A Pack of Lesser Green Raptors
Radie’s warning caught me completely off guard.
I knew every single monster that spawned in this place inside and out.
From the highly dangerous boss entities to the larvae of the most trivial trash mobs.
There was no way I had missed a monster...
“A monster?” I asked.
“Yes, a hundred meters ahead. Multiple targets are closing in fast. They’ll be here in seconds, so get ready.”
How on earth did he sense a monster that far away...?
“Radie’s senses are extraordinary,” Malton said with a smile, gripping his heavy mace. “You’d best prepare yourself as well, my friend.”
Still half-doubtful, I drew my cutlass. Just then, the bushes rustled, and green shapes burst out into the open.
A pack of reptilian monsters, Lesser Green Raptors, has appeared!
Though small in stature, the power generated by their unique joint structure and their steel-like claws can tear an adventurer's throat open in an instant!
Lesser Green Raptors.
They were the strongest monsters in this vicinity, usually roaming in packs.
They were incredibly agile and relentless beasts, with their downward pouncing attacks being particularly lethal.
We could have easily repelled them if it were just them, but the monster spawns didn’t stop there.
The caterpillar monster, Green Moss Caterpillar, has appeared!
The larva of a moth monster. While it lacks lethal claws or teeth, it frequently exhales highly toxic gas.
“Damn it...”
I grit my teeth and stepped back.
We had barely entered the dungeon, and we were already running into variables like this.
When the variety of monsters you face increases, dealing with them becomes twice as tricky.
To kill the raptors, I had to get close, but doing so would expose me to the caterpillar’s toxic mist.
As if they had already feasted nearby, a severed arm belonging to some nameless adventurer plopped down from a raptor’s jaws.
As I was debating what to do, Radie shouted.
“Everyone, over here!!”
As the boy dashed across the clearing, he unfastened the bottom clasp of his backpack, scattering sharp caltrops across the ground to block the monsters’ advance.
The monsters faltered, flustered by the sudden barrier of spikes blocking their path.
This drastically reduced the risk of us getting surrounded from all sides.
But Radie didn’t stop at merely reshaping the battlefield to our advantage. He pulled a menacing weapon from his pack.
Type: Ranged Weapon
A highly powerful ranged weapon. While similar to a bow, it is a product of advanced engineering utilizing sophisticated mechanical systems.
...So that’s his main weapon.
Thwack—!
Radie pulled the trigger of his crossbow, and a raptor collapsed, a bolt driven cleanly between its eyes.
Enraged, the other raptors leaped over the caltrops and lunged at us—
“Malton!!” I yelled.
“I’m on it!”
Malton and I immediately dashed forward to intercept them.
Two raptors were blasted back mid-air, their necks and skulls crushed.
Immediately, another raptor leaped, bringing its claws down in a vicious strike...
As expected, there’s a limit to a monster’s intelligence.
A downward strike from above can easily be countered with a horizontal slash.
My lips curled into a smirk as I planted my foot firmly.
The moment I clashed with the raptor, sparks flew where its claws met my blade, and the tip of my curved cutlass tore through its skull.
A wretched shriek pierced my ears as crimson blood sprayed from the tip of my sword.
I swiftly thrust my blade forward to finish the beast off, then gestured mockingly at the remaining pack.
The Lesser Green Raptor pack is enraged!
Due to the effect of the skill Chaos, your Strength has increased by 1!
—Kieeeek!!
One of the raptors rushed me, its eyes gleaming with fury.
It swung its claws with blinding speed, but drawing on my memories of training a swordsman character in the past, I had already slipped out of its line of attack.
I lunged inside its guard and slashed, forcing the startled raptor to scramble backward.
The raptor closed in again, throwing its claws forward to match the trajectory of my sword, trying to press me down with its weight as if sneering at my effort—
“Predictable,” I muttered.
—Kieek...?!
Instead of resisting its strength, I rolled my wrist, twisting the path of my blade.
