Chapter 128 Upgrade

The battle ended quickly.

A fighting style forged through extensive real combat, paired with highly adaptable combat techniques, granted Xia Nan a level of extreme mobility ordinary adventurers could only dream of.

He stayed on the move, providing support.

He had rooted out and beheaded the "gnoll archer" hiding in the shadows of the underbrush right at the start.

Weaving across the battlefield, he helped extricate Abi from a desperate corner, then unleashed a combat technique to help Adeline finish off the most troublesome "elite monster" among the enemy ranks.

As for the two remaining gnolls, the loss of their "Flesh Devourer" leader hadn't completely shattered their will to fight like it would for green-skinned goblins, but they were no longer a threat.

The tables had turned.

Their individual strength far exceeded the enemy's, and they even held the numerical advantage.

Berg provided ranged support, while Xia Nan and Adeline fought in close quarters.

In just a few minutes, the entire battle drew to a close.

Whoosh—an iron club smashed down from above, moving so fast it would have been nothing but a blur to an ordinary person.

But in Xia Nan's vision, it appeared exceptionally slow; he could clearly trace the exact trajectory of its descent.

With light footsteps, he tilted his body to the side in an extraordinarily agile posture.

The iron club that should have crushed his skull merely brushed past the tip of his nose and smashed into the empty grass.

He appeared incredibly relaxed, keeping a firm grip on the rhythm of the fight.

Riding the momentum, Xia Nan took a light step forward to close the distance and casually thrust his longsword upward.

"Squelch."

The tip of the blade instantly pierced the gnoll's soft lower jaw, punching through flesh and cartilage straight into its cranial cavity.

A faint drag of resistance traveled down the hilt into his hand.

He twisted his wrist, giving it a simple turn.

The gnoll's reeking body convulsed and collapsed to the ground, its life force rapidly draining away.

Nearby, the last gnoll half-knelt on the ground, a bare arrow jutting from its eye socket as it let out a shrill howl.

An iron hammer gleaming with cold light whistled as it smashed down. Accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering bone, the howling abruptly stopped.

Xia Nan withdrew his gaze.

He pulled his Decapitating Longsword from the corpse at his feet, gave it a light flourish, and flicked off the foul blood clinging to the blade.

Standing in place, he lightly tapped his feet against the ground.

He could feel his body was noticeably lighter than a moment ago.

A thoughtful expression appeared on his face.

[Fang Hunt], according to what the Barbarian Forgan had said earlier, came from the distant Northlands. It was created by an ancient powerhouse who had observed the demeanor and movements of a hunting Winter Wolf and combined them with their own martial foundation.

It was absolutely not one of those ordinary combat techniques commonly found among bottom-tier adventurers on the continent.

It had real pedigree.

In Xia Nan's understanding, if combat techniques were divided by quality grades the same way equipment and items were, outside of just their levels...

[Fang Hunt] would probably be at least a blue "Rare" grade, or perhaps even a purple "Unique" one.

He had actually expected as much ever since he first reached the Novice stage with it.

After all... it was just too damn useful!

Even though [Fang Hunt] was just a movement-type combat technique, it offered an almost exaggerated level of flexibility.

Dashing forward, retreating, feinting, kiting, and even chaining into other combat techniques—even when it had only been at lv1, it had elevated his actual combat capabilities to an entirely different level.

But despite that, he hadn't expected to still underestimate the technique's true value.

Going from "lv2" to "lv3," it had actually rewarded Xia Nan with an incredibly precious attribute point!

After all, even [Spinning Slash], which he had already trained to the max level, only granted him an attribute bonus after reaching lv5.

Right now, [Fang Hunt] had just crossed the halfway mark of its progression, yet it already offered such an improvement.

It was entirely predictable that once Xia Nan raised it to lv5, the gains it brought would be no less than what the former provided.

As for why there had been no extra reward when [Fang Hunt] leveled up from level one to level two...

Xia Nan already had a rough guess.

Earlier, during his mission with the Half-Elf Hai'an, he had learned from him how this continent categorized proficiency in combat techniques.

Novice, Proficient, Mastery.

Combining the other man's description of these three tiers and mapping them to his status panel's levels, it looked like this: lv1-2, lv3-4, and lv5.

[Fang Hunt] advancing from "lv2" to "lv3" was, in the terminology of this world, the leap from "Novice" to "Proficient".

It was a qualitative leap!

Following that logic, if Xia Nan's guess was correct...

When [Fang Hunt] reached lv4, it should be just like lv1-2—a standard increase in proficiency, without any additional bonuses.

