The Primal Hunter's
Nicholas 1's

It was troublesome , he thought as he chased after the archer on Richard's orders.

Nicholas, an archer himself, secretly runs through the forest with his six friends. Four archers and three light warriors formed a hunting group. In his opinion, sending seven people to one archer from several company offices was an exaggeration.

Seriously, what's up with that guy? Saying cliche crap to look like an asshole. He had to hold back from being horrified for the whole thing and barely managed to not only shoot him from behind as he walked away.

Unfortunately, Richard did not want to ruin the relationship with their new healer. While the man did do some strange things, nothing made Nicholas wary of him. There was absolutely no need to send so much, but Richard was nothing if not meticulous.

In the end, he, of course, understood why Richard had sent people to pursue him. Whether he's real, and a serious threat, or he's a lunatic, in which case he's going to be a chaotic threat. In either case, the problem is best stopped from the start.

Nicholas himself was one of the people who followed the tutorial with Richard, and he worked for the man before the initiation. Richard runs a private security company and employs employees in several offices in their operating city. Nicolas is just another faceless employee, but his track record has given him a certain amount of trust, which makes him a right-hand man in this tutorial.

Finding a healer is luck. Not having anyone was hell, especially for the warriors who often suffered minor injuries, being forced to be in close quarters and so on. They had a healer when they first arrived here, but he was stabbed by a huge stag in one of their first fights. This left them with only a limited amount of healing potions, compounded by having to waste them on what the healer could repair in a matter of minutes with just a little mana.

What was even more fortunate was that the healer was part of a team of lay people who were clearly inexperienced in terms of combat. However he has been asked by his boss to chase an archer with a big mouth who decides to play cool. He didn't buy those people's bullshit at all.

He personally wanted to bet on the person who got himself killed, but Richard is not the type of man you refuse. He was their leader, with almost everyone calling him 'boss'. Acquired not through nepotism or attitude, but through sheer competence.

Nicholas did not question his decision, but it was a little annoying because they had to accept a group of weaklings. He doubted one of them was even level 5. At least the healer chick looks good, and the red-haired caster is pretty good too. What she found most annoying was the paralyzed middle-aged woman - the definition of burden in her opinion.

I'm sure Richard will find a way to fix it, he thought. How were they to blame if the beginners had an unfortunate accident during the battle? As long as they could get a healer on their side, everything was fair game.

They had run for a while and finally reached the area where Mr. Bigmouth had entered the forest, as they all entered the demon. They had a rule that every archer and warrior of light had to choose a demon at level 5, because Richard wanted a powerful reconnaissance force, and as this situation proved, a team of assassins.

They slipped through the bushes as they lurked forward. The man was not really sneaky, leaving a clear trail in the bushes. While none of them have tracking skills, it does not mean that tracking is impossible. You just have to do it the old-fashioned way.

As they followed the footsteps, they suddenly seemed to stop in the middle of a small open ground.

Before any of them could react, he heard something piercing through the wind, followed by a thud. The light soldier by his side, fell down with an arrow stuck behind his head, dying as fast as possible.

APA APAAN, was his immediate internal reaction as he acted.

"SHIELD!" he shouted while running into the trees, quickly hiding behind the trees. Peering back into the open, he saw two corpses, one of the archers now also dead, shot as they retreated. What the hell is going on!?

He activated Archer's Eye and began to look towards the trees. He felt their attacker was in one of them, and it didn't take long before he saw the enemy. It was another archer based on the fact that another arrow flew out from the crown of the tree.

Nicholas pulled out an arrow and came out from behind a tree, shooting from where the arrow came from. He did not get any feedback from his shot as he quickly retreated to the back of the tree once more. He peered around her once more, his high perception and skills working on overdrive.

Before he found anything, he heard another scream coming out. He stormed to where the scream came from, running among the trees. Arriving at the scene, he saw an archer wounded with an arrow in his chest, and fortunately he was still alive. Nicholas quickly pulled out the arrow and took out his final health potion, making the man drink it.

The wound seemed to heal, and the now-healing archer opened his mouth: "I got a shot," he could barely say, still panting as his lungs healed. "In the stomach, I guess."

The man fell down, still panting, while the potion performed its magic. Nicholas left the man to lick his wounds as he heard more screams from his peers around him.

Jake still smiled to himself as he examined the arrows in his stomach. He considered tearing it apart and drinking the healing potion, but looking at his health, it only dropped by 50 points. Even one-sixth of his total health after his new title. Tearing it up would only make it bleed more, make it lose more health, and to be honest, it barely affected him. It hurts a lot, but it's more than manageable.

The ambush initially went well, killing two of them instantly. He also felt the sensation of leveling up, but he decided to ignore the system message for now. This is not the time to be disturbed.

However, the third target he was aiming for had been prepared and was out of his scope when they saw each other, resulting in the two of them landing arrows on each other. Jake barely hits the man's heart, but still lands a fatal blow. If the man did not have any healing potions, he would bleed out within a few minutes. Or drown in his own blood as it fills his lungs. Jake's not a doctor, but he's pretty sure it's one of them.

