Chapter 26: Chapter 25: The Remaining Two

Drake stretched, as he heaved a long sigh of relief. Touching his quickly healing wound on the side of his face.

“This is definitely going to leave a scar, I wonder if it will make me look cooler… Damn, maybe I should’ve gotten hit a little more to the left. I could have looked like a budget Final Fantasy character, just without the gunblade..” Drake rambled.

As Drake talked and grumbled to himself, he began cleaning up the camp, moving bodies, deconstructing broken tents, putting out things that had caught on fire from the fight from breaking and falling into fire pits.

He continued cleaning, looting and rearranging the camp, checking the gates every so often to see if an army of Kobolds was marching on his newly obtained base.

The day progressed with Drake sitting on the wooden wall after he was done cleaning up, a canteen and pot filled with food, his feet dangling off the side as he went through all the new shiny things he picked up from this Squad Commander.

Drake started with his status as after the last fight, he needed to start distributing his Free Points.

 

[Drake Wallen]

Human [F Rank]

Tutorial Alias [Shot]

 

[Base Class: Mage x Warrior] [Unique] Level 9 

 

[Vitality] 179 

[Strength] 207 (20)

[Dexterity] 155 (30 + 10% Base)

[Intelligence] 329

[Wisdom] 195

[Endurance] 105 (5) 

[Free Points] 84

 

[Skills] Basic Mana Bolt [Level NA] Basic Heavy Strike [Level NA]

 

[Titles] First Blood, Two versus One, One vs Many, Monkey Slayer, Living on the Edge, Close Call, Dead Man Walking, Dual Class, Punching Up, Improbability, Rounded,  Dog Hater, One Man Army, Dog Killer. Battle of Attrition

 

Drake played with the spoon in his mouth as he mulled over where he should put the points. He felt that he wasn’t lacking in Strength in the last fight, but didn’t want to stop allocating at least some to it. And then there was his Dexterity. It was almost past the 200 mark ‘technically’ but he wanted the base stats to be more even. There was also his Endurance stat that was lagging behind. He simply didn’t have enough points to go around.

Drake leaned back staring into the sky, his spoon playfully bobbing up and down as he thought. “I’ll bump my Vit to 200 since it’s so close, same with Int at 350, so that leaves me with 78. My Wisdom is fine for now, leaving the rest to go to Strength, Dex and Endurance.” Drake mumbled through the side of his mouth.

Eventually he decided to put 3 points into Dexterity to get it to pseudo 200, and then 36 into his Strength to bump it to 250. And then the remainder into Endurance. Finalizing his stats.

Drake’s mood was a little dampened by not receiving another title but soon bounced back as he went over the items he had gotten.

 

[Peridot Earring[F Grade] [Uncommon]

• +10 to Dexterity

• Limited to two per ear.

• A magically infused earring, with the power to increase one’s dexterity by a small amount.

 

 

Drake scoffed a bit at the description. 10 to a stat was small? And Drake had obtained two of these earrings from the Kobold Commander, and he had also picked up two similar rings.

 

[Peridot Ring[F Grade] [Uncommon]

• +10 to Dexterity

• Limited to one per hand.

• A magically infused ring, with the power to increase one’s dexterity by a small amount.

 

Drake had already slipped on the rings, and with all four of his new accessories filling up his slots, gave him an extra 40 Dexterity. It was a nice ‘small’ boost if he said so himself.

He had also looted a massive amount of skill stones and sub-tree stones from the past couple battles, and they were quickly taking up a good section of his inventory. Thankfully he had gotten another pouch from the Squad Commander Kobold.

There were also the two scimitars from it as well, but they weren’t very impressive and only uncommon grade with no stats. But the greatest haul of the day he thought were the things he found in the Commander’s tent as he was cleaning up.

 

[Tyrant’s Fire Oil [F Grade] [Uncommon]

• A material that can be used raw or as an ingredient for more elaborate explosives.

• A liquid found in the abdomen of the Tyrant Ant. It is extremely flammable.

 

Drake kept the fist size flasks of the stuff inside his inventory, worried it would be bad if they somehow caught fire. Earlier Drake had only been seconds away from the stockpile catching fire from the tent suddenly catching fire. Luckily Drake had been inside looting as it happened and saw the reddish liquid, honestly thinking it was alcohol. He shuttered slightly at the thought of the pile catching fire while he was so close to it.

Shaking his head from his thoughts he looked into the distance again, waiting for a sign of more Kobolds. But for the rest of the day none had come. Drake was honestly ok with it though, as he had been going non stop for the past 5 or so days without much rest.

