While Shesmu and Ryan were talking, Leo was standing alone, facing the hobgoblin on a one on one deathmatch. The monster would slash downwards from the left, and Leo would slash upwards from the right, parrying the attack.

The same scenario kept playing out with different angles and different positions, but none of the contestants was able to hit the other. The monster was too slow, and Leo too unskilled to take advantage of openings.

After ending his conversation with Ryan, Shesmu looked at Leo fighting. At first, he thought about helping him right away, but after looking at things for a bit, he found out that Leo was doing good for himself.

Well, he should learn to defend himself on his own. Plus, if he is in any danger, I can always help him out. Unless he gets his head cleaved off, or heart destroyed, he won't be one-shot.

While Shesmu was watching Leo fight against the hobgoblin, Ryan stood up and sat down next to Shesmu.

"Why aren't you helping Leo?" Ryan asked. He obviously knew that Shesmu had a soft spot for Leo. The fact that he suggested leaving mob kills to him was a big indication.

"I can't always be there for him. Plus, wouldn't he find it boring if I helped him every single time he is in trouble? It's better for him to learn to fight alone now, than later when there are many more skills to be familiar with."

"I guess that's true," Ryan concluded. The wound on his chest by that point was already healed, no scar was left to be seen.

Noticing that he was already fine, Shesmu asked Ryan, "By the way, how did you survive that stab to the chest? I thought that it pierced your heart when I saw it."

"Ah, that. I'm not sure too. But just before I got hit, I felt a shiver down my spine and my body moved on its own. I guess that it was just a lucky dodge," Ryan explained.

"I see," Shesmu responded.

"Honestly, I was a bit surprised. I didn't expect the hob to be that ruthless and fast."

Hearing Ryan's laments, Shesmu fell into deep thoughts too. Yeah, that hob was a bit too good. Maybe it was a special one? Reaching this conclusion, Shesmu looked at Ryan before asking.

"Can you check your inventory? I have this suspicion that the hob was a special one. If so, it should drop an Ether stone like the last one."

Ryan checked his inventory before responding.

"Oh, you're right. It did drop an Ether stone. It also dropped a blood dagger."

"Oh, that's neat!" Shesmu exclaimed. "Show me, that might be a pretty good weapon."

"Sure." A dagger appeared in Ryan's hand. Its hilt was red, and its blade sharp. "Here you go."

Shesmu took the dagger from Ryan's hand and inspected it.

[Blood Dagger

Rarity: Iron+

Required Level: 7

Weapon Level: 1

Attack: 70]

"Yeah, it's an Iron+ dagger. Pretty powerful."

Ryan took back the weapon from Shesmu's hands before playing around with it a bit. He looked at Shesmu and a grin stretched all over his face.

"Now, with this, you think you can still beat me like last time?"

Hearing Ryan's taunts, Shesmu rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter how powerful the weapon is if it can't touch its target."

"Tsk, touché.."

Both Ryan and Shesmu's focus went back to the fight in front of them. As time went on, Leo became more and more familiar with the attacks of hobgoblin. He was now able to sneak a counter-attack or two before switching back to defense. As such, he slowly but surely chipped away at the monster's health. That was until it reached the 20% mark.

When that HP threshold was passed, a red aura of energy engulfed the monster's body.

After another missed hit by the hob, Leo tried to counter-attack as he did throughout the whole fight. But just as his sword was about to slash through the monster's side, it countered with a slash of its own.

Huh, so it has a berserk mode. Interesting. If this hob is already this strong, I wonder how much stronger the boss would be.

Leo clutched at his shoulder. Even though he could barely feel any pain, the shock of receiving such a wound halted him mentally. Leo looked at his Hp only to find it down to 212. He used Inspect on the monster and was surprised to find that its health went up to 320.

"Is that a lifesteal type monster?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah, and a pretty powerful one at that. I think that rest time is over, this is not an opponent Leo can handle now. He just doesn't have the damage needed."

Saying these words, Shesmu stood up and unsheathed his sword. He took a few steps towards Leo and the hobgoblin before raising his sword and starting a swinging motion.

By this point, Ryan had already seen this move multiple times. His eyes darted directly to where the monster stood, and immediately Shesmu appeared, his sword but inches away from berserker's neck. As usual, his accuracy is topnotch, Ryan thought.

The moment Shesmu appeared was the moment the hobgoblin saw its death. Shesmu didn't give it any time to react, and immediately used Empowered Slash Cancel.

165

330

Blood gushed out of the hobgoblin's neck before it fell down, lifeless.

At that moment, two notifications reached Shesmu. He opened them and two messages unfolded.

[Congratulations, you leveled up!]

[Weapon Level up!]

After looking at the messages, Shesmu had decided to leave checking his weapon's new stats and allocating his points until later. He still hadn't allocated his points since reaching level five, so he needed to do that soon.

"Huff, huff. What took you guys so long?" Leo asked.

"Well, it seemed that you were having fun battling against the hob. Didn't think it was appropriate to stop you in the middle of it," Shesmu answered.

"It was fun. It's just that when he went berserk, I thought I was a goner. Well, enough of that. What did it drop?" Leo asked, expectation clear in his voice. Until now, every hobgoblin dropped the weapon that it was using. Now that he defeated a sword wielder hobgoblin, his heart was pumping in excitement.

"Aren't you the happy little child," Ryan teased. "It would be funny if all of the hobs drop their weapon but this one. Now that would be hilarious."

"Stop jinxing it, you idiot!"

"Okay, okay, we can have this discussion later. Ryan just show us the drops already."

Hearing Shesmu's rebuttal, Ryan clicked his tongue before saying. "Fine, if you guys don't wanna have fun then it's your loss."

Grumbling those last words, Ryan materialized a sword in his hand. Its hilt was red, much like Ryan's own. Seeing this, Shesmu already had an idea about how strong it could be.

[Blood Sword

Rarity: Iron+

Required Level: 7

Weapon Level: 1

Attack: 80]

"Well, seems like you were lucky, Leo. The weapon you got is pretty good," Shesmu announced. He stopped as he remembered something, before he continued, "But it's required Level is 7. Did you reach it from this fight?"

"Ah, about that. Yeah, I barely reached level 7. Hobgoblins are really generous with their exp," Leo answered, feeling lucky that he reached level 7 and could equip his new sword.

"Then that's good. Well, since everything is ready, we can finally challenge the boss."