From the bush she was hiding in now, she focused on her ball as she moved out, sneaking among the trees. He saw a single light warrior hidden behind a tree in his scope, the tree itself did not hinder his perception ability. His initial plan worked out perfectly, luring them all into the middle of a small field, and then attacking, leaving them split to all sides. Dividing and conquering and all that.

The man limps with Jake hugging him until he gets a notice. When it came, he let the corpse go while looking at the knife wound on his left shoulder. It hurt, but it barely caused any damage, and he was still able to easily use it.

Three, maybe four down. At least three more, including the archers who led them

He had seen the archers in charge of their small assassin squad. He is fast, faster than Jake, showing that he has a higher level. And not least, Jake estimated the man was at least level 7 or 8.

Jake begins to sneak towards his next target as he tries to stay hidden. He had already decided to let one person live to send a message if possible, but surely he would not be their leader.

He had already seen the person he wanted to function as his envoy. It was a young archer, no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. Jake was staring at him at this moment and could see and feel him trembling in fear. He kept glancing towards the open ground where the two corpses were.

Jake decides to ignore the boy and instead starts looking for another target. From the way the boy freezes, Jake doesn't see a scenario where he's going to prove a problem.

Jake feels no one in his neighborhood as he moves and sees nothing either. He closed his eyes and focused on his hearing. At first, he heard nothing but the sound of the wind around and the occasional animal or bird, until he heard another, more relevant sound - a gasping breath.

He quietly slipped towards the sound of breathing, and before long the last light warrior appeared on his ball. Unlike the others, this one decided to cover himself with leaves and part of bushes, practically invisible in combination with basic stealth skills as he lay on his stomach on the ground. Jake doubts he can even see her using Archer's Eye.

Luckily, Jake doesn't need his eyes to see it. The man is well hidden if you look at him, but with an omnidirectional ball, what he does is hardly considered a hideout. Jake decides to gain a vertical advantage and climbs a tree to ensure his attack proves deadly.

From up there, he shot clearly at the man. He had actually done a good hiding, as Jake could not even see him from above, especially since he was lying still. Jake whips out an arrow and pulls his bow, aiming for the head.

She found it interesting how none of the basic clothes for any class provided any protection for the head. Even the heavy warriors did not have helmets, even though their armor was complete. The only thing close by was the hood in the cloak that castors, healers, and archers had. But it doesn't really provide much protection against arrows to the head.

The only true protection seemed to be provided by a stat of toughness, perhaps vitality, and perhaps endurance to some extent? He did not know exactly, but he remembered the light warrior class did not offer any stat points for toughness and was only one for vitality. In other words, their level advantage means nothing if exposed, except maybe one or two levels in the race.

That was precisely what caused the hidden warrior to die without knowing how. All that was left was what looked like a stack of leaves and a stem with arrows sticking out. The red liquid slowly moistened the bushes around the arrows.

Jake confirms a system notification about him killing, and checks his notification list quickly, finding only 4. It means that the archer he exchanged arrows with before is still alive. Must have used a health potion, he thought.

He decided to finish off the archer, doubting he was far away. While the healing potion renews the lost health points instantly, it still takes a bit of time for the body to fully recover and judge from where he hit the arrow, the man hopefully still comes down to counting.

Jake comes down from the tree and sneaks to where he fights against the archers. He still had to be careful with the wandering squad leader. That person had a skill worthy of seeing from his quick reaction to the initial ambush, and his accuracy was quite good at assessing the reverse shot.

He quickly finds an archer who does nothing but drag himself to the other side of the tree where Jake left him. He was still panting, as his lungs had just finished healing, and was not in any condition to put up a decent resistance.

Although it was not a truly exciting prey, the enemy was the enemy. The archer had covered his body and face with his robe and made sure that the blood was clearly visible as he tried to sit still. Probably hoping to fool Jake into believing he's dead.

Jake was next to the man, still sneaking around, pulling his bow. His sight was obstructed by his hood, completely unconscious as death approached.

Jake aimed and shot an arrow. The moment he released the arrow, his sense of danger became ballistic, and he could barely move a little sideways as the arrow entered his ball and hit his back. Waves of excruciating pain struck him, making him grit his teeth, barely managing to stumble behind a nearby tree, barely avoiding another arrow.

He slumped to the back of the tree and quickly pulled out the arrows that were still in his stomach and those on his back. The one in the narrow abdomen, only mostly penetrated the muscles, but the one in the back bumped into something important. He quickly drank the healing potion and felt a cold sensation spread throughout his body. The potion itself did not taste like water, not that he had time to think about the taste of the moment.

He could not help but smile at himself despite the pain as he confirmed the assassination notice for the already injured archer. After which, he quickly opened his status page and threw all of his free points into perception. He did not even have time to look at his stats before his sense of danger appeared again, as he had to glide around the tree, dodging other arrows.

His smile grew wider as he gained temporary safety once again. The archer was out of his scope, although it became slightly stronger than the perception improvement given during leveling up and the free points allocated.

Whoever this leader is, he's not an amateur. He knew his way around the bow, and unlike many others, he did not hesitate. Jake felt a practically seething excitement in his stomach as he felt his wounds heal. Finally, he found a valuable opponent. His horrible taunts and his equally horrible acting were one hundred percent worth it.