Chapter 30: Chapter 30 – Outpost.
"Again?! This is already the third attack this mouth!" – said one of the guards.
"Tch. Hey you! If I were you, I would get out here, the area around the outpost will become battlefield."
"…."
"Hey are you listening?! Get out of here!"
"Em… Nope."
Forge took out the spiked ball from his inventory.
"I think it's better if I help out even for a little bit."
(Something is definitely going on around here. Backing out right now is big NO.)
"…. Ah screw it. We don't have time to deal with you. If you want to die then come with us." – said the guard while entering the outpost.
Forge fallowed the two guards as their entered the outpost.
(There is quiet a number of soldier here. They equipment look quite well made and maintained. I wonder what they are dealing with?)
"Hey! Migel, Arthur! Who the heck is that?"
A heavy armored knight suddenly approached the Forge and the guards.
"Commander Alex. This is wonderer Forge. He was passing by and decided to help out. We already warned him that is dangerous, but that guy was stubborn about helping out."
"Hello." – said Forge.
"…. Okay? So, do you fight in close combat or range?" – asked capitan.
"I most of the time fight at close range. I also possess long range and mid-range weapon, but most of the time I take enemies at the close range. I'm also able to take hit or two without a problem." – said Forge.
"Hm… Then go at the front. Right now. Enemy will be here soon."
(Huh, I thought he would be against that and all, since I'm just a random person out of nowhere that just popped up, but okay?)
The soldiers gather and left the outpost while Forge fallowed them.
"Enemy this time is group of living trees! 25 were spotted and there were accompanied by group of 4 mutated living trees lead by magic living tree!" – said commander.
(Living tree huh? Using the spike ball is effective, but right now I have people around me. Spinning that thing around could end up making problem for the others. I think I should change weapon and I just happened to have one I want to test out.)
Forge put away his spiked ball and took out a giant axe from his inventory.
[Barbaric Axe]
(Time to chop some trees down!)
"Incoming!" – said guard on top of the wall.
From afar, Forge could spot multiple figures approaching from afar.
"Fire mages, open fire!"
The moment the commander gave the command, the mages on top of the wall fired many fire element spells at the incoming enemies.
The barrage of the attacks falling on top of the enemies, setting area on the flames.
(Huh, seems pretty strong. I guess those mages must have equipment that fully focus on the offence and probably has the advance class that is related to the fire mage.)
"…."
"!"
"They are still going!" – one of the solider on top of the wall shouted.
The group of the living trees get passed the flames and continue charging straight towards the outpost.
(Huh, that is interesting. Only about 7 of them got killed by this. I guess they also posses high magic defense stat.)
(Also, those guys seems to be a pain the ass.)
[Mutated Living Tree – Level 82]
(Most of the living trees lost more than half of their HP, but those guys lost around 40%. And that guy on the back only lost 15%)
[Magic Living Tree – Level 83]
(Seems like the mages have stopped firing big attacks, by the look of things they don't want to hit the troops by accident. I guess this is our turn now.)
The commander raised his sword into air
"Charge!" – shouted the commander while pointing his sword towards the monsters.
The group of soldier begin charging at the monster with Forge alongside them.
(Let's deal with the small fly's first since they are already at the dead doors.)
Forge took out his wings and leaped towards the monsters and slashed 3 of them with his axe, finishing them all off.
After Forge landed on the ground the two living trees tried attacking him, but he spined around with his axe, hitting both of them and getting rid of them.
Forge tried attacking another walking tree, but before he could do that, a giant wooden claw tried striking him, but Forge used his axe to block the attack.
"Big guy huh?"
In front of the Forge, a giant mutated living tree was standing, ready to fight him.
(He is bigger and he have long claws. His reach is greater than mine. On top of that he have the third arm. He definitely has more power compare to the normal based on that attack and he even manage to survive that barrage.)
The tree monster once again tried attacking the Forge with its claws, but when it was about to do it, Forge cut its arm in half with his axe. He then fallowed up with a second attack that left a deep wound on the monster and making it fall on the ground, before moments later finishing it off with the strike in the face.
[You have slain: Mutated Living Tree – Level 81]
"So what? I just have to kill them."
[Barbaric Axe]
[Attack Power: 253 – 289]
(This axe doesn't posses any special function. Instead, this heavy two handed axe just have very high attack power.)
(It's literally perfect weapon to use when dealing with those tree bastards.)
(My stats are way higher than average player thanks to the title and necklace and I even possess the stuff I made.)
(I don't need to think. I only need to kill those small flies!)
(By the look of things commander is dealing with the leader and will soon deal with it. I guess I will deal with big boys over here.)
The battle between the monsters and outpost soldiers didn't lasted long. The soldiers deal with the living trees while Forge dealt with mutated living trees and commander took down enemy leader.
