CHAPTER 14: DRAWING THE PLAN.

           After taking a few minutes to rest and recover his strength, Morales finally stood up to go inspect the 5 corpses that lay before him. Seeing him stand up, the others gritted their teeth and also stood up.

           The first thing that they did on getting close was to thoroughly check the 5 assassins for any dangerous substance, after this, they finally looted them.

           They offered the loot to Morales to take his share first, but he simply waved them off to take everything. He was the one who asked for their help, giving them this little favor was nothing in return.

           The only thing that he took was the pugilist pamphlets that the dead protector Davis took with him.

           Seeing the dead dungeon protector, Morales sighed in resignation. His original plan was to kill 5, then take one hostage to ask for information about why they were pursuing him so relentlessly.

           The assassin that escaped first disrupted his plan, then the fierce Davis completely botched the rest.

           Though this was not something that he would fret about, he still thought that it was a pity as the mission that he activated was still vivid to him. Not only because of the mission, but he also wanted to know more about the body that he occupied.

           He quickly willed his system to let him view the mission again, and he wanted to see the introduction of the pugilist pamphlets. He had a strange expression on his face as he looked at the brown scrolls.

           “What a weird protector”. He felt like this guy was cosplaying a medieval movie. Even in the current age of the game, recording skills in pamphlets is a primitive inclination.

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[D-Rank Mission activated: Discover the one who wants you dead.]

As a descendant of the great Clifford family, your life is supposed to be without troubles. Someone in your family is after you. Accumulate strength, go back to the dungeon where you were held, and look for answers.

Base Mission Reward: 200,000 experience.

Bonus Reward: According to mission completion rate and completion of hidden requirements.

…                                                                                       

Pugilist Pamphlets:

1-    Essence of a Pugilist- Knowing your body like the smooth bosom of a beautiful lady.

2-    Developing endurance- The ultimate thick skin ability.

3-    Stony face- The art of indifference.

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           Seeing what was before him, Morales could not help it as black lines completely filled his face.

           “Is anything wrong…?”

           “Umm, no”. Morales quickly evaded his companion’s questions and turned around.

           “A weird protector indeed. No wonder he had such thick skin, what a bastard!” To him, the pamphlet to practice endurance was even tolerable, what the hell was this lewd guy doing with the art of indifference?

           “Was he planning on chasing a girl? F*ck!”

           “Ahem…,” Noticing the increasing weird looks that his companions directed at him, he finally straightened his back and regained his composure. His thoughts quickly returned to what was bothering him.

Though he had access to the memories of his new body, most of the important memories still seemed like fleeting clouds to him, he could not view them as easily as the common ones yet.

           He had a lot of guesses about why this was so, his main guess was that this happened because he had not upgraded the system yet or maybe because he was still too low leveled.

           He wanted to avoid going back to the dungeon of madness, but it seems that it was his fate to go there. He sighed in resignation.

           The road ahead seems to be muddy with danger to him. As one of the assassins escaped, the head dungeon protector would probably guess that he was coming. This would make his plans a lot more dangerous.

           Well, he could only cope with it the way it comes. He was now really curious to know the real identity of his body, perhaps, he would receive some surprises. That was what his intuition was telling him.

           “Morales, do you still have anything to do here?” Lionel asked on seeing him dazed.

           “No, at least not here, but I think that I have a lot of things to do later”. Morales answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

           “But let’s go back first, for now, perhaps the others are already freaking out on waking up and not seeing us. We are kind of their spiritual pillar now you know”. Lionel winked.

           The others laughed at this lame joke as they turned and started walking back inside the forest. As they walked, Lionel blabbered on without stop, making their journey a little eventful.

           Before they got back, the day was already completely dark. The others were startled at first when they noticed them coming, but after recognizing them, they all heaved sighs of relief.

           On getting back, Morales and Lionel separated from the other 3 and located an isolated place to spend the night. After such an eventful day, they had to get proper rest to recover completely.