Drake reinforced the gates with spare rubble from the camp, making sure that it wouldn't be easily open from the outside. And made his way to the sole tent left within the camp. 

Going through the draped entrance, Drake walked onto a red carpet marking the entrance and leading to four glorious beds all pushed together to make a magnificent super bed. 

“I must be more tired than I thought, I could swear it was shining and that I’m hearing hymn music.” Drake said as he stared off into the distance past the group of beds, a single tear rolling down his newly scarred cheek.

That night Drake slept like a glorious king, returning from the victory of war. And by that he passed out right as his head hit the pillow, snoring and sprawled out still in his Martial Artist’s Garb, a ‘small’ pool of drool slowly forming below his head.

The next morning Drake groaned awake as he was woken by the sound of a loud thumping. He rose from the beds touching the back of his neck.

“Oh god, who splashed water on me when I was sleeping?!” He said, his hand jerking away from his damp neck.

Now what is this sound that woke me up? It’s coming from the East Gate. He thought. Walking out of the tent, and sprinting to the gate.

He Arrived in a few moments to the thumping turning to loud crashes, small amounts of dust being kicked up from the rubble blocking the entrance. Hopping up to the wall, Drake looked over to see 50 or more Kobolds surrounding the gate.

As his head poked out he noticed what the sound was. There were two lines of Kobolds holding a makeshift ram made from a tree, slamming it into the gate with a steading rhythm. In the next second he saw a hail of arrows and Mana Bolts fly into his direction forcing him to drop back down behind the wall.

Drake stretched a bit to loosen up. “Well looks like they’re back to it just like I hoped. Back to the grind as well then.” He said, jumping back up to the wall on the other side of the gate, putting mana into his rings and quickly casting a Mana Bolt aimed right at a group of Mages in hooded cloaks, sounding the starting bell of the fight.

Drake dropped down and broke into a sprint when he hit the floor, aiming right for the Kobolds holding the 2 meter long ram. He dispatched the quickly panicking Kobolds around it. Once the loud crashing of the ram had been silenced, he turned his attention to the rest of the Kobolds.

Soon Drake was running through the ranks of the Kobolds, smashing and throwing them almost in a comical way, dashing from Kobold to Kobold a small cloud of dust trailing him.

When Drake had all but finished off the group that had assailed his newly acquired base, he allowed some of them to flee again to the Mountain outpost.

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“Well as long as nothing unexpected happens I think we can actually cruise to level 10, and then, sweet sweet rng revenge.” Drake said, looking at the fleeing Kobolds.

He hopped back over the wall and sat back down on the ledge, bringing out a canteen of water and the leftovers of food from yesterday, still piping hot.

“I love this pouch, never going to have to eat day olds ever again. But wait, that means I’ll never have day old Sinigang. Oh no, this actually might be a problem...”

Drake mused over the pro’s and con’s of his spacial pouch when it concerned food for a few more minutes, then sighed.

“It’s so surreal. Being here, doing some of the things I can do. I’ve already adapted to this non-stop mindless killing. And don’t get me wrong I have no qualms with killing things that are trying to kill and eat me. But it’s so jarring. I hope Mom, and everyone are doing alright.” Drake began to ramble, his mind going from one thing to the next.

While he stared off into the distance, he wondered how his Mother and his family were doing. They were a normal family, well everyone besides their Mother. She was a small Filipino lady that could lift things twice her own weight somehow. And you could never win an argument with. She was someone who would forget what she was doing while doing it, but as soon as you made her angry she would remember your entire life’s dark history.

It comforted him a bit to think of her and of his headstrong little brothers. He was surprised it did though as they were probably put into similar situations, but if they were with their Mother, he had no reason to worry, in fact he was frightened for the monsters. Nothing spelled disaster like an angry old Filipino lady with a chancla.

He made a mental note to find them as fast as possible when this was over.

Drake thought and rambled on several things as he waited for more Kobolds to show up, but unexpectedly none had. It had been over several hours since the last group showed up, and Drake was starting to worry if something was going on. Were they plotting something? Or had they given up? He wasn’t sure of either.

Drake decided to go with the wait and see approach, it wasn’t good to go in more blindly than he already was. So he resigned himself to just taking solstice in the break from fighting for now, the spoon in his mouth bobbing up and down, as his feet lightly bounced off the wall. The day slowly descending into night.

“Ahhhh! How long are they going to make me wait!?” Drake yelled.

