Unexpected Change

Roland stared at the messy footprints on the ground, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

If he went back now to turn in the quest, he wouldn't get paid, but he also wouldn't have to pay a penalty for breach of contract.

However, money was secondary to him.

With that thought, his gaze involuntarily fell upon his Profession Panel.

[Required Strength 9, Agility 6, Five Max-Level Combat-Related Skills 4/5, Kill 60/100 Hostile Creatures]

"To transfer to the Warrior profession, besides the attribute requirements, I'm only missing one max-level combat skill and forty hostile creatures."

"Max-level Lion Swordplay isn't a problem. At worst, I can go back and slowly grind it out with the [Preparation] Trait. Although the efficiency will be lower without the bonus from the [Theory and Practice] Trait, it'll just take a bit more time."

"As for attributes, I can also slowly improve them through training, but forty hostile creatures..."

He recalled the quest board at the Adventurer's Guild, plastered with requests.

If he remembered correctly, quests related to monsters were few and far between.

He had already taken two of the three available, and the only remaining one was the task to investigate monster activity.

At this rate, it was unlikely that quests involving clearing out monsters would appear again in the short term.

"Forget it."

After weighing his options for a moment, Roland finally made up his mind.

"Since this group of Kobolds hasn't been gone for long, why not follow them and see what's going on? If I can catch up smoothly, I'll finish them off quickly. If the situation turns bad, with my 7 Agility, enhanced by [Adaptive Training], escaping shouldn't be a problem."

Having made his decision, Roland quickly moved through the dense forest, following the Kobold tracks, his sharp gaze constantly scanning his surroundings for any movement.

A moment later, his footsteps halted abruptly at a fork in the path.

On the muddy ground before him, next to the single set of Kobold tracks, several different types of footprints had appeared.

Roland knelt on one knee, carefully examining the overlapping traces.

Besides the familiar Kobold claw prints and human boot prints, there were also the distinctive three-toed tracks of Goblins, and a peculiar footprint he had never seen before.

"This is more complicated than I thought."

Roland's fingertips lightly traced the markings, his brow furrowing deeper.

"Not only Goblins and Kobolds, but also humans."

He straightened up and scanned his surroundings.

The footprints on the muddy ground were chaotic, converging from all directions and then dispersing.

Staring at the intricate tracks on the ground, a guess began to form in his mind.

"Could it be that besides Kobolds and Goblins, other monsters are also migrating collectively?"

His gaze followed the direction of the unfamiliar tracks, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the hilt of his sword.

"And those mercenaries and adventurers who accepted the extermination quests have also followed these tracks all the way here?"

With this doubt, Roland continued to cautiously advance along the tracks.

As he went deeper, the footprints in the forest became denser, and the originally narrow forest path had been trampled into a wide dirt road.

Not long after, the sunlight filtering through the canopy suddenly intensified, indicating they were nearing the edge of the forest.

A deafening roar also gradually drifted from the distance.

Human shouts, monster howls, the clang of metal – various sounds mixed together, signaling an intense battle was erupting ahead.

Roland gently pushed aside the last clump of bushes, and the scene of the battle suddenly burst into view.

Hundreds of mercenaries and adventurers were engaged in a desperate struggle with a monster army in a forest clearing, the thick smell of blood almost suffocating.

"That's..."

His gaze froze on the center of the battlefield.

Dozens of monsters, similar in build to humans, were mixed among the Kobolds and Goblins.

These creatures were covered in rough fur, and their ferocious heads bore distinct hyena-like features.

Roland frowned involuntarily; this was the first time he had seen monsters other than Kobolds and Goblins.

"Hyena-men?"

The battle in the field did not pause for Roland's astonishment.

Sharp metal blades reflected a blinding cold light under the sun, intermingling with the splattering dark red blood, dyeing the entire land a bizarre purplish-black.

However, even with the monsters in their current state, the mercenaries and adventurers who should have been united against a common enemy were now caught up in a frenzied internal conflict.

A mercenary clad in leather armor, having just felled a hyena-man, immediately lunged greedily towards its head.

Just as he pulled out his dagger to claim his prize, a sharp short sword suddenly stabbed from the side.

It was an adventurer with sinister eyes, staring intently at the prey in his hand.

"That's my loot!"

"Nonsense! This hyena-man was struck in a vital spot by my arrow!"

Similar ugly disputes erupted all over the battlefield.

Several well-equipped adventuring teams, ignoring the surrounding lurking goblin hordes, drew swords against each other over the ownership of a few bags of monster ears.

Roland observed with cold eyes and found that at least one-third of the mercenaries and adventurers were actually confronting each other, rather than the monsters in front of them.

And the monsters had clearly noticed this excellent opportunity.

Cunning goblins hid behind trees and threw stones, ferocious hyena-men formed assault squads, and even the relatively dull kobolds began to organize and surround lone adventurers.

Despite the gap in equipment and combat skills, thanks to the humans' infighting, this mixed monster legion had miraculously maintained its originally one-sided battle situation.

Most ironically, in the most intense central area of the battlefield, several bulging loot bags were scattered about carelessly.

They were filled with ears, claws, and teeth.