The curved tip of my cutlass gouged into its defenseless left eye, digging deeper to scrape against the bone.
As I pulled my sword free, another raptor that had been lurking in my blind spot lunged at my back.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
A succession of bolts tore through the air, piercing the raptor’s vital spots and pinning it to the ground.
While marveling at that godlike accuracy, I nimbly shifted my footing to break out of the encirclement.
The closer we came to wiping them out, the wilder the remaining raptors became, shrieking as they charged with reckless abandon.
Realizing they couldn’t take me individually, the pack coordinated a tight pincer attack, but I was already prepared.
“Surge.”
It was the active skill of the Greaves of the Lost Adventurer.
The moment I uttered the command word, my body propelled forward like a released spring.
Twisting my ankles to brake sharply, I simultaneously sliced through the exposed necks of the raptors.
As the two green bodies collapsed, staining the grass crimson, I calmly caught my breath.
Now that the raptors were dealt with, all that was left was the caterpillar...
“W-Wait! What do you think you’re doing?!”
I spun around to see Radie leaping over his own caltrops, marching straight toward the caterpillar.
The Green Moss Caterpillar is releasing a toxic mist!
“Damn it...! That idiot!”
I immediately covered my nose and mouth with my robe and dashed forward to drag the boy out of the toxic cloud, but—
“...Hmph!”
Radie calmly drew a dagger and slit the caterpillar’s throat with absolute nonchalance.
You have successfully defeated the monster pack!
You have acquired the disguise: Lesser Green Raptor!
Your level has risen—
Several notifications popped up in my vision, but I brushed them aside for now, grabbing Radie by the scruff of his neck and hauling him away.
Inhaling the Green Moss Caterpillar’s toxic mist directly causes nerve paralysis and severe respiratory distress.
If a party member died, the Guild would slap us with a massive penalty. I needed to get him back to the surface right now...
“I’m perfectly fine, so why don’t you help me gather my caltrops instead?”
But the boy merely slapped my hand away in annoyance.
I looked over at Malton, who was casually finishing off a dying raptor as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Seeing this, a sudden realization struck me.
This kid... isn’t human.
Sensing the monsters’ approach from so far away, and being completely immune to poison.
I recalled there was a specific beastman tribe with those exact traits.
And...
How on earth did he fire that crossbow in rapid succession?
In most games, crossbows are depicted as rapid-fire weapons, but the reality is quite the opposite.
Medieval crossbows were notoriously slow and cumbersome to reload.
Because they required immense skill to handle, not to mention being expensive and high-maintenance, ordinary adventurers rarely used them...
A lever-action crossbow... and he modified it with a stirrup at the front so he can draw it using his core strength in an emergency.
My eyes gleamed sharply as I analyzed Radie’s weapon through the lens of my past gaming knowledge.
It was a modified piece utilizing a metal lever mechanism known as a ‘goat’s foot’ to facilitate rapid reloading.
On Earth, this method had been used since the 14th century, capping out at about four to five shots per minute.
...Did he overcome the weapon’s physical limitations through sheer, innate dexterity?
If that was the case, this kid was an absurdly talented find.
Creating variables with traps, an exceptional monster-detection radar.
And on top of that, ranged fire support—all of which were utilities both Malton and I sorely lacked.
He would be incredibly useful not just in combat, but also for keeping watch during the night.
Furthermore...
If he’s immune to poison... I can put him to use in so many ways...
I could toss him headfirst into a poison-filled den like we just saw, or order him to capture toxic monsters.
I could even use him as a royal food taster to test suspicious meals and prevent assassination attempts.
Stories of players being invited into seemingly friendly homes, only to be drugged with sleeping pills in their soup and waking up on an auction block with their organs harvested, were a dime a dozen on the Velheim community forums.
If I planned this right, I might even find a way to use him to trigger my Chaos skill.
I’ll have to make good use of this kid from now on.
As I drew up all sorts of schemes in my head, finally understanding why the well-connected Malton had gone out of his way to recruit him, my eyes locked with Radie’s. He was currently harvesting the poison sac from the Green Moss Caterpillar.
