Savage Ascension: Starting with God-Tier Plunder Ability-Chapter 83: Never Move First

Without time to worry after briefly teaching about adapting to darkness, Rowan moved quickly, looking around, and without even looking with his eyes, he spread out the wild boar hide he’d brought, hid his body against the tree trunk, and took out his bow.

’Don’t need the longbow.’

It was a forest hill where vision was extremely limited. On top of that, although the moonlight was bright, there were many shadows, so he didn’t need to tie attachments to both ends of the short bow to increase tension.

He held the short bow and three arrows in each hand and swept his surroundings.

Along with rustling sounds came the sound of tree bark being crushed and falling under shoes. From the rough sounds, they seemed to think they absolutely wouldn’t be discovered.

’It’s hard to capture the guy in the tree.’

Obviously he’d be holding a bow. If he heard sounds near him, his head would immediately turn down. That would only put Rowan in danger. He carefully examined the tree while drawing his bowstring.

When the movement stopped, he poured out the 3 arrows he held in his hands. Avoiding arrows in a tree was difficult, and it was in a tree with rough night wind blowing. Because leaves rustled very close by, the noise inevitably had to be quite loud.

"Urk!"

As soon as he heard the sound, Rowan headed to the fallen guy. He swung his round shield once to strike, and the other time he brought down the edge of the shield. Without making a single sound, the guy collapsed.

Hit by three arrows, his life or death was up to heaven. Because he’d tried to attack from behind, it would have been right to kill this bastard, but Rowan’s greed stopped it. Even if he regained consciousness, he’d fainted once so he wouldn’t be able to move his body.

Moving with injuries when your body had gone cold was accompanied by terrible pain. Even if your foot swells, if heat rises you can somehow go, but once you rest that’s the end. Rowan was no different from forcibly giving him a painful rest.

While turning his body, Rowan turned back and brought the shield down once more on the ankle of the guy who’d collapsed and fainted.

Thud.

His body dangled. It was cruel, but Rowan had the most selfish emotions of anyone. When teaching the greenhorn mercenaries he seemed quite devoted, but the bottom of humanity was most cruel in darkness.

When the French lodge where people laughed and chatted was isolated for 55 days, the cultured person who’d sipped afternoon tea dreamed of life while eating human flesh. It was no different from that.

Rowan lowered his body and detoured while half-hiding his figure in the lowest places possible.

The forest hill was nothing but quiet. The attackers who seemed to be robbers had taken high ground and sent a skilled guy up a tree. What they wanted was to find the guys who’d lit fires.

Because the mercenaries chose to detour, they were very careful. Even in darkness they tried to use what Rowan had taught them, so time was delayed.

Both the robber gang and the greenhorn mercenaries made mistakes. Only Rowan was thorough. The reason was that Rowan was exceptionally accustomed to darkness. It wasn’t the emotions and senses ordinary humans had, but because after the black wolf (Mavros lyko) incident he’d benchmarked that beast.

If an assassin concealed themselves with technique, Rowan concealed himself instinctively. That level was never something riffraff could detect.

The robbers searched boldly. They didn’t talk, but moved without hesitation with their upper bodies raised. They even came out of the shadows. Rowan never moved first. Even when the moment came to neutralize them, he waited on the robbers’ left side ahead of the mercenaries.

To attack from behind, the robbers had to turn their bodies and heads toward the greenhorn mercenaries on the right. Only then could he strike a perfect rear.

Also, he didn’t want to step forward first and face danger. Fighting multiple opponents was no different from a battle of probability. There was no way Rowan could block all arrows and throwing weapons.

More than anything, Rowan had founded the mercenary group to reduce danger. But acting as bait himself in combat? If such a choice was possible, he would have gone out alone as a lone wolf.

The mercenaries’ mistake was Large Shield Espin. Born and raised in Torch Fortress, he was uncomfortable moving in a forest hill where tree roots stuck out and bushes blocked the way ahead. On top of that, he had a shield. He couldn’t give it up because of his large build.

Thunk!

Loud enough for everyone to hear, the sharp corner of the square shield roughly struck a tree root that stuck out roughly.

"It’s them!"

Unless it was an iron shield, there was no way it could make such a loud sound, and the shields held by robbers going up and down hills were all crude wooden shields, and they didn’t have a large enough surface area to hit trees. They were just enough to block opponents’ weapons.

Commotion broke out, but Rowan frowned.

The expected confusion didn’t happen, the robbers just started shouting loudly, and the mercenary group, startled instead, started shooting arrows wildly. Because the direction of the sound was right, the robbers also found cover here and there and then threw throwing weapons.

They threw wood in the shape of hammers or wooden axes and stones. Some robbers shot their own arrows made with quite a bit of effort.

"Aaargh! Sons of bitches!"

When Bearded Doren got hit in the head by a stone, he screamed but also spat curses. He crawled looking for another tree. When blood flowed down and seeped into his left eye, he closed his left eye. The left side of his body crawling escaped the shadow and was clearly visible, but Doren with ruined vision couldn’t know that.

’Got him.’