Chapter 33: On the Hunt, Part 2

"Warrior's Strike!"

[Warrior's Strike]

[To defeat the opponent in front of you, all the power that you have harnessed will shine through with one final blinding attack.

Your weapon will be enchanted with a white light. Your next strike will do 160% of your attack power to the enemy, even if it connects or not.

Skill Mana Cost: 80

Skill Cooldown: 8 minutes

Conditions of Use: Level 60.]

With the empowering light harnessed in the blade, its glide continued, unobstructed by anything, neither monster nor air.

[15 gold has been acquired.]

[You have Leveled Up!]

'Level 122. I'm slowly going up.' Every Hobgoblin that Moonshine hunted gave her 60,000 exp. The Hobgoblin High Warrior Inductee that she hunted some days ago, though, gave her 80,000 exp. She was close to leveling up at the time, so she was lucky to go up 2 levels. But then she died because she forgot about the crazed Hobgoblin at the time, and her equipment was in rough shape. Because of those reasons, she ended up dying.

Yesterday, she was supposed to hunt 2 more Hobgoblins, but she was barely able to pay attention, and scarcely killed one. She then leveled up from that one, and now leveled up from this one.

'2 more monsters... I think I should be able to level up once more.' Her Experience gauge was finally starting to outlast the exp she gained from the monsters she hunted, and her leveling up was showing signs of slowing down. That is, if she stayed at the same player level she was now. If she kept to the training, her hunting speed would increase explosively, and she would make up for the levels easily.

'I hope this goes easily.'

"Alright! Good job on keeping your health. Now: On to the next one!" yelled out Godspeed, finally up from the dune.

"Fine..."

With the exasperated response, Moon and God went looking for the next Hobgoblin.

----------

"Alright. Here's the plan for this guy."

This time, they were both dragging themselves by the stomach across the dunes. The sand dunes that they were at now didn't own much verticality, so they had to stay low, or else risk their hidden operation getting detected.

"You're gonna charge him."

"Wwwhat!?"

"Sh!"

Bumf!

At Moon's sudden exclaim, the Hobgoblin 20 yards away turned around, looking for the source of disturbance. But just in time, God slammed Moon's face into the ground and flattened himself as much as possible.

"Augh. Rahg." It kept spinning around.

"Gra." It gave up quickly, and moved a few more yards away.

*Sigh* "Moon, buddy: You gotta calm down with those outbursts," God said nonchalantly.

Lifting her sand-ridden face, she shot daggers at God. In the deepest voice she could muster, she muttered the next words:

"Never touch me like that again."

Even with her eyes being hidden by the long bangs, God could clearly feel an aura of murder emanating from them. He shivered subconsciously.

"Alright, alright. I get it.

Now, what I was saying before you jeopardized the mission, was that you were going to ambush the Hobgoblin. These are the following reasons why an ambush is a good strategy of attack: First, they don't expect it, usually. Monsters and NPCs of this level don't have a strong sense of detection around them, so its hard for them to detect anything in their vicinity without them either directly seeing them, hearing them, or smelling them. All those methods can be disrupted as well though, which leaves ambushes as a great strategy.

Number 2. The initial attack for an ambush is guaranteed to be strong, that's just fact. And even if you don't kill the enemy in the first strike, the battle will still be in your favor. You will be pressing on them, not the other way around. It should be easy for you to defeat an enemy of this caliber in one strike. So, this is your mission: Defeat the enemy in one strike. And if you can't do that---which would be disappointing, really--- then you have to defeat the guy in 60 seconds or less. If you fail even at THAT, then... I will call a bunch of other Hobgoblins to the area and have them chase you; you can think of it as another form of training."

"WH--!"

Bap.

Obviously predicting the yell, God quickly slapped his hand on Moon's mouth.

"..."

"..."

Slap!

"I said to not do that again."

"And I told you to stop screaming every time you hear something from my mouth. Being Loud isn't a personality."

"----"

"----"

"Tch. Whatever. Just go attack the monster." Losing the staring contest, God turned away in an aggravated defeat and promptly issued his order.

"As you say, Sir," Moon said in a sarcastic voice.

She slowly crawled up the dune and watched the Hobgoblin. After confirming that he stopped moving, she began.

Pat! Pat! Pat!

Her flat-footed feet hit the sand at a racing pace. The distance of 30 yards shrank in seconds. But she wasn't happy with the progress.

'I never realized how slow the sand makes you until now. I guess I see why my strength rose just by running through it. But still though: I don't feel confident about this attack.'

As if jinxing herself, the Hobgoblin's ears perked, and it began to turn around. With 10 yards between the two, Moon jumped as quietly as she could and raised her sword.

"Warrior's Strike!"

"Grah!"

She tried to unleash her glowing attack as fast as possible, but it was too late. The monster was just barely able to put its mace up in the air to block the attack. Although the weapon got cleaved in half, it was left uninjured.

"Raah!"

Bumf!

Angered by the sneak attack, it slammed what was left of its weapon in the place Moon once was. Luckily, she was able to dodge out of the way in time.

"Damn it!" Coming back up from her roll, she couldn't help but let out a curse. 'If only I was faster, this thing would of been dead by now!' She couldn't change the past though. She already knew that. All that was left was to count on the future.

Retrieving her weapon into a striking stance, she sprung at the monster. It tried to deliver a blow to her side, but she ducked instead, slashing at its abdomen in response.

"Raahk!" Now it was bleeding, but it didn't seem to be going down yet.

"Shit! Even that was too shallow!?

----Wah!"

In the middle of her curse, the Hobgoblin once again swung at her, but she jumped back right before the attack collided.

"I don't have much time left; I've gotta finish this fast!"