Chapter 24: That’s a Lot of Trolls

Julius stood there, just taking in the wondrous view for a long time. He had been fighting and training so hard that he almost forgot that he was in another world surrounded by magic. It was times like this that reminded him of his hopes to explore the continent and the world beyond.

This was a rift that was in the middle of nowhere and it still contained indescribable beauty. Julius could not help but wonder what other places in the world might hold.

He carefully made his way down the cliffside, walking around the outer rim of the valley to examine it. He was looking for any clues on how to clear this rift. Because until he did, he was effectively stuck in here. However, there were worse places to be trapped if he was being honest. He could have been stuck in a volcanic rift with nothing but heat and the smell of sulfur as a companion. Instead, he was in a scene straight from a fairytale.

The one thing Julius was worried about, was that except for the weaker monsters he found in the caverns, he hadn’t seen any other monsters like the trolls. According to the notification, this rift was at risk of entering an overflow state. Which should mean there is an overabundance of mana and monsters.

“I have no idea where they would be. If I didn’t know better I would think this was just a normal rift.” Julius said to himself with furrowed eyebrows.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen any trolls either. I know they are out there, I just need to—.” Julius paused. Right when he rounded the corner he spotted a large settlement camp next to the side of the lake, filled with a sea of figures. “ –find them,” He finished.

In front of him was a large campsite that was completely covered with trolls. There were several dozen beat-up-looking tents and campfires littering the encampment. Several large creatures were mounted onto some spits, being roasted over the flames, with most of the trolls just lazing around the camp. He hadn’t seen it from where he entered the valley because it was tucked behind several large hills and trees. However, it seemed he found where they were hiding.

He could see why the rift was at risk of overflowing now. There were at least hundreds of trolls down there and there were probably even more scattered around. It would be any day now that the rift will overflow into the normal world. And Julius didn’t know what would happen to him if he didn’t clear it by then.

He hadn’t read or heard about any accounts of people who were in his circumstances. For all he knew, he would be allowed to leave when the trolls were. In that case, he could just hide away until that happened. Or maybe the rift was locked down until he either cleared it or died.

Looking down at an entire army of Tier 3 trolls with ridiculous regeneration abilities, Julius didn’t exactly like his odds. If it was any other monsters like orcs or hobgoblins, he wouldn’t be as nervous. When he first saw the trolls, he had been hoping they weren’t the main monster of the rift. However, trolls were notoriously hard to put down, and an entire horde of them even more so.

It wasn’t like he had much of a choice though. The notification said he wouldn’t be able to leave without clearing it. And he doubted he would be able to leave if he just waited, that would not make any sense after that message.

So he needed a plan. Julius needed to somehow come up with a strategy that would allow him to take down hundreds of trolls before they swarmed him and ripped him apart. It wasn’t an easy task for sure.

The first thing was that he needed to get stronger before he even thought about taking them on. That was obvious. He was thinking that he would be able to pick small groups off at a time, simultaneously ranking up his skills. [Thermal Compression] and [Firebolt] were the closest to advancement, and he believed he would receive some good options for them. [Restoration] and [Kinetic Reinforcement] were not far behind either. Both were over a third of the way there. If Julius could get all his skills up to rare, he would have a much better chance.

He also considered tiering up to Tier 2, but even after suffusing himself with fire, kinetic, and life mana by the barrels, he hadn’t made that much progress. He could feel there was much more he would need to do before he was ready.

If only he had exceptional affinities. Affinities affected how fast skills ranked up but more importantly, the higher your affinity the faster your body was able to adapt to your mana. Which in turn, accelerated one’s advancement to Tier 2. With the amount of fighting and stress he had been experiencing for the past couple of weeks his progress was already really impressive. However, if he had higher affinities he would have probably doubled his gains, both in skills and in regards to achieving Tier 2.

I am really envious of those with perfect affinities. I cannot even imagine how fast they can advance, even without having to fight for their lives, Julius brooded to himself. Yet, there wasn’t anything Julius could do about that and it wasn’t worth griping about. He could only focus on what he could do in the present with what he had available to him.

Julius hid behind some cover and observed the settlement for a while. It seemed like some groups would come and go on a regular schedule. Those who came back usually had some sort of meal in their possession. Some had extremely large prey that took a couple of trolls to carry, while others had smaller but still quite large prey slung over their shoulders. He deduced that these parties were sent out to collect enough food for the rest of the settlement. The group of four he fought before probably were doing the same. On second thought, Julius wondered if the other trolls in the group had noticed their absence yet.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He observed that most of the groups were in parties of four to six. Most of them were carrying the same clubs he had seen before and only a small amount were carrying proper weapons like axes or the occasional hammer.