Online Game: I Started with Max Charisma and Caught the Goddess's Eye - Chapter 491: Assassins in the Dark

Chapter 491: Chapter 491: Assassins in the Dark

After praising Luca in front of everyone, Lucas led the group onward, continuing through the labyrinth-like pathways of the Black Forest Camp.

Nearly five whole hours later, when dawn was just beginning to creep over the horizon, Lucas finally stopped in front of a hastily constructed wooden hut.

“This will be our lodging!” Lucas announced, turning to the weary group. “Go get some rest. An officer will come by this afternoon to assign us our tasks.”

With that, he stepped into the hut without another word.

Luca and the others naturally followed behind him.

The moment they stepped inside, a wave of damp, heavy air washed over them.

The interior was extremely humid, and the ground beneath their feet was nothing more than half-wet, sticky mud.

The place was far from suitable for human habitation.

“Are we really supposed to live here?” Luca frowned deeply as he looked around the cramped, clammy space. “I’m telling you, if we stay here for even two days, we’ll all end up sick.”

Although the others remained silent, the looks on their faces made it clear they agreed with Luca completely.

Lucas, standing with his back to them, didn’t answer right away.

Truthfully, he was feeling just as embarrassed as they were.

He had already asked a friend to arrange better accommodations for himself and the soldiers he had brought along. His friend had readily agreed without hesitation, and Lucas had trusted him completely. Never in his wildest thoughts had he expected to be brushed off like this.

After a brief pause, Lucas turned around, forcing his expression into one of stern resolve.

“This is a test for us!” he declared firmly. “If you can’t endure even this minor hardship, how do you expect to defeat the enemy on the battlefield?

Yes, the conditions here are less than ideal, but I believe we can adapt! When we finally face real war, the environment out there will be far worse than this.”

His explanation, however, failed to convince Luca in the slightest.

Luca responded without hesitation, his tone direct and cutting:

“If we can’t rest properly now, how are we supposed to be in our best condition when we’re out there fighting? Sure, we need to learn to adapt to the harsh realities of war — but that’s something we do on the battlefield, not here.

Forcing us to live in such miserable conditions inside the safety of the camp won’t prepare us for the battlefield at all.”

“You should go ask around and see if there’s any way we can be reassigned to a place with better living conditions,” Luca said bluntly.

Faced with Luca’s direct challenge, Lucas felt a dull headache creeping in.

His first instinct was to pull rank and scold Luca harshly, to remind him who was in charge here.

But almost immediately, he realized that would be a terrible idea. Luca’s strength far surpassed his own — if things escalated and they ended up in open conflict, Lucas would undoubtedly be the one to suffer.

Worse yet, Luca’s reasoning had clearly convinced the rest of the group. If Lucas forced his authority now and refused to listen, he would lose every shred of credibility in their eyes.

“I’ll… see what I can do,” Lucas finally said with a strained sigh. “I’ll talk to a few people and see if I can get us reassigned somewhere better. For now, stay here and make do. By tomorrow morning, I should be able to find you a more suitable place to stay.”

Without waiting for a response, Lucas turned and left.

He had business with the camp officers anyway — they needed to coordinate tasks for the following day.

Not only were the officers scheduled to assign missions to them by the afternoon, but they would also decide which squads Lucas’s recruits would be distributed into.

Of course, Lucas wanted to keep everyone under his own command, but he had no guarantee things would turn out that way.

Once Lucas was gone, the tension in the wooden hut eased immediately.

A few of the ordinary recruits wandered over to the doorway, lowering their voices as they began to complain among themselves.

“There’s no way we can live here! The ground outside is already this damp — the floor inside must be even worse. If we sleep here for even a single night, we’re bound to get sick.”

“Exactly! I’m already starting to regret coming here. I never should’ve let him talk me into this.”

“Oh, quit whining. What good does complaining do now? We’re already here, and there’s no going back. If we run off on our own, we’ll be branded as deserters for sure.”

The three of them went back and forth, their voices heavy with frustration.

Luca, however, stood silently outside the hut, his gaze fixed on their surroundings.

All around them were other hastily built wooden huts, most of them still unoccupied. A few, however, already had residents — and judging from their expressions, they weren’t any happier about their accommodations either.

“We’re stationed at the very edge of the Black Forest Camp right now,” came Sophia’s quiet voice in Luca’s mind.

“If we head straight past the huts and keep moving deeper behind them, we should be able to leave the camp’s perimeter fairly quickly.”

Sophia didn’t need to concern herself with anything happening between Lucas and Luca, so she had already mapped out their surroundings far more quickly than anyone else.

Luca gave a slow nod. He trusted Sophia completely, of course, but the information she provided wasn’t of much use to him at the moment.

“Maybe I could use an ice spell to freeze the floor of the hut,” Sophia suggested softly. “That way, at the very least, it would reduce the dampness inside.”

