Arthur turned to John.

The wound on his chest was still dripping with blood, as three long scratch marks raked across it in a gruesome sight. The chestpiece he’d worn had already been torn to pieces and even the shirt underneath hadn’t been spared from the Howler’s claws.

But even as the blood trickled down, Arthur could tell that the wound wasn’t fatal.

The floating health bar above John’s head confirmed it, too.

[John Voros]

[HP: 340 / 400]

After a moment, Arthur glared at his grinning teammate and snorted,

"I’m insane? I don’t wanna hear that from someone who just pinned a rare-rank monster down all by himself."

John barked out a laugh, flexing his biceps like he hadn’t just been face-to-face with death.

"Hahaha! It’s all because my Strength hit 20. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to hold that thing down for even a second."

Then he jabbed his thumb toward the spot where the Howler had fallen and continued,

"Still, this bastard was a pain in the ass! I even lost my chestpiece, you know! Fuck! If you hadn’t used your fang, we would both have died here too."

Arthur didn’t say anything. His gaze lingered on the ground, where the last remnants of the Mountain Howler had dissolved, and he found himself dwelling on just how strong this thing had been.

The EXP this Mountain Howler gave him was more than double what the Goblin Shaman had, despite only being a single level higher. On second thought, however, Arthur realized it made sense.

After all, the Goblin Shaman had relied on those elite Spear-Guards, while the Howler fought all on its own. In that sense, the beast was a tougher opponent than the entire goblin camp.

And as Arthur was absorbed in his thoughts, a small item began to take shape where the Howler had just died.

...A book.

A slim book, bound in dark leather.

Arthur’s eyes widened before they moved to John, and sure enough, the big guy’s face had already lit up. His eyes practically sparkled with excitement. Arthur didn’t even need to ask what he was thinking about.

It was another skillbook!

And not just any skillbook. Surely this had to be the one, the ’Roar’ skill they’d read about online, the same skill the Howler had used to stun them. A skill that was basically tailor-made for John.

"Hahaha! Come to Papa!" John laughed loudly, before crouching down to pick up the book.

...And yet, his expression didn’t stay joyous for too long.

Arthur watched the grin fade from John’s face, replaced first with confusion, then with disbelief. John lowered the book slowly, before finally letting it drop back onto the gravel.

"Ahhh! Shit! Why am I so damn unlucky?!"

After a moment of silent confusion, he finally cursed, dragging both hands through his hair and ruffling it.

Arthur blinked before he reached down to touch the small book.

Just like it had happened with [Water Arrow], a system message appeared in front of him the moment his fingers brushed the dark leather.

[Skillbook: Deadshot]

[Type: Magic — Wind Element]

[Description: "Condenses air mana around the user’s arrows, significantly enhancing their piercing ability."]

[Requirements: Elemental affinity of Wind (Minor).]

[Class: Archer, Assassin.]

"No wonder..." Arthur mumbled to himself.

He’d assumed the skillbook left behind would be the same skill the Howler had used, but clearly that wasn’t the case. Still, a skillbook was a skillbook.

After a moment of hesitation, Arthur picked up the slim leather book and stored it under his shirt before patting John’s shoulder. Sure, if they’d found a skillbook good for either of them, their hunts would’ve gone smoother from here on out, but even without that, this was definitely a boon, no matter which way you looked at it.

After all, Arthur had no idea how much skillbooks went for, but it definitely had to be way more than the price of a simple goblin weapon, right?

Besides, they could also try to trade ’Deadshot’ for a skill John could actually use once they got back to the city.

And even if they couldn’t find a suitable trade, they could always sell it outright to one of the shops, the insectoid shopkeeper’s or the dwarf’s, and hopefully raise enough stones to buy one of those storage bags the dwarf had mentioned.

Either way, this skillbook was a massive haul.

And indeed, John didn’t stay down for too long. He shook his head, then met Arthur’s eyes and said,

"Whatever. If it’s not meant for me, then so be it. We can probably sell that thing for a good chunk of money anyways."

...

In the end, John and Arthur sat down to rest while Arthur’s depleted mana slowly crept back up.

Even John looked worn out by now. His chest rose and fell in heavy breaths as he lay on the ground, and for the first time, Arthur caught a faint sluggishness in the big guy’s movements. The Howler had drained what Arthur had thought was an inexhaustible well of stamina.

At least John’s HP bar was steady above his head despite his injury. It wasn’t draining slowly steadily the way Arthur’s had, back when that goblin had cut him at level 1. In fact, John’s bleeding had stopped not long after they sat down, which was a bit surprising.

Still, Arthur attributed the recovery to John’s absurd vitality stat.

Ten minutes later, Arthur pushed himself to his feet. Beside him, John cracked his neck and picked up his spears, before draping the iron hide over his shoulders. Then, they headed back into the mist.

...

The mountain didn’t let up.

Rock Serpents and Iron Boars continued to appear, but each one fell within minutes. John’s spear would hold the line, while Arthur’s Water Arrows would usually finish the job. There didn’t seem to be a second monster like the Howler waiting to give them real trouble.

Like this, hours quickly bled away.

Four hours later, when Arthur’s [Water Arrow] pierced cleanly through a Rock Serpent’s eye, the familiar series of system notifications flared across his vision.

[Rock Serpent defeated. +34 EXP]

[Level Up!]

Arthur’s lips curved up without realizing it. Another level up.

He’d spent less than eight hours in this mountain, but he had already gained two levels. This time, he didn’t even bother opening his status window.

Instead, he turned to John, who was crouched by the Rock Serpent’s fading corpse, picking something out of its dissolving remains. He held it up with a grin.

"Hey bro, look at this! We got another serpent scale. Not bad, huh?"

Arthur nodded. Over the past four hours, two of the Rock Serpents they’d killed had dropped something called a serpent scale — this one being the second — while the Iron Boars had given up two of their tusks.

Luckily, none of them had dropped another hide, or Arthur and John would have been forced to cut the hunt short and head back to the city early just to offload everything.

Even now, they were practically stuffed to the brim with loot. It was already more than they could comfortably carry.

Arthur adjusted one of the tusks in his pocket, which was actually a bit too big and was constantly slipping out, and then glanced at John who looked no different from a fully-loaded mule ready to go on a journey, and shook his head.

"Wanna call it a day?" he asked.

John didn’t hesitate. He glanced at the loot weighing down his own broad frame, then Arthur’s, and smirked.

"Yeah. Let’s head back before we start droppin’ everything. I don’t think I can carry anymore."

Arthur’s right hand brushed against the faint bulge of the [Deadshot] skillbook beneath his shirt and nodded. They’d survived the Howler, leveled twice, and were hauling back more loot than they could have hoped for. For their first real push into the mountain, it definitely wasn’t a bad day’s work.

It was time to head back.