The Man Who Killed the First Monster

Blood dripping over the blade of the dirk. Jason stood at the center of a massacre. No goblins and wolves were left alive under his assault. Again, Dan couldn’t help but be amazed. He knew the strength of a single wolf but when teaming up with a goblin, he knew the creature just turned into a different level of strength. Yet this man crushed everything with that crimson glowing dagger of his.

Dan couldn’t cast his eyes away from that dirk. He knew that dirk was an artifact but he wondered whether the glowing was due to the dirk itself or because of a skill. Either way, he couldn’t help but felt curious about it.

“There’s something here,” said Pixie as she saw something floating above one of the dead corpses of the goblin.

“Don’t touch it!” Jason shouted prompting Pixie to stood still.

“Our orders are to collect artifacts dropped by the UC, I’m not under your command,” said Pixie.

Jason rushed over and picked up the only loot among these ten dead goblin riders. He glared at Pixie with a few negative thoughts brewing inside his head.

“Hey! That’s…” Pixie felt the need to complete the mission but Dan stopped her by pulling her by the shoulder.

“He’s not wrong,” said Dan.

“What? But the mission said…” again Dan cut Pixie’s words off.

“Him and the other two that came long have special privileges due to the contract, we cannot interfere with the collection of their loots since it’s not under our kill,” said Dan.

Pixie couldn’t believe it as she had a skeptical look on her face.

“Next time read the files Pixie,” said Dan.

“Hmph,” Pixie walked away as she knew she just made a mistake. She didn’t have a thick face to confront Jason after making a mistake like that.

Jason didn’t bother about the whimsical soldier. His attention was at the scroll in his hand. Luck was playing its part and he managed to get a scroll. Although he didn’t manage to tame the alpha but he still got a new skill in hand.

Night Vision(Passive)

Allows seeing in the dark.

Lv.MAX

Would you like to learn Night Vision?

Not the best but useful. To be frank he was surprised seeing a skill that had already reached max level at the get-go. Jason said yes and a new ability was learned. He took off the night vision goggle on his head as he didn’t need it anymore. He stashed it inside his bed as throwing it away wasn’t his style.

“Why did you remove the night vision?” asked Dan out of the blues.

Surprisingly for Jason, Dan had been keeping an eye on Jason for a long time now.

“I can see in the dark now,” said Jason.

His brief remark about the matter was enough for Dan to understood.

“Neat,” said Dan.

The trio regrouped after seeing that there was nothing to loot among the corpses of these goblin riders. They pressed on towards the center of the city with the mission of saving a girl.

Jason was like a bulldozer, ripping apart any enemies that stumbled on their path. The man didn’t even bother about trying to sneak into the city as he just walked his way through the road with enemies left and right.

Dan was a bit apprehensive about the whole simple but reckless tactic since it may endanger both his and Pixie’s life. Yet seeing Jason in action only made him more speechless along the way. He read the file about Jason and the file stated that Jason’s level wasn’t confirmed as it was only written as being more than level ten.

In front of his eyes, Dan was seeing the reality of it meant to be at a higher level. Skills and tactics were important but in this new era of warfare, the level was the determinant variable.

Pixie herself gulped a mouthful of her saliva as she witnessed the prowess of Jason time after time again. She started to felt regret about showing hostility at the guy just because of him acting like a douche a bit.

Their journey continued as Jason took the vanguard position. He didn’t let anything pass through but at times, monsters ambushed from different directions leaving Pixie and Dan to fend for themselves.

The situation was becoming more complicated as Dan and Pixie were a bit low-level. Both at level four yet these monsters were stronger than them.

From wolves to moving trees, they met a number of new monsters. Dan couldn’t help but be surprised seeing that even plants were monsters. He saw for the first time, a child-size mushroom jumping on the road. But that wasn’t the freaky part, the eerie part was seeing the face of the living mushroom. As if he was seeing a horror film coming to life in front of him.

They fought hard but in the end, Jason saved their asses many times. Dan felt helpless as his effort in killing these monsters only ended up being killed by Jason in a single blow. Even Pixie felt her pride tarnished a bit. Both of them were motivated to become more powerful along the course of this mission but Jason was stealing the whole show.

“This is humiliating,” said Pixie. She too felt her efforts were wasted.

But both of them couldn’t complain at Jason straight on. First, their time was limited since they had a person to save, and second, they still earned level even when the person killing it was Jason. They were hopping on the bus whether they like it or not.