“...What,” Radie muttered.
“Nothing... I was just thinking you fight pretty well for an F-rank adventurer. That sudden burst of speed at the end to take down multiple raptors at once was quite impressive.”
“Well, of course...”
“Doran, do you feel any strange sensations in your body?” Malton asked. “It wouldn’t be surprising if you leveled up after a fight like that.”
“Ah, really? I didn’t feel any level-up sickness, at least.”
I casually checked my system log.
Come to think of it, there seemed to be several other messages that popped up alongside the monster kill notifications...
Glancing down at the logs, I froze instantly.
Congratulations! You have reached Level 24!
⚠️ [NEW] SUDDEN QUEST TRIGGERED! ⚠️
In the past, you were a legendary swordsman and adventurer! For defeating the Lesser Green Raptor pack with such outstanding skill, a small reward is offered to you.
Objective: Travel to the Valley of Unsetting Stars. It is a scenic, hidden sanctuary, the perfect place to spend the night!
Reward upon completion: Luck +2
A sudden quest? A reward? This makes no sense...
I glared at the text with deep suspicion.
Even if it looked like an easy task on the surface, I had already learned to suspect that system messages weren’t always driven by pure goodwill.
In a world as malice-ridden as Velheim, plausible kindness was the single most dangerous thing to trust.
Yet, in my memory, the ‘Valley of Unsetting Stars’ was just a place with unique terrain. There shouldn’t be any special events there.
Is there a roaming boss wandering around? A landslide? Or is it really just a simple reward quest?
“Wait... could it be?”
As I racked my brain, a fragmented memory flashed through my mind.
I remembered hearing that two to three years before the game’s official starting point—right when the dungeon first opened—there were far more diverse monsters and gimmicks.
And that a sudden monster outbreak had wiped out a large portion of the pioneer vanguard exploring the dungeon back then.
And one of those events was...
“...Malton, what day of the week is it today?”
“Do you mean the calendar date? Or...”
“No, you know, that thing the old geezers from the Magic Tower are always going on about.”
“Ah, the Mages’ Hour. There is indeed a saying that if something bizarre happens, one should check that first. Give me a moment...”
Malton reached deep into his backpack and pulled out a peculiarly designed pocket watch.
He adjusted the small dials and needles engraved with strange reliefs, then murmured softly.
“Hmm... It is the hour of the Iron Maiden and the Soldiers of the Blazing Sky. The Blue Comet Week is about to begin. But why do you ask all of a sudden?”
“Blue Comet Week, huh... It’s nothing.”
I waved my hand, barely swallowing a bitter laugh.
I almost walked right into my own funeral.
How dare it offer a suicide mission disguised as a reward?
If some clueless newbie had followed this quest to the valley, they would have died on the spot.
Because an incredibly threatening rare monster was about to spawn there.
But even so, throwing away free Luck stats from a quest reward felt like a massive waste...
Luck stats...
In Velheim, the Luck stat was uniquely peculiar.
It showed absolutely no noticeable effect when it was low, but once it accumulated, it began to exert monstrous power.
Right now, I was focusing on Strength and Agility for sheer survival, but in truth, Luck was the stat that best suited a trickster like me.
A stat like a double-edged sword—too wasteful to invest points into directly, yet far too precious to just throw away.
Should I just lose my mind and go for it?
Honestly, with this party, making it out alive shouldn’t be impossible...
Besides, the reward for finishing a battle there was on a completely different level than a mere +2 stat boost.
The monster we would encounter there was a rare mob that only spawned during specific cycles, and it possessed a very ‘unique trait’.
If I could acquire its disguise, it would become an immense asset for me in the future.
“...Ah, screw it,” I muttered.
“Doran...? Where are you going?” Malton asked.
“Just follow me. Come to think of it, I think I heard there was a great hunting spot around here...”
Muttering casually to myself, I turned my steps toward the valley indicated by the quest.