Chapter 378: Hello

He found a path down to the valley and calmly made his way down. He didn’t bother to hide his presence, either. His confidence that he would be able to protect himself if anything went wrong helped matters as well.

It was only when he got closer to one of the trolls in the fields that it took notice of him. He saw its head whip up and looked at Julius with confusion. For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other without moving.

“Hello,” Julius smiled brightly at the troll and waved his arm in greeting.

Unfortunately, this only seemed to make the troll even more wary, and before Julius could stop it, the troll turned around toward its comrades and yelled out something in a guttural language.

The other trolls who hadn’t noticed Julius yet all turned to their friend and spotted Julius waving at them. Unlike the first troll, the others didn’t seem to be hesitant at all. They immediately turned their heads and ran back toward the center of the village.

He was curious as to what they were doing. He looked over at the first troll, who was still staring at Julius with wide eyes. It hadn’t gone along with its friends and stayed where it was.

He sensed some movement coming from the center of the camp and was welcomed by the rest of the trolls. He wasn’t surprised to see that the trolls had armed themselves. Some of them had spears and other weapons, but the rest of them carried large rocks in their hands.

He waved toward them again with a good-natured grin. However, they must have believed this to be some kind of threatening gesture because he heard one of the larger trolls grunt something to the others and saw the trolls with rocks cock back their arms.

His smile wavered for a second. Then fell off his face completely as a barrage of massive stones soared toward his forehead. He didn’t even flinch as he created a barrier in front of him that shielded him. He also made sure to absorb as much kinetic energy as he could from these rocks. So when they slammed against his barrier, they didn’t have that much momentum left.

He gave the trolls a disappointed shake of his head.

“So this is what I get for trying to be peaceful?” He muttered more for his benefit than anyone else.

He sighed as he spotted the large troll, who ordered the attack. The troll picked up a spear and channeled mana throughout its body. It coiled its lower legs and placed the spear behind its head before throwing it with impressive force at Julius.

He shook his head with disappointment before reaching out with his kinetic energy and absorbing the spear’s force, slowing it down just enough for him to snatch it out of the air with his hand. He gave it a little experimental twirl and infused as much kinetic energy into it as he could.

The wood of the spear was surprisingly good at channeling mana, but he gave it a little help with his own mana and aura. This heavily enforced the shaft and let the spear contain more kinetic energy than it otherwise would have.

Then, in the exact same way the troll threw it, he coiled his legs and cocked back the spear in his right hand. Then, like a crossbow, he slung the spear back at the troll. The moment he released it, he felt a shockwave from the air, and the troll could barely react as the spear tore right through its chest and sent it flying backwards into one of the thatched buildings.

He sighed loudly. He had been half hoping that the defeat condition meant he didn’t actually have to kill the trolls. He guessed he must have been thinking too optimistically.

This seemed to be a signal to the rest of the trolls because he watched as the dozens of trolls dashed toward his position, anger radiating in their green eyes. He let out a grin and rolled out his shoulders as he met them head-on.

The first troll he met had a big hammer and was swinging it right at Julius’s torso. Julius calmly stepped into the swing and siphoned the kinetic energy. He then proceeded to jump up and slam his palm into the skull of the troll with a loud crack. A big chunk of flesh was torn from its cheekbone and left a bloody hole in its face.

He knew immediately that the strike wouldn’t be enough to kill it, not if these trolls had healing abilities like the previous ones he had faced. And he was right.

As he was in the middle of kicking another troll in the face, he watched as the first troll’s skull quickly regenerated its missing flesh.

He took this opportunity to use his Sharpness Concept. He infused his kinetic energy with Severing Will and smashed his fist into another troll. This time, he was excited to see that the wound he caused lasted much longer.

As he had suspected, the Concept made the wound much more difficult to heal, much like his own prior experiences when dealing with an attack infused with a Concept.

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Regardless, these trolls clearly had Concepts of their own, and the wound, albeit more slowly, still healed given some time.

He didn’t really care that much. He was much too busy not to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of trolls currently attacking him. The fact that he wasn’t able to easily kill any of them made it much more difficult. He wasn’t able to slowly put them down. By the time he got a chance, he was already getting mobbed by three other trolls.

A big reason why he wasn’t in a much worse situation was due to the fact that the trolls weren’t that fast. They also didn’t have many abilities other than their strength and healing abilities to fight with.