Troll

"Whew—"

After the fight, Li Wei did not linger. He simply looted the spoils and left.

However, one item caught Li Wei's attention.

It was a bow he had never seen before, with a rather distinctive design.

Half-Orc Bow

Ranged Damage +10%, Attack Range +10%.

"Hmm?!"

It was actually a bow with special modifiers.

The last time he had seen special modifiers was on the dagger he got from the Scrap Merchant.

Li Wei raised the bow and examined it carefully. Compared to the ordinary wooden bows he could make, this one was clearly made of superior materials. The bow had an almost metallic feel to it, and its material was obviously excellent.

He had to admit, these Orcs had some good stuff.

He picked up an arrow from the ground and fired it. It felt quite good in his hands, and the arrow sank straight into a tree trunk.

In fact, this was Li Wei's first time using a bow.

For one thing, he had never found any string, so he had no way to make one himself.

For another, he preferred melee combat and had overlooked the bow, an extremely powerful weapon in the age of cold steel.

The Orc squad he had encountered earlier had quite a few archers, but after Li Wei bombarded them with TNT, anything breakable had broken. The scene was utterly brutal, and nothing intact remained.

A bow.

The first time Li Wei drew it, a familiar feeling welled up within him.

Yes, this was the feeling.

With the system's assistance, the barrier to archery was greatly lowered. When Li Wei nocked an arrow, his posture was perfectly standard. He did not have to worry about being like a novice who could not even fire an arrow.

After trying a few shots, Li Wei grew accustomed to using the bow.

Of course, that only meant he had no trouble operating it. As for accuracy and the arrows' trajectories, he still had to study and grasp those himself.

As usual, Li Wei could interrupt the system's assisted control at any time and take over himself.

But he would not do that before he truly mastered the skill.

This Orc archer had not carried many arrows. Even after retrieving the ones it had fired, there were only nine in total.

His ammunition could be said to be severely lacking.

It was already the latter half of the night.

Li Wei casually found a cave, lit a campfire, and roasted an ear of corn on a stick.

Although jerky could fill him up just fine, life needed a little sense of ritual.

The campfire crackled as the corn slowly heated up, releasing a fragrant aroma.

Li Wei could not resist taking a bite. Sweet, soft flavor burst across his mouth.

Fragrant. So fragrant.

The heat was just right!

Thud.

Li Wei suddenly felt the ground beneath his butt shake.

He instinctively looked toward the source of the vibration.

By the firelight, a massive shadow slowly approached.

Li Wei put away the roasted corn.

Thud, thud...

The shadow gradually neared the campfire. The closer it came, the more Li Wei could feel its towering size.

Only when it revealed its bloated head and body, speaking a sentence in some crude language, did he see it clearly.

"Food is eating food."

Li Wei finally recognized it.

It was a Troll.

"Aha—look what I found! Meat delivered right to my home!"

The Troll bounced excitedly in place.

Li Wei happily jumped up as well. "Aha, look what I found! A Troll!"

That completely threw the Troll off.

Why was this food so happy when it was about to be eaten?

The next moment, as if its eyes had blurred, a set of irritatingly hard armor suddenly appeared on the human's body.

A longsword gradually filled the Troll's stunned pupils.

"Ah—!"

The Troll covered one eye and staggered back two steps in pain. It casually swept up a shower of gravel with one slap, forcing Li Wei to retreat again and again and raise his shield to block.

Good lord!

That slash had let Li Wei see the Troll's health bar.

53/60

This Troll not only had a maximum health of sixty, but its thick hide also gave it two points of armor!

All things considered, it had even more health than a Barrow-wight!

"Bug, I'll kill you!"

The Troll roared and swung a slap, sending the campfire flying before smashing toward Li Wei.

Li Wei barely dodged it, ducked forward, and struck with another slash. The Troll reacted and threw a punch at his waist. With no room to evade, Li Wei had no choice but to raise his shield.

Clang!

The heavy punch was blocked, but at the same time, the shield let out a strained cracking sound.

When he looked again, a cooldown bar had appeared over the shield in his off hand.

That blow was terrifying. It had broken Li Wei's shield, leaving him unable to defend for a short time.

Realizing he was at a serious disadvantage in a head-on fight, Li Wei endured one attack with his broken shield and ran out of the cave.

-3

That was much nastier than a Warg's bite.

Li Wei ran out of the cave, pulled out Cobblestone, and turned to seal the entrance. His arms swung so fast they left afterimages.

"Damn it!"

The thick-skinned Troll pounded furiously against the Cobblestone. Under the impact of its immense strength, cracks actually began to spread across the stone. It clearly would not hold for long.

Li Wei quietly took out the bow from his backpack, drew it, and fired through a hole he had deliberately left open.

Whoosh—

"Ah!"

A scream rang out, and Li Wei knew the arrow had landed. It had struck straight into the Troll's neck, taking eight health.

Realizing its life was in danger, the Troll no longer cared about breaking down the wall and raised one hand to protect its head and eyes.

However, from the moment Li Wei sealed the Troll inside the cave with Cobblestone, death had already become its destined end.

"Have you ever heard the legend of the despicable Block Wizard?"

The Troll took seven or eight arrows in the cave before collapsing with a crash.

Even until its death, it had been unable to break through the stone wall that had suddenly appeared.

"It doesn't matter whether you'd heard it before. You've seen it now."

Only after confirming that the Troll's health had been emptied and it had completely stopped moving did Li Wei slowly approach the cave entrance.

What he saw gave him a fright.

Good lord, the meter-thick Cobblestone wall had nearly been smashed through. This Troll seemed a little too strong.

Next time, he would block it with two layers.

The Troll had no special drops. The greatest value of its corpse was its bones, which could be used as fertilizer.

As for its meat... Li Wei's lower limit was Warg meat, though Warg meat was actually awful too.

After searching a little, Li Wei found that the Troll was truly dirt poor. It had nothing at all.

But...

"It just said this was its home?"

A Troll's home.

Li Wei immediately became interested. This was exactly what he had come for—the Troll's treasure.

He had only thought this was an ordinary cave before, so Li Wei had not explored deeper. Now that he knew it was where the Troll lived, he immediately picked up a torch and crept farther inside.

Yet after walking only a short distance, Li Wei could not stop himself from frowning.

The cave was filled with dry bones, filth, and some things that were literally disgusting.

What terrible hygiene.

Just as Li Wei was about to turn around and leave, the torchlight suddenly flickered and jumped to the deepest corner.

Something there caught the light, glittering as the torch swayed.