The wolves in the current area he was in ranged somewhere around level two to three. So Merlin, who was now level four, couldn't farm them to improve his karma. Merlin started travelling deeper into the forest, hoping to find a spawn location that matched his level.
His journey through the forest was somewhat uneventful, the only enemy he encountered was a small group of goblins which he dispatched with ease. While looking for the goblin's loot, Merlin received a message from Snowbunny.
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[06:20:01] Snowbunny: Hey!
[06:20:57] Snowbunny: Me and Ty found a dungeon a little bit to the north of town, we planned on entering it after finishing our quest, do you want to join us?
[06:21:20] Merlin: What type of monster is it based around?
[06:21:50] Snowbunny: It's a wolves den, so wolves would be my guess.
[06:22:11] Merlin: Alright, sounds good. How long are you guys going to be?
[06:22:42] Snowbunny: Well, about an hour, maybe.
[06:23:11] Merlin: Alright, I'll just kill stuff in the area while I wait. Need to try get some karma back.
[06:23:37] Snowbunny: Karma? What happened?
[06:24:23] Merlin: I ran into Kyle's group, killed them all and it dropped me into the negatives. I'll tell you about it after.
[06:24:56] Snowbunny: Alright, see you then!
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The conversation ended, and Merlin waved away the message window. He had arrived at a small clearing within the forest, where he saw a wolf that appeared to be sleeping. This wolf was much larger than the wolves he saw previously, and when Merlin moved close enough to see the enemy's status bar, he saw that it was a level five dire wolf.
Merlin began hiding his presence somewhat. Creatures at this low of a level didn't generally have the ability to detect faint mana signatures in the air or locate him with nothing but the sound of his heartbeat. So he didn't have to bother straining his body like he did when sneaking up on Pelear Ladrona in the thieves guild.
He unsheathed his gladius, and decided to try something new, he sliced his thumb on the blade and ran it along the edge, allowing his blood to coat the blade.
Merlin snuck up on the unsuspecting dire wolf, but once he entered combat range the wolf seemed to notice that something was wrong. It opened its eyes, and after noticing Merlin standing before it, sprung up.
Merlin barely managed to slash at the beast before it could get into position for a pounce, but unfortunately his passive ability didn't trigger. He took a glance at his blade, and it seemed the coat was still on his blade, only a small part on the tip managed to rub off.
The wolf bared its fangs, growling at Merlin who took a defensive stance behind his trusty shield. As the wolf pounced on him, Merlin thrust his shield in its path in an attempt to knock it off balance. The wolf instead clamped its jaw on his shield and began tearing at it.
Merlin heard the wooden shield start cracking as the wolf fought Merlin for the shield. Merlin swung his sword at the wolf, barely grazing its side as the wolf leapt out of the way of his strike, and only now did Merlin notice that a small chunk of his shield had been bitten off.
"Bad dog, spit it out!" Merlin taunted the wolf while preparing his next attack. He didn't appreciate that his shield was coming close to the end of its durability, once it broke he had to make the decision of either replacing it with another shield or getting an offhand weapon instead, but he wasn't sure which one he'd rather have at this point.
Merlin thrust his blade at the wolf once more, but the wolf was already in position to dodge out of the way well before Merlin's blade got close. Unfortunately for the wolf, two vines had wrapped around its hind legs, causing its body to flop onto the ground the second it tried to leap out of the way.
Merlin's blade sunk into the wolf's side, but this time too, the passive didn't seem to activate, leaving Merlin somewhat disappointed. It was only a ten percent chance of activation, but Merlin had been rather lucky in the past.
The wolf tried to escape, but the vines kept it in place. It seemed that the vines were especially efficient against elusive beasts, they lost most of their threat once their biggest advantage was taken away. Merlin finished off the wolf, only to find that a single wolf fang item had dropped.
Merlin continued around the area, making sure to stay on the lookout for wolves. The area had a few level five dire wolves, as well as level four wolves that spawned in small groups. There was also a large clearing that had a larger pack of wolves, Merlin counted roughly twenty, but didn't dare get any closer.
Utilising the vines to trap the wolves in place, Merlin ran around hunting all the smaller groups he saw. The lone dire wolves were the easiest to hunt, due to him not having to fend off two or three additional wolves like the small groups of wolves. After about forty minutes of hunting, he had acquired a total of twenty-three wolf pelts and sixteen fangs. His karma score had improved by a total of sixty-six points, leaving him at negative one hundred and thirty-four karma.
He stopped his hunting because he received another message from Snowbunny.
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[07:26:55] Snowbunny: Hey, we're done with our quest, can you meet us near the northern gate?
[07:27:23] Merlin: My name is still red, so I'll message you when I'm close.
[07:28:05] Snowbunny: It's still red? How many people did you kill?
[07:28:30] Merlin: A few. Anyways, it's going to take me a few minutes to get there, so stock up and get prepared.
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Merlin wandered around the forest until he found a clearing that allowed him to see a large section of the sky. Seeing as it was only half past seven in the game world, the sun would still be rising from the east. Using this information, Merlin determined which way was north, and the location he had to travel to make his way back to town.
He slipped through the forest, making sure to avoid any of the spawn locations he memorised over the past half hour. It took about ten minutes to find a road as he was rather deep in the forest, but once he did, he could follow the road down to the town. Thinking it was time, he sent Snowbunny a message telling them to walk over to him.
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[07:40:57] Merlin: I'm on the road north of Orchomenus, I'm walking down now, come meet up with me.
[07:41:13] Snowbunny: Wait, you're on the road? A group just left here not too long ago, be careful!
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As Merlin read the message, a group of four people came into view and were making their way towards him. The group seemed to have noticed him, and as they got closer, they saw that his name was red.
"Oh look, another player killer." A tall nerdy-looking man spoke, he had a katana hanging from his belt, and it looked like he was going for some kind of samurai hairstyle.
Before Merlin could tell them he was friendly, the nerdy man rushed towards him while drawing his blade. Merlin wasn't sure if this group was one of the groups who engaged in player killing in the beginner village, or if they were just a group that was sick of player killers and decided to hunt them down for revenge, either way, he didn't appreciate getting attacked.
Merlin parried a couple attacks, the second attack showed Merlin that the man had actually turned combat assistance off, which was surprising. It seemed he wasn't satisfied with the game partially controlling his body when he attacked, or that he wanted to swing a katana his own way.
「You have been attacked by player "Zankoku". Everyone within their party has been marked as an enemy. You may attack them without receiving penalties.」
Zankoku, it seemed to be a romanised Japanese word, confirming Merlin's theory in his mind that the man was a nerd for Japanese culture, or at least wanted to play as a samurai.
The rest of the group began circling him, there was a small blonde girl with a crazed look on her face who used a dagger, a hefty looking man who was holding a war hammer, and another woman with red hair who used a shortbow.
While parrying another attack from the wannabe samurai, and blocking an incoming arrow with his shield, Merlin was grazed by the blonde's dagger. Merlin pushed through the encirclement, barely dodging a the war hammer that crashed into the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
Merlin turned to face the group, his eyes locked onto the samurai first, he was somewhat competent, it was very likely he trained with the sword in real life. But then his attention shifted to the blonde girl instead.
The blonde girl was laughing maniacally while holding a dagger that now had Merlin's blood on it. She then, for whatever reason, decided to lick the dagger, causing her redhead archer friend to turn away in disgust.
「Passive skill ⟪Rose Blight⟫ has triggered, target's stats have been reduced.」
