Chapter 20

  The level 10 zone was about as far away from the Undead Crypt, as the Undead crypt was from the starter village. They had to travel through the level 8 and level 9 zone in order to get there.

  They went through various new terrains while they ran. It ranged from forest, to swamp, to mountainous.

  Ben led them off of the main road to avoid encounters with other players. While Ben didn’t fear other players at the moment, any time spent interacting with players would be a waste of time.

  They continued to encounter creatures as they passed through the zones. The monster levels matched the zones. No matter what they faced, they just kept running and let Ben’s cherubs do the fighting.

  Finally, they arrived at the level 10 zone. They had to go through a mountain pass to get to it. Given the position of the mountains, it was far more practical to simply go along the road, through the main pass, then try to go around or climb up the mountains.

  Given that they were approaching the level 10 zone, there were no players around. Not even powerful and coordinated guilds like the Eagle guild would be crazy enough to force their way past the level 8 and level 9 zone when just the level 7 zone was nearly impossible for them to get through without overwhelming numbers.

  Given the lack of players, the surroundings were ominously quiet while they followed the rocky trail. Once they passed the border to the level 10 area, the road disappeared to be replaced by a rocky path. They both noticed a notification. Ben quickly dismissed it. Eve gazed at it wearily.

  [You are entering the Level 10 Zone: Orc Valley]

  Eve was clearly nervous but she didn’t say anything. She simply inched closer to Ben for comfort as they walked. Ben noticed and glanced down at her.

  “It’s ok. Nothing here can really threaten us,” Ben said.

  Eve looked up at Ben warily.

  “Are you sure? This is a level 10 area, after all, ” she typed.

  Ben grew a confident smile.

  “Watch and see,” Ben said.

  Ben redirected his attention upwards. Eve followed his gaze.

  “Come on. What are you waiting for?” Ben called out.

  Large figures emerged from the mountains. They were tall and extremely muscular humanoid figures with green skin. They wore tribal armor, and had tusks jutting out from their mouths. Ben scanned them calmly.

  [Level 10 Orc Warrior]

  “Gwa!”

  The mountain erupted in ferocious battle cries as the troop of orcs charged down the steep incline. They wielded different kinds of weapons. Battle axes, war hammers, longswords. Long spears.

  Notably, there were no ranged fighters. The orcs liked getting up close and personal.

  Eve clutched her staff tightly and prepared herself for a tough fight. The orcs were bigger and more intimidating than anything she had seen so far. Even scarier than the dire bear because the orcs were clearly intelligent, and there were a lot of them.

  Ben looked back at Eve thoughtfully before an idea formed. Instead of summoning his entire army of cherubs, he only summoned a single cherub warrior next to Eve. By now, she was getting used to the cherub acting as her personal body guard. Ben had started to leave a cherub with her at all times to guard her.

  “Watch,” Ben said.

  Ben twirled his halbert expertly and waited for the orcs to advance. He didn’t even mind getting surrounded. They were about a dozen orcs and Ben planned to take them on without the help of his cherubs.

  Ben charged towards the orc that was the closest. This one had a battleaxe. It swung its weapon in a way that Ben knew wasn’t the swing of an amateur. The battleaxe was long, so it nullified Ben’s range advantage that his halberd typically gave. Still, Ben had little problem dealing with the Orc.

  He deftly ducked underneath the swing and struck precisely at the Orc’s jugular. Blood splattered from the gash that Ben left.

  Notably the orc didn’t die. It was far too tough to be felled by a single strike, especially given Ben’s small strength score. Instead, the strike seemed to make it angrier. Its body was engulfed in a faint red aura before it charged forward again.

  It was notably faster and stronger. Ben knew he couldn’t compete with its strength or its speed, but he didn’t have to. His skill more than made up the difference.

  Eve watched as Ben once again dealt with the Orc as skillfully as he had the Eagle players. The Orc had a lot of health so before Ben could kill it, he was assaulted by the other Orcs.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  They could hardly touch him.

  He dodged, weaved, parried, and sidestepped in an inhuman fashion. He flowed like water. The orcs were clearly more skilled than the Eagle players, but that didn’t seem to matter.

  Finally, Ben took his first hit, a graze to the arm. Then another, then another. Ben’s health began to trickle down. She could see the cherub warrior’s health plummeting. She quickly healed herself, which transferred to Ben and the cherub. Instantly, their health was refilled.

  A couple of orcs noticed Eve’s healing and charged towards her with a furious scream. She shivered but clutched her staff tightly. Ben still didn’t want her to use a shield. She had to get used to fighting with the staff.

  One of the approaching orcs had a great hammer and the other had a long sword. The cherub warrior moved to intercept the orc with a hammer, which allowed the orc with the longsword to charge Eve.

  She raised her staff to block its first blow. She was knocked to the ground. She let out a pathetic yelp of alarm. She had to scramble quickly to her feet to block the next strike. Again, it knocked her to the ground.

  She quickly cast a healing spell on herself as she got up. The orc was relentless. If it wasn’t for the cherub warrior and Ben absorbing damage for her, she would have been killed.

