Chapter 10: Monster

Lucas remained relatively calm despite the three individuals pointing their weapons at him. After all, this wasn't his first time in a fight, and he has plenty of experience fighting with groups of people at a time as a homeless person since people would always try to take advantage of him because they think he was weak and cannot fight back.

"What are you going to do, kill me for stealing your kill? How pathetic." Lucas said to them in a mocking tone.

"What did you just say, you little bastard?!"

"I said you're pathetic. Not only did you let the monster get away but you're even blaming the person who cleaned up after your mess. You should be thanking me instead for avenging your friend that died to it." Lucas sneered.

And he continued, "This is a public dungeon. All of the monsters in this place can be hunted by anyone. Unless you own this dungeon or that monster had their names on it, there's no reason why I couldn't kill it. Furthermore, nobody in their right mind would ignore such an easy kill and free experience."

"Don't give us that bullshit! It's basic courtesy to not touch injured monsters since you never know if someone is already hunting it or not! Did your parents not teach you anything?! They must have been fairly useless parents, then!" One of them shouted back at him.

The calm on Lucas' face disappeared when that individual insulted his parents, and his eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown.

"At least my parents didn't raise a sore loser," he said a moment later.

"You little fucker! I'm going to kill you!"

However, right as that person tried to rush at Lucas, his buddy lifted his arm and blocked him.

"Wait. Don't be so hasty. Although the White Wolf had been severely weakened by us, I doubt any of us could single-handedly kill it. That brat may seem weak, but he might actually have some capabilities." The man in the front said.

"N-Now that you mention it... He also looks pretty young... Thank you for warning me, Peter." The man calmed down after hearing his buddy's words.

"Don't worry about it, George."

He then looked at the last member of their party and said, "Let's get him together, Lennie."

"Are we really going to kill him just because he stole our kill? He's just a little brat. If the guild finds out, we're going to be doomed," said Lennie in a worried voice.

"Nobody is going to find out if there are no witnesses. He may be a kid, but something about him pisses me off and makes me want to strangle him. If you don't want any part of this, you can stay back. We won't blame you."

The man named Lennie nodded his head and took a few steps back. Clearly, he wanted nothing to do with what his teammates were planning.

Sometime later, Peter and George started approaching Lucas with angry grins on their faces.

"You can only blame yourself for taking our kill and acting so damn smug about it."

"I will at the very least applaud you for not running away even now, kiddo."

Lucas remained calm and said to them, "You should listen to your friend. Are you really going to kill me over something like this? The guild forbids Players from killing each other."

"So what? You're only a criminal if you're caught. As long as you're not caught, you didn't do anything wrong." Peter said to him.

"I see... So as long as I don't get caught, I can kill you as well?" Lucas asked.

"Hahaha! That's the funniest thing I've heard all day! You think you can kill the both of us? Just so you know, we're both level 16!"

'Level 16...' Lucas said to himself.

He was only level 5 in comparison. It'd be reckless for him to fight someone that's 10 levels above him, much less two people at once. Furthermore, this meant that he wouldn't be able to use his Devastate on them.

If one thinks about this situation logically, Lucas should turn around and run away as fast as possible, but Lucas wasn't in the condition to think properly.

In his mind, these people had insulted his parents, and that alone was enough of a reason for him to kill them.

And despite having zero experience in killing another human, Lucas was feeling oddly tranquil about this whole situation.

'If Vanishing Steps is the same ability used by that wolf, I should be able to take them by surprise... And if I can kill one of them, I will have a much easier time taking care of the second person.' Lucas thought to himself.

A grin appeared on Lucas' face when he thought about plundering their abilities, and he wondered what kind of abilities he'll acquire.

"Look at him, frozen from fear! Ahaha! What a coward! He's all bark but no bite!" George laughed out loud, mistaking Lucas' silence for fear.

"Don't lower your guard, George. Remember what I said—"

In the midst of Peter's sentence, Lucas made his move first and suddenly took a step in their direction.

[Vanishing Steps!]

Lucas activated his newly acquired ability on his second step, immediately feeling as though the time around him had slowed down immensely.

'What a powerful ability!' Lucas thought to himself as he ran around the two Players.

Meanwhile, in Peter and George's view, Lucas' figure suddenly became blurry for half a second before disappearing from their view.

"W-Where did he go?!" Peter looked left and right with surprise.

"Watch out! He's right behind you, Peter!" Lennie warned them when he saw Lucas suddenly appear behind Peter.

However, it was too late, as the sword in Lucas' grasp was already in full motion and heading towards Peter's body before Lennie could even finish his sentence.

"Ahhh!"

Peter released a dreadful cry as Lucas' sword entered his shoulder from behind.

Supported by Lucas' boosted strength, the sword easily mutilated Peter's body in half like a knife cutting tofu.

[You have Plundered the ability 'Sword Mastery' from your victim]

{Sword Mastery(Lv. 1): Increases your proficiency when wielding a sword.}

After killing his first victim, Lucas immediately moved onto George, who was frozen from fear after witnessing his friend's brutal death.

"George!" Lennie shouted, even running at them.

However, before he could even make it halfway to their location, Lucas swung his sword again.

Whoosh!

The next moment, Lennie watched as George's head flew into the air while spinning many times before it landed a couple of meters away.

[You have Plundered the ability 'Empowered Strike' from your victim]

{Empowered Strike(Lv. 1): Empowers all of your attacks by 20% when wielding a weapon. Consumes 20 mana.}

Plop.

George's headless corpse collapsed onto the floor beside Peter's mutilated body, and their blood quickly formed a puddle on the ground.

Lucas turned to look at Lennie with a nonchalant look on his face, looking like he didn't just kill two people.

"Y-You monster..." Lennie's body trembled as he stared at Lucas with a terrified expression on his face, feeling an overwhelming amount of fear that was absent even when he fought the White Wolf.

"I'm a monster? Perhaps. But your friends were even bigger monsters considering that they wanted to kill me first." Lucas said in a cold voice, and he began walking towards Lennie, his sword dripping with blood.

"I would spare you since you didn't participate in the event, but if I let you live, there would be a witness, and there's a good chance that you will talk about what happened here."

"If the guild finds out about this, I will be in trouble, and I cannot afford to have the guild on my ass so soon after I just got a new life. Therefore, you will have to go as well."

But alas, Lennie was too scared to even hear what Lucas said, and a moment later, his vision turned black— forever.