[You have received EXP.]
(Hm…. The exp gain is definitely smaller. I guess this was because I was fighting with those soldiers. By the look of things, the NPCs does take portion of the EXP. Well, it's at least good to know about this.)
"Great work everybody. Now gather the materials from the monsters and bring to the Handsone. You there, Forge, was it? You took care of those mutated living trees but our mages did some work as well. Can you deal with only getting materials from 2 of them?" – said commander Alex.
"Hm… Okay, but could I please talk with for the moment?"
"About what?"
"Well, I just want to know about what the hell is happening right now."
"Oh, that? Hm…. Well okay."
(Huh, that was simple.)
Sometime later.
Forge and commander Alex met up in the commander Alex office that was located inside of the outpost.
"So, you wanted to know what the heck is going on here?"
"Pretty much yes."
"I was hunting the tree lizards' monsters, but when I went deeper and deeper, a tree monsters appeared and literally saw them fighting each other and now I found this place that looks some sort of semi wasteland."
"Just what the hell is happening here?" – asked Forge.
"Well, it will take a while. Just sit down and listen." – said commander to the Forge while pointing to the chair.
Forge listen to the commander and sit on the chair.
"So, by any chance did you came here from the Bronze Forest City?" – asked commander.
"Em. Well, yes. I did came from there."
"Huh. So, by any chance do you know why that city is called Bronze Forest City?"
"Well, unfortunately not."
"Hm. Okay. I guess I have to explain from that point then."
"Bronze Forest City was originally a small village with small amount of residence. It was a simple village at the time with no name really. It was just your average village."
"However, it all changed when the villages discover the area close to them. The tree in that area were filled with natura mana, making them stronger and tougher."
"Villagers were chopping up left and right those trees, in result the village grow rich and slowly developed over time, but that wasn't all."
"Villagers soon discovered something more valuable than they ever though they would. Mana trees and among them, the never before seen type of tree that was named later on as the bronze tree."
"Mana trees are very rare trees that can only be found in the forest infested with monsters and they posses very high market price, but it wasn't as good as the bronze tree."
"The bronze tree was new type of species of mana trees that evolve and mutated because of this soil unique mana. The wood from those trees is extremely valuable. For mages, blacksmith and even alchemist."
"Thanks to those unique woods, the village expanded and grow and rapid rate. It soon became a town and few years later it was already a city before anybody realized. The city was named bronze forest city after the bronze trees that binged the city its fame in the first place."
(Yea. I can kind of see this being the case. The wood I got from the undamaged trees are extremely valuable for crafting and there are two type of woods here that are way better? It would be nice if I could get my hands on some of them if possible.)
"Pretty much everything was fine and good. Until plant eating lizards came."
"Plant eating lizards? Not tree eating lizards?"
"Nope. Plant eating lizards are the monsters that enjoy eating the plants. They usually favor eating plants that contains mana like healing grass or poison herb."
"These lizards posses' unique trait of absorbing the characteristics of the plant they ate. So, if they eat healing grass, they will acquire lesser healing skill."
"Huh, well that sound like interesting ability."
"The plant eating lizards are most seen as annoying parasites that often eat the healing grass that is often used for making health potions."
"These bloody things are freaking annoying and they even posses poison attack. Their danger rank kind of depends on what they ate, but most of them times they are very low on the list."
"But it all kind changed in just one moment. About year and half ago. A monster stampede happened across the entire continent."
"Monster stamped? What is that?"
"Simple put, an army of the monster suddenly appearing before anybody could realize. They can sometimes destroys town and cities."
"We don't know what triggered it, but monster stampedes were happening all across the continent and out city was not expectation. We were dealing with the kobold army that suddenly appeared."
"The city was forced to halt any operation outside of the city, including the harvest of the trees that were main source of the income of the city."
"Honestly kobolds weren't that strong, but the problem was their numbers. We were forced to play defensively for the 3 mouths until kingdom was finally able to send soldiers to deal with the kobolds. We barely manage to hold out enemy assault and we lost tons of our soldiers and outposts."
"Because of lost both of the outpost and soldiers, the areas around the city were lost and became more dangerous. On top of that, some new dangerous monsters were able to claim the lost territory as theirs."
"The income of the city dropped like hell and on top of that, the previous mayor didn't wanted to deal with any of this, so he stole the city money and run off to who know where."
"We tried recovering a bit and try to make a city nice place again. After we manage to make city safe enough, we decided to went and reclaim our magic wood territory so the city could regain their main source of income, but when tried doing that, we ended up coming across those tree eating lizards."
"At first we didn't know what the heck they were, but later we found out that one of the places that had stamped too, forced the monsters that were originally living there to move out."
