Chapter 1361: Third Hand(29)
Laney couldn't bring herself to kill those two Orcs, so she left them alive.
Not every hunt would result in loot, so even though Laney killed more than a hundred Orcs, she only gained five rewards from them.
Unfortunately for Laney, she didn't get even a single recruitment token. There was no skill or weapon in the loot, but simply fragments of a skill.
Of the five fragments, three belonged to one skill, while the remaining belonged to another.
Both the skills were of different quality and level. The one with the three fragments was of lower quality, yet she needed one hundred of them to complete a skill.
For the second one, Laney needed a thousand of them since the skill was of better quality.
From what Laney could make of the skills, she didn't like any of them, but since anything was better when she didn't have any skills, she decided to keep them.
The pattern at the back of her hand also acted as space storage, so Laney stored the five fragments. She then walked forward, leaving the two children.
When Laney had walked more than a mile, a being appeared where the settlement was before Laney's massacre. The man looked at the two survivors, who were eating the remains of the corpses.
A grin spread across the man's face, and he extended his right hand. The next moment, the two children Orcs flew to his hand.
A red glow emerged from the man's hand and began to melt into the two Orcs. After a few seconds, the man released the two Orcs and disappeared from the scene.
The two Orcs on the ground were slowly growing in size while sharp tips began to emerge around their hands.
In no time, the two Orcs had grown taller than any past Orc in the group, and there was also an aura of evil around them.
Their eyes seemed to have lost sanity when they turned in the direction Laney had left.
The two Orcs seemed to have learned a new skill as they suddenly disappeared from the scene, turning into flames.
Laney was cautiously moving forward when she suddenly sensed danger to her life. She didn't dare mistrust her intuition and immediately jumped away.
Boom!
The next moment, an explosion occurred where she stood a moment before, and from the explosion, two Orcs rose.
Laney couldn't help but become surprised since the two Orcs had the same aura as the two children Orcs she spared. But she couldn't think of how the two children grew so strong in a span of only a few seconds.
Before Laney could think of more, one of the two Orcs pounced on her. The other Orc also followed.
Laney felt extreme danger from the two Orcs, but since there was no escape, she had no choice but to fight them head-on.
Ugh!
Laney couldn't help but groan in pain as she felt her fist burning after the punch crashed into the Orc.
When Laney looked at her fist, she found it had slightly blackened while her skin seemed softer. She then looked at the spot where her punch landed.
Seeing that her punch resulted in heavy damage, Laney couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief.
If she were about to just get burned without damaging the Orc, the situation would be too dire for her.
Since the Orc could be damaged, Laney decided to ignore the pain and simply focus on the fight.
With every strike that his punch landed, the pain grew while her skin began to melt.
But after repeated punches, the battle finally came to an end. Laney had grown fully exhausted, but when she saw something emerging from both corpses, she no longer felt exhausted.
What Laney was unaware of was that while Laney was battling the two Orcs, on the branch of a tree near her, a man was sitting and watching the battle with a smile.
When the two Orcs got killed, a hint of playfulness flashed in his eyes. He didn't sit there for long and disappeared from the scene. While on the ground, Laney was jumping in excitement, forgetting about the burn injury and her exhaustion.
Of the two items that fell from the two corpses, one was the most desired item, the recruitment token, while the second was a fragment of a skill.
As Laney grabbed the token, a piece of information concerning the item appeared in her head.
The recruitment token had different grades and the level of the recruited being depended upon that. There were seven different recruitment tokens, and the one gotten by Laney was a white recruitment token.
The white recruitment token was the lowest level of the token and could only recruit between Levels 50 and 100.
Getting a recruitment token didn't mean that Laney was sure to recruit someone to help her. The token needed the willingness of both parties to sign the contract.
Even though a talent between Level 50 and 100 wouldn't provide much of a help to her in the quest, and since it was her first token, she was more excited.
When Laney picked up the fragment, she was surprised by it. Even though it was a skill fragment, it wasn't a single one but a combination of a hundred fragments.
It was the same skill that she had gained two fragments of, so she now only had eight hundred ninety-eight fragments left to form the complete skill.
"It seems the stronger the hunt, the better loot from them," Laney mumbled since she only got five fragments from more than one hundred Orcs, but from two Orcs she received a great reward.
Laney didn't immediately leave the scene but bent down and touched the corpses of the two Orcs. She frowned since she finally had the time to ponder over the situation.
How could two children Orcs grow that strong in a span of a few minutes? Laney could sense a third hand in the scene.
"Is it someone five levels higher than me?" Laney couldn't help but think.
Even though the inhabitants of the forest could kill the participant to gain residence in the city, there were rules for it.
The space inside the pagoda was an artificial creation, and the first level contained beings between Level 1 and Level 250.
Since Laney was only a Level 189 adventurer, wouldn't she be a lamb waiting for slaughter in front of the Level 250 figure?
So there was a rule to save the participant. Anyone who was five levels above the participant could not attack the participant. It didn't mean that a Level 300 being would easily be able to hunt everyone. The level of the being in the simulation quest depended upon the level of the participant.
Laney looked around to see if someone was spying on her, but she found nothing. Laney took a deep breath, pushing the thought deep into her heart.
She wasn't going to forget about the external influence, but since her first priority was to get recruitment tokens rather than find out the identity, she decided to focus on that.
Laney then left the two corpses and walked away from the scene.
After walking for a while, Laney came across a battle scene between two Orc tribes. As soon as they sensed Laney, the fighting stopped, and they instead united against her.
Laney's burn injuries had healed, and new skin had replaced the melted skin, so she was ready for the battle. Instead of giving the initiative to a large number of Orcs, Laney took the chance and charged.
It was fortunate for Laney that she had learned hand-to-hand combat, so even without a weapon, she wasn't much worse against her opponents.
Similar to the battle with the first settlement, it was less of a fight but a massacre. That time, Laney didn't spare anyone in the camp and killed them regardless of age or condition.
Laney then walked to the corpses and searched for her loot. After a long time, she picked up the last item.
There were more than five hundred Orcs she had battled, and less than thirty of them rewarded her. Fortunately for her, there was a recruitment token. It was only a white token, but it made up for her effort in the massacre.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Laney's hair suddenly rose in chills as she heard the sound of footsteps. The source was just behind her, hence the sudden tension.
She turned around and found an Orc standing behind her. The Orc didn't wait for Laney to say things but punched.
Laney was taken aback by the sudden change of scene since the Orc was clearly five levels higher than her.
'Am I going to die?' Laney couldn't help but think in her heart, seeing the punch coming toward her.
***
A/N: Sorry, only one chapter. Happy Krishna Janmashtami to all the worshippers. May your lives grow prosperous and harmonious.
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