Chapter 111: Level 46 and Naked

[Passive Skill “Pain Resistance” Levelled Up to Level 6]

[Congratulations! You have reached Level 46]

The system notifications floated in the corner of his vision. Right behind them, a massive surge of raw energy washed through his veins, forcibly knitting some of his torn muscles back together.

He was lying flat on his back on the only patch of dirt in the clearing that wasn’t completely soaked in blood. He looked like a two-meter-tall slab of naked, bruised meat. His clothes had been completely shredded hours ago during the chaotic melee, leaving him with nothing but deep cuts, ugly purple bruises and mud covering his pale skin.

He had survived. But surviving an hours-long battle was a different kind of hell. The level-up energy fought a losing battle against the sheer trauma his body had endured. Just taking a normal breath felt like swallowing broken glass.

If it wasn’t for Lovely Eyes, I’d be a pile of cooked meat right now, he thought, letting out a ragged sigh and staring up at the dark canopy. Spamming that skill to interrupt the goblin mages drained almost all my mana, but it kept me alive. At least it hit Level 8. And getting that Dash skill right before my legs snapped definitely saved my ass.

I just want to open a portal and fall directly onto my bed. Emily would definitely freak out seeing me like this, but a hot bath sounds better than heaven right now.

Before he could push his slowly recovering mana into his Door Master skill, the bushes to his left rustled.

Eren didn’t move his head, just shifting his eyes.

A small, scaly figure crept out from the dark tree line. It was Griks. The little kobold was clutching the white plastic drone controller to her chest, her nose twitching wildly as she sniffed the air like a frightened street dog.

She took a careful step toward him, sniffing the metallic scent of blood and the scorched smell of lightning magic.

Eren immediately slowed his breathing and let his limbs go completely limp. He looked totally helpless, a paralyzed, bleeding giant lying defenseless on the ground. He was exhausted, sure, but he wasn’t completely helpless. He just wanted to see what the little creature would do. With all this blood around, the tribal instinct to finish off a weak enemy might kick in.

Griks slowly approached his feet. She looked at his massive, battered legs, then up at his face. Her yellow reptilian eyes were wide, looking like she couldn’t decide if she should run away or poke him with a stick.

She gently put the drone and the controller down on the dirt. Then, she walked over to Eren’s massive left arm.

She wrapped her tiny, clawed hands around his thick wrist, planted her feet firmly in the mud and pulled with all her might.

Eren almost laughed out loud. He didn’t move a single muscle, but Griks was straining so hard she was making little grunting noises. Her scaly feet slipped in the wet dirt and she fell backward right onto her butt.

She scrambled back up, patted the dirt off her knees and tried again. This time she grabbed his hand and leaned her entire body weight backward. She looked like a small kitten trying to drag a heavy sofa across a carpet.

She’s actually trying to save me, Eren realized, fighting the urge to smile. She thinks I’m dying and she wants to drag me to safety.

He actually felt a bit bad for messing with her. She was from a producer clan, not a warrior caste and her absolute refusal to attack him even when he looked like a free kill proved her loyalty.

Eren decided to keep up the paralyzed act for another ten minutes, secretly enjoying the break while the little kobold tried different methods to move him. She tried pushing his shoulder, she tried lifting his leg and at one point she just stood there scratching her scaly head in utter confusion.

Eventually, Eren casually lifted his right arm, placed it behind his head as a pillow and crossed his legs comfortably.

Griks let out a startled squeak and jumped three feet backward, realizing he had been completely conscious the whole time.

Eren ignored her panicked reaction and just watched the sky.

Level 46, so close to 50..

The number echoed in his mind, drowning out the lingering, phantom screams of the orcs and goblins he had slaughtered. He was only one level away from the big milestone. He wondered how many more monsters he needed to kill to hit Level 50 and what kind of crazy evolution options his system would throw at him.

His “Magician of Love” class was already weird enough. He really hoped the next tier wouldn’t require him to wear pink robes or something equally humiliating.

“Alright, playtime is over.” Eren sat up slowly, his bones popping and cracking loudly. Griks flinched at the sound. “I’m going home.”

He raised his hand and pushed a large chunk of his remaining mana into the Door Master skill.

The familiar swirl of purple and blue energy tore the fabric of space open right in front of them. Eren stepped through the portal without hesitation and a second later, the humid, metallic-smelling air of the monster forest vanished.

He stepped out onto the soft grass, the cool night breeze of the elven village hitting his skin.

But as he looked around, a frown formed on his face. He wasn’t in his usual spot. The portal had dropped him just outside the village borders, but it was noticeably closer to the wooden houses than his previous teleportation attempts.

The anti-teleportation field is definitely shrinking.

