Liam didn't waste any time as he rushed down the muddy slope of the valley. He intended to slide down the cliff on a Shedim corpse but there were too many uprooted trees, bushes, and other obstacles in his way.
The highest incline of the slope was the most annoying to run down but Liam made it work. It took him only four minutes to rush down the slope, leaving him with six minutes to find a bunch of humans.
Fortunately, that was rather easy because the scared humans of Haltan were screaming their lungs out. Their terrified screams filled the surrounding and were hard to miss. The screams drowned the sounds made by the storm and they gave Liam a rough guide to find his targets.
'Got it!' He shouted in his mind while switching his direction immediately. He reached out to the small opening at the side of the large backpack and removed one steel spear before he closed the backpack once again.
Liam surveyed his surroundings and scowled. The forest around him suddenly seemed to have come alive as the branches reached out to the ground like fingers and the leaves rustled loudly as if they were trying to communicate with the storm and the wet soil.
Mud and large puddles of water turned it into a slippery terrain. Each step sent splashes of water into the air, slowing down Liam who was slowly losing his patience with the environment around him.
'I swear…if these greedy bastards won't give me any Arcanium in exchange for the weapons, I will tear them apart the moment this mission is over!' Liam swore to himself after he nearly tripped over a root that had been hidden under a thin layer of mud.
He was not sure how long the heavy rain would continue but the rewards of the customized mission were pretty big, indicating that it wouldn't be easy to protect a hundred Natives until the storm would disperse.
Rushing through the muddy forest as fast as he could, Liam discovered many things. There were not as many monsters in his immediate surroundings as he would have expected and the few monsters he saw were not bothered by him. Like him, they too were heading in the same direction he rushed to right now.
A few more minutes passed before Liam reached a plateau where only a bunch of large trees were located. A manmade trail of cobblestones connected the large trees that were located just behind a large construction that looked like a big container, a cuboid made out of bricks with countless glass windows.
However, neither the trees, the cobbled trail, nor the building attracted Liam's attention. The bunch of humans were shivering in fright, and their uniforms that were drenched in water were what pulled his attention over to them. The humans were scared shitless which was not that hard to see.
'Students? A school or academy? There must be hundreds of them…jackpot!!' Liam thought the moment he saw the young humans that were likely between 14-18 years old. All of them were wearing a similar uniform, and only the middle-aged man who stood in front of them was wearing something different.
The middle-aged man was also trembling but he stood in front of his students nonetheless.
If Liam didn't know the true nature of humans, he might have actually believed that the scholarly middle-aged man was willing to sacrifice his life to protect his students.
Fortunately, he was not that foolish!
He looked to the left of the students and Liam could finally see why everyone was so scared.
Rats the size of large dogs were clawing and chewing the steel fence that had been erected around the school's premises to prevent wild animals from accidentally entering the schoolyard.
Until now that had been enough to restrict animals but with the appearance of actual monsters, ordinary steel fences would not fare for long.
[The customized Mission『Protect the Natives』has been activated. Good Luck!]
'I don't need lu…no, scratch that. Give me as much luck as possible!' Liam shouted in his mind when he finally reached the cobbled trail. Moving around was much easier without all the mud holding him back.
That way, he could run toward the group of humans while taking a proper look at the situation ahead.
'Ordinary Huge Rats, Blazing Tooth Rats…Elite Ratatuo…well that's still fine, somehow!' Liam ended up thinking. He had expected to find worse beasts to fight considering that his rewards were pretty nice.
The only issue he detected was the number of opponents he would have to face. There were thousands of rats and it was quite obvious that he couldn't deal with them all by himself.
'Good thing that I brought these with me!' He told himself while tightly grasping the steel spear in his hand.
Liam spun the spear in his right hand while rushing over the cobbled trail.
The class of 30ish students and their teacher were paralyzed due to their fear and stood frozen in place. They had no idea what to do and where to go.
Almost all rats were trying to find their way inside the school after following the sounds of terror and desperation to nibble at their prey. However, there were still a few dog-sized rats that sensed the class who had gone out for their environmental studies of the valley's forest…
Who would have thought that their practical class would end up like this?
A handful of huge rats were slowly inching closer to the humans, finding their way through the mud. Their teeth clattered viciously as they approached the paralyzed students and the teacher whose legs were still quivering in fear.
Nobody was able to move and the heavy downpour prevented anyone from noticing that a few students had just wetted themselves.
The rats squeaked loudly which made a few of the already frightened students to pass out as fear overcame them.
Their death was certain. At least that was what most of them believed right now. There was no way to escape the attack of thousands of dog-sized rats even if only a few were actually attacking their group right now.
They couldn't use their bare hands to tear apart the rats because they didn't possess superhuman strength!
As for weapons, they couldn't even dream about getting their hands on some weapons. Their school certainly did not have an armory.
And, it was not as if weapons would magically appear in front of them just because they wanted to!
"Catch that!" A calm voice reverberated through the surrounding, reaching the wildly twitching ears of the students as a gray glint shot through the air.
A moment later, a loud squeal overflowing with pain reached everyone's ear.
The sheep-sized rat, the biggest out of the batch of all rats who had chosen to attack them, had been impaled.
The tip of a steel spear was stuck deep in its brain, killing the fearsome rat in an instant.
