Rusty dropped from the final treetop like a falling leaf, his landing silent and fluid. The cool soil yielded beneath his feet as he moved along the edge of the orc camp. His hands had claws on the ends of his fingertips, but that didn’t stop him from gripping a weapon. He drew a shortsword from his inventory, its blade forged from twilight steel. Moonlight shimred along its surface as he advanced, soundless under the effect of Gleam’s silencing spell.
“Let’s go, Gleam. Stay hidden inside my armor.”
“ ( •̀ ᴗ •́ )و ”
With the sentries down, it was ti to clear the camp before anyone stirred. The monsters were exhausted, but they were not helpless. Gleam slipped into his elongated fra, and with her nestled inside, the silencing spell would remain steady around him.
Rusty entered the camp like a ghost floating through a thick fog. His visor pulsed with a low, dim light, casting a faint glow on the dirt beneath his tal feet. The first sleeping orc lay stretched beside a firepit, snoring with his arms flung wide, a crude axe resting just centiters away. Rusty didn’t hesitate. His blade sank deep into the creature’s chest, silencing the breath before it could even shift. No scream. No sound. Only the faint crackle of fire and the whisper of steel on flesh.
You have gained 580 experience points.
The system instantly notified him when the monster died. At first, the experience points he received didn’t seem like much, as he rembered earning similar amounts from far weaker creatures. However, his guides had explained that more experience is awarded for defeating monsters above one's rank. When fighting enemies ranked and leveled below him, the experience gain would be severely reduced. In so cases, especially against F-rank or G-rank monsters, he would earn only a single point.
He dragged the corpse into the shadows behind a pile of discarded shields and broken spears, stacking it carefully so it wouldn’t be seen at a glance. Then he moved again. Another orc. Then another. He slipped between tents like a phantom, cutting through throats and hearts in a shadowy rhythm.
So of them twitched. So gurgled faintly, their eyes flashing open in fear just a heartbeat before death claid them. But none could scream. The silencing field followed Rusty like a cloak in the night.
“You’re getting better at this, maybe you should switch from a warrior into an assassin?”
As Rusty continued to kill the Orcs, Aburdon started talking. The demon lord seed to be bored with his slow approach as he was comnting in a sarcastic tone.
“Why can’t I be all of them together?”
“Oh my, you are quite greedy, aren’t you, Rusty?”
While most people in this world fit into a few predetermined molds like warrior, mage, thief, or archer, Rusty didn’t quite belong to any of them. He had the ability to absorb the skills of other creatures to so extent, and he could also modify his body to suit each role. If he wanted to beco a heavy warrior, all he had to do was adjust his body and equip the right weapon. His imagination was his only real limit. But being a jack of all trades ca with its own drawbacks.
There simply wasn’t enough ti to master every skill. And the higher his rank climbed, the more true this beca. Unless he found ways to bend the system, like he had back in the dungeon, he would eventually have to focus his style if he wanted to beco a truly proficient fighter. A lot depended on his next evolution and if he could truly master magic.
“Don’t distract him, Aburdon. Just be quiet.”
“Haah, you’re all so boring…”
Alexander urged Aburdon to remain quiet as they were still in an enemy encampnt where anything could go wrong. Rusty had just dragged his eighth corpse into the shadows when he froze. A shiver rippled through his armored fra. Gleam, still nestled inside, flickered a quiet warning through their link. The mana in the air shifted just slightly, like a ripple in water disturbed by an unseen hand. Sothing was wrong.
Near the center of the camp, the orc shaman paused mid-chant. His fingers hovered over the wounded brute he was healing, brow furrowing as if he'd caught a scent or felt a disturbance through the mana around him. Soon, a faint green glow around his staff appeared, along with so green sigils materialising as if to warn him of sothing. Then, without warning, the shaman’s eyes snapped open, wide, bloodshot, and alert.
‘He knows…’
The orc sprang to his feet with surprising speed, snarling in their orcish tongue. His staff, made of gnarled bone and tal spikes, pulsed with dark energy as he raised it toward the sky. A deep roar erupted from his throat. Though muffled within the area where Rusty moved, the sound still echoed across the camp, slipping past the edges of Gleam’s silencing field.
It didn’t take long for the rest of the Orcs to wake. One by one, they rose to attention, roused by the shaman’s cry. He appeared to be the leader of the encampnt and the highest level among them. Though Rusty had already taken down the sentries and several sleeping orcs, he was still heavily outnumbered.
Even so, he remained calm. He had planned for this. Without hesitation, he hurled the blade in his right hand at a wounded orc. It struck true, burying itself deep in the creature’s chest. The orc couldn’t even scream, impaled before he had the chance to stand. As the other monsters saw their comrade’s blood spill, their green eyes began to glow red. One by one, they turned their gaze toward the strange, elongated armor.
“Hah, catch if you can!”
Rusty had no human head inside his helt to form those words aloud, but it didn’t matter. The monsters charged. His body vanished into the darkened forest, slipping away from the torchlight and the shaman’s magical attack range. With the sentries in the trees already taken out, tracking him now would be quite difficult.
The Orcs thundered after Rusty, roaring with rage, their weapons raised and bloodlust rising. He didn’t need to be faster than all of them, just fast enough to lead them where he wanted. The dark forest lood ahead, twisted and confusing, a natural labyrinth.
These monsters had just returned from a battlefield, and this encampnt was only temporary. Rusty knew they weren’t familiar enough with the surrounding terrain to pursue him effectively. While he didn’t know the area well either, he had soone who did, his demon lord guide, whose mory was nothing short of flawless.
“Just hide between that fallen tree and wait… To think I’d be used as so common tracker…”
Aburdon grumbled as Rusty crouched in silence. There hadn’t been much ti, but Rusty had still managed to leave a few surprises behind for the orcs. Two of them were now closing in on one of them—a discarded piece of his own body that he hadn’t even bothered to bury. The orcs paused as they reached it, confused by its presence. That hesitation was all he needed. A mont later, an explosion erupted.
The forest lit up with a flash of shadowy fla as the first of Rusty’s hidden body parts detonated. The orcs nearest the blast were shredded instantly, limbs torn away, tal fragnts piercing their thick hides. Shrapnel cut through bark and bone alike. Screams of confusion and pain echoed through the trees, drowning the once-silent night in chaos.
“This skill… isn’t it too strong?”
This ti, it was Alexander who spoke. He had just watched two large orcs fall, taken out by a single steel gauntlet. The remote detonation range was short, but by combining light and darkness, the resulting explosion was devastating. According to their calculations, it was at least on par with a D-rank spell, possibly stronger.
“Is it?”
Rusty asked as he moved toward his next destination. The skill was powerful, but it ca with serious drawbacks. Each explosion drained nearly a quarter of his mana. The range was limited, not just for triggering the detonation but for the blast radius as well. Even though a third orc had been nearby, it was only struck by scattered steel fragnts and managed to survive.
The remaining Orcs pressed forward, undeterred by the explosion. If anything, it only fueled their rage. But rage wasn’t enough. The deeper they pushed into the forest, the more the terrain turned against them. Trees forced them to slow their pace, and they kept stumbling over hardened roots hidden beneath the underbrush.
Rusty, on the other hand, was enjoying every mont. He moved from shadow to shadow: unseen, unheard, like a predator among prey, too enraged to realize they were already dying. To make things worse for them, he was laying new traps as he moved. With the help of his storage, he scattered sharpened caltrops he had crafted in the Soul Forge. A single steel ingot could produce dozens, and against these brutes, they made the perfect stopgap.
You have gained 495 experience points.
You have gained 566 experience points.
Congratulations, you have gained a level.
The explosions echoed through the night, and the notifications kept coming. He was getting closer to his goal of reaching level fifteen. Inside his chest, Gleam maintained the silencing magic. She was leveling even faster and already nearing her maximum potential. Once they were done with this encampnt, it would probably be ti for her to take on a new form.
“Another five… no six down, not that many left to go!”
The forest beca a maze of ambushes and silent death. The Orcs split into smaller groups to track him, but that only made them easier to isolate. Their screams were silenced, and one by one, they beca the experience points that Rusty craved.
