Level Is Everything

Chapter 9 - Plan execution

"Sakura, nice job!"

"Yeah, that was a timely "heal" Sakura!"

Ryou who is following the party from behind notices one thing. Every time they managed to defeat a monster, they are all come flocking towards Sakura with an infatuated look on their face.

「Tsk, a bunch of v.i.r.g.i.ns being led astray by a two faced demoness. 」

That's the perfect way to describe the situation that is happening right now. Because gender can't be changed and a player actual look can only be deviated by 10% at most from their real life, a beauty in game is a beauty in real life. Indeed, because of that everyone was enchanted by how Sakura looked like in the game which is definitely being adjusted to the limit of 10% deviation to make herself look more beautiful. She was originally beautiful enough and her looks right now can captivate anyone in one look. That is also why Ryou can unmistakably recognized her just from her looks and voice.

Sakura's party member consisted of five player including herself. There's a [swordsman] as a balanced tank and damage dealer, a [shield bearer] as the tank of the party, a [mage] as the ranged magic dealer, a [thief] as a scout and damager, and lastly Sakura a [priest] which supporting the party from behind and healing them. It can be said as the optimal 5-man party composition with one tank, one damage dealer, one healer, and two versatile members.

From the way the party hunted the 'thunder wolf' Ryou can only describe it with one thing, efficient. Each person definitely played their role perfectly except from Sakura who seemed to be only having "heal" as her only skill. It was unknown yet whether she didn't have any other supporting spell or there wasn't the need to use any other skill on the monster hunt because the party can easily kill the thunder wolf one after the other.

Due to dying four times to the tempest wolf, Ryou have some guess about it. Tempest wolf will definitely appear when someone leveled up after killing 'wolf' type of monster. Ryou's plan have something to do with the tempest wolf and because of that, he need to 'summon' the tempest wolf. It will take quite a while for Sakura and her party to level up so the better option for Ryou is for himself to level up. After observing at how Sakura's party is hunting monster, Ryou feel that he should have a high enough chance to execute his plan.

Sakura's party thief is luring a lone thunder wolf to where the rest of member are. They are already waiting there and as soon as the thunder wolf are within range, the shield bearer uses "taunt". The skill itself are forcing the targeted monster in the area to attack the taunt skill user and ignoring the initial target. When the thunder wolf is taunted, the swordsman immediately attacked along with the thief. The mage also started to channel his spell unto the thunder wolf while Sakura is preparing to use heal anytime.

It was no wonder that it was called as one of the optimal 5-man party composition because the party seemed to be able to handle the thunder wolf with ease considering that the thunder wolf has the same level as them.

「It's about time. 」

Ryou silently takes out his bow and aimed for the thunder wolf. All this time, he watched at how Sakura's party hunted the thunder wolf and he have a rough idea at what is their damage output. Although he never faces the thunder wolf and didn't know about their actual health but he knows that if the damage was enough he should be able to kill the thunder wolf and kill steal (KS) the monster.

In the game Aaru, the one that made the last hit to the monster will earn half of the experience and the rest of the experience was distributed in according to the damage dealt. Because of that there is still many player ganging up upon a single horned rabbit even though they are not in a party. That is also basically what Ryou is trying to do now. If he succeeds in stealing the monster, he will earn half of the experience from the thunder wolf. The game Aaru also did a magnificent job with the monster design. Whenever the monster is on their last 10% of health, they will show some sign of fatigue or weakness. Some monster however will turn even more stronger or goes berserk when it happened. While Sakura's party is still entangling with the thunder wolf, Ryou saw the weariness on its eye.

「Now! 」

*shua*

The arrow is launched perfectly and it landed in the middle of the thunder wolf's eyebrow.

-15

The damage was pretty small due to the defense of the thunder wolf but it was enough to kill it

「You have defeated the thunder wolf. You gain 500 EXP(experience). 」

Sure enough half of experience from the thunder wolf is equal to the full experience gained from the wind wolf. Just one more monster to kill and his plan will succeed. There's one thing that Ryou miscalculated though and that was the chance of him being discovered by Sakura's party. Sakura's party received less experience than how it was normally and when they looked at the thunder wolf corpse, they discovered the arrow.

"Leader, someone is KS-ing our monster!"

"Yeah, I noticed that. Looking at the wooden arrow, it seemed that our enemy is an archer. Did he think that it was so easy to steal a monster from us? Taki, quickly search our surrounding!"

The leader was the swordsman and he quickly ordered the thief to look for Ryou.

The only thing that made Ryou lucky is that his name wasn't displayed on the notification of Sakura's party. However, her party quickly decided to take action against him; after all it was a nice occasion which gives them opportunity to show off in front of Sakura. Ryou who stand from far also noticed that Sakura's party is looking for him. Ryou immediately fled the scene with haste and he is successful with that due to how far he is from the party. He is always keeping a minimum 40 meters' distance from them and the trees helped him in his escape.

