of the new day.

Eva stretched and went about improving her gear. She had enough to add one effect at a time to most of her gear. However, she would get a better bang for her buck using the chance shards. She had one Journeyman Chance Shard★ and eight Novice Chance Shards✦ to work with in addition to several of both tiers for the augmentation shards. She wouldn’t touch her gear that had self repair with the chance shards since that was the single most desirable option she wanted to get on them.

Using the Journeyman Chance Shard★ and four of the Novice Chance Shards✦ netted her a self repair for her leather chest armor. She had no such luck with the leggings, however. With the rest of her shards, she filled out the bonuses as best she could.

Boots of the Traveler★

Agility +10%

Health +31

Stamina +18

10% of physical damage taken as fire

Shield★

Reflect 5% of melee damage back to the attacker

Self Repair

Endurance +7

Health +21

Leather Armor★

Health +71

Mana +12

Self Repair

Dexterity +3

Leather Leggings★

Reflect 3% of melee damage back to the attacker

Agility +4

Health +10

Reduce physical damage taken by 5%

As soon as she was done, she put her gear back on and went looking for a place where she could get a good view of the fort without being easily seen. There would likely be people after her in a few hours, and she hoped there would be hunting parties she could annihilate that weren’t aware she was there yet. After all, the more damage she did now, the less likely they would raid again. She shook her head, thinking about just how messed up they’d gotten in only a few days with no one to dissuade them from being shitheads.

Around a hundred yards from the edge of the forest, near the front gate of the fort, Eva climbed a tree. Climbing was something she had been bad at before the Tutorial—that one time she’d had to climb a rope in gym class and had not made it off the ground—but Stats made a huge difference. It was hard to lose grip when she could shatter a branch in her hand if she tried hard enough. That more than made up for the lack of technique. As soon as she was perched on the second layer of branches, she stilled herself as much as possible. Her perception was what she needed now. That, and no distractions.

II

Slowly the sun rose, and slowly the fort stirred. It was half past nine when she saw a flurry of activity beyond the wall that was different from a breakfast rush. Several people were arguing animatedly, but they were drowned out by other sounds so she cou;dn’t pick out their words, but she had a gut feeling it was about her nightly activities. Soon after the back and forth finished, five groups of well-equipped people left the fort for the area where the party had been the night before.

Each group consisted of between two and four people that seemed like they were on a mission. With the speed they were going, it looked like they had some kind of Tracking skill. All it meant was that dessert would come to her rather than her going off to look for it herself. Still, she would keep an eye on them to see when they were isolated enough for her to take out a group and hide before the next group came. Eva knew it would be a lot more difficult to fight all of them at once instead of nibbling at their numbers. At least the element of surprise was on her side.

The groups fanned out into the forest, following the trails of people who had gone to the bathroom during the party. Two groups of three were headed roughly in her direction. The first group turned away from her, towards where she had dropped the bodies. They must have seen the blood from where she’d killed them. The other group went in a different direction—straight towards her.

As they got closer, she could pick them out individually. All three were archers of some kind. Two had blonde hair and fair skin, while the third was tanned with light brown hair. They wore decent—though light—armor and carried long knives in addition to their bows. She noticed that none of them had any backpacks or belts to carry other items besides the arrows they used for fighting and—she surmised—hunting.

“I’m losing the trace,” said one of the men with blonde hair.

“I see it farther ahead,” said the brown haired man, “but it is getting difficult to follow.”

“Maybe we’re getting close to where they went?”

“Could be,” the third man answered. “We’re looking for maybe two or three people, and this track looks like it was made by one person.”

“Seriously? You think one person made all of that mess alone?”

“No, but the trail feels like it’s one person somehow.”

As soon as Eva Observed✦ the brown haired man, his head snapped in her direction. Somehow he’d been able to sense the Skill being used!

“Up in that tree is one of them,” the man—a level 11 Hunter—said, pointing at where she was. “I can’t see them, but they’re there. They just Observed me.”

“Neat Skill,” the third man said.

Eva waited until they were within Charge★ range then Charged★ the closest of them—the other man with blonde hair. He was surprised by the speed, but seemed to be expecting something of the sort. Still, her air Infused★ strike did significant damage to him. Her sword ripped through his light armor and his arm inside of it. Losing the limb elicited a scream, which she silenced with a quick second slice across his neck. The other two had not stood still in that time, but there was not much they could have done in the three or so seconds it took for the first one to die.

The man who had sensed her skill was next on her list. The third man had moved to gain distance to use his bow. Eva held up her shield and Charged★. She chose not to swing her sword, instead shoving the man to the ground. He’d tried to Dodge her, but she was much faster than he’d expected. She stomped on his head twice, which gave her the kill notification.

