The wolves in the current area he was in ranged somewhere around level two to three. So Merlin, who was now level four, couldn’t farm them to improve his karma. Merlin started travelling deeper into the forest, hoping to find a spawn location that matched his level.
His journey through the forest was somewhat uneventful, the only enemy he encountered was a small group of goblins which he dispatched with ease. While looking for the goblin’s loot, Merlin received a message from Snowbunny.
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[06:20:01] Snowbunny: Hey!
[06:20:57] Snowbunny: Me and Ty found a dungeon a little bit to the north of town, we nned on entering it after finishing our quest, do you want to join us?
[06:21:20] Merlin: What type of monster is it based around?
[06:21:50] Snowbunny: It’s a wolves den, so wolves would be my guess.
[06:22:11] Merlin: Alright, sounds good. How long are you guys going to be?
[06:22:42] Snowbunny: Well, about an hour, maybe.
[06:23:11] Merlin: Alright, I’ll just kill stuff in the area while I wait. Need to try get some karma back.
[06:23:37] Snowbunny: Karma? What happened?
[06:24:23] Merlin: I ran into Kyle’s group, killed them all and it dropped me into the negatives. I’ll tell you about it after.
[06:24:56] Snowbunny: Alright, see you then!
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The conversation ended, and Merlin waved away the message window. He had arrived at a small clearing within the forest, where he saw a wolf that appeared to be sleeping. This wolf was muchrger than the wolves he saw previously, and when Merlin moved close enough to see the enemy’s status bar, he saw that it was a level five dire wolf.
Merlin began hiding his presence somewhat. Creatures at this low of a level didn’t generally have the ability to detect faint mana signatures in the air or locate him with nothing but the sound of his heartbeat. So he didn’t have to bother straining his body like he did when sneaking up on Pelear Ladrona in the thieves guild.
He unsheathed his dius, and decided to try something new, he sliced his thumb on the de and ran it along the edge, allowing his blood to coat the de.
Merlin snuck up on the unsuspecting dire wolf, but once he enteredbat range the wolf seemed to notice that something was wrong. It opened its eyes, and after noticing Merlin standing before it, sprung up.
Merlin barely managed to sh at the beast before it could get into position for a pounce, but unfortunately his passive ability didn’t trigger. He took a nce at his de, and it seemed the coat was still on his de, only a small part on the tip managed to rub off.
The wolf bared its fangs, growling at Merlin who took a defensive stance behind his trusty shield. As the wolf pounced on him, Merlin thrust his shield in its path in an attempt to knock it off bnce. The wolf instead mped its jaw on his shield and began tearing at it.
Merlin heard the wooden shield start cracking as the wolf fought Merlin for the shield. Merlin swung his sword at the wolf, barely grazing its side as the wolf leapt out of the way of his strike, and only now did Merlin notice that a small chunk of his shield had been bitten off.
"Bad dog, spit it out!" Merlin taunted the wolf while preparing his next attack. He didn’t appreciate that his shield wasing close to the end of its durability, once it broke he had to make the decision of either recing it with another shield or getting an offhand weapon instead, but he wasn’t sure which one he’d rather have at this point.
Merlin thrust his de at the wolf once more, but the wolf was already in position to dodge out of the way well before Merlin’s de got close. Unfortunately for the wolf, two vines had wrapped around its hind legs, causing its body to flop onto the ground the second it tried to leap out of the way.
Merlin’s de sunk into the wolf’s side, but this time too, the passive didn’t seem to activate, leaving Merlin somewhat disappointed. It was only a ten percent chance of activation, but Merlin had been rather lucky in the past.
The wolf tried to escape, but the vines kept it in ce. It seemed that the vines were especially efficient against elusive beasts, they lost most of their threat once their biggest advantage was taken away. Merlin finished off the wolf, only to find that a single wolf fang item had dropped.
Merlin continued around the area, making sure to stay on the lookout for wolves. The area had a few level five dire wolves, as well as level four wolves that spawned in small groups. There was also arge clearing that had arger pack of wolves, Merlin counted roughly twenty, but didn’t dare get any closer.
Utilising the vines to trap the wolves in ce, Merlin ran around hunting all the smaller groups he saw. The lone dire wolves were the easiest to hunt, due to him not having to fend off two or three additional wolves like the small groups of wolves. After about forty minutes of hunting, he had acquired a total of twenty-three wolf pelts and sixteen fangs. His karma score had improved by a total of sixty-six points, leaving him at negative one hundred and thirty-four karma.
He stopped his hunting because he received another message from Snowbunny.
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[07:26:55] Snowbunny: Hey, we’re done with our quest, can you meet us near the northern gate?
[07:27:23] Merlin: My name is still red, so I’ll message you when I’m close.
[07:28:05] Snowbunny: It’s still red? How many people did you kill?
[07:28:30] Merlin: A few. Anyways, it’s going to take me a few minutes to get there, so stock up and get prepared.
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Merlin wandered around the forest until he found a clearing that allowed him to see arge section of the sky. Seeing as it was only half past seven in the game world, the sun would still be rising from the east. Using this information, Merlin determined which way was north, and the location he had to travel to make his way back to town.
He slipped through the forest, making sure to avoid any of the spawn locations he memorised over the past half hour. It took about ten minutes to find a road as he was rather deep in the forest, but once he did, he could follow the road down to the town. Thinking it was time, he sent Snowbunny a message telling them to walk over to him.
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[07:40:57] Merlin: I’m on the road north of Orchomenus, I’m walking down now,e meet up with me.
[07:41:13] Snowbunny: Wait, you’re on the road? A group just left here not too long ago, be careful!
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As Merlin read the message, a group of four people came into view and were making their way towards him. The group seemed to have noticed him, and as they got closer, they saw that his name was red.
"Oh look, another yer killer." A tall nerdy-looking man spoke, he had a katana hanging from his belt, and it looked like he was going for some kind of samurai hairstyle.
Before Merlin could tell them he was friendly, the nerdy man rushed towards him while drawing his de. Merlin wasn’t sure if this group was one of the groups who engaged in yer killing in the beginner vige, or if they were just a group that was sick of yer killers and decided to hunt them down for revenge, either way, he didn’t appreciate getting attacked.
Merlin parried a couple attacks, the second attack showed Merlin that the man had actually turnedbat assistance off, which was surprising. It seemed he wasn’t satisfied with the game partially controlling his body when he attacked, or that he wanted to swing a katana his own way.
「You have been attacked by yer "Zankoku". Everyone within their party has been marked as an enemy. You may attack them without receiving penalties.」
Zankoku, it seemed to be a romanised Japanese word, confirming Merlin’s theory in his mind that the man was a nerd for Japanese culture, or at least wanted to y as a samurai.
The rest of the group began circling him, there was a small blonde girl with a crazed look on her face who used a dagger, a hefty looking man who was holding a war hammer, and another woman with red hair who used a shortbow.
While parrying another attack from the wannabe samurai, and blocking an iing arrow with his shield, Merlin was grazed by the blonde’s dagger. Merlin pushed through the encirclement, barely dodging a the war hammer that crashed into the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
Merlin turned to face the group, his eyes locked onto the samurai first, he was somewhatpetent, it was very likely he trained with the sword in real life. But then his attention shifted to the blonde girl instead.
The blonde girl wasughing maniacally while holding a dagger that now had Merlin’s blood on it. She then, for whatever reason, decided to lick the dagger, causing her redhead archer friend to turn away in disgust.
「Passive skill ?Rose Blight? has triggered, target’s stats have been reduced.」