Secret Agent Chapter 098 - Solo Leveling (Patreon)

Thunk.

The gate closed with a wooden sound behind him, and Zack Adder stepped forth into a world of slaughter and death.

For the thurgenrats, that is.

Sienna was slithering and flipping around wildly, but by the time Zack had made it out through the gate, the battle was mostly over.

Zack frowned lightly.

Three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen…

Had there really been nearly twenty thurgenrats lurking out in front of the gate?

Wasn’t that a swarm?

A D-Rank threat, a thurgenrat swarm?

A week ago, that had been too much for Sienna to handle.

But the situation then had been different.

The swarm had been contained in a small area, so Sienna had had little room to maneuver.

And she had been inexperienced with thurgenrats. She had used too much of her venom in each bite, and her earlier fights had worn down her venom stores before she even got to the swarm in the orphanage.

And the thurgenrats in the orphanage had been particularly fierce.

Outside, in the sunlight, they were much slower and less aggressive.

Sienna had room to maneuver, and she had figured out precisely how much venom it took to kill a thurgenrat.

Tiny squirt!

And she was well rested. Top condition.

Zack scanned around as Sienna dispatched the last of the nearby thurgenrats, and spotted more up and down the clear ground surrounding the wall, their fur shimmering grey in the sunlight. Although the wall was full of holes, the ground itself was perfectly clear, lacking even a single weed.

To the right, in a clockwise direction around the city walls, there were plenty more thurgenrats wandering around one by one, trying but failing to get through the invisible force that covered up the holes in the physical wall.

To the left, in a counter-clockwise direction, towards the river and the gate Zack had used previously in Lang’s party, there was a pair of adventurers staring at them with wide eyes and defensively positioned. They were over fifty yards away, though, so Zack judged them no threat.

He raised a hand and waved, and tentatively, one of them waved back. But they made no move to approach closer, and instead, shifted their hunting to slightly closer to the edge of the forest. Thurgenrats were drifting out of the forest every ten seconds or so, so there was plenty to keep them busy.

Similarly, ahead of Zack and Sienna, the numbers of thurgenrats were slowly replenishing.

“Sienna, you go hunt in the forest again, and I’ll stick out here, okay?”

Saa, shiny birds danger time. Careful!

“I’ll keep an eye out for glimmerhawks,” Zack promised, and with a delighted hiss, Sienna zipped across the open ground and into the forest, dashing past the sluggish thurgenrats.

Bite, bite, bite! Tiny squirts only!

The culling continued unseen.

Shp. Shp. Shp. Shp.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab.

It didn’t take long for Zack to get the hang of hitting precisely the spine on a thurgenrat. The [Aim] skill proved to be helping with his targeting, and his [Keen Eye] seemed to synergize with it. Though the thurgenrats had a habit of rushing in to attack his legs, and they waddled back and forth on their rat-like legs, they only rushed straight in and it was trivial to land his strikes.

The spear felt sure in his hands, and his thrusts were straight.

*ding!* Level has increased.

That made two levels in just, what, twenty minutes? The sun had barely moved in the sky, but the air was thick with the stench of bloodrot, ichor, and gore.

Level nine.

Maria had bragged about being level ten the night he was summoned to this world.

He was almost caught up.

She wouldn’t be able to pull that kind of stunt again.

But…

The [Hero’s Party] had been training in the forest for over a week, hunting Lupinoids. Wolf monsters with elemental affinities.

Zack clicked his tongue. Nobody was around to hear it, it was fine.

Maria’s level had probably increased.

And at the peak there was Rosimund. Level forty.

Zack had a lot of leveling to do if he wanted to reach that point.

And he did.

Levels were strength. Strength was power. Power was security.

Shp. Shp. Shp. Shp.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab.

Zack ranged farther and farther around the gate, leaving the dead and dying thurgenrats where they lay. Without a partner to keep an eye out, he wanted some distance between him and the thurgenrats. Same as the last time he went out hunting, the thurgenrats only seemed to notice him and get aggressive when he was within ten yards of them. Otherwise, they wandered semi-aimlessly or scrabbled against an invisible force a foot away from the city walls.

The city walls and the holes.

That invisible force was the only thing keeping disease-spreading monsters away from the most vulnerable people in the city.

Some time later, there was a nearly fifty yard stretch of wall and the barren land before it littered with nothing but carcasses of slain thurgenrats. Thurgenrats had stopped exiting the forest entirely, likely thanks to Sienna’s hunting.

*ding!* Level has increased.

Level ten.

Claude had said that was about as high as Zack could hope to get just hunting thurgenrats.

But that was common sense under normal circumstances.

With this many thurgenrats everywhere…

Zack kicked carcasses away from the edges of his killing field, and once he had about twenty yards of empty space between him and the yet-living monsters, he set to collecting trophies. Carefully, of course, and taking frequent breaks to stand and scan for more enemies.

He didn’t bother to count the tails now. There were simply too many of them.

In fact…

His pockets were full, and he was considering dumping out his bag of slinging stones, when he heard a piercing whistle from atop the gate.

He stood, scanned once more for enemies, then turned and looked. A guard had revealed himself atop the wall.

“Ho, Adventurer!” The guard waved a gauntleted hand.

“Ho, Guard!” Zack shouted back, feeling thoroughly medieval.

And it hardly even felt unnatural. He’d lived in this world long enough, it was starting to feel… normal.

