"Why are there so many rats coming at this time?" one of the soldiers said while retreating towards the camp.
"Yeah, these rats had to come when our shift was about to end!" Another soldier by his side chimed in while waving the sword madly, trying to hit the rats pouncing on them.
After trying for long enough, the soldier hit two rats with his strategy but now his stamina was quite low, as he was very exhausted from fighting the rats for a long time.
While they were fighting the rats, they didn't notice a person in similar armor like them enter their formation stealthily. They didn't pay attention to the person beside them, since the rats were unable to pierce the armor, whenever the soldier felt impact on their body, they would turn and counter if there were any rats attacking from that direction.
As they fought with the rats, injuries started to appear on their bodies; many of them had their armor riddled with holes, but this wasn't without any cost to the rats, as almost all of the rats had broken nails and teeth.
Seizing this opportunity, they started a counterattack. In almost half an hour, all the rats were dealt with. There were around fifty to sixty rat corpses scattered around them, and the smell there was so nauseating that after looking around for a while and finding no rats around, they pinched their noses and ran back to the camp.
While running, one of the soldiers looked to the side and saw another soldier running just beside him, but this soldier was quite different from the others. While all other soldiers were wearing helmets and were covered to the toe, whether their armor was damaged or intact, this one was only wearing armor to cover his chest and some leg gear and was looking quite energetic, while all other soldiers were huffing while running in heavy armor.
He looked at the soldier and asked, "Hey, brother, where is the rest of your armor?"
The soldier looked back at him and said, "About that... since we had to run back to the camp, I thought I should remove the piece of armor that was damaged so I could run easily."
Hearing this, the soldier who questioned him and the surrounding soldiers were shocked and there was only one thing in their minds: 'Why didn't I think of that?'
While they were busy running back, none of them thought of this, and with that, some of the soldiers running ahead suddenly shook their bodies and took out their damaged arm guards, and some even took out their helmets and placed them in their hands and ran faster.
After this their speed obviously increased and in ten minutes they got back to the army camp.
Seeing the soldiers returning, the guards at the entrance opened the wooden gate and let them enter. As the soldiers entered the camp, the one at the front stopped the others and said, "Directly return back to your units. If there is any need to inform you about the situation, someone will call you back."
Saying this, he went in a certain direction; with that, all the soldiers started to return back to their designated units. As they left one by one, there was only one soldier left standing there. He looked around for some time. The soldier was none other than Neuman, who thought to enter with them secretly previously.
The last soldier who was leaving suddenly stopped and looked at Neuman, who was the only soldier standing in his position. He asked curiously, "Why aren't you going back to your unit?"
Neuman looked at him and asked, "I forgot where my unit was designated. Do you know where Unit 05 is located?"
Hearing this, the soldier looked at him questioningly and said, "I think it was on the east side of the camp, it was with Unit-08 or 09."
"How can you forget your unit's gathering location?"
Neuman just scratched his head and said, "Yeah, I was just confused about whether it was on the north or the east side." Saying this, he too started to walk towards the east of the camp.
While he was walking back to the gathering place, he looked at the screen in front of him.
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Neuman Wisch
Level: 4 (89%)
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Strength: 14
Agility: 13
Vitality: 13
Dexterity: 13
Magic: 4
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Stat Points: 20
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Defence: 17
Perception: 12
Speed: 15
Accuracy: 17
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[Skills]
Basic Spear Technique (Basic)
Basic Dagger Technique (Basic)
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Skill Points: 4
Skill Upgrade Points: 0
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[META]
[Available after Level 5]
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While he was hunting with the team, he had slain around forty rats, gaining four levels in the process. He didn't have much time to check his status window earlier and was only now reviewing it. However, he already noticed a little boost in his strength and speed while hunting.
Although it didn't give him a huge boost, it allowed him to hunt more efficiently, gradually improving his hunting speed and adaptability. Previously, he had to swing his spear multiple times to hit a single rat but now it became much easier.
He had earned twenty stat points and four skill points, and based on the pattern, he seemed to gain five stat points and one skill point per level. However, he hadn't received any skill upgrade points, and there was no hint of how to obtain them.
Now he was just one level away from unlocking META.
He even had two skills registered in the skill section, the Basic Spear Technique and the Basic Dagger Technique. A thought suddenly flashed in his mind, and he clicked at the Basic Spear Technique.
[1 Skill Point used]
[Basic Spear Technique upgraded]
Now looking at the skill section, it had the upgraded skill.
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[Skills]
Basic Spear Technique (Basic)
Basic Dagger Technique (Basic)
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Just as the skill was upgraded, Neuman felt a little different holding the spear in his hand. Previously, he was having difficulty handling the spear and attacking the rats, but now he felt that he could handle the spear a little better than before.
He then upgraded his dagger technique too, which made him a little better at handling daggers too. Since he had two more skill points, he decided to upgrade his spear technique once again.
[2 Skill Points used]
[Basic Spear Technique has reached its limit]
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[Skills]
Basic Spear Technique (Basic) --limit
Basic Dagger Technique (Basic)
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Neuman was surprised to see that it took two skill points to upgrade the skill and that the skill had reached its limit; he didn't know exactly what that meant, but he still got some boost by upgrading the spear skill and now he didn't have any skill points to upgrade his dagger technique.
After looking at the screen for some time, he realized that he had reached the designated place. While walking, he had basically reached the gathering site. There were around fifteen to twenty tents, and looking around, he found that some of the soldiers had No. 5 on their chest, and some others had No. 8 and 9 on their chest.
They passed him while talking with each other. They were talking about how they saw a pack of wolves from the forest, while those rats attacked them from the sewers. They even talked about distributing the wolf's meat in their units and that they will get some pieces at dinner. Hearing this, many of the soldiers were elated and even rejoiced.
Neuman just looked at them once and then turned his attention to the area around him. There were many tents there. He wasn't able to count all of them but there were quite a lot. From the looks of it, there were even many soldiers resting inside.