…
Or maybe…just maybe, weapons would rain down in front of them?...
Liam had used bits of his Arcane power to shroud the tip of the steel spear with it.
By doing this, he reinforced the steel of the spear blade, which was why the spear didn't even sustain a scratch when it lodged itself deep into the sheep-sized rat's body.
The rat's long and dangerously gleaming red-colored teeth were exposed as it let out a last, high-pitched squeal before it slumped down on the ground not even five meters in front of the petrified students and the teacher.
[Blazing Tooth Rat has been slayed]
[+0.5 Arcanium]
'Stingy bastard!' Liam cursed in his mind as he closed in to the humans whom he had encountered. They were all cowering in fear and stood huddled in front of the large iron gate that was also the only way inside the school.
The keys to the lock could be seen lying on the ground behind the fence, beyond his reach. Liam was not sure how they landed there but he couldn't waste time wondering about it for the time being.
His task was to protect the students and the locked gate was in his way, preventing him from doing exactly that.
He retrieved a second spear from the large backpack, shrouded the tip in a minuscule amount of Arcane Power, and threw it at the gate's lock which burst open in an instant.
Liam ignored the gazes he drew onto himself as he removed the entire backpack from his shoulders before he hurled it toward the teacher.
"Take the weapons and start fighting!" He shouted, still ignoring the gazes that loomed on him. Liam was still a few meters away from the group of students but some of the Rats were closing in on them.
However, instead of finding a way to lead the group of humans into safety, he unsheathed one longsword and the battle axe that was secured to his belt thanks to the latch he had used to fasten it.
Running around with the battle axe had been a little bit of a nuisance but Liam was quite thankful that he could make use of it almost immediately.
Looking at the seemingly ordinary steel battle axe with its short wooden handle, he couldn't help but smile. There was no design on the wooden handle and the same could be said about the blade. However, the most important thing to notice about the battle axe was that the blade was wide and curved with a fearsome edge that could cut through everything.
It was dark in color and well-tempered, but none of that was important to Liam as long as it did its job well.
He rushed closer to the muddy soil through which the rats could progress only slowly before he began hacking and sawing through the rats, one after another with the longsword.
Liam allowed a handful of rats to approach them, just to end their miserable life by beheading them or cutting their brain with a powerful cleave of the battle axe. It was more of a cleaver, either way!
[Ordinary Huge Rat has been slayed]
[+0.1 Arcanium]
[+0.1 Arcanium]
[+0.1 Arcanium]
After a few ordinary huge rats had been killed, Liam was forced to evade the attack of a Blazing Tooth Rat. The sheep-sized rat was trying to overwhelm him with its stats that were higher than his own, which resulted in Liam getting pushed back…or so it seemed.
Liam blocked the Blazing Tooth Rat's attack with the battle axe while thrusting the longsword deep into the monster's abdomen.
He twisted the sword blade mercilessly and dragged it down through the rat's abdomen before he pulled it out.
Just a moment later, a familiar notification appeared in front of him.
[Blazing Tooth Rat has been slayed]
[+0.5 Arcanium]
Liam didn't receive many Arcanium for each kill but that was not important right now, either way. He was at an advantage and could kill dozens, if not hundreds of Ordinary Huge Rats under the current circumstances.
His opponents were slowed down in the mud, he had vast combat experience on all kinds of battlefields and he was armored with two decent weapons that could be used to slaughter and protect.
After Liam finished the second Blazing Tooth Rat, he took a moment to catch his breath.
He stepped back and glanced toward the group of students and the teacher who had yet to move. They looked at Liam as if he was a mythical creature from a fairytale, a fae that had magically come to their rescue!
'Should I just leave them behind?' Liam thought for a moment before he grit his teeth in anger and frustration.
"If you guys don't want to die, at least don't stand in my way…" He swore under his breath before muttering loudly, "Take the steel spears and use your Soultraits to fight, you brainless idiots!"
It was quite obvious that the sudden change in Haltan was too much to accept for most humans who had lived a peaceful life far from war but things had changed now.
To those who had never even killed a living being, it might be hard to accept the new truth and life that had been forced onto them, however, Liam was not someone who would bother about that.
He had been abandoned by everyone, banished from everywhere, and forced to kill to survive from a young age. His mother and siblings had always played around with him, or so they labeled it whenever they treated him like a piece of trash. They tortured him, and gave him seemingly impossible missions one after another, just to brief him about the situation on Haltan as his first opportunity to gain freedom.
It was the first time in his life that nobody could control him in any way, and Liam wouldn't allow anyone to take it away from him!
On Haltan, he had free reign and he wanted to make use of the environmental advantage that allowed him to move much faster than the rats. This advantage was only temporary because the corpses of the rats were slowly stacking up in the mud, paving a way for other rats to him and the students as the commotion would attract more of them.
However, the students were still not moving, which forced Liam to go out of his way and activate his Soultrait.
The number of rats rushing at them increased drastically over time, and that was mostly the humans' fault. The rats may not be able to smell and see much in the heavy rain but they could clearly sense the fear of the students and the teacher.
Liam got to understand that the plan he had worked out in his mind was not going as smoothly as expected.
Thus, he changed his way to approach the situation.
"I will abandon you guys if you don't move in the next ten seconds!"
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GOT IT