It had been two days since the Kobolds had come to Outpost B and the relaxation had turned to impatience which turned to frustration and anxiety that he was falling behind again. Drake hopped off the wall and began running down the dirt road to the Mountain Outpost. Traveling the distance in record time thanks to his newly acquired items. 

Once he saw the dirt road open up he turned into the forest so that he could scout out the Outpost. The outside defenses had been completed and a spiked ditch was now surrounding the Mountain Outpost.

For an hour Drake stayed in the forest watching the gate for anything, but there had been nothing coming or going. He was certain there were still Kobolds inside though, as he saw the Rangers still stationed on the top of the towers. Drake wasn’t sure what had changed but decided to go check on his dummies in the meantime, reminding himself that she should hold on to the gear.

Drake scoured the part of the forest he knew he had set up the dummies in, but couldn’t find a single set of armor. Someone had taken them. “Those bastards even took my poor buddy Charles! This is unforgivable!!!” Drake shouted, in faux outrage.

He had hoped the dummies would keep the Kobolds a little on their toes, since they knew it was set up by him. Possibly giving them the impression he was still in the forest, but they must have moved in when he started attacking the Outpost B. Or hopefully more participants were nearby and had taken them to make good use of them.

Drake wasn’t going to bend over backwards for people he didn’t know but he was fine giving items he wasn’t using if it meant helping them survive this horrid tutorial.

After a few minutes more of searching and finding nothing, Drake was content with stopping and going back to the treeline. Once he got there, nothing had changed about the Outpost. And after an hour, still nothing had changed.

“There haven’t been any groups coming and going. Are they really holed up in there? Or maybe… they're running out of forces?” Drake whispered to himself.

He didn’t have any way of knowing which was true, but he did know that he needed to get inside of the Outpost if he wanted to finish his quests quickly. Drake then brought out another crossbow he had looted over the past couple days and many arrows, preparing for another assault on the Outpost.

He trained his aim on the Rangers on the guard towers, placing a arrow into both of them. What surprised Drake was that after he had felled the lookouts, they weren’t being replaced. Instead he heard a roar so loud that it reverberated in his chest. An instinctual fear rising up in his stomach, telling him to run.

A few moments later the gate swung upward and a mass of Kobolds began to flow out. By the time it had stopped he estimated there were well over 200 in the enormous clump of furballs that had exited the gate.

Following them was not one but two Squad Commander Kobolds, that were very different from the three he had faced. The one that was standing on the left of the pair, was sporting a cowboyish like hate, and leather armor. And on its waist were two oddly made pistols that reminded him of a wasteland aesthetic. It even held a gunman-like feel when it raised the tip of its hat with its thumb.

The second Commander Kobold on the right was far more stoic looking, it was wearing a chainmail like chest piece that was more of linked scales than multiple ringlets. Its shoulders were adorned with armor akin to the one Drake had on himself, with chained pants of similar fashion. And the largest and longest thing the monster held was the massive halberd at its side.

Great, are the monsters going to start speaking and ask me if I feel lucky, or that I leave a bad taste in their mouth? Drake scoffed, looking over the Commander Kobolds, he decided to name Spear Guy and Cowboy.

Jokes aside, Drake was still wary. Not because of the sight of two Commander Kobolds, as he was sure that he could still win the fight regardless of the numbers they held and the two Commanders, with his current stats. No it was the fact that he still felt the fear in the pit of his stomach, but it was coming from inside the Outpost outside of his vision behind the large wooden walls.

Drake didn’t enjoy the fact that he was feeling like this again after more than a week of grueling fights for his life. But even with the uneasy feeling, he couldn’t deny the meal in front of him. It was the last two Commanders he needed for his quest and with how much experience the Squad Commanders were giving by themselves, Drake could only imagine the amount he would receive from the quest reward.

After some deliberation, he decided it was within his means to fight the mass of monsters outside the gate. He opened his inventory to put the crossbow and arrows away, then eyed the stack of Tyrant’s Fire Oil that he held.

Drake could defeat the horde without the use of the items, but with the unknown behind the wall; he wanted to use as little of his Mana and Stamina as possible. But there was a problem.

“The problem is I can’t take things out of my inventory when in combat. I can place things inside, but the only thing I’m able to bring out is the black die.” Drake said musingly.

He assumed the reason he could only bring out the die was that it was most likely recognized as a system item, so the combat restriction didn’t apply to it. He had confirmed as much from his fight with the second Commander Kobold, when he was able to bring it out but nothing else.

