Leveling Endlessly With My Harem
Chapter 75: Retreat
CHAPTER 75: RETREAT
Max felt the rush of strength in his body as he smiled and looked down at the wolves. They were still growling at him but had stopped attacking after seeing him kill one of them.
’What to do with the Alpha?’ Max thought, giving a side glance to the Alpha Duskwither Wolf.
[Name – Alpha Duskwither Wolf]
[Rank – Middle-Stage Second-Grade]
[HP – 100%]
[Aggro – 20%]
’Huh? Only 20%?’ Max was surprised seeing that, as he had expected at least half because of his slaughter. But the Alpha didn’t seem to care much about him.
Instead, it was looking at Charlotte, who was standing in the middle of tens of Duskwither Wolves, yet not a single one of them could even get close to her.
She was like an untainted flower growing in dirty mud.
Her eyes were closed as she held her wooden wand in hand, muttering some words to herself.
All of a sudden, the Alpha Duskwither Wolf howled loudly, alerting every single being in the vicinity. Even Max gripped his weapon tightly, wondering if the Alpha was going to join the battle.
However, to his surprise, the Alpha retreated, and the other wolves retreated alongside it—though it was clear they were reluctant to leave.
Max was still confused with all of that when he heard Stelle shouting at the retreating white wolves.
"Why are you leaving, doggies? I just started to have some fun! Come back! Please! Doggo!"
He sighed and came down from the tree. Whatever the reason, the wolves had retreated for now, so that was good news. After all, Max wasn’t sure he could defeat it.
Unlike Bronze Rank, the difference between each stage of Monster power ranks grew larger and larger. To be precise, that just happens the higher you go in either of the power systems.
The gap between Level 1 and Level 9 of Bronze was most likely smaller than the gap between Level 1 and Level 2 of Silver Rank.
That was why Max wasn’t confident in dealing with the Alpha—especially with so many of its underlings with it.
He went toward Charlotte, who had canceled her spell—or at least the one that isolated her from the surroundings. He guessed that she had kept the spell active that blocked those forest sounds.
"Did you do something?" Charlotte asked, just as confused as he was. "Why did it run away?"
"It probably saw the chances of losing because of you, so it decided to retreat. These leader-type monsters are intelligent, so it isn’t surprising if that big guy could think of all of this," Max smiled and said.
It was just a guess, but he was more than sure that the Alpha only retreated because of Charlotte. Without her, they would have most likely died—or at least been heavily wounded.
"Thanks for the assist, by the way," he said. "Blocking those sounds really gives you a buff in fighting here—especially since the monsters here rely on it to hunt."
Just then, the grumpy Stelle came toward them while kicking a severed head of a wolf. "It was just starting to get fun!"
"What are you? A butcher?" Max rolled his eyes. "If that Alpha had really attacked, you would be the first one to die, you know. Well, maybe not—considering you don’t pack anything in your body, so it might have left you alive."
"Dummy, has anyone ever told you that you have a very small head?" Stelle asked with a smile. "It seems to be almost floating as if gravity can’t even pull it down."
"The insult was good, but execution terrible. You gotta learn a lot, kiddo," Max sighed.
Charlotte giggled lightly and said, "You two really get along well."
"You think so?" Max smirked. "I feel our chemistry is better though. A handsome guardian protecting his beautiful healer who always provides him support."
Stelle quickly came in between and said, "I can protect her well. Also, do you remember our agreement? Wanna see who killed more?"
"I didn’t know you had such masochistic tendencies that you can’t wait to get punished," he leaned forward, almost touching her face with his forehead.
Stelle blushed slightly, though it was unclear whether it was because of the close distance between them or his words.
"I don’t think either of you calculated the numbers, right?" Charlotte asked in amusement.
"Ah! I completely forgot about it," Stelle exclaimed before turning toward Max. "Did you do it? You were sitting on that tree, no?"
"Of course..."
[She killed 6 more than you!]
"...not. I was busy myself, so how would I calculate?" Max shrugged while thanking Kafka in his heart.
"We’ll do it properly next time," Stelle smiled. "I will get you for one day, hehe. Then, you’ll begin to respect me."
"Let’s ignore her for now. Did you level up?" Charlotte stepped in front of Stelle and asked Max. "That should be enough, right?"
"I did level up once," Max smiled, clenching his fist. "It was a good warm-up!"
He had not expected to level up so quickly right after entering the Labyrinth—but then again, this was the charm of the Leveling System when faced against a horde of opponents.
If he didn’t have the nerf, he might have leveled up once more. But since he couldn’t, he also didn’t want to pursue it any further.
Besides, the only reason he was able to do that was because he had a genius healer with him.
If she hadn’t cast that spell which nullified the sounds of the forest, he would have surely suffered wounds. After all, Duskwither Wolves knew how to use the forest to their advantage, and Max didn’t really have a counter against those voices.
Of course, his training with Harley also played an important role. In just a few hours, he had learned many things from her, and his combat sense had increased by a huge margin.
He was able to dodge every single attack from the wolves because of his excellent footwork and the sword techniques he had used against them.
If he had failed even once, the wolves would have bitten off a chunk of his flesh—and coupled with their Bleed skill, he might have been closer to death than ever.
Not to mention that Stelle and Charlotte had managed to take off full aggro from him. If he had been all alone, he would have died ten times over.
This was the reason he wanted a team.