Squelch.
In the jungle of the Evermoors, Herbert cleanly and efficiently slit open a bugbear's throat.
As blood splattered everywhere, the dying bugbear dropped the stone hammer mottled with blood from its hand, futilely clutching its continuously spurting neck as it let out a miserable howl no one could understand.
Watching this scene, Herbert, now one of the acting company commanders of the Zelandia New Army, could not help but feel deeply moved.
He really had grown stronger.
It was not an illusion.
After this period of training and battle after battle, perhaps because all his accumulated effort had finally borne fruit, the Mages' assessment showed that he possessed at least the combat power of an eighth-level shield warrior! And he still had plenty of room to improve.
In the past, that would have been almost unimaginable.
He was already middle-aged. For other old soldiers, it would have been good enough just not to decline.
And three months ago, perhaps he could have killed a bugbear like this after a prolonged struggle, but never so effortlessly as now. He might even have been injured.
After all, bugbears were not like their close relatives, hobgoblins.
Bugbears were tall, strong, vicious, and more agile than ordinary humans.
They were the rulers among goblinoid creatures, as well as the strongest.
They got their name from their bear-like faces.
In Coriel, many poor and low-ranking bugbears sometimes used stone or bone shards to sharpen their claws.
Many high-ranking bugbears, including their leaders, preferred to use morningstars as weapons. Some of those leaders even mastered the human combat techniques for wielding morningstars.
Thus, many low-level adventurers might not necessarily be their match.
And now, a bugbear that was clearly a leader had not even lasted three exchanges in his hands.
But when he thought of