Published at 7th of February 2023 10:58 am

Chapter 138: Intercepting The traffickers III

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

The giant wild boar snorted angrily as it charged towards him. The boar lowered its head as it got close, with the intent of skewering Merlin with its tusks.

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself pork belly." Merlin taunted as he sent his vines out.

The vines lunged at the boar's legs, wrapping around them and causing the boar to trip. Merlin barely leapt out of the way as the boar barrelled down the small hill he found himself on.

「Passive skill ⟪Rose Blight⟫ has triggered, target's stats have been reduced.」

He ran after the boar that had rolled past him, sending his vines into the boar's underbelly.

He began chanting a skill as he charged towards it.

「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack will do an extra 35% damage, and has a 15% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」

Merlin leapt into the air, plunging his wolf fang dagger into the side of the boar's head.

The boar tried retaliating, quickly rolling into its feet and slamming its head at Merlin, but he leapt backwards while pushing away from the boar with his vines, giving him a fair amount of distance over his usual leap.

The boar seemed cautious, it didn't immediately start charging again out of fear of being tripped once more. So while it began moving slower in an attempt to keep all four feet on the ground, Merlin ran circles around the creature, slowly whipping it to death with his vines.

The vines did a fraction of the already subpar damage due to the boar's thick hide, but he was ultimately fighting this thing unchallenged.

Any time the giant wild boar got frustrated and decided to charge at him again, Merlin would trip the boar over and impale it with his vines instead of whipping it.

The only challenge he really faced was when the boars he had killed in the area started respawning, and the giant wild boar's cries sent them into a frenzy. This was most likely what had happened to the last party he watched get stomped to death by the boars while coming back from his extermination quests.

Eventually the giant wild boar, alongside any of the nearby boars that decided to charge in, had fallen.

「You have completed the quest, "Jurassic Pork", visit the mercenary guild to receive your rewards.」

「Congratulations, your soul "★★ Race Soul: Rose Wight (Level 1)" has levelled up.」

"Oh it's about time." Merlin said, out loud before checking his soul's stats.

┌───────────────────

★★ Race Soul: Rose Wight • Level 2

Bonus Stats: +9 Constitution, +2 Strength

Abilities: ⟪Rose Blight⟫

Origin Soul Bonuses: +15% Status Resistance, +6 Attack Damage, ⟪Thorn Vine⟫,

└───────────────────

"Aww, no new abilities?" Merlin mumbled before taking a look at what changes his soul skills had.

His rose blight ability seemed to only have one change, and that was the ten percent chance of triggering becoming fifteen percent. It didn't seem like the reduction of stats had changed at all, that remained at only five percent.

As for thorn vine, he was now able to manipulate up to three thorn-covered vines, and other than that it seems the trigger chance for the poison on a successful hit was also raised to fifteen to match the rose blight ability.

"Well, it's still a solid ability, nothing to complain about." He muttered. "And I do enjoy the bonuses."

He brought up his stats window, checking the changes.

┌───────────────────

• Vitality = 8 (+7 Base, +1 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Constitution = 16 (+7 Base, +0 Title, +9 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Strength = 19 (+7 Base, +2 Title, +6 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Dexterity = 16 (+7 Base, +0 Title, +4 Soul, +1 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Agility = 13 (+7 Base, +0 Title, +2 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Intelligence = 7 (+7 Base, +0 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Wisdom = 8 (+7 Base, +1 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Charisma = 9 (+7 Base, +1 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +1 Bonus)

└───────────────────

"And my strength overtakes my dexterity by a mile once again." He grumbled before looking at his constitution. "I have so many different bonuses for my dexterity, and all it takes is one soul to match my constitution with it."

While he was talking to himself he barely heard the sound of grass rustle behind him, which he ignored for a moment, thinking it was either the wind or a boar, until his body started feeling nervous.

Merlin drew his weapon and turned around quickly, only to find that Bell Ladrona, the mute kid from the thieves guild, was standing a few meters in front of him.

