Chapter 25: Into the Forest

He already restocked his vitality portions and healing potions. He bought extra healing portions as he is not in a squad now.

He had 8 healing portions and 2 vitality portions with him. He also got a few hearts of the big head turtles he killed during the monster horde as they provide more mana than their meat.

Allen stayed vigilant in the forest. He was sure he will be attacked by other monsters before he can find the steel pandas.

He also stayed vigilant as he might find any unfortunate humans who died off a monster attack. He can salvage their weapons and other stuff.

Their tradition in the country is to burn the bodies of the dead so the monsters will not devour them. It is also a sign of respect for the dead.

He started to walk slowly into the forest with Serina acting as a scout due to her ability to sense her surroundings.

'Growl'

Serina growled signalling a monster nearby after Allen walked 15 minutes into the forest.

He immediately took one of his swords and got ready for battle.

He was good at handling swords in both hands and that is why he did not buy a shield. He will use his other sword if there is a need.

He looked around with vigilance as he knew that the monster should have also sensed them and might be preparing for an attack.

He saw a few monkeys hanging on a tree nearby watching him. There were about 5 monkeys. All are in the peak private stage.

These monkeys were Razor monkeys who loves to play with their enemies while they fight.

They don't kill them instantly but cause massive small injuries that will make one lose a lot of blood.

They are called razor monkeys because their paws have sharp razor-like nails that are as long as a knife.

Allen must finish the fight quickly so he will not be hurt much. Plus he needs to go deeper to find the steel pandas.

The razor monkeys started attacking Allen and Serina. Two monkeys came towards Allen while the other three went for Serina.

'Clang clang'

Allen swiped his sword towards the razor monkeys and both his attacks were parried by those monkeys.

It's a good thing that grade-2 armour came with a helmet that covers the wearer's face completely as the razor monkeys mostly attack the head and face.

This gave Allen a boost in defence and he can focus more on the attack without worrying about his face or head being injured.

He was still having difficulty handling these two razor monkeys as they are a bit more agile than him.

He checked on Serina and she was also having trouble since the razor monkeys are using trees to evade her attacks.

Now all they can do is wait for the razor monkeys to get angry or make the mistake to kill them.

He kept dodging and defending the attacks from the razor monkeys for 10 minutes before they got angry.

The razor monkeys started to attack with frenzy as they were unable to cause any damage to their prey.

'Clank clank PUCHI'

Allen while defending against the razor monkeys with one sword, took his other sword and stabbed one of the razor monkey's heads and killed it instantly.

Seeing its friend die, the other razor monkey started to run, but it was too late as it was killed the next second by Allen's other sword.

Allen checked Serina and found that she has killed the three razor monkeys before him. He just collected their cores as he need to collect steel panda's meat.

He burnt the remains of the razor monkeys as their smell would attract more monsters who can follow his scent and could kill him.

The battle took 15 minutes. Allen took a rest for 5 minutes before continuing inside the forest.

He did not drink any of his potions as he is not tired or had any serious injuries. He saves his portions for the steel pandas.

He slowly started walking again and was eager to test his strength against the steel pandas because he fought with the razor monkeys with pure strength and tactics.

He did not use his ability or did his mana exercise for extra strength and he was able to beat them in less than 15 minutes.

Allen still has difficulties in refining his mana and can only refine mana 4 times a day.

He is not upset because of this as he is increasing his refining count. He was only able to refine their a day a week back.

With these thoughts, Allen walked towards his target area to fight the steel pandas.

After a few minutes of walking, he heard the sound of fighting coming and he hid and went to have a closer look at the battle.

He saw a group of five men and a woman fighting a shadow wolf pack of nine wolves. The men and women were all about 20 years old.

Their coordination was very good as they covered each other's weaknesses with their strengths.

4 men and the woman were equipped with swords and shields and the remaining 1 man was wielding a spear and shield.

'They must be from the same squad to be so coordinated' thought Allen.

They were all wielding grade-3 armour and weapons indicating that they are all in the Corporal stage at the least.

After watching the battle for a few minutes, Allen started to walk again towards his destination to fight the steel pandas.

Not long after he found a group of monsters feasting on a human corpse.