The next attribute point reward, or perhaps a corresponding Feat, should arrive when it reached lv5 "Mastery".

Of course, that was a matter for the future.

Right now, the concrete combat performance of a lv3 [Fang Hunt] was already faintly beginning to resemble what Forgan had demonstrated to him earlier.

Not only had its movement speed, explosive power, and other aspects received an all-around upgrade, but it also inherently carried a certain amount of damage even without chaining into an extra attack.

Even its "coolness factor" had evolved. Aside from the original wolf howl, phantom Wolf Heads would now condense from the surrounding air upon release.

Compared to before, the improvement was nothing short of massive.

And then, there was the most crucial part—that one precious Agility attribute point.

Going from "6" to "7" might have seemed like an unremarkable, single-point increase.

But when actually reflected in Xia Nan's physical body, it resulted in a tremendous enhancement across multiple areas, including "reaction speed", "balance", and "reflexes".

It was no exaggeration to say that even now, with the battle completely over, the awkwardness brought about by the sudden surge in physical stats still left Xia Nan feeling light on his feet, as though he could launch himself into the sky with just a little push.

It was like swimming for too long and getting used to the water's resistance, only to find one's legs feeling oddly weightless upon returning to shore.

"How is it? Are you hurt?" Adeline, gripping her iron hammer and breathing heavily, leaned in closer and asked with concern.

It seemed Xia Nan lightly tapping his feet to feel out his bodily changes had led her to mistakenly believe he was injured, or that he had used some kind of explosive combat technique with severe side effects.

Hearing this, Xia Nan waved his hand, signaling that he was fine.

Speaking of which, although the battle had looked incredibly intense, and the enemies they faced were far stronger than the goblins or "Gap-Toothed" from before...

The members of the Green Blood Squad were actually still in pretty good shape.

He didn't even need to mention himself; his clashes with each enemy rarely lasted longer than seven seconds.

Interweaving the use of [Fang Hunt] and [Spinning Slash], he often beheaded those gnolls before they even had a chance to strike back.

Add it all up, and the actual time he spent fighting was probably less than the time he spent dashing across the battlefield.

Naturally, he hadn't taken any injuries.

Abi had done nothing but run away, and hadn't maintained eye contact with a gnoll for even two seconds. On his entire body, only the muscles in his right arm were slightly strained due to his reckless move at the very start.

Berg had worked up a bit of a sweat.

Having used his self-accelerating combat technique to kite two gnolls for the entire fight, he had consumed quite a bit of stamina, but he didn't have a single wound on him.

In comparison, it was actually the relatively strong Adeline who had suffered a few minor injuries requiring bandages, as she had been forced to hold the line alone against two gnolls—including the "Flesh Devourer"—before Xia Nan arrived to support her.

With the battle over, it was naturally time for the classic post-battle loot-gathering phase.

Unlike in a video game where a light click of the mouse had the on-screen character symbolically pat an enemy twice to pull out all sorts of treasures, or where a loot chest would suddenly pop out of thin air...

In the real world, you actually had to grope inch by inch over corpses covered in blood and unknown filth, manually peel off the enemies' armor and clothes, carry it all back to town amidst the stench of rotting meat, and spend half the day haggling with a stingy general store owner.

Only then would those sweet-smelling gold coins finally fall into your pocket.

It was no easy task.

Perhaps feeling that he hadn't been of much use in the recent battle—and might have even dragged the team down a bit...

Abi acted exceptionally eager.

Without needing anyone to remind him, he took the initiative to step up and handle the dirty work of looting the corpses.

It was worth mentioning that the appearance of the enemies they had been worrying about on the return trip, combined with their decisive victory, briefly restored Berg—who had been a bit restless and on edge for the past two days—to his usual spirited self.

He would clearly continue to recover as they left the Misty Forest and approached the safety of Rivervale Town.

The loot was mediocre.

Gnoll tribes like this one, which endlessly roamed the wasteland without settling down anywhere, rarely had a habit of hoarding wealth.

From head to toe, the only things on them worth any money were the secondhand pieces of equipment they had scavenged from other adventurers.

However, these bipedal beasts had absolutely no concept of maintenance.

Between their terrible usage habits and the harsh environment of the Misty Forest, the gear had begun to rot and decay in just a few short days.

Even if they hauled it all back, the whole lot would probably only sell for around ten to twenty gold coins. It didn't hold much value.

After scouring the entire battlefield, the most valuable item turned out to be the head of the "Gnoll Flesh-Eater".