But their owners were either already corpses or were fighting madly for new spoils.

"A bunch of fools who forget their lives for profit!"

A cold sneer flashed across Roland's lips as he reached behind him with his right hand, feeling for the two quivers on his back.

Before this trip, he had specifically prepared fifty arrows just in case.

They were perfect for this kind of special situation.

He narrowed his eyes and quickly scanned the battlefield, calculating in his mind.

Even after the recent melee, there were still no less than a hundred monsters on the field.

Clearing them out alone would probably take quite some effort.

But now, it saved him a lot of trouble.

The rewards and bounties were merely icing on the cake for him; the real goal was the one hundred kills required for his job change.

And now, these monsters fighting with the mercenaries were simply mission targets delivered to his doorstep.

Roland quietly retreated a few steps, hiding himself in the shadows of the trees.

Then, he nimbly drew his bow and nocked an arrow, his aim locked onto a kobold currently entangled with a mercenary.

"Whoosh!"

After a muffled thrum of the vibrating bowstring, the arrow precisely pierced the kobold's throat.

The mercenary fighting it clearly froze for a moment, but then ecstatically pulled out his dagger and swiftly cut off the prey's ear.

He didn't pay any attention to where this sudden assist came from.

[Requires Strength 9, Agility 6, Five Max-Level Combat-Related Skills 4/5, 61/100 Hostile Creatures Killed]

Looking at the numbers increasing on his Profession Panel, Roland unconsciously licked his dry lips.

He drew another arrow and nocked it.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, reflecting a cold glint off the arrowhead.

The sharp whistling of arrows breaking through the air continued incessantly, each one precisely taking the life of a monster.

However, the battle remained stalemated.

The mercenaries, red-faced from fighting over spoils, continued to shove each other, curse, and even draw their swords.

As the quiver was about to run empty, Roland let out a long sigh, his fingertips touching the remaining dozen or so arrows.

"Seven left."

"I didn't expect the condition of killing monsters for the Warrior job change to be so smooth."

In this moment of relaxation, his peripheral vision suddenly caught a disturbance on the eastern side of the battlefield.

A figure clad in a pitch-black robe was approaching the battlefield with a strange gait.

Seemingly strolling leisurely, their speed was astonishingly fast.

Sunlight reflected a dazzling cold light off the unsheathed rapier, like a viper flicking its tongue.

The next moment, the black-robed figure swept into the battlefield like a phantom, and wherever the silver arc drawn by the rapier passed, blood bloomed like red lotuses.

Even more chilling was that this sharp blade attacked indiscriminately.

Human armor, the rough hides of monsters – all were easily torn like thin paper before that rapier.

The screams on the battlefield suddenly became more frequent. The chaotic melee, under the slaughter of this uninvited guest, took on a bizarre order.

All living things fled in panic, yet one after another, they fell in pools of blood.

"Damn it! It's 'The Executioner'!"

"How did this lunatic end up here!"

Amidst the rising screams, a few unwilling mercenaries and adventurers attempted to resist with their swords, only to become cold corpses on the ground in an instant.

And the already weak monsters were even less able to withstand it, falling like stalks of wheat under the black-robed figure's precise swordplay.

"It's him."

Roland shot his arrow, his eyes narrowing.

He finally remembered the identity of this black-robed man.

It was the mysterious person he had brushed past at the Adventurer's Guild before.

"The Executioner."

Observing the opponent's fluid swordsmanship, Roland's brow furrowed tighter.

Even though he had undergone rigorous training from the estate guards, gained considerable combat experience, and his Lionheart Swordsmanship was nearing max level, he probably still wasn't a match for this god of death in terms of swordsmanship alone.

However, these thoughts were quickly cast aside.

Whether it was the mad Executioner, the chaotic mercenaries and adventurers, or those monsters, they had nothing to do with him.

The only thing he cared about was completing the one hundred kill targets.

"Thirty-seventh!"

As another arrow shot through the air, a Goblin in the distance fell to the ground.

"Only three more left."

Roland excitedly nocked another arrow.

But just as his fingertips touched the bowstring, a deafening hum suddenly came from afar.

He abruptly turned his head towards the sound, only to see the silent dense forest in the distance suddenly kicking up dust and smoke. A trail of dust and smoke, like lightning, rapidly approached the battlefield.

"What's going on?"

Sensing that something was wrong, Roland immediately drew his bowstring taut.

But before the arrow could be loosed, a black shadow had already burst out of the dense forest, hovering in the air above the battlefield.

"That's..."

Roland looked up, his pupils contracting sharply.

Sunlight pierced through the dust and smoke, and the true form of the black shadow gradually became clear.

Its body, covered in blood-colored scales, was extremely similar to the Blood Scale Kobold he had encountered in the village, but its original canine head had become slender and sharp, more like a lizard poised to strike, flicking its red tongue.

Most chilling was the deformed, fleshy wing growing from the monster's left side.

The wing looked as tender as a newly hatched larva, disproportionate to its massive body.

Yet, it was this disproportionately small wing that was now bizarrely supporting it as it circled at low altitude, casting a suffocating shadow.