The third man didn’t stand much of a chance. Though he’d turned to run after seeing the second one get killed, he hadn’t made it too far. She finished him off quickly like the others. The problem was that they’d made enough noise to attract the other groups to that location, and the final one had run towards the closest group. Smart for him, but annoying for her.

Eva made the decision to quickly move parallel to the fort and away from the closest group. Hopefully she could escape just far enough to make them search again before the next group came, otherwise it’d end up being a running battle—something she would rather avoid, but she knew she could win. She had the Stat and equipment advantage, and no tier disadvantage.

She found a large fallen tree. She jumped over it and made her way to the roots where she did her best to hide and wait to ambush the next group. She’d used some of her Stamina, but almost none of her Mana. It was going well.

Eva Snuck▲ by the roots and waited for the nearest group to arrive. They really took their time tracking her from the other fight, but they arrived with a second group less than a minute behind them.

She had no good long-range attacks, so she needed to wait until they were very close to her position so that she could Charge★ them. Though they were wary of an ambush, her Charge★ was quick enough to end the person who got close to her. A quick Pierce✦ and an Infused★ slash laid them dead on the ground.

One of the other two in the group shot an arrow at her that she deftly Dodged★ before Charging★ him. He was able to Parry a few of her blows, but quickly succumbed to his wounds. The third man ended up hitting her left shoulder with an arrow. She’d had to Dodge★ a strike from the second man and inadvertently moved into the path of the arrow.

Eva pulled the arrow out and took a sip of her last health potion. It was just enough to stop the bleeding, but not enough to heal the puncture completely. She knew she might need the rest later, so it was better not to waste too much.

The third man died to a Charge★ and Pierce✦ combo before he had a chance to reload. In the time it had taken to drop all three, the next group was now only seconds away. The archers of the group—a foursome this time—had started taking pot shots at her. She was able to Dodge★ them easily, but that would be harder to do when the two melee fighters in the group got close.

Eva chucked a Fireball▲ at the closest melee fighter. He attempted to Dodge, but was too close to avoid the damage. His flesh sizzled under the heat of the attack and he screamed; he dropped to the ground and rolled. It put him out of the fight and allowed another Charge★, Dodge★, and Infused★ attack to take care of the other melee fighter. Piercing✦ the head of the man on the floor put him out of his misery.

It was then time to fight the archers. They were still taking shots at her, which she was able to Dodge★ for the most part. She did take a few glancing blows from some Skill-enhanced shots, but otherwise was able to avoid significant damage. Eva had to Charge★ twice to catch the first of the two archers. Once in melee range, the man was easy to kill. He wore light armor and only carried a knife for close-range combat. The other archer was no different.

The two remaining groups came after her together. There would have been seven of them, but one ran back to the fort before the fight began. She guessed it was to report the problem and get reinforcements, but it might have been cowardice instead.

The fight with the six proceeded similarly to the others. The only difference was that there were four archers attempting to skewer her with arrows while she fought the two melee fighters. While she could Dodge★ a couple arrows at a time, four proved to be too much. Eva took three arrows to various parts of her body while dispatching all of them.

Even with the rest of the health potion, she was still bleeding a little bit. The wound her leg received had been the worst. She bandaged it up, which gave her another level to First Aid▲. That was a Skill she’d completely forgotten about, but it did come in handy when she did not have any more potions to work with.

With the battle over, Eva made her way back to where she’d sat in the tree watching the fort. Instead of picking the same tree, she moved around fifty yards away to another tree that gave a similarly good view and didn’t smell like blood. She grabbed a couple more Stat Points and went back to watching the fort.

III

She was quick enough to see the person who’d escaped her enter the fort, with the gate closing behind him. Though she was expecting a bigger response, or at least a response, there was nothing. She waited and watched for an hour, but there was no activity she could see that looked any different from what she'd expect of camp life. Eva decided to look at her Class more while still keeping an eye out for any changes.

In the skill web, she looked for anything that really stood out as being much stronger than the others. There were the +1 to effective level ones in each part of the web, bar the Stats branch, that looked like good targets to head towards. Getting all 10 for the elementalist branch would be a priority. A boost to her auxiliary Skills would be decent as well, but that didn’t come with a damage boost. Boosting armor Skills would be decent, but it was probably better to avoid being hit in the first place. If she were to go for anything in either of those branches, or the Stat branch, there would have to be a more compelling reason than a level boost.

