Roland stared at the chaotic footprints on the ground, brows tightly furrowed as he sank into thought.
If he went back now to turn in the commission, he might not receive the payment, but at least he would not have to pay a breach-of-contract fee.
However, money was secondary to him.
At that thought, his gaze involuntarily fell on the Profession Panel.
[Required Strength 9, Agility 6, 4/5 max-level combat-related skills, 60/100 hostile creatures slain]
"Other than the attribute requirements, I'm only missing one max-level combat skill and forty hostile creatures before I can change to the warrior profession."
"Maxing out Lion Swordplay won't be a problem. At worst, I can go back and slowly grind it with the [Battle Readiness] trait. Without the bonus from the [Theory and Practice] trait, the efficiency will be lower, but it'll only take more time."
"As for the attributes, I can also raise them gradually through training. But forty hostile creatures..."
He recalled the notice board in the Adventurer's Guild, which was plastered with commissions.
If he remembered correctly, there were very few commissions related to monsters.
Two out of the three had already been taken by him. The only one remaining was the mission to investigate the monsters' unusual movements.
At this rate, it would probably be difficult for another commission to exterminate monsters to appear in the short term.
"Forget it."
After weighing things for a moment, Roland finally made up his mind.
"Since these kobolds haven't been gone for long, I might as well follow them and take a look. If I catch up smoothly, I'll finish them quickly. If things go south, with seven points of Agility enhanced by [Adaptive Training], escaping shouldn't be a problem."
Having made up his mind, Roland swiftly moved through the dense forest along the kobolds' trail, his sharp eyes constantly scanning the surrounding movements.
A moment later, his footsteps suddenly stopped at a fork in the road.
On the muddy ground ahead, several different kinds of footprints had appeared beside the kobolds' previously solitary tracks.
Roland dropped to one knee and carefully examined the crisscrossing traces.
Besides the familiar claw prints of kobolds and human bootprints, there were also the three-toed footprints unique to goblins, as well as a strange track he had never seen before.
"The situation is more complicated than I thought."
Roland's fingertips lightly traced the marks, and his brows drew tighter and tighter.
"There aren't just goblins and kobolds—there are humans too."
He rose and looked around.
The footprints on the muddy ground were chaotic, converging from all directions before spreading out again.
Staring at the tangled footprints on the ground, a guess gradually took shape in his mind.
"Could it be that, besides the kobolds and goblins, other monsters are also migrating in groups?"
His gaze followed the direction in which the unfamiliar tracks extended, while his fingers unconsciously rubbed the hilt of his sword.
"And the mercenaries and adventurers who accepted the extermination commissions followed these tracks all the way here?"
Carrying this doubt with him, Roland continued forward cautiously along the trail.
As he went deeper, the footprints in the forest grew denser and denser. The originally narrow woodland path had actually been trampled into a broad dirt road.
Before long, the sunlight filtering through the canopy suddenly grew more intense. They were evidently about to reach the edge of the forest.
At the same time, a deafening uproar gradually came from the distance.
Human shouts, monsters' howls, the ringing clash of metal, and all sorts of other sounds blended together, heralding an intense battle raging ahead.
Roland gently pushed aside the final cluster of bushes, and the battlefield suddenly burst into view.
More than a hundred mercenaries and adventurers were engaged in a desperate struggle against a monster army in a forest clearing. The thick stench of blood was almost suffocating.
"Is that..."
His gaze fixed on the center of the battlefield.
Dozens of human-sized monsters were mixed in among the kobolds and goblins.
Their bodies were covered in coarse fur, while their ferocious heads bore obvious hyena-like features.
Roland frowned unconsciously. This was the first time he had seen a monster other than kobolds and goblins.
"Gnolls?"
The slaughter on the battlefield did not pause in the slightest because of Roland's surprise.
Sharp metal weapons reflected dazzlingly cold light beneath the sun, intertwining with the dark-red blood splashing everywhere and staining the entire ground an eerie purplish black.
Yet even with monsters before them, those mercenaries and adventurers who should have stood united against a common enemy had fallen into a frenzied internal struggle.
A mercenary in leather armor had just hacked down a gnoll when he greedily lunged for its head.
Just as he drew his dagger and prepared to cut off the spoils, a sharp short sword suddenly stabbed in from the side.
It was an adventurer with a sinister gaze, glaring fixedly at the prey in his hands.
"That's my kill!"
"Bullshit! My arrow clearly struck that gnoll's vital spot!"
Similar ugly disputes erupted all across the battlefield.
Several well-equipped adventuring parties even completely ignored the goblin horde lurking around them, crossing swords over who had the right to claim several bags of monster ears.
Watching coldly, Roland discovered that at least a third of the mercenaries and adventurers were actually confronting other people rather than fighting the monsters before them.
The monsters had clearly noticed this perfect opportunity.
The cunning goblins hid behind trees and threw stones. The savage gnolls formed assault squads. Even the relatively dull-witted kobolds began organized attacks on isolated adventurers.
Although there was a gap in equipment and combat skill, thanks to the humans slaughtering one another, this mixed monster army miraculously managed to maintain the originally one-sided battle.