“You’re doing good work out there! Here!” The guard produced a wadded up brown something, and threw it. Incredibly, it flew directly to where Zack was standing, and Zack was able to catch it with one hand, against his chest.

It was a brown cloth sack, stained from prior use by something, but clean enough at the present moment.

“Use that for your trophies! It’d be a shame to have to leave ‘em behind for scavengers!”

Zack blinked with surprise. That was completely unexpected.

“Thanks! What’s your name?” he shouted. He wanted to repay the man on his way back in.

But the guard waved a hand. “No need for thanks! Keep up the good work!”

And with that, he retreated from the wall’s edge and disappeared from view.

Zack immediately forced himself to scan for approaching enemies. Some thurgenrats were starting to drift into the area he had cleared, but he still had time. He looked back to the wall, now devoid of human presence.

For the moment, he left the trophies already stuffed in his pockets where they were, and focused on collecting tails.

He had to pause partway through and clear out space again, slaying more of the wandering thurgenrats. It was almost more time consuming to collect the tails than it was to slay the thurgenrats in the first place.

The smell was nauseating, and standing tall to scan for threats was almost a relief.

Sienna had been hunting first along the edge of the forest, but as she thinned out the prey in that area she had gradually penetrated deeper and deeper, and currently Zack could feel she was some fifty yards or so in.

Saa, too many. Need help.

Zack nearly dropped his sack of tails he stood up so fast. Sienna had never asked him for help before.

To wait? Sure.

To go hunting? Yes.

But for help?

[Calm Down].

He tamped down his rising adrenaline and considered. Sienna didn’t feel threatened. She wasn’t under attack, like she had been the night of the thurgenrat invasion when her venom ran out.

She was just hiding, waiting.

So there was time to approach carefully.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

He tied the bag to his belt, gripped his spear in hand, and cautiously entered the forest, eyes wide, ears perked, and even sniffing the air for any sign of thurgenrats.

The forest was a different environment from the barren, flat ground by the wall.

The ground was littered with fallen leaves and branches covering roots raised to catch and trip the unwary.

Bushes everywhere provided cover for lurking monsters that could ambush him.

And overhead the sky was blocked off by a crisscrossing network of branches, meaning he had to be mindful not only of every direction in three-hundred sixty degrees around himself, but also above and below.

Sienna was waiting patiently, having understood that he was coming, and so Zack devoted himself to carefully navigating the treacherous environment.

Sniff sniff

There was a thurgenrat nearby.

He paused, sniffing side to side shamelessly, and determined it was coming from the right. He squinted in the gloomy dimness of the forest, and there was a flash of grey under one bush in particular.

Zack paused. He was outside the ten yard aggro range, so he had some leeway to consider.

He couldn’t see the thurgenrat.

He could see that he couldn’t see the thurgenrat.

So why was there a greyish… aura where the thurgenrat was?

He had thought that perhaps the sunlight just caught their fur and reflected like that…

His confusion must have passed through his bond with Sienna, because she answered.

Prey aura.

Zack frowned involuntarily.

Was this his [Tame] skill and bond with Sienna affecting him again? Like when he had thought mice smelled appetizing?

Saa better hunter now. Mice yummy!

Zack paused to consider that, and realized that he could feel Sienna waiting patiently for Zack. There was a sense of reciprocity in how she was waiting…

As though it were only fair, given that Saa waited for her whenever she asked.

There was a rustling sound from the bush the thurgenrat was lurking in, and Zack could tell it was moving. Not towards him, and not away from him, but generally in the direction of the city wall.

*ding!* The skill [Sensitive Hearing] has been acquired!

Zack let the thurgenrat go, momentarily absorbed in the way he could now track the thurgenrat’s general location by hearing alone. The sounds of it stepping on fallen leaves and pushing branches aside stood out even more clearly against the background noise of the forest, where the wind was rustling the branches above.

*ding!* The skill [Tracking] has been acquired!

[The Learn] seemed to be working exceptionally well, today.

Two skills, almost back to back.

And now he could tell precisely where the thurgenrat was, as it wandered farther away.

Saa.

Sienna was being patient, but she was still excited to hunt.

Zack shook his head as though the motion would physically clear his mind.

Focus.

[Soft Step].

He focused on minimizing the sounds of his own movements, now that he could hear them even more clearly. Roots that rose above the leaf litter on the ground were a good option to minimize sound, and so was avoiding brown, dry leaves to step on the fresher, greener leaves.

*ding!* The skill [Sneaking] has been acquired!

Moving silently grew slightly easier. Leaves crunched more quietly when he stepped on them, even.

It made Zack want to add dedicated skill training to his routine, but…

His schedule was already so packed.

And when the Theater reopened…

Well, when that happened, he’d have to find something he could do backstage, at least during the matinee show. Once the evening show started with all actors ready to go, they wouldn’t need an [Understudy] on standby, and he’d be free to spend at least the evening how he wished.

Absorbed in his thoughts, unaware that for once he was a little too focused, Zack made his way stealthily to where Sienna waited.

She was hiding, nearly invisible under a bush, but there was a very faint blue aura that marked her location in Zack’s vision.

Saa, careful. Many many prey all together.

Ahead there was a small dip in the terrain, and barely visible at the bottom there was a writhing mass of black, oily fur and a threatening reddish-black aura, and a sense of danger.

A true thurgenrat swarm, twenty yards ahead.