Chapter 314: Adventurers

Now that Uhtred thought about it, he should actually be close to the exit of the forest based on his path.

He stood ready and alert, staring at the area where he heard the voices coming from as though he were expecting a confrontation. He didn’t bother trying to move from his spot or hide anything that the strangers would see — the violent impact site on the ground, and him standing right in the middle of it.

He watched as they stepped out, their voices abruptly cutting off the moment the impact site and his lone figure came into their view.

There were six of them. And from how quickly they dropped into a vigilant, cautious stance upon spotting him, Uhtred deduced they were a team — one that regularly ventured into this forest, by the looks of it.

"Kid! Identify yourself! Who are you, and what are you doing this deep into the Brutal Wilderness?!" a woman who looked to be the leader of the team barked, her hand held up in a fist, signaling a halt command to her team behind her.

"Kid?" Uhtred’s eyes twitched at the remark. He scrutinized the woman from head to toe. Her face, though marred by a prominent scar running from her left eye down to her jaw, looked no more than five years older than his.

"I’m no kid, girl," he shot back, taking a deliberate step forward.

The team reacted instantly, dropping into aggressive combat postures.

Uhtred chuckled at their hair-trigger response.

"Given your reactions just now, you all obviously have enough sense to realize I’m the one who wrecked this place." He gestured lazily to the crater around him. "So why ask useless questions?"

The female leader clenched her jaw. She clearly hated that Uhtred had called her "girl," but what stung more was him calling out her obvious probing tactic.

It was obvious that Uhtred was the source of the wrecked patch of forest surrounding them. He was standing inside a literal crater, for goodness’ sake. She knew this, but a part of her also didn’t want to believe someone around her age could cause so much damage alone.

"So you’re a solo adventurer, then?" she asked. "Never seen your face around these parts before. And you sure as hell don’t fit the description of any solo adventurers I’ve heard of."

Uhtred shrugged, then stepped forward once more, this time holding his hands up to show he meant no harm. "Well, you can’t have heard of everyone now, can you?"

The female leader grunted, then gave a signal, and the team behind her eased slightly, standing up straighter as Uhtred drew closer — though they still remained quietly vigilant.

Suddenly, a cry came from the back of their formation, snapping them all back into a fight-ready pose.

In an instant, several spells were aimed at Uhtred, ready to launch.

"What is it, Anita?!" the female leader barked, her eyes fixed on Uhtred, who had come to a stop with an amused look on his face.

He looked straight at the girl the female leader had called Anita. She was a lithe, sharp-eyed girl standing at the back of the team’s formation. Just now, Uhtred had used his Gnostic Eye on them, but not long after he activated it, Anita had spotted the change in his left pupil and sounded the alarm.

The team, without even knowing exactly what had happened, reacted instantly.

They’re actually really good. I guess this is what the squads back in my city on Earth are like too, Uhtred mused with humor. More importantly though, this Anita girl was able to spot the color change in my pupil... I guess that’s because of her class?

He still had his Gnostic Eye active, so he could see her details clearly. But as he looked at it, he saw something else that made him nearly frown. He controlled his expression, though, revealing nothing on his face.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Name: Anita]

[Species name: Human (Transmutated)]

[Core Grade: Uncommon]

[Class Name: Wind Assassin]

[Core Rank: Nascent (Air Magic attuned)]

━━━

[Attributes]

Strength: 61

Agility: 79

Endurance: 74

Vitality: 57

Intelligence: 78

Perception: 159

Willpower: 81

Luck: 11

━━━

[Innate Skills]

Wind Dagger

Eagle Eye Vision

Softgust Step

Wind Scythe

Wind Dampen

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

She’s an Assassin. That explains why she’s so sharp-eyed. But she also has a Transmutation... Is it her eyes?

Uhtred covertly honed his focus on the girl’s eyes. Visually, he saw nothing particularly different about them. Yet through his Gnostic Eye, he could sense an unnatural layer of essence masking her pupils.

She’s definitely using something to hide what her eyes truly look like. Which means...

Uhtred’s eyes narrowed and he swept his insight ability over the remaining members of the team.

Yeah. It’s just like I suspected. No one else among them has a Transmutation besides this girl.

He filed the information away quietly and refocused on the situation in front of him, where tension had reached a boiling point. The female leader was now on the verge of attacking him, having barked out questions repeatedly without receiving any answer.

Uhtred smoothly deactivated his Gnostic Eye, holding his hands out in a passive gesture to de-escalate the situation. "I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I mean you no harm at all, believe me. If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it already."

"What were you doing with your eyes just now, then?!" the female leader pressed, her stance widening aggressively.

"Nothing dangerous, that much I can tell you," Uhtred replied evenly. "As for the rest... well, asking for a guy’s secrets on a first meeting is a bit of an invasion of privacy, don’t you think?"

"Don’t try to be slick—"

"Jane," one of the team members suddenly cut in from behind. It was a man, the largest person on their team. He eased his posture fully and crossed his large arms, looking between his team leader and Uhtred.

"There’s no need to escalate things any further," he said. "His business is his and ours is ours. He has done us no harm, so why are you pestering the guy? Ah... Is this because he called you ’girl?’"

In an instant, the female leader, Jane, turned her attention to the big man and launched into a fiery tirade.

Uhtred watched from the side, a flabbergasted expression on his face.

For a second, he questioned why he’d even bothered to humor them. Then, without another word, he simply turned and headed in a different direction through the forest.

"Hey! Where are you going? We still haven’t introduced ourselves—"

The female leader, Jane, called out from behind, but Uhtred merely offered a lazy wave of his hand as he vanished into the woods.

Whether they would meet again was up to fate — though Uhtred didn’t particularly care to cross paths with such a troublesome group again.

More importantly, their presence and the few details they had let slip provided him with more information. First, he was clearly almost at the exit of the Brutal Wilderness. Second, he now had a plausible cover identity to adopt once he reached the nearest human city.

"An Adventurer, huh?" Uhtred muttered to himself. "This Floor’s setting really is different from the last one—"

Uhtred had barely finished his statement when time suddenly slowed to a standstill and familiar prompt appeared in front of his face:

[Mandatory Interaction Choices]