Chapter 20: Aaron Irnhoff
Confused and basically unable to move because of the monster in front of it, the Child just grasped the bottle as tightly as he could, before the Imp slowly moved the Dagger closer toward the Child's face.
"You give food." The Imp repeated with a growl, and now, the Child began to slowly react in response and tried to stand up in a hurry, throwing the bottle to the ground as it did so. But instead of doing what the Imp told it to, the Child turned around and chose to run into the opposite direction as quickly as it could.
Of course, the Imp immediately picked the bottle up and chose to follow the Child, unsure whether it was trying to lead him to where more of the white liquid was or not, but the child was still the Imp's best lead to get the tiny creature in the basket he was carrying to stop crying.
For a few moments, he then just followed the child, but before he knew it the Imp stood in front of a small group of people. None of them seemed to be a major threat, at the very least they didn't have any weapons that the Imp could see, and the majority of them seemed to be weak children like the one that the Imp followed before.
"Wh-What..? Why isn't the repellant working?!" One of the people, a human clothed in a mostly white cloak with some yellow and red bits on it, exclaimed confused and looked at large wooden box that they connected to what the Imp learned to be called a 'Horse'.
The Imp got a pretty bad feeling when he looked at that box, but it was nothing compared to the fear he felt when approaching that floating island for the first time, so the Imp could fight through it and ended up feeling just a little annoyed.
"Wait, it's a Lesser Imp! They are hurt by Holy Energy, right..? I-I think I can deal with it..!" The same human said, his body slightly shaking as he did so. Why did these people recognize the Imp as a monster so quickly? The cloak was supposed to hide that he was one, right?
And just then, the Imp tried to touch his head to see if everything was right, although he swiftly noticed that he didn't have the cloak's hood pulled up, something that he was told was the most important thing about it.
But while he was thinking about how dumb he was for not realizing that, the human started using a weird yellow stick with lots of white shiny things on it and waved it around in the air. The Imp really was pretty curious about what exactly he was doing, especially because the white shiny things looked really similar to the small shiny balls that he was looking at before, and this might be a way to find out how to use them!
So, while the small creature was crying loudly in the basket the Imp was holding, the human stopped waving the yellow stick around, and for a moment, the Imp felt a deep sting in his chest that he immediately grasped.
[-31 Health]
[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Leveled Up!]
After trying to rub the spot on his chest that started hurting all of a sudden, the Imp slowly looked at the notifications next to him, and the moment that he saw that one of them was red, he turned toward the Human in front of him.
"That hurt." The Imp scowled angrily, and immediately, the Human looked at the Imp confused. "It-It's speaking..? Wait, it's wearing clothes, so m-maybe it's tamed..?" The Human asked as he turned to the others in the group, although before they could answer, the man felt a sharp, burning pain in his leg. And as he turned around toward the source of that pain, it didn't take long to find out what caused it. After all, how could he miss that shiny, well-kept dagger currently covered in his own blood being pulled out of his leg?
[Aaron Irnhoff -20 Damage]
[Aaron Irnhoff -23 Damage]
[Aaron Irnhoff -24 Damage]
[Aaron Irnhoff – 25 Damage]
[Aaron Irnhoff – 22 Damage]
[Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled Up!]
Again and again, the Imp stabbed the dagger into the Human's leg, mostly trying to hit the same spot, and so swiftly caused the man to drop to the ground with a horrified scream in his voice as he tried to pull himself away from the Imp, who simply continued to stab his victim, although this time aiming for the back.
After all, this Human tried to attack the Imp. It didn't matter if he did it because he was scared, or because he wanted to protect the other people that were there with him. Many of the Monsters that Avalin, Thomas and James killed were obviously also just trying to live their own lives, and often didn't even attack them first. If it was okay to kill monsters in that way, it was obviously okay to kill People as well, right? At least the Imp himself didn't see any difference in it.
And after stabbing the back of the man a few more times, the Human's body went limp and a few more notifications appeared in front of the Imp.
[Lethal Damage done to Aaron Irnhoff]
[Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled Up!]
[You Leveled Up!]
[You Leveled Up!]
[You Leveled Up!]
...
...
...
[You Leveled Up!]
[You have 34 unused Stat Points]
Confused, the Imp tilted his head to the side at at especially the 'Stat Points'. It seemed like he read that word somewhere before, although he didn't really remember it. But on top of that, a weirdly familiar, awkward feeling returned to the Imp's chest, which he felt after his first ever fight, just before he suddenly became a lot, lot smarter.
