BXBX NOVEL Chapter 18: [What’s so good about this morning?]
\'An enclosed area?\' I thought as I looked at the whole city behind me. It was a beautiful morning view, and I was currently about 8 kilometers away from my high school.
\'So is the radius, 8 kilometers?\' I wondered if our high school was the center of this entire level. It was possible given how we were the only ones in this tutorial.
Watching the tutorial time, it\'s only about an hour that has passed, so given I don\'t waste much time, I should be able to continue my hunt for another 30 to 40 minutes before returning back to the high school?
"All right. That should be fine for now," I decided since it was the best course of action.
With that in mind, I continued hunting, this time running along the [Boundary] of this level. I kept moving, finding more goblins as I kept running.
I don\'t know if it was a good thing or not but the amount of [E-Grade] monsters increased a bit more as I was closer to the boundary. I think, of the 150 or so monsters I hunted in the next half an hour, about 30 were [E-Grade!].
It wasn\'t as great as the previous batch of 50+ monsters, but they were still more than what I saw yesterday.
Anyways, as soon as another 30 minutes passed, I changed my direction from running along the boundary, to back to where the high school was. I think 90 minutes should be enough for me to reach back without disturbing my hunt.
Except for that group of [E-Grade!] monsters, everything else was the same. The number of [E-Grade!] monsters kept decreasing, the closer I reached to the high school, while the frequency and number of normal [F-Grade!] monsters increased.
And within the next 60 minutes, I was already back at the High School where everybody was still sleeping soundly. Unlike how I expected there to be at least one person with [Mana Resistance!], there were none that were awake here.
One more thing that I did was to collect all the food supplies that I can, along with the weapons of the monsters and bring them back with me. The reason was simple, to increase the [Safe Time!] I was in the safe zone.
\'Can\'t forget about the bet, can we?\' I thought as I increased my [Safe Time] from [22:12:43!] to [35: 12: 43!]. And then I moved closer to where Mark was sleeping, before laying a few meters away from him.
Taking one last glance at the upgraded skill and my points, I went to \'sleep\' as well.
[Skill: Hunt
Grade: B
Effect: Mark 2 targets of your choice! When fighting against those targets, All physical stats increase by 50!
Cooldown: 24 hours!]
[Points: 285,600!]
[GM Points: 10,431!]
…
30 mins later…
I pretended to be waking up, wondering if someone else was awake. And pretty sure, a few of the guys were also slowly getting up. With the sleep effect vanishing, and the morning sunlight hitting directly at their face it would be more odd if they did not wake up.
Looking at the bright morning, they were alarmed for a moment before observing the tutorial time and calming down. Since most have them have slept for about 8 hours or so, they should still have more than enough time to survive.
"It\'s not a dream?!"
"Shit!"
"Just what has this world turned into."
"Mom…"
Some people didn\'t have a bright expression as they looked at their surroundings, before they accepted reality and moved to wake their friends up.
I looked at Mark, who stretched properly as he looked at me,
"GooaadD-awaaaahHH-Morning, Adrian," he spoke as he yawned, stretched and looked at me before rubbing his eyes.
"What\'s so good about this morning?" Grumbling, Alice also woke up as she looked at Mark before turning to me with a sigh," so much for waking up early at dawn."
"I guess we were all too tired," I lied as I made a small smile before observing the rest of the players. In almost a few minutes, everyone was awake as they started talking with each other.
I was scared there for a second if someone would notice the fact that they all woke up at the same moment, but luckily nobody seems to be suspecting anything. Good for me.
"Alice. Are you sure you don\'t want to come with us?" A voice, which once used to sound friendly, now pretty annoying, resounded in my ear as I turned to see it\'s source.
And my sour expression turned irritated as I looked at Luke, talking with Alice, trying to persuade her to join his group. I saw the Trio, talking among themselves at a distance, while Mr Harrison was with another group.
I wondered for a moment whether Harrison left the group or was he persuading other groups to join them, but on second thought, it\'s not something that I really cared about, so I stopped thinking about it.
For me, there was someone more interesting than that. Alex.
I focused on that guy, as he sat alone with the blood still present on his shirt and face. His eyes were rather hollow and dark as he stared at the empty ground in front of him. It made me wonder what happened to him to put him in such a great shock?
"I have already made my decision, Luke. I don\'t want to be a part of your group," Alice on the other hand rejected Luke without wasting a single second. One can even see some disgust in her eyes as she saw Luke and the trio.
"But our synergy was so good! We even killed 9 goblins. Surely you will grow stronger with us than…" even though Luke did not continue his sentence, he turned to me slightly, before looking back at Alice.
"Anyways. If you ever consider coming back to our group, you are always welcome. You too, Mark," Luke spoke before walking away from here, back to the Trio. Mr Harrison also joined them with 6 more students behind them. Seems like their party just got bigger, huh?
"What\'s next?" Mark asked as he looked at me. He didn\'t even bother to comment about what Luke did. Alice also turned to me, while I sighed and spoke,
"Since I can\'t fight, I would like you two to be the front runner. Our goal isn\'t to kill more goblins but to save more NPCs. The second task is to bring more supplies and weapons and give it to the [Safe Zone] to increase our time here. And finally once we have enough points, we would focus on getting stronger in our respective areas."
They all nodded as they looked at me. It was a fine plan and given our synergy, they should be able to kill more monsters as well.
As for my personal goal, I wanted to get close to the NPCs, hoping to find more about the scenario, and getting closer to complete those [Hidden Quests!] present here.
"Sir. When are we leaving?" As I was thinking about them, they appeared right in front of me. The three NPCs who were willing to go with us and collect more food for the rest of the people.
"In a few minutes," I spoke as I looked at the players. Unlike yesterday, they seemed to be more cautious than before as they discussed strategies of how they were going to hunt, or save more NPCs.
Ignoring them, I then turned to Alice first. I raised my hands forward and so did she, before I passed 5000 points to her. Though a bit surprised, she understood my intentions and accepted it right away.
[Skill: Fire Ball
Grade: F
Effect: Creates a Fireball that does 20 Damage to the enemy!
Mana Cost: 10MP
Cooldown: 10 seconds!
Cost: 5000 Points!]
While I was going to give Mark a bow and a few arrows, I decided that it was better to go with Alice since she was mage. Mark didn\'t seem to mind that either as he nodded with my decision.
I did not know how much health a goblin has, but with my [Blood Gaze!]I think I can make the goblins weak enough to be taken out after 2 shots. This should serve as a good start for us.
Is what I was thinking but Alice\'s next words surprised me…
"Since you trust me this much. I think I can tell you about my [Gift] and a couple of [Skills] that I received from the [Contract]."