This became a problem now that Drake wanted to use some of the consumables he had picked up over the past couple days in combat.

He brought out the items he was planning on using. A few Flasks, and a pair of flint and steel. Drake tried to find places to stash the flasks so that they wouldn’t get damaged or jiggle around too much. Ending up with them placed inside his robe, expanding his midsection noticeably.

“I’ll have to get a utility belt or something, Cause this definitely isn't the play…” He chuckled wearily.

Drake decided on placing the flint and steel inside his pant’s pocket as he didn’t have them anywhere else.

Once he finished he looked back at the mass of Kobolds in front of the Outpost that had now formed into neat groups. The Squad Commanders barking orders every so often.

The Kobolds had sent out a few miners to scout out the area, as Drake looked at them running in multiple directions into the forest and down the dirt road.

Drake waited until the one sent his way had passed him, then quietly snapped the Miner’s neck, placing it into a bush nearby.

Drake was still trying to go over his plan in his head and didn’t want to announce where he was exactly just yet. He was still worried about the thing inside the Outpost and wanted to draw the Kobolds away from the unknown. And he also wanted to use the Tyrant’s Fire Oil but wasn’t sure how potent it was and needed them away from both the forest and Outpost so that they wouldn’t catch fire.

I only have a few options available to me then. He thought.  There’s the dirt road but it isn’t wide enough to fight in with that many Kobolds. Then there's the opening in front of the Outpost. It looks like about a football field wide, so a little over 100 meters. It’s enough if I can fight them in the opening of the dirt road, that gives me enough space to stay clear of the forest and the Outpost. And gives me enough cushion to see if or when that thing decides to come out of the Outpost.

Drake finalizing his plan began to spring into action. Ignoring the rest of the scouts, he dashed out of the treeline, firing Mana Bolts into the legion of Kobolds. As he dashed across the wide open area, in the direction of the dirt road’s opening. 

Each Mana Bolt killed tens of Kobolds with each impact, tearing deep into their ranks as it blasted through the front lines and the subsequent monsters behind them.

Once the Bolts started hitting he was retaliated against in kind. Arrows, Mana Bolts and now Bullets, trailed him as he kept pace, sprinting for the opening. The two Squad Commanders howled in anger, barking orders to the legion. Marching them forward in a thunderous charge towards Drake.

Drake continued to fire Mana Bolts as he got to the mouth of the dirt road’s opening. He pulled the first flask of Tyrant’s Fire Oil and uncorked it, a pungent smell the combination of gasoline and cementing tar filling his nose.

But Drake had no time to be distracted and began pouring the liquid on the ground beneath him as he ran back into the dirt road. Once he was at a comfortable distance with a trail of smelly oil behind him he took out the flint and steel, waiting for the Kobolds to funnel in.

Drake was sorely disappointed though, when after only a handful of the Kobolds stepped onto the oil soaked ground before they stopped, and sniffed the air, noticing the smell. But it wasn’t all lost.

Drake looked at the halted Kobold Legion, only to smile as he saw they were being pushed forward regardless from the ranks further back still charging forward. Resulting in the Kobolds in the front tripping and falling over one another as they tried to hold back the flood of charging Kobolds behind them.

He smiled and lit the oil trail. “Time to put the shrimp on the barby!” He shouted gleefully.

The moment the sparks from the flint touched the oil, it ignited in a roar of unimaginable heat and golden orange flames as the trail burst in flames towards the Kobolds.

The trail of fire met the Legion in fractions of a second. Wails of pains, and barks of anger filled the surroundings, as half of the Legion of Kobolds burned away, in a blaze of heat.

Many of the Kobolds ran in different directions as they held patches of flames on their bodies, some rolling on the ground to put them out to no avail.

Drake looked on in amazement of the oil. “When it said highly flammable it wasn’t kidding. The fire is almost as hot as that construct was in the introduction. No no!” Drake shook his head. “ We must stay focused brothers, we must stay focused!” He shouted into the air his fists raised.

Drake was quickly brought back from his distraction when he heard another piercing howl from the other side of the wall of flames that had formed.

Barely able to see through it, Drake could still make out the visage of two large silhouettes on the other side.

Both Drake and the Commanders were waiting for the flames to die down. And after a few long minutes, they began to recede, revealing the Squad Commander pair, the remnants of their army of Kobolds behind them. And Drake on the other side, black tattoos forming in a flash of ethereal blue on his arms, his black gold trimmed robes fluttering behind him.

“Is it hot in here or is it just me?” Drake chortled.