"Bell, you've really got to stop doing that, you're gonna give a guy a heart attack." Merlin lowered his weapon while exhaling.

Bell smiled before pulling a letter out of his pocket, handing it to Merlin before immediately scurrying off back towards the city.

Before Merlin opened the letter, he quickly checked his inventory to see if everything was there, and fortunately it seemed Bell had kept his promise.

He eventually opened the letter, and read its contents.

The letter spoke of a shipment heading towards Megalopolis, it was going to be shipped early that morning in a total of three covered wagons bearing the clover insignia. But the most interesting piece of information he found was that the intended recipient was someone he was familiar with, and he was apparently even a repeat customer.

"Baron Doolmet... I guess he really is scum." Merlin muttered while feeling somewhat disappointed he didn't go through with his desires earlier. "Well, that would have probably fallen on Callisto or the other rangers had I actually done it, I'd need to approach it smarter."

"But if he has bought slaves before, was the kid that got killed even his biological son?" Merlin wondered out loud, "Is he conspiring against Callisto?"

Merlin pulled his sharp hunters knife out of his inventory as he mumbled to himself, and he began skilfully harvesting the giant wild boar for as much material as he could.

About twenty minutes passed and Merlin had obtained as much as he could from the creature, he was trying his best to skin it while also using his vines to fight off any of the boars that spawned nearby and started attacking him.

「You have completed the quest, "Makin' Bacon", visit the mercenary guild to receive your rewards.」

The boar gave him enough meat to finish his quest, but there wasn't enough hide on the creature, he would still have to kill a few more boars and hope for the best.

Twenty or so minutes had passed, and Merlin had finally killed the last boar he needed. At this point, it seemed the sun was starting the rise, as he didn't have to resummon his ball of light to see well.

「You have completed the quest, "Acquire Pigskins", visit the mercenary guild to receive your rewards.」

Merlin turned towards the bridge, noticing that there wasn't any wagons coming his way yet.

"I probably don't have time to turn in the quests, huh?" He muttered, "It'd be embarrassing if they left while I was in the city, lets just do it later."

Merlin reached into his inventory, pulling out the porcelain owl mask. He put the mask on, tightening the strap before throwing the cloak's hood over his head.

He made his way down the road for roughly ten minutes before slipping into the forest. This would put him far enough away from the city that nobody should see what was about to happen.

Due to the ten meter distance between the treeline and the road, along with the morning light, it was unlikely that they wouldn't see him charge at them. His next idea was that he should pick off as many as he could from a distance before charging in.

"I guess I should cripple the horses to stop them from running away." He thought to himself as he pulled his bow and a quiver of arrows from his inventory.

He was going to start slicing his hand on each of the arrows, but then he remembered that he had an overabundance of yew in his inventory.

Since it seemed he had plenty of time, Merlin quickly pulled out his gloves, a mortar and several yew needles and berries, peeling off the red fleshy skins from the berries and crushing the seeds. Because the fruit part of the berries were safe to eat, he threw them towards a nearby squirrel.

Merlin crushed the yew materials into a paste of sorts, and he began applying this paste to the tips of his arrows before putting his arrows back into his quiver.

He cast cleanse on his pestle and mortar, causing the leftover yew paste to peel from the mortar and pestle, before floating into the air and vanishing.

'Such a convenient spell.' He thought once again.

He eventually threw his equipment back into his inventory, grabbing hold of his bow once more.

Like usual, Merlin could feel his heart beating faster, as his body was full of excitement alongside the anxiety he always felt before an assassination.

Although this was more akin to murdering bandits than a proper assassination, the reason assassination was soon to come.

As he was scanning his surroundings, he heard several wagons being pulled down the road a fair distance away.

Merlin grabbed one of his poisoned arrows and nocked it on his bow as he crouched down behind a large shrub for some cover.

As the wagons continued down the road, Merlin could now see three of them, each being tugged along by two horses. The three wagons had six armed guards walking alongside them, so if there weren't any people hiding within the covered wagons there would be a total of nine people to kill, including the drivers.

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