Both raised up to level five and they didn’t have a choice but to be thankful to Jason.

Then they saw Jason standing still at a distance after killing a fleeing enemy. Dan walked up to him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dan.

Jason’s eyes were focused on a certain area. He was frowning seeing what it was. He shifted to the side and had an idea.

“Let’s get to the roof,” said Jason.

Dan and Pixie followed behind him and went to the roof. They were crouching near the ledge of the roof as Jason was still keeping an eye at that particular building. Although Dan and Pixie had these night vision goggles but the range was limited. The night vision binocular was also in the hands of Hemlock thus they couldn’t scout the area alongside Jason.

“He could see that far?” asked Pixie in a whisper.

Dan put his finger on his lips signaling at her to stay silent. Then Jason faced these two.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Jason.

Dan didn’t expect Jason to spout such words. He always had an image of this man being at the top and not having a problem, yet the situation seemed to be grave to even made this man frowned.

“What is it?” Pixie asked. She turned a bit mellow with how things were. Turning cranky at this time wouldn’t be the best behavior.

Jason shifted his glance to Dan.

“Check the map and tell me the target’s location,” Jason said.

Dan showed him the exact position, the man then took a look around the place and as he confirmed their position he pointed at a certain direction, the same spot where Jason was staring for a while now. The tallest building in this city.

“Listen up,” Jason said as these two soldiers perked up their ears.

“We’re half a klick away from that building, the target last known location. The bad news is, goblins had made their camp around that building,” Jason broke the news and the two were confused.

The picture in their mind regarding goblins were those child-size humanoid riding a wolf with their behavior similar to a human in term of using weapons. They saw Jason killing them all without a problem and didn’t understand why he was cautious like this.

“Didn’t you kill them easily?” asked Pixie as she was straight forward like always.

Jason turned his attention to Pixie.

“We’re going against a whole camp, and to make things simpler. Think of it like this, we three are going to raid an enemy base camp that is full of soldiers and well equipped in everything, do you think we three are enough for this?” Jason’s words struck a chord to both of them.

Seeing it from their perspective, after shifting the image of a goblin to a human, they realized they were about to infiltrate an enemy base camp and the knew how ludicrous it was to go through such a thing.

Jason watched both of their expression as he didn’t tell them about his Shadow Sneak. He pondered for a while regarding this matter since from the look of it, these two probably didn’t know about his stealth-type ability. If they had known, they would have just straight up tell him to just to turn invisible and rescue the person of interest. But from how it looked, the military might have something to do with this.

Over the past period of time, Jason did utilize his Shadow Sneak with a few people knowing about it. Like Captain Ryan, Scott from Beta team, and the whole Alpha team. His action seemed clear as day for others to see but in Jason’s view, the military was still wasn’t sure about his stealth ability. It was either, these people kept their mouth shut about him, that seemed rather impossible or the military felt the need to keep his stealth ability under a tight leash.

A few things came to Jason’s mind at the moment.

Possibility of leaking intel to other countries seems to be a plausible reason but if they’re acting like this, then am I consider as a military asset?

An open question with no answer at the moment. As of right now, he had the task of rescuing this person of interest. Someone paid him, thus the obligation to seal the deal. While he was having his own dilemma, Dan and Pixie were racking their brain trying to figure things out.

“Call for back up?” Pixie asked.

“Not possible, they won’t be able to travel here in this short period of time,” said Dan.

Dan couldn’t think of any other way other than to sneak into the building, turning this into a covert operation. But there were too many holes regarding this plan as he didn’t know about the layout of the building as well as the estimate hostile in the building and their firepower. In a way, entering that building was like entering through death’s door, suicide if you want to call it in another way.

“We’re sneaking in,” said Jason as he broke the silence.

Dan was afraid of such a suggestion and Pixie knew the truth regarding that matter.

“I know you’re powerful and all but we’re going inside a base camp filled with enemies, you know how suicidal this plan is?” Pixie asked as she felt goosebumps all over her body after hearing the plan.

“Relax, you’ve got me. What’s the worse that can happen?” said Jason in a nonchalant tone. He even smirked in the end which only made both Pixie and Dan uncomfortable.

Seeing that they had no choice, the three proceeded on foot to the building. Meanwhile, a pair of eyes were watching the back of those three accompanied by a subtle growl. A wolf with a lightning shape horn was tracking those three from behind without Jason noticing about it.