Back at the monster encampnt, the orc shaman growled, eyes blazing. He felt every death like a needle in his mind; the loss of his tribesn was gnawing at his gut. But the worst part wasn’t just the loss, it was the silence. No clash of weapons, no battle cries. Only bursts of mana, distant roars cut short, and then… nothing.
He raised his staff high again, sending out a piercing pulse of dark energy. Green sigils flared in a circle, activating a wide-area detection spell. For a mont, he could see the rough positions of his warriors, scattered and blinking like dying stars, and one by one, they went out.
Then he saw him. A nacing figure made of strange, tinted steel. Its form had changed from before. This ti, it resembled an armored human, solid and imposing. The figure stood at the very center of the detection spell’s radius. Not hiding. Not running. Just standing there. Then it turned its head and looked directly at him.
“Looking for ?”
Rusty’s visor locked onto the lingering mana from the spell. In the next instant, he surged forward. He had switched loadouts, trading his wraith form for a more balanced one. A heater shield now covered his left arm, while a thick, longsword rested in his right hand. The fight was nearly over. There were no orcs left. The shaman, foolish enough to send every last warrior after him, now stood alone, and Rusty was coming for him.
The shaman snarled and slamd the butt of his staff into the ground. The green sigils around him flared violently, drawing in ambient mana from the forest. Leaves twisted in unnatural winds. Sparks of erald lightning flickered along the edges of his torn robe. His lips moved in a language that was incomprehensible and filled with malice.
Rusty didn’t care. He kept charging forward. The shaman’s eyes widened at the speed. The figure rushing toward him was no longer the silent predator from before. This was a proper warrior. His armored feet tore across the dirt. Shield raised. Sword poised to strike. And then he crossed into the shaman’s casting range.
“Ghaz’tor vekh groo!”
The shaman finished his chant just as Rusty burst from the trees. A green fireball shot from his staff, trailing ghostly wisps as it spiraled through the air. It was no ordinary projectile. The spell twisted mid-flight, alive with malice and drawn to Rusty’s very soul.
But Rusty did not slow. His shield, laced with the darkness elent, absorbed part of the spell’s mana. The impact hit like a hamr. A sharp boom tore through the clearing. Green sparks rained across the ground. Still, Rusty did not stop instead, he increased in speed and lunged forward.
The orc barely had ti to scream. Steel t flesh. Rusty’s longsword pierced straight through his abdon. The shaman staggered backward, coughing blood, his clawed fingers still clinging to the staff as if it could sohow save him. But Rusty was relentless. With a twist of the blade, he yanked the weapon free and spun low, his shield arm sweeping out in a brutal bash that sent the orc tumbling.
The staff clattered to the ground, its erald glow flickering violently before dimming. The sigils in the air pulsed once… twice… then shattered like glass, dispelling the lingering magic. The forest around them felt unnaturally silent once more, but the monster was not quite dead, just like Rusty had intended.
Rusty stepped forward, his blade now coated in thick, dark blood. The shaman knelt before him, gasping, fury burning behind eyes that were already starting to dim. It growled sothing in its native tongue, but Rusty neither cared nor understood. Instead, his blade traced a swift arc, severing both of the creature’s arms.
“You’ll still be fine for a mont without those.”
Grueso as it appeared, Rusty wasn’t doing this for pleasure. He needed to ensure the orc could not grab at his helt. His goal was simple— skill absorption. This shaman could offer a rare or advanced skill, sothing beyond what he already possessed. He had acquired mana manipulation before, but that didn’t an this one wouldn’t yield sothing better.
With the arms gone, he pressed the orc to the ground with his foot, then lowered his helt onto his head. As the absorption process began, the familiar list of potential skills began to form in his vision. But before he could study it, a sharp noise snapped through the trees behind him.
His instincts kicked in. He ripped the helt off and leapt backward. From the shadows, more orcs stepped into view. These ones were different. They didn’t belong to the camp he had just wiped out.
Four figures erged from the shadows. They were larger than the orcs Rusty had faced in this temporary encampnt, with one standing half a head taller and far more muscular than the others. It was the warchief he had seen during the siege he took part in, an intimidating presence. For so reason, this potentially C-rank monster was here…
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