Chapter 10: Cutthroat
Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation
[Cursed Zombie]
Lv 4
HP – 60/60
Build – Fat
Double damage from Holy Light & Holy Water.
Half damage from normal attacks.
...
Without holy water, these zombies with rough and thick flesh were a real headache for adventurers.
However, for Marvin who had holy water, each of these zombies was in fact moving exp. As long as he dealt with them carefully, they wouldn’t be too much of an issue.
At that time he directed, "Take care of the right side and block all the zombies trying to enter."
Anna nodded. Marvin’s amazing display made her listen to him and she immediately blocked that crack on the right.
An ugly head that came through was kicked back out by the half-elf butler!
Her strength was quite good.
"Excellent," Marvin praised. With a curved dagger he attacked the left side of the plank, widening the crack.
Bang! Bang!
The small crack suddenly became quite big.
"What are you doing?" Anna asked, somewhat shocked.
As the crack widened, that plump zombie looked as if he ate stimulants and squeezed through; Marvin had given him an open path, barely enough for him to rush in!
Marvin was incomparably calm, and with nimble footwork, he suddenly struck the zombie’s forehead with the dagger in his hand!
[Basic Attack Successful!]
[Effect doubled due to Holy Water! You deal 24 damage to your target!]
Cursed zombies didn’t have vitals, and even if they were beheaded, they could still keep attacking.
The fat zombie snarled, trying to force his way in.
Marvin avoided the charge and Anna swiftly kicked the zombie in the stomach, staggering him.
"Good job!" Marvin rushed up to the zombie with good timing. "Do it that way, don’t attack, leave it to me."
Marvin didn’t know if Anna could get the experience from killing the zombies, so in order to not waste the exp, he secured them.
He approached aggressively, slashing at the fat zombie with the dagger in his right hand, dealing 28 damage and leaving a mark from the holy water smeared dagger. This zombie was going to die shortly.
The fat zombie gave Marvin 32 battle exp.
The following course of events became extraordinarily simple and boring. Because he had successfully applied holy water, a few slashes were enough to get rid of a zombie. On top of having a level 5 Fighter controlling the battlefield, Anna’s support always came at the right time while not fighting over the experience. This made Marvin secretly sigh. Where could you find this kind of teammate?
Taking advantage of the mindlessness of the zombies as well as the small opening in the wooden house, Marvin created an advantageous bottleneck.
All the zombies kept on going forward, generously dying one by one, giving Marvin huge gifts of experience.
After 20 minutes, the outside of the small wooden room was littered with zombie corpses. There were still a few alive because the corpses were obstructing the entrance. Marvin cheerfully went out to eliminate them.
There were a total of 29 zombies which gave Marvin 856 battle exp! This exp was enough to let him reach level 4.
Marvin cheerfully opened the menu, thinking to himself that Conjurer Heiss was truly generous. He not only gave him experience, he also gave him equipment. After that Marvin’s level was still low, so he also sent a pile of little brothers to take care of.
After pondering for a moment, he decided to not use it all to level up Ranger to level 4.
Leveling to level 4 Ranger from level 3 Ranger required 800 exp, but he would only get a bit of skill points, HP and a bonus to attack damage. To Marvin, those things weren’t important for the time being.
His battle exp had some other uses.
[Spending 500 battle exp...]
[Cutthroat successfully learned]
The second rank Phantom Assassin skill impressively came up in Marvin’s personal skill list.
[Cutthroat 46]
Personal skills were unable to be upgraded by skill points, and could only be upgraded through constant tempering. Marvin’s Cutthroat execution was already quite smooth, and as a result, he started as high as 46 points!
His reason for slowing down his leveling pace, and instead spending battle exp to transform this ability into a skill was obviously because of the superiority of this skill in Feinan’s world.
Ordinary attacks and skill attacks were absolutely different!
First, despite Marvin being incomparably familiar with Cutthroat, if he used it as an ordinary attack, there might be small flaws. These flaws might seem harmless, but could affect the entire battle situation. And there would be no such flaws when using a skill.
Also, skill damage was twice as high as ordinary attacks! With the increase in skill points, the damage would continue to increase. When striking these small monsters, Cutthroat could trigger a critical hit. However, when facing some strong armored monsters and those with regeneration, the ordinary Cutthroat would be quite a helpless move.
He finally learned his first attack skill, Cutthroat!
Matched with the 50 point Stealth effect, [Sneak Attack], he was able to instantly deal four times the damage of a basic attack!
The Ranger was known as the jack of all trades precisely because of his all-rounder nature, able to follow any path. Of course, being an all-rounder often meant that the overall ability was quite average, but Marvin wouldn’t let that happen. As a Legend level player, he knew a lot about this world and could comprehensively increase his strength through all kinds of means.
The next step was to learn some powerful Ranger skills.
Rangers came with some inherent skills, all basic abilities. The truly powerful skills all needed to be learned, either by being taught by a teacher, self-learning, or even by finding some uncommon skill books. Cutthroat was an advanced Phantom Assassin skill that could only be learned through a skill book.
Therefore, he would temporarily save these extremely precious skill points in case he one day found a skill book, and would then be able to increase the skill level for a quick power up.
...
In Anna’s eyes, Marvin’s transformation was astonishing. From that pure and kind-hearted Young Master Marvin to the current zombie horde killing Ranger with an unchanging grim face. It was really unfathomable.
She had once wondered whether the current Marvin was putting up an act. But she understood Marvin extremely well, and knew that he had suddenly become quite manly, because she had taken care of that boy for many years.
It’s just that in one night he grew up.
‘I don’t know what kind of dream he had...’ Anna watched Marvin wrapping up the loot, when suddenly-
"Wear this ring."
-Marvin gave her Heiss’ ring.
"For me?" Anna looked blankly.
Marvin smiled. "Of course, you deserve it. Without your help, I wouldn’t have been able to kill Heiss and all those zombies."
"Besides, I don’t have any spells, so I can’t even use Heiss’ diamond ring for the time being. Don’t you know some elven spells?"
Anna nodded.
"Wear it." Marvin grabbed Anna’s right hand as if it was natural and put Heiss’ diamond ring on her forefinger.
Anna blushed; although she knew that Young Master Marvin had no deeper meaning, her heart still couldn’t help beating faster.
"This ring can execute a chosen magic instantly. It’s somewhat useful."
Marvin didn’t pay attention to those details, but looking around, he whispered, "Let’s quickly leave this place."
...
East City, Black Horn Eagle Inn.
After being paid a considerable amount of money for sleeping accommodations, the fat middle-aged boss passionately welcomed the two visitors who dared to be out after the curfew.
In the best room, Marvin began taking inventory of the loot.
The grave robber’s wealth was quite astonishing! After deducting the inn expenses, they still had 378 silvers.
Ever since they entered the city, they never had enough to be comfortable in the city.
And taking the three uncommon equipments into account, each one of them was worth more than 1000 silvers. But Marvin would not sell those.
"Young Master Marvin, what are we doing next?"
Perhaps because of seeing unprecedented hope coming from Marvin, the young half-elf girl seemed quite full of energy.
After Marvin studied the rough alarm mechanism deployed next to the door and the window, his whole body suddenly fell onto the bed.
"Get some rest. We will have some preparations to do tomorrow."
"I’ll let that Acheron Gang reap what they sowed."