So Eva went looking in each branch for what would be the most interesting in each. From the Stats one, she found several percentage boosts to different Stats, Health, Mana, and Stamina that looked to be the best there. That branch was really not something she thought was worthwhile. Maybe if she was close to a really strong one while going from one part of the web to another, she’d pick that one up. Otherwise, the whole branch was mostly a write-off.

The second one she looked at was the armor branch. Aside from the level boosts, the best she could find were boosts to how much damage armor was able to mitigate. The third—weapons—was similar. It had the level boosts and boosts to physical damage, which was not something she was keen on pursuing. She’d much rather boost her elemental damage.

The fourth she looked at was the auxiliary branch. It had the level boosts and some boosts for evasion-type Skills like Dodge★. It was, in general, more varied than the others she’d looked at. It held some promise, but mostly for the level bonuses.

Finally, she turned her attention to the elementalist branch. Besides the skill level boosting nodes, it had ones that converted physical damage to elemental damage, with a few for each element. If she were to take all of the nodes for one element, she’d be able to convert half the physical damage. She didn’t know whether or not taking all of them would result in a huge damage boost or whether she’d be limited to a total of 100% conversion between all elements. It was something she wanted to know but not something she could afford to test. The way she saw it, she’d have to choose just to be safe.

Towards the end of the elementalist branch, there were some nodes that blocked one element in favor of boosting another. The elements were the opposite pairs, so she could choose to boost light elemental damage by 50% while reducing dark elemental damage to nothing. It was not something she thought would be a good idea, but on the other hand, maybe she’d be wrong by the time she was strong enough to choose one of those options.

With a slightly less vague idea of what she wanted to do, Eva plotted her way through the web. At first she made the most direct routes to the various nodes she wanted. Once she’d done that, she realized that many of the paths she’d be taking would put her within a couple of nodes of other strong ones she would be interested in. It also bought her more time to figure out which of the elements she’d want to boost. Who knew what Skills she’d come across through the rest of the Tutorial!

It only took a thought to lock in her one free Class Point, picking up another 5% increase to her elemental damage when using elemental Skills. In total that meant a 20% boost to damage when the value from her sword was taken into account. Maybe she’d be able to take out more of the people in the fort using Fireball▲ now that it dealt more damage, though monsters would be easier. It seemed as if they had less Health and Stats overall as compared with humans or landwalkers. She wasn’t sure what the landwalkers had for Stats, but they seemed on a similar level to humans.

Just as she thought of landwalkers, she saw a curious sight by the fort. A group of landwalkers approached the gate, which opened to let them in! Eva watched the inside of the fort intensely. She couldn’t see all that much, but what she did see was not too surprising. The landwalkers gave something in a pouch to the man who she guessed was in charge of the fort. He then motioned and two women—who had been part of the entertainment at the party—were dragged to the landwalkers, who tied ropes to their hands and led them from the fort towards where the landwalkers had come from.

That confirmed, in her mind, that this is where the traitors were from. Even more important than that was the opportunity to see where the landwalkers had their base of operations. Maybe she could kill the group when they were close to the landwalker’s home and save the women. All of the landwalkers needed to die as well, but before going in guns blazing, she would need to do some recon to see how she might pick them apart for her revenge.

Eva Snuck▲ towards the landwalkers. Her perception was high enough—and they were loud enough—that she could tail them quietly from around fifty yards away without missing anything. She could see the way the women were treated by the landwalkers, and it didn’t give her any hope that there would be any good souls within that place. She smiled as she decided she’d burn it to the ground.

If there had been nothing directly linking the landwalkers to her—like when they killed Hideki—she would just have treated them as a nuisance to be dealt with from time to time. However, they’d gone and hurt her directly. That they also dealt in slaves—or whatever was going on with the women—was icing on top rather than reason enough on its own. Eva preferred to keep to herself where possible—and with Hideki gone—that was doubly so. No more would she open up to others when they could be gone the next day. No, she’d go it alone until her dying days.

As the group of landwalkers continued to march, she continued to follow. Time dragged on for three hours before she caught a glimpse of the place the landwalkers called home. It was a palisade-walled town when she compared it to her home. There was some actual planning involved here, and there were significantly more landwalkers in this place than there were humans at the village. They had cleared a large ring of trees around the walls to allow them to combat the monsters that came every day. She could see the piles of burnt corpses from the attacks. They had to face the same monsters she’d had to, it seemed.

Eva shook her head to get the sense of jealousy at their living conditions from her mind. In its place, rage filled her. It was time to hunt the group before they could exit the trees. Maybe she could save a couple humans in the process of exacting her revenge.

There are 23 days remaining

5718/10000 are still alive

New Quest: Defeat a monster wave. 0/2470 killed