Chapter: 468

“This is nothing but a fleeting feeling. What matters is strength.” he told himself, repeating it a few times until his heart and breathing were both under control. Any emotions at a time like this would only cause problems; he had to think clearly.

As time went by and the battle raged on, Matheson still had no clue what was happening.

It was clear that the storm was a defensive spell, that the adventurers had been evacuated from the dungeons, and that they were under attack from some strange wooden creatures.

For all he knew, the village was being evacuated right now and he was foolishly standing here defending alone.

What made matters worse was that the storm was shrinking even faster now – either the spell was wearing off or the mana in it was close to running out. He couldn’t be sure.

At first he had to move at a few steps every few minutes to stay next to it, then a few steps every few seconds – soon a slow walk, and now it was a brisk walk.

“Hmm, I’ll be running soon enough.” he gave a concerned look at the quickly-shrinking cloud.


Matheson was guarding the south-east side of the village, baiting much stronger enemies into a spell-storm to kill them – but this would only go on for so long: the magical storm was shrinking.

“Hmm, I’ll be running soon enough.” he gave a concerned look at the quickly-shrinking cloud.

“Shit…” he exhaled as he saw something dangerous.

Amongst some deep groans of wood, there was a lot of movement in the forest – a force of five treants were wandering through it slowly, and that was when they saw Matheson; to the treant’s he was merely a fluid-filled snack during their nest-expansion conquest.

Easy pickings.

Matheson froze, hoping his movement wouldn’t attract them, but he was only grasping at straws – they immediately charged.

Five treant hectopede’s were bearing down on him, each of them as fast as skeletons.

As part of his training, Matheson had been running all this time – sprinting up the hill to the adventurer association, running through Losla to dungeons, running around inside the dungeons. His dexterity stat was also quite high too, it’s where he put most of his points due to his rapier class, but he was still nowhere near as fast as these creatures. They would catch him, it was only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, the storm was shrinking rapidly. He simply couldn’t rely on it any longer.

Against five of them he only had one choice – to run.

There was no wall around Losla, and no fences either. Matheson could simply run right in between the houses and let the treant’s smash and destroy the peasant houses to their heart’s content, while he easily escaped..

“Hmm…” he considered it for a moment. He truly didn’t care about some weak peasants – but he remembered what his father was like.

“I would definitely be blamed for that, and my father would find out eventually. He would find a way to punish me, perhaps take away my weapons just to slow down my development… Tch. Seems like I have no choice.” he gritted his teeth and sprinted off – but not between the houses to safety.

Matheson wouldn’t have minded if the creatures did smash up the dirty-looking houses of the peasants, but it seemed for now that he would have to run between the spell storm and the south side of Losla’s houses, heading back west.

As he passed by the houses, he noticed some faces in the windows, gazing at him in awe. They looked at him like he was their hero.

“What the hell are they looking at? Their faces… look so different.” he thought as he ran.

Since he didn’t understand their hopeful gazes, their looks only made him angrier.