Ben felt conflicted. He kind of hoped Nathan would haggle him to stay and protect them. As selfish as it may sound, that way he wouldn’t feel bad about leaving them. It was his life at stake after all.

But instead, Nathan encouraged him to leave immediately. Nathan didn’t doubt what he had said and urged him to go and do whatever he needed to do. Even though it would put their life at risk.

He felt grateful and guilty at the same time. Grateful that Nathan and Liz were so understanding, and guilty because he actually hoped they wouldn’t want him to leave. It would give him an easy excuse to not worry about them anymore and just do his own thing. He didn’t want the responsibility to take care of them.

Ben slapped himself on the back of his head. He rebuked himself for thinking like this, even after what John did to save them.

He was arrogant. In the back of his mind, he also saw this as an opportunity to get strong. But he overestimated himself. His soul arm had already run out of whatever fueled it and disappeared. He couldn’t summon it right now. Who knows when he would use it again. Right now he was probably only just a little stronger than Dominic.

And he didn’t even give the group enough credit either. Nathan and Rolo both awakened skills, Nathan even multiple. And Dominic showed he had what it takes to take command during a fight. If anything, they’ll at least put up a fight against whatever came on their path.

Ben realized the group would be fine and focused on the trip back to the monastery. After walking for almost 30 minutes, he arrived at the place they fought the ebony-colored wolf. Ben cupped his stump.

‘My arm…’ he thought.

Ben ruminated for the entire trip, he hadn’t stopped to realize he didn’t have a weapon. Although he wore a shield on his left arm, his soul arm had already disappeared. And who knows when it would come back. Remembering their previous fight, he wouldn’t stand a chance without one.

He examined their previous battlefield and spotted weapons laying on the red-stained grass. It smelled like a rusty car scheduled for the scrap yard, but worse. It was horrible.

He picked up a nearby sword and took a stance. His shield was attached to his forearm, with his sword in his hand. He swung it around a few times when he got the idea to channel his skill into his weapon. It worked for John and Rolo, why wouldn’t it work for him?

With his sword in hand, he activated his skill [Piercing Grasp]. Some kind of energy originating from all over his body was directed to his hand. His hand didn’t move just yet, but he knew that if he wanted to it’d launch itself.

Ben gradually increased the amount of energy to his hand, hoping it would overflow into his sword. After enough energy was present, he spotted a vague outline of a glove surrounding his hand. When he felt his hand couldn’t take any more energy, his hand squeezed itself into a fist. Through the handle of the sword.

Ben raised his eyebrows with his mouth still open. Astonished, he examined the sword. The sword didn’t break, but it was close. It was bent into a weird shape with clear indentations of his fingers on it. The handle was unusable. If he wanted to use the sword now, he had to grab it by the blade.

‘Incredible’ Ben thought

His greatest weapon was this skill. Luckily, [Piercing Grasp] not only worked on his soul arm but could also be activated using his normal arm. This skill was his only feasible chance of survival if he were to go back inside the monastery.

Ben opened up the shop and went to the weapons section. After scrolling past the swords and the spears, he found armor all the way at the end of the list. If items were ranked by popularity, it would seem armor was gravely unpopular.

He scrolled past the helmets, chest plates, and shin guards before he finally arrived at his goal. The gauntlets.

He remembered how the wolf swiped at his soul arm and how much it hurt him. He got chills thinking about it. If anything, he wanted to prevent that from happening ever again. He had to protect his arm, while still allowing him to attack. Gauntlets were perfect.

Various types of gauntlets were displayed. Gauntlets with open fingers, or gauntlets with a stiff exterior limiting movement greatly but giving maximum protection. He needed a combination of both.

Scrolling to the more expensive section, he found was he was looking for. A gauntlet with separate plating for each finger, allowing him to use [Piercing Grasp] while still protecting his hand. It was perfect.

Ben immediately bought the gauntlet for a whopping 75 bronze coins, leaving him nearly broke. It was for a good cause, though. What were 75 bronze coins in the face of certain death? Money didn’t matter if he died by being a scrooge.

The gauntlet materialized on his hand covering up to right beneath the strap where his shield was located. Ben felt like the [Shop] had tailored the gauntlet completely to Ben’s wishes. Could this be another feature of the [Shop]?

Satisfied with his new gauntlet Ben pushed ahead to a familiar place, the escape passage. He wagered more wolves were likely to guarding the front entrance, and he planned to take out the lone wolves one by one.

The closer he got to the escape passage, the louder the howls became. They weren’t friendly howls, the wolves were still fighting. But what could they possibly be fighting? Anyone from the monastery should have either escaped or be dead right now. ‘Or did someone survive?’ Ben thought.

Ben entered the escape door and advanced through the basement. The closer he got, the louder the growls became. ‘They’re fighting in the basement’. Once he arrived at the entrance door, the howls stopped and he heard the sound of wolves having a meal. He opened the door to reveal a crack and peeked into the room.

He saw two wolves eating what looked like a dog-sized ostrich. Through the blood-soaked feathers, he noticed that its feathers were a mix of purple and green with what seemed like a bouquet on top of its tail. Almost like a fun-sized ostrich fused with a peacock. What wasn't small were its protracted talons attached to its foot, though.

The ostrich-looking beast must have used it well as Ben saw one of the wolves limping.

Ben opened the door until his body could fit and entered as silently as he could. Luckily, the wolves were too busy with the dead ostrich and didn’t hear Ben advance.

Ben advanced on his toes and activated [Piercing Grasp] in preparation. Right before he fully activated his skill his gauntlet creaked, alerting the wolves. Before they turned around, Ben jumped at the wolf without injuries and grabbed its hind leg.