This was probably what the others called 'Experience' before, right? By listening to the others' conversations, the Imp figured out that you were supposed to get it whenever you killed something, and that it helped you get a lot stronger. But the word 'Stat' Reminded the Imp of something else, before repeating the word that he mentally seemed to automatically connect with it.
"Status."
[Name – None][Race – Lesser Imp][Level – 44]
[Health – 560][Mana – 840]
[Strength – 7][Constitution - 12][Resistance – 13]
[Agility - 7][Evasion – 20][Dexterity - 6]
[Intelligence - 20][Wisdom – 20]
[Perception – 10][Willpower – 20][Charisma – 1]
[34 Stat Points Available]
[Skills]
-[Apprentice Common Language Comprehension][Level – 73]
-[Apprentice Stealth][Level – 56]
-[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level – 6]
-[Beginner Concentration][Level – 18]
-[Beginner Overeating][Level – 13]
-[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level – 28]
-[Beginner Cooking][Level – 6]
-[Beginner Water Magic][Level – 1]
-[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance][Level – 78]
Slowly, the Imp looked through all that was written on this large box, and he was able to swiftly recognize a lot of parts about it from some of the notifications that appeared before. He somewhat understood a few parts about it, even if not really all that much, but he at least got the gist of it.
And the thing that he was luckily able to figure out at this point as well was what all of the stuff at the top of the notification meant. They were describing how good the Imp raw abilities were. How smart he was, how strong he was, or how fast he was.
And while the Imp didn't exactly know how he knew this, he was aware that these 'Stat Points' could be used to make him a lot stronger or a lot smarter than before.
It would surely be useful to be able to get stronger before dealing with all of these people in front of him, all of which were seemingly still trying to understand what was going on, but the Imp wasn't sure if he really should put all points into strength or speed. He really had no idea.
The thing that was most useful to him at the moment was, after all, the Imp's intelligence. The person that the Imp just killed was incredibly weak, and seeing how he was the only one that even tried attacking the Imp, he figured that he was the strongest amongst these people.
Once he got that white liquid from them, he would probably be able to kill them for more of these points anyway, so he didn't need to worry about how he used the ones he had right now, probably. So, in the end, the Imp quickly placed a few into Srength and Agility, and then put the rest into intelligence, all by just clicking the different words on the notification in front of him, although the Imp was a little confused at why it didn't disappear like all other notifications usually did.
But the Imp didn't care much either, because with an actual quick punch, the notification immediately turned to mist and disappeared. And while the Imp did feel a really sharp stinging in his head again, at the same time everything just looked so much clearer to him, and he was able to properly see through different situations.
For example, he quickly made a connection that he didn't make before. There was a woman there, and she had a lot of children around her. And what she was holding was very similar to the small creature in the basket the Imp was carrying.
It looked a little different, sure, but they seemed to be the same in some way. And from that, the Imp figured that the woman had to have some way to take care of these creatures, and swiftly stepped forward in front of her, holding the bottle he had with him toward her as he did so.
"Give food." The Imp told the woman, who slowly glanced at the creature still crying inside of the basket, while the Imp continued, "It hungry. Need food." He said angrily, just wanting her to get to it because the creature was making him feel weird the more it was crying.
"Y-You want me to f-feed that child..?" She asked, and confused, the Imp looked at the creature in the basket, figuring that she meant it, and then just nodded his head in response.
Slowly, the woman took the bottle from the Imp and nodded her head. "Th-Then can you give it to m-me for a moment..?" The woman asked as she slowly handed the tiny child she was holding to one of the other children next to her, before extending her hand toward the basket, which he simply pulled away from her.
"You give food. Give." He told her, and the woman slowly nodded and rushed to the side of the wooden box. Of course the Imp followed her while she was doing that. And after stepping into the box, the Woman came back out with another, larger bottle of the white liquid.
"H-Here, this is the milk we give to the children..." She said fearfully, and the Imp frowned and looked at the two bottles. The liquid did indeed look the same, but the bottles were completely differently. Noticing that the Imp was thinking about something like that, the Woman slowly took a bottle out of her pocket and tried to fill it up with some of the milk, before handing the bottle to the Imp.
"Use th-this one..." The woman told him, so the Imp placed the basket to the ground and held the bottle toward the small creature, apparently also considered a child, but no matter what the Imp tried, it wouldn't try and drink anything. Although, at this point he did notice a really unpleasant smell coming from it, now that he got close to it, and wasn't sure if it only just appeared now or was already there some time ago.
"It not eating. Wrong food." The Imp said as he growled at the woman, who tried to slowly approach the basket, seemingly also smelling that something was off, and then looked at the Imp fearfully.
"I-I think its di-diapers are full..."