Chapter 34 - Preparing For The Night

Chapter 34 – Preparing For The Night

Adrian, Keith, and Ceylon prepared for the night. Since they chose an area outside the fence for their home, it was a bit dangerous. Even so, even with the fence, the resident inside might not be safe. So, everywhere anyone stayed was dangerous unless the settlement erected a sturdy wall.

Adrian and the gang were not the only ones around the peripheral. Although their positions were quite far from each other, they could see another group of players nearby. Either they knew each other since the beginning was unknown but the other players had formed a group.

While Adrian, Keith, and Ceylon took their time and patience preparing for the night, that other group of players was different. They looked serious and were not idle.

"Is the normal night in this settlement that dangerous? Look at them," Keith raised his chin and pointed at the other players. Adrian and Ceylon glanced at them and they could feel their intensity to battle.

"I think maybe because there are a lot of people in this settlement, it attracts a lot of beasts at night," Adrian spoke. "Also, there will be a lot of fireplace lighting this settlement, and the light may attract the beasts over."

"Similar situation happened to me before. With a light, the beast will appear but without any light, I rarely encounter any beast," Adrian spoke of his experience before arriving at the settlement.

Keith and Ceylon encountered the same thing too and after that, they never made a fireplace because it was too dangerous.

However, since they were in a settlement where there were a lot of people, they felt the danger was lowered. So, even if the beasts appeared, it would not be that dangerous.

"Let's plan how to fight when the beasts appear," Adrian suggested. Since the other players looked tense, they decided to take this seriously. The trio did not experience the few previous nights in the settlement but other players might have experienced it.

Adrian felt that it would not be an easy night. Instead of taking it easy, they prepared for the worse.

"Since both of you cannot use any skill, you can only rely on your weapons. Ceylon will be our main fighting force and Keith and I will support you," Adrian spoke.

Out of the trio, Ceylon was the only one with an intact weapon. Adrian's sickle was destroyed by the Sharp Teeth White Rabbit and Keith's weapon met the same fate too. So, they could only rely on Ceylon while giving support from behind.

"I will use the tree branch as a sword to stall while Ceylon will deal with the real damage," Keith spoke as he had prepared a lot of tree branches in his storage for this.

Since Adrian had no weapon, he decided to pick up small stones on the ground to help in this battle. He could throw them to the beasts to support Ceylon. With Energy Manipulation and Control, he might be able to inflict damage too.

As the trio prepared for the night, the sky started to turn dark. At the same time, lights appeared around the settlement from the many fireplaces set up by the residents outside their house.

At the same time, the women in the settlement gathered together and prepared dinner while the men mostly lingered at the outer section of the settlement. Many of the players had also prepared for battle.

"I wonder if there will be many beasts?" Keith spoke.

"We should ask the other players to find out. We cannot go blindly at this," Ceylon spoke and he walked to the group of players to ask about the night situation.

While Ceylon went to ask, Keith spoke. "The players who choose the guard mission will get a lot of experience every night," Keith felt jealous. Since he chose the food mission, he could produce some results after he learned the two basic skills.

Ceylon came back and told them about his findings.

"There are not many of the beasts that appear. In one night, usually, twenty to thirty of them will appear but that is the total of them all around the settlement. They did not appear in a group and will appear once every few hours," Ceylon spoke.

"The situation is not as dire as their faces show but one of their friends died last night and so, they are more careful. That friend is working hard at the moment to log in again," Ceylon added.

Hearing Ceylon speak, Keith heaved a sigh of relief. He thought that it would be at the level of the beast tide where hundreds and thousands of beasts would appear at the same time.

"What makes the battle hard is that the beast has more total stat points than the players. Without any skill to increase their damage, the battle is super hard. According to them, they took twenty to thirty minutes to defeat one beast with their cooperation," Ceylon continued.

"So, what beasts have they encountered?" Adrian asked. The only beasts he had seen were the Sharp Teeth White Rabbit. He never met the other beast.

"There are only two of them. The Sharp Teeth White Rabbit and the Bullet Sparrow. Both of them are the fast attacker and out of the two, Bullet Sparrow is more dangerous. The ability to fly and superior speed kill many people."

"The guy that dies is due to the Bullet Sparrow. However, the sparrow is rare. For the past two nights, they had only fought against one. The NPC confirmed this. Usually, only two to three of them will appear. Since they are strong, the leader and his two men will be the ones settling them."

"…If we encounter one, let's not dawdle," Keith was worried. If his character died, he would need to work a few hours to log in again. That will be painful and stressful.

"The rabbit is as dangerous as the sparrow. Don't look down on them. The other players have said that the rabbit caused a lot of damage to them. We are not the only ones with destroyed weapons, those guys are the same too and the rabbit is responsible for that," Ceylon spoke.

"The rabbit's teeth and speed are a big problem. The deadly one is the teeth but the one causing more damage is its legs. The rabbit mainly uses two skills, Dash and Tackle. If you want to fight it, you must stop it from using Dash," Adrian had experience fighting them, so he briefed his friends about it.

"Once they start to use Dash, you either outspeed them or get defensive. Never let them tackle you. Once the tackle lands, if you cannot get back up fast enough, you are doom," Adrian spoke.

"Also, the beasts are smart enough to learn from their mistakes and adjust their battle style. So, it is better to end the battle as fast as possible. We don't want them to become smarter in battle," Adrian added.

The trio continued discussing what to do and as time passed, the sky was fully dark and only the light from the fire lit up the air.

The settlement practiced having a meal together. The women would cook the meal together for the whole settlement and everyone would have the meal together. They did this because not everyone could afford food most of the time and this was Valiant's way to make sure everyone ate something every day.

Adrian and the gang received some food too. They accepted it happily. After that, it was a peaceful night. While the night was still peaceful, Keith, Ceylon, and Whitey continued practicing the two basic skills.

Whereas Adrian kept watching. He wanted to continue studying the Green Orchid but he needed to save some energy to fight the enemy. Studying the Green Orchid used quite a lot of his energy.

If Adrian continued studying the plant, he might not have enough energy to fight the beasts. Since he was the only one who could use the energy freely out of the three, he needed to be more responsible.

Adrian stared at the fireplace while once in a while, he would glance at the forest to see if anything was coming. While he was doing nothing, suddenly a rustle was heard on the bushes near the group of the other players.

"Hmm?" Adrian raised his brow and got up. At the same time, a cute white rabbit walked out of the bushes. If this was their first time meeting the rabbit, they would say, "Aww~ so cute!" However, they had met a lot of the same type of rabbit to not think of them as cute.

As the rabbit came out, the other players drew their weapons. Only two of them had real weapons while the others used tree branches as a weapon.

'This settlement is really poor. We need to find a mine of other alternative materials for the weapon,' thought Adrian.

Since the rabbit appeared at the other side, Adrian decided to watch from the side. If by chance they were in a pinch, he would step in and help them. Helping others was good but the night was still long and if he wasted his energy on strangers, his friends would be at a disadvantage later.

Also, Adrian knew they had killed quite a few of the rabbits. They had experienced it, so there was no need for him to rush and help them.

Furthermore, Adrian did not intend to watch blindly as he wanted to learn their trick of fighting the rabbit. They were players too and Adrian was not the only smart player in the game.