Cantankerous Cheater 5 (Patreon)

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Cantankerous Cheater
Chapter 5

-VB-

Before I left the town, I did some shopping and crafting. Once I finished my preparation, I left.

Though Marshal Dughan directed me to the Eastvale Logging Camp, I couldn’t help but take a detour and stop by the Jasperlode Mine first.

It hadn’t even been a day, and my life here was already so much more interesting and straightforward. The marshal didn’t accuse me of murder when I killed Defias! I got rewarded for killing irredeemable criminals!

This medieval hellworld was better than Earth Bet, and that said a few things about Bet, didn’t it?

Jasperlode Mine existed northeast of Goldshire, if I remembered my World of Warcraft maps and regions correctly, and kobolds infested it just like they had infested Fargodeep Mine. Now, in the game, bandits and hostile animals littered every single inch of the Elwynn Forest, so I expected to encounter some bandits or something. I didn’t meet any while moving between Fargodeep Mine and Goldshire, but I just reasoned it away as coincidence. After all, I did meet bandits after I cleared the mine, so the idea that the forest was crawling with things for me to kill, legally, was … relieving.

I mean, I intentionally took a path towards where I knew there to be a stream and a lake, because I wanted to fight murlocs, too!

So imagine my surprise at not encountering a single hostile mob as I walked across Elwynn Forest. No bears, wolves, bandits, no murlocs. I did encounter the stream, though it was more like a riverlet, but it was wrong; no lake appeared despite the fact that I was heading northwest and the flow of water ran against me.

Could the map of the WoW game not work here?

I paused and scratched my head.

It was possible. After all, the game was made with player accessibility in mind. No one would want to play a game that took hours to get from point A to point B for a single quest. It was distinct possibility that Elwynn Forest was a massive territory big as a country back on Earth.

After all, a province the size of Switzerland or Virginia was still a massive piece of land for a single man prowl in good time.

“Man, I really jumped into this without thinking, didn’t I?” I mumbled to myself before turning around and following the direction of the riverlet’s flow.

This riverlet was an example of that. There was a stream that flowed into a lake northeast of Goldshire. Inside the game, the stream was no more than ten seconds walk from the edge of the town, but my travel took me an hour from Goldshire to the point where I first walked upon the river’s shore.

“Fuck, I may as well be operating on hearsays, then,” I mumbled to myself. At the very least, I knew that where the water flows downward, there was bound to be large lake. I could walk around the lake and then head northeast from there (or maybe just head north and follow the edge of the Redridge Mountains) until I walked into Jasperlode Mine.

I paused.

Oh, right.

What the fuck am I doing?

I had the Hunter Class, too.

I facepalmed. With a mental search of spells and then a command, I activated [Track Humanoid]. Instantly, I became aware of every single humanoids - humans and murlocs, since I was in Elwynn Forest - within five hundred meter radius of me.

Okay, let’s start hunting.

-VB-

To my surprise, the murlocs made no move against me when they spotted me.

In fact, they seemed to be the wary ones, gathering themselves up defensibly while speaking … what was their language called again? Whatever it was, it was very obvious to me that these were not the murlocs I expected (just like the map and geography). They weren’t the “AOS” NPC mobs, but just scared little smelly as fuck fishes on two legs.

In that regard, the game’s interpretation of the Defias Brotherhood proved to be better than its depiction of the murlocs.

I pondered if tha was really the case. They might be bunching up to launch an attack me the moment I turn around.

“Oi, can you lot understand me?”

My question startled a few.

And then, to my surprise, one of them nodded.

“Have you seen any red bandana humans coming by here?”

They looked at each other and bickered(?) in gurgles, warbles, and shrieks.

And then they nodded.

“Oh. Cool. Which direction?”

I might have a one kilometer diameter radar, but knowing which direction I should look for my prey would help narrow the search. Better than running around like a monkey in a zoo, right?

I digressed. It seemed like I wasn’t going to be killing any murlocs, today. These guys didn’t look like marauders and killers to me.

Of course, if I ever heard that they were involved in something contrary to their current image, then I would be coming back...

-VB-

I went in the direction the relieved looking murlocs pointed towards, and after three fucking hours of nothing, I finally found some more Defias.

Their camp sat between two foothills, composed of four tents, a two dozen beaten up crates, and two campfires. Between the foothills and the forest, they remained constantly undercover. Their hideout also sat far from any road or settlement.

But these guys were ballsy enough to be within five kilometers of the Jasperlode Mine, which I saw from the top of the tree canopies after I got frustrated by a lack of encounters.

From where I was hiding in one of the thick tree canopies, I spotted roughly sixteen Defias bandits, which wasn’t great for me. I took out the previous twelve because they got cocky and attacked me as the sun was setting, which made their visibility lower while my accuracy didn’t fall at all thanks to the automatic nature of my Gamer.

But here, it was daylight and these sixteen looked rather alert.

Could news of their brethren’s deaths at my hands have already traveled so far up north?

I harrumphed and leaned my back against the trunk.

I wasn’t going to be winning any fights if I charged in right now. I would have to wait for the night.

-VB-

Night fell, and I started my work.

See, as much as most of my powers worked through the World of Warcraft System, the effects I made upon the world didn't.

If I Dashed, then in the game, I might stun my target and do some damage.

In the real life as I have experienced so far, Dashing with a drawn naked blade allowed me to stab deep into my target and end a fight right there and then.

While I have utilized many offensive spells and skills, I took the chance to use my Rogue skills.

Invisible in my Stealth, I moved up behind the more isolated and the only unobserved watch.

A single strike beheaded him, and I dragged his body deep into the pitch black forest floor.

Once the body was sufficiently covered, I rose back up and found a new target.

One by one, the bandit camp's watches died.

By the time I covered the last watch and looked over the bushes, I spotted two out by the campfire and the rest in their tents.

Good enough for me.

I reached into my Inventory and pulled out dynamite sticks.

See, when I looted those kobolds in Fargodeep Mine, a lot of them had crafting items, which was in line with the game, and when I was in town, I used those resources to grind my Engineering skill.

The result was my possession of over twenty dynamite sticks.

I stealthed myself and walked around the camp until I was in front of the fire.

Then I lit the bombs' fuses, all twenty in one-go by … sticking their really short fuse near the campfire.

The two Defias bandits by the campfire looked at me in shock, like they couldn't believe I just walked up to them.

And then I threw the dynamite sticks towards the tents.

Their eyes widened.

"AMBUSH!"

Too late.

I pulled out my cleaver, but attacked with Frost Nova first. Ice burst out and froze everything, including the ground and the feet of the two bandits, and I swung down. Shocked, confused, and rooted, neither of them put up much of a fight before my cleaver tore into their heads, if they were lucky, or their chest.

I hurried over to the burning and wrecked tents, and grinned.

Most of them were dead.

I quickly killed the others and began picking through their bodies and the crates they left behind.

The beautiful sound of leveling only made my mood better.

Well, it was time to hit the Jasperlode Mine now!