CRUNCH

Ben pulverized the wolf’s leg, leaving it hanging by just a spare tendon. A small hit and the wolf’s entire leg would be amputated. The wolf couldn’t take the shock and collapsed on the floor.

Ben hurriedly switched targets to the last remaining wolf. The remaining wolf ignored its wounds and jumped at Ben. Ben blocked its strike with his shield and grabbed its paw.

CRUNCH

Ben obliterated the wolf’s paw. In addition to its previous injuries, the wolf couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed next to its friend.

[Congratulation! You have slain a Lv. 5 Mimic Wolf!]

[Congratulation! You have slain a Lv. 4 Mimic Wolf!]

[You gained 12 bronze coins]

[Piercing Grasp leveled up!]

[Congratulations! You leveled up!]

He quickly assigned all his stat points into Will and felt slightly refreshed with his headache lessening.

He was surprised he leveled up this quickly since his level was so high compared to the wolves’. Perhaps he was already close to leveling up, or it was his skill leveling up that granted him the most experience. He figured it was the latter since he leveled up six times directly after awakening his soul arm. Leveling up skills seemed to garner a lot of experience.

He wondered how the system decided a skill or a level leveled up. If it meant just repeatedly using the skill to level it up, it seemed very easy to progress. But somehow that felt too easy to Ben.

Ben checked the storage room and noticed it was the same as they left it. John was still in his bag in the corner.

‘I’ll come back.’ Ben thought.

Ben’s thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of wolves howling and running. And they were getting closer. Ben took this as his cue and entered the secret passageway Rolo had first introduced them to. When the wolves entered, all they encountered were a pair of dead wolves surrounding a dead ostrich.

***

Ben pressed on into the passage. It seemed like the passage hadn’t been discovered by any other wolves or ostriches.

He walked past John’s office, but heard snoring and decided to go somewhere else. He walked until he arrived at the initial entrance Rolo showed them.

He slightly opened the door Rolo had previously unlocked and peered inside. What he encountered was more of the same he encountered in the basement. He saw lifeless bodies of wolves and ostrich-like monsters sprawled across room 8.

From the looks of things, wolves must have been feasting on Rolo’s deceased group members when the ostriches commenced their attack.

It was a battlefield. These species must be in some kind of war between each other. There was no other explanation for the large amounts of deaths on either side. But what were they waging war for?

It couldn’t be that they killed each other to level up, right? It was a possibility, but he had a hard time believing two species were willing to put their life at risk in such large numbers, just to level up.

A lot of them had already died, and from the sounds echoing through the monastery, he imagined a lot more would die. Or perhaps the beasts had a grudge against each other. If not, there had to be something more.

Ben continued his advance into the hallways. For some strange reason, he gravitated to room 3, the room where it all began. Maybe because he had at least some knowledge of the layout of the hallways in that area.

The closer he got, the stronger the feeling became. It got to a point where it eclipsed the pain in his head.

The closer he got, the louder he could hear wolves growling as well. It seemed to be a large group. It was probably for the best if he didn’t go there, such a large group would be trouble. But for some reason, he kept advancing.

He got close enough to identify where the sounds came from. It came from room 3.

Ben wasn’t superstitious, but this came a little bit too close to home. He discarded the eerie feeling and peeked into room 3. He involuntarily opened his mouth.

He saw an ostrich, but this one was different. It had a deep dark purple color with the occasional contrasting bright yellow barb. Not too mention, it was floating about 4 feet above the ground

With the system, he would’ve accepted floating monsters and deep purple ostriches, but he just couldn’t take his eyes off of the bird. He felt it deep inside him, a feeling that deeply coveted that bird. He didn't know why, but he knew he did. As if he wanted to cradle it in his arms and cherish it.

Ben saw four wolves surrounding the wolves, with greedy expressions on their faces. They wanted to attack the floating bird, but they somehow couldn’t move. The bird must have used a skill on them.

The levitating ostrich stretched its talon out and leisurely moved it to a nearby wolf.

SLASH

The wolf’s throat was casually swiped and fell on the floor. For a brief moment, the wolves bared their fangs out of anger and were about to jump the bird. That intention quickly faded when the wolves once again were put standing still on their place

Ben was horrified. What skill was that? It could just casually walk up to a monster and kill it? A feeling of dread appeared, what if it went after him. If he was like the wolves, he had no way to fight back and would die a useless death.

The floating bird stretched out its talon and floated to the next wolf. Ben could swear he saw some sweat falling from its forehead as this power must cost the bird a lot. A second before the bird arrived at its next victim, the wolves’ trance shattered. The bird was out of power.

The wolves pounced on the bird. The bird killed the closest wolf by slicing its throat, but the other wolves were already jumping on it. It had nowhere to go. One of the wolves swatted the bird out of the air, making it crash on the floor. The other wolf dove onto the fallen bird and bit into its wing.

The bird was about to accept its fate when Ben arrived and grabbed the wolf’s snout.

CRUNCH

Blood splattered everywhere as the wolf’s snout was squeezed out of existence. The bird didn’t miss this chance and ended the wolf’s life with its talon.

The last remaining wolf jumped on them, but it had no chance. It was quickly dispatched by him and the bird.

He didn’t know why he saved it. He could’ve just let it die, what was it to him? Maybe he acted because they had a common enemy, or perhaps it was that weird feeling he got when looking at the bird. Maybe the bird was the reason he got attracted to this room in the first place.

Ben and the floating bird silently stared at each other in a mutual agreement of truce. He could see that the bird was tired.

The bird took one good look at him and proceeded to walk away leaving a bloody trail from the blood dripping from its wing.