Most ironically, several bulging loot bags lay scattered so casually in the fiercest central area of the battlefield.
They were filled with ears, claws, and teeth.
But their owners had either already become corpses or were frantically fighting over new spoils.
"A bunch of idiots who'd throw away their lives for profit!"
Roland's sneer flashed across his lips. He reached his right hand behind him and touched the two quivers on his back.
Before setting out this time, he had specially prepared a full fifty arrows in case of emergencies.
They were just right for a special situation like this.
He narrowed his eyes and quickly surveyed the battlefield, silently estimating the numbers.
Even after the melee just now, there were still no fewer than a hundred monsters on the field.
If he exterminated them alone, it would probably take quite a bit of effort.
But now, much of that trouble could be avoided.
The payment and bounty were merely icing on the cake to him. His true goal was the hundred kills required for his profession change.
And now, these monsters fighting the mercenaries were practically mission targets delivered straight to his door.
Roland quietly retreated a few steps and vanished into the shadows of the trees.
Then he smoothly nocked an arrow, locking his aim onto a kobold fighting a mercenary.
"Whoosh!"
After the bowstring's muffled twang, the arrow accurately pierced the kobold's throat.
The mercenary who had been fighting it was clearly stunned, but then he excitedly drew his dagger and deftly cut off the prey's ear.
He did not care at all where this sudden assist had come from.
[Required Strength 9, Agility 6, 4/5 max-level combat-related skills, 61/100 hostile creatures slain]
Looking at the increased number on the Profession Panel, Roland unconsciously licked his dry lips.
He drew another arrow and nocked it.
Sunlight passed through the gaps between the leaves, casting a cold glint across the arrowhead.
The sharp sound of arrows slicing through the air rang out one after another, and every arrow precisely claimed the life of a monster.
Yet the battle remained locked in a stalemate.
The mercenaries who had been arguing themselves red in the face over the spoils continued shoving and cursing one another, even drawing their blades against each other.
As his quiver was about to run dry, Roland let out a long breath, his fingertips touching the dozen or so arrows that remained.
"Seven left."
"I didn't expect the condition of slaying monsters required to change to the warrior profession to go so smoothly..."
At that moment of relaxation, the corner of his eye suddenly caught movement on the eastern side of the battlefield.
A figure draped in a pitch-black robe was approaching the battlefield at an eerie pace.
He seemed to be strolling leisurely, yet his speed was astonishingly fast.
Dazzling cold light gleamed from the unsheathed rapier, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue.
In the next moment, the black-robed figure swept into the battlefield like a ghost. Wherever the silver arc of his rapier passed, blood bloomed like red lotuses.
Even more terrifyingly, the sharp blade attacked without distinction.
Human armor and the rough hides of monsters were both torn apart like thin paper before that rapier.
The screams on the battlefield suddenly grew denser. Under the slaughter of this unexpected guest, the originally chaotic melee took on a bizarre order.
Every living thing fled in panic, only to fall into pools of blood one after another.
"Damn it! It's The Executioner!"
"How did that lunatic end up here!"
Amid the successive screams, several unwilling mercenaries and adventurers tried to raise their swords in resistance, only to become cold corpses on the ground in an instant.
The already weak monsters were even more helpless. Beneath The Executioner's precise sword techniques, they fell one after another like stalks of wheat.
"It's him."
Roland released the arrow in his hand, his eyes narrowing.
He finally remembered the black-robed man's identity.
He was the mysterious person who had brushed past him earlier at the Adventurer's Guild.
"The Executioner..."
Watching the other man's flowing, effortless swordsmanship, Roland's brows furrowed more deeply.
Even though he had undergone strict training from the manor guards, gained considerably more practical experience, and was about to max out Lionheart Swordsmanship, he was probably still no match for this killing god in pure swordsmanship.
However, he quickly cast those thoughts aside.
Whether it was the crazed Executioner, the mercenaries and adventurers locked in melee, or the monsters, none of them had anything to do with him.
The only thing he cared about was completing his hundred-kill target.
"Thirty-seventh!"
As another arrow shot through the air, a goblin in the distance fell with a cry.
"Only three more."
Roland excitedly nocked another arrow.
But just as his fingertips touched the bowstring, a deafening hum suddenly came from the distance.
He abruptly turned toward the sound and saw the silent forest in the distance suddenly erupt in clouds of dust. A trail of smoke approached the battlefield at lightning speed.
"What's going on?"
Sensing that something was wrong, Roland immediately drew the bowstring to its full extent.
But before the arrow could leave the string, a black shadow shot out of the forest and hovered above the battlefield.
"What is that..."
Roland looked up, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
As the sunlight pierced through the dust, the true form of the black shadow gradually became clear.
Its body was covered in blood-red scales, extremely similar to the Blood Scale Kobold he had encountered in the village before. But its canine head had become long and pointed, more like a lizard poised to strike with its red tongue flicking from its mouth.
Most horrifying of all, a deformed fleshy wing grew from the monster's left back.
The wing looked as tender as a larva that had just broken out of its cocoon, completely disproportionate to its enormous body.
Yet this undersized wing was somehow supporting it as it circled at low altitude, casting a suffocating shadow.
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