7 Chapter 7

"Mn...?"

This was the first time a warning like this had appeared. Out of all the monsters I've slain, none of them possessed high enough magic stats for either me or the AI to be wary. This piqued my interest.

'Are there still monsters that I haven't hunted with high magic stats—'

That's when I realized. There is one monster that I still haven't hunted in the duration of my grinding session: the elves.

"Ah, oh yeah. I almost forgot about them. My relatives. How could I forget them?"

I would have loved to confront one myself to test my strength, but the thing is, there are nine of them. I'm not dumb enough to think I can take them on with that number.

The only acceptable course of action in this situation is to run away. Again, this is not an act of cowardice; this is called common-fucking-sense.

[Skill: Stealth has been activated.]

On top of that, I repressed the oozing mana out of my body as much as I could with my mana control before attempting to leave the area. However, as you're aware, life rarely unfolds according to one's expectations.

Swish! An arrow came hurtling its way dangerously close to my cheeks. I felt the wind graze me.

Fortunately, the AI showed me a red parabolic line from behind, which only shows to protect me from surprise attacks, so I managed to barely avoid it.

'They know where I am!'

Given it's an arrow, it might be from a Tracer.

From the memories I and the original owner of my body have, Tracers are those with impeccable tracking abilities and agility which allowed him to foot even the terrain of trees and find enemies with relative ease.

I can also be considered a Tracer with my stats, but the thing I'm missing is tracking skills. I don't have any of those. Maybe AI is considered one? I'm not sure if this guy's better than a magical tracking skill, though.

Following the initial arrow, a second one swiftly followed suit. Despite my prompt evasion, the second arrow found its mark in the spot I occupied just seconds prior, several meters away.

They know where I'm moving! And indeed, as I kept running, AI kept on giving me the warning that individuals were chasing me. On top of that, I can also feel several gazes on the back of my head.

'They're closing the gap. They're moving so fast...'

At this rate, I'm gonna get caught. I need to do something—

As I thought of possible ways to shake them down, a silhouette appeared at the corner of my eyes. We were running parallel, but with the help of AI, I knew the distance between us was shrinking, bit by bit.

I think my ego has grown after fighting so many slowpokes over the course of a month. Everyone I fought never matched up to my speed, and this was the first time someone caught up to me.

"Yo! You're still alive, Venti? You seem stronger than when I last saw you. By the way, are you the one who has been hunting monsters over the past few weeks?"

Venti. That's the name of my current body. I didn't bother telling you that since it's irrelevant. Moreover, this story is told in the first person point of view too.

I ignored the elf; I had no reason to talk to him anyway. I was busy trying to come up with ways to get out of this situation.

"You need to come with us. The Chief is furious; you've been killing way too many monsters, and we're facing a shortage of food."

'Why is that my problem? Fix that yourself.'

I wanted to retort, but kept that to myself. We continued running as the elf guy continued engaging in conversation with me, which I completely ignored.

'How is it, AI? Any solutions?'

[Escape Strategy: Nine extremely dangerous enemies identified. Consider the following solutions for a successful escape...]

I skimmed through the list, and I have to say they're all hard to pull off. While I was busy picking which one to take, I saw a red line being drawn on my shoulder. Knowing what it was, I lowered my body.

Swish!

An arrow, much like the first one, passed through. But before I could even sigh in relief that I managed to dodge it, I noticed the elf that had been conversing with me became silent.

While running at full speed, I ran my gaze around but found no sign of him. My heart skipped a beat as I felt an ominous feeling signifying something is about to happen.

[Warning—!]

I had only left my gaze in front for a split second, and yet a shin appeared right in front in that short amount of time.

'Shit.'

I barely managed to raise my hand to block the impact. The shin looks fragile, but it felt like my arm got smacked with a steel bar. The impact was so strong that I found myself rolling in the pile of snow.

[Auto-Healing Mode Activated. Proceeding with automatic recovery.]

Thanks to the healing, I recovered quickly and was about to push myself up and continue running when an arrow came flying where I was about to put my hands.

The normal response was for me to roll on the other side and stand up. But it seems that the elves pursuing me also thought of that and sent another elf on that side.

A fist came down like a meteor and punched me in the forehead. I could clearly see these attacks, but due to how constricted my movements were, I was unable to dodge them.

I lost consciousness for a split second there. And by the time it returned, I felt an intense pain in my abdomen. Someone kicked it with full force.

I tumbled through the snow, gathering momentum like a rolling snowball.

"Well, would you look at this? Venti, the weakling, is still alive."

I looked up, and my pupils constricted; I felt my body release an uncontrollable amount of bloodlust that made the surrounding temperature fall 10 degrees lower.

'Why am I getting worked up?'