           It was slow, but after the leaders fell asleep, just like the chain reaction of radioactive material after its half-life was exceeded, the other escapees gradually started falling asleep.

           Some climbed up to sleep in the tree branches, others slept on the ground and covered themselves with tree leaves. They did all these after selecting the ones that would act as the night watch.

The night was a peaceful one as the moon hanging up above reflected its brilliance down on the Beiger planet’s surface.

…

The next morning, Morales woke up earlier than the others as usual. He didn’t leave where he slept at. After watching his face with the vial of water that Leonel brought, he just sat down drawing different lines and symbols on the floor.

At times, he would stop a bit, held his chin like he was in deep thought before bending again to continue drawing his strange lines.

If someone saw him like this, it was easy to take it that he had gone mad. It seemed that way at first glance as he was completely absorbed in what he was doing, he hardly looked elsewhere.

After thinking a lot about it the night prior, he finally decided that he would go back and attack the dungeon of madness today.

Even if the mission from the system was not given, he would have still gone there as he now felt burning curiosity about his real background. He was sure that he would get lots of clues there.

Going alone to such a dangerous location was basically suicide, which was why he decided to go now. He just rescued hundreds of slaves with most of them having fighting capabilities.

What better time to take advantage of them than now that he seemed like their hero?

After doing a vigorous probability test, he discovered that this was his only chance of being able to invade the dungeon of madness in the short run.

He was confident that through a combination of tangible benefits and slight emotional manipulation, he would be able to draw some of these freed slaves to himself.

The method that he decided to adopt was feasible, but it would amount to nothing without a concrete plan.

The lines and symbols that he took so much time drawing on the ground were his strategies. This was the strategy of the players in his previous life that was tested and verified, so he was completely confident in it.

The only problem was remembering the exact layout of the dungeon. As this was a low-level dungeon that soon became less important to the players, he found it hard to remember its overall layout.

Though this would have been a challenge for his previous self, he could do it now. After becoming a pugilist, he discovered to his surprise that most of his body functions were more active, including his brain.

It took him another 15 minutes to flesh out his plan and by this time, Lionel was already awake.

Getting up, the young man was startled on seeing what his companion was doing. To him, Morales was just drawing jargon on the ground like a little kid with little sense of being.

“What are you doing?” He asked, a little suspicious as he did not see Morales as such a person. “Or was he pretending since? Is he someone with weird tendencies?”

Seeing his expression, Morales chuckled. “Nothing much, just a raid strategy plan that I drew”.

Leonel immediately became alarmed as he snapped. “You’re looking for another battle, don’t you ever get tired? I’m done, I’m not following you anywhere, you are doing this by yourself”. 

“Calm down bro, let me tell you more”.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. No matter what you tell me, I won’t support you, count me out”.

Morales already predicted that this would happen, so he already laid out a solution for this. His brain was not there for fancy, he succeeded in fabricating a believable story this morning.

“It’s like this…” He quickly filled the glowering Lionel on the bunch of nonsense that he bundled together.

“This, is this true?” Lionel asked in a low voice that contained slight suspicion.

“Yeah, it’s true. Have I ever lied to you? Why can’t you believe me for once?”

“Humph!” Lionel snorted.

Though he perceived that what Morales said may be true, he also knew that he was probably doing this for a specific goal. The Morales that he knew for the past 2 months was not a charity giver nor a father Christmas.

“If what you said is true, I think I can help you, but do you think that the others will believe in what you said? You have no tangible evidence”. He added.

“That’s why I told you first. Help me convince Tigerclaw, Bigfoot, and Hero, the others would listen to us more that way if we have the same conviction”.

Seeing his still skeptical look, Morales quickly added. “Don’t worry, I know that not everybody would agree, but some would definitely agree”.

“And…, I have some tangible goodies for them”. It’s hard to find people that can resist bribes, both in his previous world, this world, and any other world. He was confident.