"And you probably realized, one of the species that moved here were plant eating lizards."
"Of all of the rotten luck, they ended up migrating to the magic tree forest. Since the trees were filled with mana and all, those bastards started eating those trees. This ended up causing mutation and evolved them into completely new species, the tree eating lizards. This bastards were way bigger and powerfully compare to the tree eating lizards. They were no longer on the bottom of the danger list."
"By the look of things, they came here around the time kobolds came and we bloody didn't knew at all about their existence. Pretty much when we went back there, found the horde of them there."
"But shouldn't you be able to deal with them? I saw how soldiers fought and all. Shouldn't they take down those lizards?" – asked Forge.
"Well, there are two problems. First, like I said before, we lost lot of soldiers and secondly, those lizards also ate mana trees and bronze trees, this made some of them evolve even further, creating even bigger threat."
"We literally don't have numbers and strength to take back the territory we had lost. We don't have means of defending and attacking at the same time right now."
"Okay, so that explain why those lizards are here, but what about those tree monsters. They seemed pretty aggressive to everything, including those lizards."
"Ah, that…. Well, I may as well explain that part as well."
"The kingdom is kind of still dealing with the monster stampede aftermath and because of that, they are unable to send soldiers to aid us with the problem. We also have no money to hire an army of the mercenaries because the previous mayor stole our money."
"Because our current situation, we grew desperate to get rid of those lizards and take back our former territory. So, we decided to make deal with the elves from the Ahrj kingdom. They say that they wanted to take some of our bronze wood we harvest each time for research or something, but that is probably a lie. Those guys are quite know for being prideful and greedy, they probably had other reason why they wanted those trees. I don't really known what they want that wood for and I don't care. We hated their guts, but it's not like we had any choice. In the end we agreed to their demands."
"They send a guy named Alvek who was the noble and the mage from that country. He was known for his knowledge about plant magic and ability to create monster known as living trees."
"When he came here, he bridged a device that his kingdom made called "Hearth Of The Tree". Using that device, we would create a powerful living trees that would be under our control that would be able to destroy the enemies."
"We manage to infiltrate the part of the forest where there was still lot of trees that were somehow undamaged, including mana trees and bronze trees. It was that guy idea to bring him there."
"When we got there, he activated the device himself."
"The device ended creating those living trees as promised, but then the unexpected happened."
"Apparently based on what that guy told us, the combination of the unique mana infused soil, the bronze tree properties and device power, ended up causing mutation and one of the bronze trees that was turned into living tree, ended up going rouge."
"It went on the rampage and manage to stole the device and absorb it. After that, all the living trees went also rouge and attacked us. That living tree that absorbed the device mutated and was now able create its own living trees."
"We were forced to run away in the end."
"That bastard Alvek returned back to his country and their country say that they will not let any more support, even though they ended up creating way bigger mess than before."
"Now we have tree eating lizards and living trees to deal with. The only good thing is that the living trees and forest lizards despise each other and often fight between themselves. Thanks to that we don't have to deal all the times with them."
"However, as you could see, we sometimes have to deal with the group of stragglers. Sometimes they are small in number and weak, but sometimes they are in big numbers and powerful."
"This outpost was made to defend this place and made sure that enemies won't get past it. If this outpost falls, then the entire city will be in danger."
"Honestly, I was wondering if I should tell you about it or not, but you hunt those bastards for us and by look of things you manage to deal with the Azruk. I can see you wearing his signature cape and claws blades."
(Azruk? Wait, wasn't that a name of the kobold chieftain that I killed? And now that I think about it.)
[Necklace Of Kobold Chieftain Azruk]
[A necklace once worn by the chieftain of the kobolds Azruk. The necklace once symbolized as the symbol of the pride that his tribe possess, however he had to throw away his pride in order to save his tribe. The kobolds had looming threat of extinction over their heads after being found out by the human of the kingdoms. Most of the warriors of the tribe died in conflict, making the once mighty tribe nothing more than a shadow of its former glory. The kobold chieftain took a drastic measures and hid his tribe away and decided to sell his life to a demon ******, becoming his slave in order to save his tribe. The chieftain took away off his medallion and never wore it again, symbolizing his loss of his pride after willingly making him and his tribe nothing more than a slaves.]
[All stats increase by: 15]
[Generate Skill: [Might Of The Kobold] level 1/2. This is active skill than when active will cover your body in marking of the kobolds, increasing all of your stats by 5% for 15 minutes. The skill have a cooldown of the 3 hours.]
(Huh, so it's connected.)
"So, you trust me because I have dealt with Azruk?"
"Kind of. At least I can tell that you are on our side and all."
"Hm…."
"Mister commander Alex. Would you like if I help you out a bit?"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone