Three nights later, they arrived at the edge of a forest atop a mountain and set up a temporary camp outside.
They couldn’t go any further.
In the pitch-black night, it was best to stay in an open area.
No matter what approached, they could react immediately.
The dark forest was dangerous.
They could only rest here for a day and cross the forest the next day.
Mel Carlo was practicing back jumps by the campfire.
Fifty times a day—no less.
This way, he could quickly reach max proficiency.
[Power Slash], [Cut], [Stab], [Upward Thrust]—maybe he could pick one of these four skills to practice.
After all, his current practice slot was empty.
People are easily lazy.
Mel Carlo was no exception.
After obtaining [Flying Blade], he stopped learning upper body skills.
They were all close-combat skills, and with his current physical abilities, close-quarters combat was basically suicide.
“Maybe I can choose between Power Slash and Cut.”
One was a warrior-type skill, the other a thief-type.
Speaking of warriors, there was one right in front of him.
In the game, swordsmen were classified as warriors, sharing the same skill tree.
[Steal] proficiency increased by 35, current proficiency 505.
[Back Jump] proficiency increased by 350, current proficiency 3451.
Current Effort Value: 33842.
“Hey, little thief, is this kind of practice even useful? You only practice this little each day?”
“Is that so? I thought I was already pretty diligent. Maybe I’m just talented. Practicing that much is enough.”
Mel Carlo sat back by the campfire.
He knew exactly when his skill would reach its limit—when he’d practiced 10,000 times.
Such talent couldn’t be called genius.
A true genius might master something just by looking at it or practicing a few times.
But his efforts always bore fruit, and the results were visible from the start.
Mel Carlo then began practicing Power Slash.
He already had a thief-type skill.
At such a low level, learning a warrior-type skill clearly offered more margin for error.
Afterward, using long swords or blunt weapons wouldn’t be a problem.
He stood up again, picked up a stick nearby, and started practicing [Power Slash].
But as soon as Mel Carlo swung once, Kate beside him instantly perked up.
As a swordsman, she naturally recognized this as the basic swordsman skill [Power Slash].
“Little thief, have you learned swordsmanship too?”
“No, I practiced ten times on my own, then learned this technique.”
He steadied his stance, twisted his waist, and swung with all his might.
“Impossible. Who do you think you are, learning it in ten tries?”
Kate clearly couldn’t accept it.
Back then, she’d studied diligently, taking a month just to get started, practicing every day until she was exhausted.
Even that legendary royal capital sword genius took a whole day to learn this move.
“Believe it or not, it’s up to you.
You can show me your Power Slash, because the real gap between us only appears when I’ve practiced 10,000 times.”
Mel Carlo didn’t stop his slashing.
What he needed was only time.
A limit of 10,000 times—he didn’t know if that was good or bad.
Even at max proficiency, skill quality wasn’t all red.
White, green, purple, gold, red—just looking at these grades made it clear that red was the highest.
Right now, only [Assassin’s Breathing] was gold for him.
“I’ll think about the future later! For now, just focus on what’s in front of you!”
Mel Carlo cast aside his distractions and continued swinging his sword without pause.
If he could practice swinging five hundred times a day, the skill would reach max proficiency in twenty days, at most less than a month.
Since they were resting today, Mel Carlo only did a trial of ninety-nine swings before stopping.
[Power Slash] proficiency 100/10000.
Current Effort Value: 33941.
Tonight, Mr. Freli was on watch.
Mel Carlo and the others slept peacefully.
—
The night had just entered dreamland when sparse sounds rang in their ears.
It was as if someone was talking.
But by the time they woke up, sharp blades had already reached their camp.
“Who are you?”
Mr. Freli was pinned to the ground.
Kate was tied up tightly with rope, bound to the side.
No one was on watch.
They’d been too careless.
Carefully observing the surroundings, there were about five enemies.
Their levels were 5, 7, 8, 9, and 5.
None above level 10.
Right now, Mel wasn’t tied up, but he only had a dagger.
The other side had five people.
Claire was still a child.
“What do you want? I’m the eldest daughter of the Grin Family! If my father finds out, he won’t let you off!”
Kate was a little flustered.
She was tied up and couldn’t resist.
She’d slept too deeply and didn’t notice any danger.
“Is that so? We really caught a fat sheep this time. With so many monsters around, after killing you, who would suspect us?”
A bandit licked his dagger with his tongue.
It was clear they weren’t doing this for the first time.
They’d started preying on people during the monster outbreak.
Anyway, during this time, it was hard to track anyone.
Everything could be blamed on monsters.
Mel Carlo was also thinking of a way out.
It would be hard for him to escape.
His small arms and legs couldn’t outrun adults.
For these desperate outlaws, only absolute strength mattered.
Threats were useless.
He gripped his dagger tightly.
A bandit slowly approached Kate, seemingly planning to take advantage before looting.
With the carriage nearby, destroying evidence wouldn’t be difficult.
“Let her go!”
Mel Carlo instantly threw his dagger.
But the bandit dodged with a sidestep.
The other four bandits drew their blades, looking at the child with interest.
“Want to die first, brat?”
The bandit drew his sword and charged at Mel Carlo.
Mel Carlo quickly used back jump to widen the distance.
Almost at the same time, a sword pierced through the bandit from behind.
Then came a cross slash.
The bandit was dismembered instantly.
The other four bandits tried to flee.
Mel Carlo’s dagger hadn’t missed at all—it was aimed at cutting the rope on Kate.
A perfect hit.
Kate was their only hope.
Mr. Freli was clearly not skilled at fighting.
As for Claire, even less so.
A sharp sword gleamed in the darkness, and the remaining bandits were swiftly dealt with.
Everything was clean and decisive.
“Level 15. You’re level 15, aren’t you?”
Mel Carlo walked slowly toward the bandit’s corpse, ready to scavenge some loot.
Kate stood beside him, speaking confidently.
“Guess you got it right. Pretty impressive, huh? But how did you know?”
Mel Carlo wanted to answer that [Cross Slash] was a skill learnable only at level 15.
But in this world, there might be prodigies who surpassed levels.
This game world wasn’t exactly the same.
“I guessed.”
Mel Carlo reached out and searched the still-warm corpse.
After searching the four bodies, he gathered a total of three hundred Auren.
As for the corpse with chunks missing, he decided not to bother.