Chapter 8: Tricks

For bottom-tier adventurers like the bottom-of-the-barrel party, one could often judge a person’s strength simply by looking at their external appearance.

A man who looked frail and thin would, in the vast majority of cases, not possess very high actual combat power.

Similarly, if your opponent was a barbarian whose entire body was covered in muscles as hard and massive as boulders, then the other party clearly possessed strength corresponding to his build at the very least.

An adult bugbear stood at a height of about seven feet, which was around 2.2 meters.

Coupled with his burly form that was packed with robust muscles and thick fat like a brown bear, he resembled a small mountain of flesh when viewed from afar.

Compared to him, although Gagu possessed a thin strain of orc blood, his height and build were only slightly above that of an ordinary adult human.

Even when stimulating the bloodline within his body to enter a combat state, his entire person barely reached the level of the bugbear’s shoulders.

Standing together, the two looked almost like an adult next to a child.

And the actual combat ability was even more mismatched.

Previously, Xia Nan’s entire focus had been integrated into the fight against the goblins, leaving him with no time to spare for his surroundings.

Therefore, he was not clear about what had transpired on the other side of the battlefield during these twenty-odd seconds.

He only saw the scene that now appeared before his eyes.

Compared to the time they encountered the ambush last night, Gagu’s body was very clean, stained with some mud and dust, with almost no blood traces visible.

He was also very quiet.

There were no orc slang phrases of unknown meaning, nor were there any deafening roars of wild fury.

Of course, this was not because the half-orc had suddenly learned human etiquette.

It was because at this moment, he had already lost the capacity for speech.

Broken, pale bone fragments pierced through his flesh, propping upward from his abdominal cavity.

Right in the center of his chest was a large hole deeply caved inward.

His eyes rolled back, his mouth hanging open unconsciously as white froth laced with blood dripped from the corners of his lips.

Like a broken toy, Gagu was lifted upside down by the bugbear, who held him by a single ankle.

The pitch-black morningstar, densely covered in iron spikes, stood poised in the cold air to the side.

At this instant, for some unknown reason, Xia Nan suddenly associated this sight with an ancient night watchman striking a gong.

In the next second, the morningstar vanished from its spot, and the gong was struck.

Crack-thud—

Accompanied by the whistling sound of a hard object hurtling through the air was a peculiar noise, resembling a breaking egg, where a hard shell and viscous liquid intertwined.

The half-orc’s body swung like a pendulum.

A puddle of red-and-white slime was added to the face of the weapon, and Gagu lost the physiological ability to make a sound.

Thud.

The headless corpse was casually tossed onto the ground. Blood surged out like a fountain, gradually forming a pool of blood beneath it.

“Die for me, ahhhhh!”

Right at the next moment after Xia Nan witnessed the half-orc being completely crushed by the bugbear, a raspy roar carrying a hint of anticipation echoed by his ear.

Though Gagu had died a wretched death, he had ultimately completed his task of “buying time.”

The bowstring was taut, the limbs of the bow bending to a degree that it seemed on the verge of snapping.

An iron arrow gleaming with a metallic luster was gripped tightly between Maji’s fingers, its faintly purple arrowhead pointing straight at the bugbear’s head.

[Precise Shot]

One of the prerequisites to becoming a Ranger.

It was also the only offensive combat skill Maji had mastered during his years of adventuring.

In higher-level combat, the effect of this move was naturally centered on the precise targeting of an attack location.

But for a bottom-tier adventurer like Maji, the “faint” power bonus it provided—which might seem negligible to high-level professionals—was entirely sufficient to handle the vast majority of situations.

Even when facing a bugbear, known as a “rookie killer,” he still harbored absolute expectations.

If this arrow could directly pass through the eye socket and enter the skull, it would kill the bugbear on the spot;

If it hit the cranium, the force attached to the arrow shaft would also be enough to plunge the bugbear into a dying, heavily wounded state, leaving Maji fully capable of finishing the harvest;

Even in the worst-case scenario where he missed his mark, the trait of the [Precise Shot] skill guaranteed that a wound would be left on the opponent’s body.

At that time, acting as Maji’s trump card, the metallic arrowhead that he had spent a large amount of gold coins to custom-make would be able to play its role.

The horned viper venom smeared on the surface of the arrowhead could rapidly paralyze the bugbear’s body in a short period, causing its speed to drop drastically and slowing its reaction capabilities.

When that happened, whether to pursue the victory or turn around and flee, the right to choose would shift over to his side.

The complicated thoughts flashed across his mind in an instant.

Maji held his breath, aimed at the enemy’s vital spot, and lightly loosened his tightened fingers.

Shoom—

The sound of air tearing apart traveled from before him. The impact brought by the snapping back of the bowstring left a wave of numbness from his fingertips to his forearm.

The moment the arrow flew out, decades of experience within the jungle told his heart:

“This shot is solid.”

Under extreme high-pressure conditions, the hunter had performed at his absolute best, executing almost every movement to the most standard degree.

A few strands of graying hair at his temples swayed gently with the breeze kicked up by the arrow’s flight.

Maji was incomparably confident, as if he could already hear the sluggish sound of the arrowhead penetrating the eye socket and driving deep into the skull, and hear the bugbear’s abruptly halted cry of agony.

But immediately following that, the appearance of a brownish-red hue shattered all his illusions like waking from a dream.

As if sensing the fatal blow the bugbear was about to face, a semi-transparent barrier gleaming with red light manifested out of thin air in the space ahead of him.

Its material was neither light nor air, seeming to be some stray energy temporarily condensed together to form an unstable, brownish-red force field.

The iron arrow carrying the strength of the hunter’s entire body merely grazed it before being deflected away under the envelopment of the brownish-red energy.

Its force remained undiminished, but the target pointed to by the arrowhead shifted from the bugbear’s head to the wall behind him.

Thud-bang!

The metallic arrow shaft easily penetrated the dirt and stone wall inside the cave, leaving only the violent vibration of the fletching at the tail, alongside the hunter’s pale and despairing face.

“How… how is this possible?!” Maji’s bloodless lips twitched, his body trembling from terror. “My arrow…”

And facing the hunter Maji, who had already unveiled his final trump card, the bugbear spoke the very first sentence since he had appeared in everyone’s line of sight.

“Your little tricks. Magic.”

A coarse voice like gravel echoed faintly within the cave, and the half-baked Common tongue left one unable to understand the exact meaning it wished to express.

But at this moment, what the bugbear said was no longer of any importance.

Because in the next second, his ferocious shadow, which was thoroughly suffused with the scent of death, had already arrived before Maji, shrouding him completely.

(End of Chapter)