  She couldn’t even use a faith-based shielding technique yet. She had the option to learn a shielding spell at level 5, but she took cleanse instead. With how healing was amplified within the soul link, a shield was redundant.

  That cleanse didn’t help her much now. The orc dominated her. It was clearly far more skilled. She couldn’t even block every hit. She got slashed multiple times. It hurt. Her pain setting was at maximum level. She knew it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it could have, because of the soul link, but it still hurt at least as much as the Dire Bear.

  Eve estimated that the orc was barely weaker than the dire bear. Two of the orcs could probably fight the dire bear to a stand still. The only reason she could absorb damage so well was because her, Ben, and his cherub had much higher health than when they fought the dire bear. They didn’t even have any real gear at the time. Now she had a full set of armor. It was cloth based, but still armor.

  When they fought the bear, Eve could take maybe two and a half hits with Ben and his four cherubs absorbing damage for her. That was when they were at level 4. Now they were all at level 9. Ben and one cherub were enough to give her a decent health buffer.

  So she persisted despite getting clearly outclassed. Eventually, she chose not to block an attack in order to give her an opportunity to finally hit back. The pain was frustrating, and she wanted to make it feel what it was doing to her.

  Its blade gashed her shoulder but she ignored it as best as she could in order to wave her staff and send a ball of magical energy sailing towards the orc’s face. This was a ranged ability that was innate to her staff. Firing the energy balls up close made them much easier to hit.

  She did barely 2% of its hp. It was a pathetic amount. The direct hit it landed on her did around 20% of her HP, given that it was divided between Ben and the cherub.

  Despite her damage being outmatched, she felt encouraged. Her health points were passively healing because of her regeneration spell. In addition, she could cast her advanced healing spell instantly, so she knew she could heal more damage than it could do to her.

  With that realization in mind, Eve engaged in a heated battle with the orc. She was still unskilled. She blocked about 20% of its attacks, but began to consistently land her own hits. She even dodged a few of its swings. Periodically she cast her burst healing spell and refreshed her healing regeneration spell. Her mana was slowly draining, but she did have a large mana pool and a very high amount of mana regeneration from her staff.

  She discovered during the fight that hitting the orc with her staff delivered a melee energy attack which dealt double the damage of the ranged energy balls. With that discovery, she began to practice weaving melee attacks into her blocking and dodging. That greatly sped up how fast she chipped away at its health. She was filled with elation as a revelation hit her.

  “I can beat it!” She thought.

  After about five minutes of fighting, Eve landed a final blow on the orc. She let out a strained cry as she bashed its face in. It fell to the ground bloody and defeated. Loot fell from its corpse to signal its official defeat. Notifications drew Eve’s attention. Unlike Ben, she wasn’t so quick to dismiss her notifications.

  [Defeating a tough enemy with the Pain-Setting on Maximum has increased your rate of proficiency development]

  [You have gained Novice Simple Weapon Proficiency]

  [You have gained Novice Blocking Proficiency]

  [You have gained Novice Evasion Proficiency]

  [You have gained Novice Ranged Attack Proficiency]

  Eve was amazed at the series of notifications. It was not common to gain so many proficiencies at once.

  The sound of clapping drew Eve’s attention. Ben stood close by amidst a group of orc corpses. He had long since finished off the other 10 orcs by himself. His cherub warrior finished off the 11th. For the last minute, he just watched Eve fight the remaining orc.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad was it?” Ben said.

  Eve looked down at her own hands in amazement, then back at Ben. She smiled brightly and excitedly typed.

  “I really beat it by myself,” she typed.

  Ben hesitated.

  “Well, not really by yourself,” he thought.

  Ben of course knew the truth. She wouldn’t have survived without the Soul Link. He could have beat the orcs without her soul link. He took only minor grazing hits, and his lifesteal was more than enough to sustain himself. Eve was different, she was much more reliant on the soul link than he was.

  He didn’t want to rain on her parade, so he chose his words carefully. He wanted to be encouraging while still basing his observations in reality.

  “You are stronger than you know. Now you know your strength relative to these enemies. You won’t be able to fight like I do, but that’s not your job. All you need to do is be able to defend yourself to a reasonable degree. Block, dodge, heal, buff, stay close to me, and I’ll take care of the rest. This proved that you aren’t just a victim without me, but also, your role isn’t to kill. If we fulfill our roles well, nothing can stop us,” Ben said.

  Eve listened carefully and nodded. She understood the lesson Ben just taught her. She was under no delusion about her own strength just because she won. She took 5 minutes to kill a single orc after all. But the fact that she could kill it, the fact that she could stand up against a ferocious creature like that and not immediately die or give into terror, was a huge milestone for her.

  Eve clutched her staff with renewed strength and looked at Ben expectantly. She was ready. Ben nodded in satisfaction and sprinted off further into the Level 10 zone with Eve following closely by his side.

  He would no longer need to worry about her as much anymore. That would greatly increase their farming speed in the long run. It was definitely worth it to take some time to teach her. He planned to do more of that in the future.

  In the back of his mind, that level 15 cut-off was beginning to waiver.

  “Maybe it would be ok to get her to level 20 instead,” he thought.

  After all, it was just 5 more levels.