She was still hoping she could make things a little more comfortable for Luca when he rested.

“No need,” Luca replied casually, his tone relaxed. “I’m not tired at all. I’ll stay right here and wait for Lucas to come back.”

As he spoke, his gaze kept drifting toward the deeper parts of the Black Forest Camp, peering into the thick shadows.

Something felt… off.

It was as though something — or someone

“Could it be that someone’s infiltrated the Black Forest Camp? Could it be agents from the Dragon King or Ravenor?”

However, the entire camp was enveloped by a powerful illusionary formation designed to interfere with perception. Even with Luca’s maxed-out Perception ability, it was impossible to discern subtle movements at a distance.

“You sense it too, don’t you?” came Sophia’s voice again, low and urgent. “I’ve had the feeling for a while now… Someone’s been following us. Keeping just enough distance to avoid suspicion, but never too far away.”

Luca’s expression tightened slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.

“And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?!” he demanded under his breath.

“I thought they were just a camp officer,” Sophia replied, her tone carrying a faint hint of grievance. “I never imagined the one tailing us could actually be a spy sent by the Dragon King…”

She sounded a little defensive, but it was clear she truly hadn’t expected this.

Luca didn’t waste any more time blaming her.

Instead, he turned to glance back at the few ordinary recruits lingering nearby and said calmly:

“You guys stay here and watch the hut. I’m going to have a look around — maybe I’ll stumble upon something interesting in the Black Forest Camp.”

Before anyone could respond, he strode off without another word.

The recruits left guarding the hut exchanged puzzled, uneasy glances with one another, completely at a loss.

Some of the recruits instinctively wanted to stop Luca, but none of them dared to actually step forward.

After all, they had already witnessed how even Lucas had to make concessions when dealing with Luca. If their squad leader had to give ground, what right did they have to stop him?

“What’s he trying to do?” one timid recruit whispered nervously to the others. “Didn’t Captain Lucas tell us to stay here?”

“Why are you asking so many questions?” another snapped softly. “Just look at Cole — you can tell at a glance how powerful he is! And Captain Lucas himself said Cole doesn’t just have strength but also a sharp mind. If he’s doing this, he must have his reasons.”

“Yeah, exactly,” a third chimed in quickly, nodding in agreement. “Let Cole do whatever he wants. All we need to do is stay here and wait for Captain Lucas to come back. If Cole isn’t back by then, we’ll let the captain figure out what to do.”

The group reached a unanimous decision in no time: they would stay put and wait for Lucas’s return.

It turned out to be the wisest choice they could have made.

Because if they had actually followed Luca, they would have walked straight into unimaginable danger.

Meanwhile, Luca moved deeper into the Black Forest Camp, walking alone under the cover of night.

Almost immediately, the sensation of being lost

“Why would they put up a formation like this in the Black Forest Camp?” Luca muttered under his breath, his tone tinged with irritation. “This kind of spell doesn’t even hinder enemies! All it does is mess with our own people.”

The irony wasn’t lost on him — after all, the Dragon King had already managed to plant spies inside the camp. That meant the formation’s effectiveness was, in practice, nonexistent.

Sophia remained silent.

She was focusing all her attention on scanning their surroundings. With Luca’s senses already compromised by the confusing formation, she had to stay completely alert to avoid missing any potential threats.

Luca pressed on through the dimly lit pathways, each step sinking into deeper shadow.

Then, the moment his foot touched an unusually dark patch, his instincts screamed a warning.

In a heartbeat, he drew the Dragon-Slayer Greatsword and thrust the blade straight into the darkness ahead.

A sharp flash of blood-red light burst from the shadows.

From within, a figure clad entirely in black sprang out, his face concealed behind a yellow mask.

“Damn it!” the masked man spat, his voice cold and laced with fury. “I’ve managed to slip past so many people, and yet you of all people managed to find me!”

But then his tone shifted, turning sharp and murderous:

“No matter. It doesn’t change anything. As one of the top assassins, taking you down will be nothing.

For the sake of Lord Dragon King, I will eliminate you at all costs!”

The assassin gripped a venom-coated dagger tightly in his hand.

Though his mind raced with countless thoughts, his actions were lightning-fast — from the moment he burst out of the shadows to the instant he launched his attack on Luca, barely ten seconds had passed.

For an ordinary person, ten seconds would never have been enough time to react.

But Luca was not an ordinary person.

He was someone who had undergone a second awakening — a profession change — and was widely recognized as the strongest human player in existence.

As the assassin’s poisoned blade thrust toward him, a faint, almost mocking smile curved across Luca’s lips.

“So, I managed to lure you out this easily, huh?” he said coldly.

In truth, Luca hadn’t actually noticed anything particularly strange about the shadows. He had simply taken a gamble, thrusting the Dragon-Slayer Greatsword into the darkness on a hunch.

After all, a probing strike like that hardly cost him any energy at all.