"Leader, I didn't find anyone. It seems that he immediately escaped after KS-ing our monster."

"Alright, it seems that it was a passing by noob that is seeing the magnificent feat of our party and finally decided to leech some experience by stealing our monster kill. Don't mind that kind of player because they won't make it far. We have to applaud him though because he can get the timing right. We have waste so much time searching for him, we better hunt more thunder wolf instead."

After hiding in the nearby area for almost half hour. Ryou comes back to where Sakura's party hunted. It didn't take long before he found them again.

「Okay, let's do this one more time. 」

Sakura's party was searching for another thunder wolf and it didn't take long before they found another one. Ryou patiently waited for them and finally, it is time to act once more.

Taking out his bow, Ryou tried to get the last hit on the thunder wolf.

「You have defeated the thunder wolf. You gain 500 EXP(experience). 」

「You have leveled up! Your stats and skill for level 2 are restored. 」

"Darn it leader, the KS player is here again."

"Alright, let's find that player. If we let him go this time, he will think that our party is easy to bully. I was initially planning to give him some mercy but it seems that this player didn't appreciate it. Let's spread out and search for him. Kiba, you go to the north. Levi, the east. John, the west. Sakura and me will go to the south. Whoever found the culprit need to notify the other through the party chat."

The leader giving commands while didn't let any chance to increase his impression to Sakura go away.

Succeeding in what he need to do, now he just need to wait for the tempest wolf to come. If his assumption is correct, the tempest wolf should appear immediately. His guess was proven to be true as he can feel the gaze coming from the tempest wolf. Four times dying to it makes Ryou become more familiar with it. The cold sensation that sends shiver to his bone is coming from its gaze.

「Now, I need to somehow make the tempest wolf come into contact with them. 」

Ryou decided to run towards the north. His first target is Kiba, the thief. Kiba is the quickest one in the party so taking him out first will make the rest of his plan goes smoother.

It takes only a short amount of time for Ryou to catch up to Kiba. When Ryou see Kiba, Kiba also saw him. Noticing the basic outfit on Ryou's body which is only the basic cotton shirt it makes Kiba less suspicious of him. Moreover, Ryou's bow are also unequipped at the moment so there's no telling what is Ryou's class. Kiba however still took some basic caution to him.

"My friend, do you see any archer around?"

"Archer? I don't see any around." 「Except me of course. 」 Ryou silently muttered it in his mind.

"Ah, is that so?"

Kiba on the other hand didn't buy his reply just like that. If the other party member didn't see any other player around, then Ryou must be the one that they are looking for.

"So, can I ask what are you doing here? This is an area for monsters around level 8. Looking at your basic attire, I believe your level didn't even reach level 5." As a thief, Kiba is cunning enough and testing the water by asking Ryou some question.

「Ah, he seemed to be a smart person. I made the correct choice to choose him as my first target. 」

"What am I doing here? I was fishing earlier not far from here, luckily my target has taken the bait."

"Fishing? Are you a fisherman? That must be great to get the fish that you want to catch. I hope I can catch my target too."

"Ah, I hope you can catch your target. Now if there's nothing else, please excuse me. I still need to go back to the village to sell the fish and buy more bait."

Kiba feel something out of place but seeing that Ryou was only a low level player, he decided to let it go for now. After Ryou disappeared from his line of sight, Kiba finally noticed something is wrong.

"Ah, he must be lying to me! That direction leads to a higher level monster, not the village. Shit!"

Kiba realized it just a little too late. By the time he come to his sense, the tempest wolf is already behind him. With its fang directed at Kiba, the tempest wolf unleashed a "bite" and it immediately dealt critical damage and killed Kiba in one hit.

Ryou who watched the whole process was amazed at how high the damage dealt by the tempest wolf. It was true that Kiba as a thief have low defense but the tempest wolf still managed to kill him in one attack.

After that, the tempest wolf turned his body around which looks like that it wants to go away.

「Ah, I can't let it go or my plan is going to turn to waste. 」

Ryou hurriedly takes out his bow and launched an attack at the tempest wolf.

-1

Looking at the damage dealt, Ryou finally realized at how great is the defense of the tempest wolf. Noticing that the tempest wolf attention is now directed towards him again, Ryou now need to run for his life. Earlier, the tempest wolf wasn't chasing Ryou with its full speed. Right now the tempest wolf is going to come at him with the fullest extent of its agility.

「Shit! Now I need to run again and find the next target. I hope I can run fast enough or I will die to it. 」

----

Bestiary

Name: Thunder Wolf

Level: 8 Race: Beast

HP: 400 MP: 50

STR: 10 Atk: 30 Def: 10

AGI: 15 Matk: 1 Mdef: 1

VIT: 10 Cast: 1 Aspd: 0.85

INT: 1 Crit: 1 Act: 0.85

DEX: 5

LUK: 1