Its bounty on the Association's quest board was a hefty 120 gold.

This was the exact opposite of what usually happened when wiping out goblins.

The material loot was mundane, but the quest bounty had become the bulk of their income.

Of course, following the customary reward distribution rules of the Green Blood Squad, having made extra contributions and played a massive role in the battle, Xia Nan would receive at least half of the gold coins once they returned to Rivervale Town.

Although it still couldn't compare to his previous few missions, it was still a decent chunk of change.

"Did these gnolls fight a bunch of other adventurer squads before they ran into us? Why are they all covered in wounds?" Abi asked, his expression somewhat puzzled as he diligently collected the scattered bodies on the ground.

The injuries caused by the Green Blood Squad were very easy to distinguish.

Ignoring Abi himself, Adeline left blunt force trauma from her hammer strikes, Berg consistently used a bow and arrows, and Xia Nan exclusively went for beheadings.

Aside from those, the other wounds on the gnoll corpses had all been present before the battle even began; they had nothing to do with them.

Hearing the younger man bring it up, Xia Nan also found it strange.

He had noticed it a moment ago as well.

Almost all of these gnolls bore substantial burn marks across their bodies, as though they had been swept by flames.

The fur on the backs of a few of them had been almost entirely burned away, leaving behind nothing but charred, pitch-black scorch marks.

The wounds were not light.

It had caused the combat power of the "Flesh Devourer"—an elite gnoll individual originally on the same tier as a Bugbear—to drop noticeably, allowing Xia Nan, who had just leveled his [Fang Hunt] to lv3, to take it down with ease.

'Perhaps... they were left by the "Iron Hand" squad?' Xia Nan thought, growing even more convinced of his earlier hypothesis.

After all, the opposing team's strength wasn't bad. Setting aside his own temporary addition, they were overall much stronger than the Green Blood Squad.

Even when faced with a surprise attack from gnolls, they couldn't have been completely devoid of the ability to fight back.

If even their leader, George, had been captured and tortured to death, they must have made the gnolls pay a certain price.

As for the peculiar scorch marks on the gnolls...

Although it was highly unlikely that they had been left by some Spellcaster—bottom-tier adventurer squads like theirs couldn't possibly have magical teammates of that caliber.

But thrown items like "Fire Oil Bombs" were readily sold in the town shops.

He currently had three in his own pockets.

It wasn't anything surprising.

"Hurry up and finish looting the corpses. We need to move in the dark and find a new place to camp."

It was currently the dead of night, the most dangerous time in the forest, teeming with nocturnal monsters.

Gnolls had no concept of bathing, and the stench radiating from their bodies could be smelled from dozens of meters away. Combined with the fresh scent of blood, it was highly likely to attract nearby predators.

For safety's sake, the Green Blood Squad naturally couldn't stay where they were.

Fortunately, Adeline's rich adventuring experience meant she had already anticipated this scenario before making camp, and she had memorized several backup campsite locations in advance.

The terrain at those spots was fairly suitable.

Right now, they only needed to process the corpses a bit, pack up their gear, and leave immediately—they didn't even need to bother extinguishing the campfire.

A journey of a few dozen minutes still carried the possibility of encountering danger, but it was obviously much safer than randomly pitching a camp somewhere in the dense forest.

Without wasting even a single second, Adeline simply applied some quick bandages to the few wounds that required urgent care before immediately stepping forward to join the ranks of those clearing the battlefield.

And it was only at this moment that she finally had the chance to carefully observe the gnoll corpses at her feet—creatures that could have very well buried their entire squad in the forest just moments ago, but were now lying motionless on the ground.

'Decapitation, decapitation, and more decapitation...'

An iron-gray sword light flashed; it was Xia Nan standing off to the side, flicking a shred of meat stuck to the surface of his blade.

Adeline couldn't help but wonder to herself.

She wondered if he had some sort of weird fetish.

But then again, it was normal.

After all, the pressure in this line of work was immense. Having stayed in Rivervale Town for so many years, all the adventurers she knew had psychological issues to some degree or another.

Compared to alcoholism and gambling—just having a passion for "decapitation" really wasn't a problem at all.

As she continued looting, she looked again at the "Flesh Devourer"'s riddled corpse.

Her mind couldn't help but flash back to the phantom wolf silhouette—condensed from the air and grass clippings—that had howled past her just moments before.

For the first time, Adeline actually felt that her judgment might have been wrong.

She subconsciously looked up, glancing back in Xia Nan's direction.

Her gaze sized him up.

'This kid...'

'Has he really not obtained a Class Level yet?'