It was undeniable proof. The ancient totem tree in the center of the village was losing its power. If the massive dragon hovering in the northern skies and the highly organized monster armies weren’t enough of a warning, this spatial decay was the final nail in the coffin. Their safe zone was dying.

A sudden heavy weight dropped on his chest. It wasn’t just his own life on the line anymore. Emily was sleeping in that village, carrying their child. Thadric, Selena, the twins, they all relied on this invisible barrier.

The bloodline of the Forgotten Monarch inside him pulsed with a strange pressure at the thought of his territory being breached. He had to figure out a way to defend them all before the harsh winter arrived.

Then his cracked ribs throbbed painfully.

Nope. Too tired to play today.

Eren decided to just chill tonight, pushing the dark thoughts or defense planning agendas away.

He needed a bath with three naked elf ladies in his house right now. It wasn’t Emily’s house anymore. He unknowingly thought that place as “his” house.

He looked down at Griks, who had tumbled out of the portal behind him and was clutching the drone tightly.

He warned the poor kobold to be fast to go this side or the portal would close and leave her behind in the forest. She must have imagined very bad things on that few seconds.

Eren pointed toward the center of the village where the dim lights of Selena’s restaurant were glowing. “Take that flying drone and it’s controller to the hunters. Give it to Mel, Nimbo or Thadric.”

Griks nodded enthusiastically, her large ears flopping. “I will give this d-drano thing to one of trusted ones.” Eren guessed she meant the rookie hunting squad. Also she couldn’t spell the name of the drone yet.

“After that, you can hang out around the restaurant. Selena will probably feed you if you don’t break anything or behave. Consider it your new autonomous zone. You earned a little freedom today.” Eren smiled with how excited she looked with the news.

He wasn’t worried about her causing trouble. She was a producer kobold, physically weaker than a human teenager and she had just spent the last twenty minutes trying to save his life.

Griks’ yellow eyes lit up like fireworks. She hugged the drone, bounced on her toes and shouted in a heavily accented, broken version of the Elvish language.

“Yuppiii!”

She turned and sprinted toward the village center, her scaly tail whipping excitedly behind her. They were actually going the same way and she didn’t have to leave him behind. But he let her have innocent antics for now. She earned this much weirdness in his book.

Eren watched her go with tilting his head and random thoughts in his head.

Hearing a kobold speak Elvish always messed with his brain. Back on Earth, every movie and book portrayed the Elvish language as this ethereal, flowing music that sounded like angels whispering.

Real Elvish on Evon was completely different.

It had a weird musical quality, sure, but it was packed with heavy, guttural sounds and sharp whistles.

To Eren’s ear, it sounded like a crazy mixture of angry German, Arabic and the complex tonal shifts of Chinese. It had the harshness of western languages combined with the flow of eastern ones. It was difficult to learn and hearing a lizard-dog creature yell “Yuppiii” in it was just absurd.

“I really need a bath.” he said while sighing deeply. “And clean clothes. And maybe Emily can massage my shoulders if she’s not too mad about me disappearing but fat chance..”

He turned back to the and grabbed the thick rope he had left on the ground.

With a hard pull, he dragged his heavy loot through the spatial tear. Three massive, expertly forged elite orc axes, half a dozen mechanical goblin crossbows and a pile of high-quality metallic staves clattered onto the grass. He wrapped the thick rope around his left hand, effortlessly dragging the entire pile of heavy weaponry behind him.

Selena was probably working but maybe he could find Lyra and steal her to their house and have some private bathroom time until Emily and Selena could join them.

He thought about the idea for a while…

Why not? What is stopping me from having fun right…

He walked slowly toward the village center, the metal weapons carving deep grooves into the dirt path.

As he approached the main square near Selena’s restaurant, he noticed a large crowd had gathered. About forty or fifty elves, mostly the night guards, hunters and a few drinkers, were standing around the central fire pit.

They all stopped talking the moment Eren stepped into the light.

The entire square went dead silent. The women stared with wide eyes, a few of them visibly gulping, while the men looked at him like he was a walking god of war.

Eren stopped, confused by the heavy silence. He looked at the massive pile of elite monster weapons he was dragging with one hand like it was a bag of groceries. Yeah, it was an impressive haul. He had basically wiped out a military squad. It made sense they were shocked by his strength.

He puffed his chest out slightly, feeling that familiar surge of pride.

Then, he noticed the cold night breeze blowing against his legs. And his chest. And everywhere else.

He looked down.

His clothes were completely gone, shredded during the battle. He was standing in the middle of the village square, a towering, heavily scarred, blood-soaked half-elf, displaying his fully awakened and erect(!) physique to at least fifty staring elves.

Right, I’m naked..!

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