With bold, artistic movements tinged with a hint of clumsiness, he moved among a small group of five undead creatures identical to the others and another five similar to those he had encountered first.
The first five carried swords, and the other five carried dry tree trunks. Thanks to his power, he could practically ignore those carrying dry trunks and focus on the stronger ones. It also helped that they weren't very intelligent, allowing him to move boldly among them.
At unexpected moments, he killed the weakest ones, but the wounds on his body became very apparent. His boxing skills were mediocre for fighting several at once without taking damage, but his agility was superior to that of these undead, so he managed to avoid serious injury.
And between moves, the first undead swordsman fell to the ground.
[You have leveled up]
The announcement excited him while also increasing his strength, allowing him to be more agile and daring in his fierce movements. He grabbed the head of one of them and tore it off, then used it to smash the head of another, breaking it instantly.
"Oh. It's more effective." He barely noticed, so he smiled and quickly approached the next one...
Having seen the efficiency of killing something with something else, he ended the fight by smashing one's head with a rock from a distance.
[You have leveled up]
"One more, good..." His happiness reached its peak, but suddenly he felt a chill run down his spine.
It was as if his keen senses were telling him that something was coming from behind, so he turned around immediately.
His face suddenly succumbed to panic.
'What the hell is that?'
Across his vision, a monster about three meters tall, one meter wide, and four meters long stood on two skeletal legs, similar to those of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Its back was hunched entirely, pointing toward the sky, while two strange bony formations protruded from it, as if they were malformed wings.
Its front legs were as long as its hind legs, but they were strangely shrunk due to the formation of strange bones on the elbows. Although it had skin, it appeared to be rotten. In fact, it gave off a horrible, unbearable smell.
This beast stared at him with strange black eyes that seemed lifeless yet seemed to glow with malice and a strong desire to eat him.
Louis couldn't help but feel afraid when he saw it, but he didn't even have time to think before it attacked, forcing him to jump aside and cover himself, as a tree was shattered in the process.
When he hit the ground, he immediately jumped back and drew his gun in the air, trying to aim at the terrifying beast in front of him.
'This bastard... He's very powerful,'
The strength of its terrifying claws was more powerful than his own punch.
And he already had more than 55 points in strength!
He couldn't understand how he had encountered this kind of beast here, but he had to assume that it was one of the undead from the Middle Wing.
'Am I already in the Middle Wing?' was his first thought, but that couldn't be the case.
Perhaps the beast had simply come down, or perhaps it ruled this area where he had wandered in. He couldn't predict the undead, after all. Most were strangely peculiar and lacked developed intelligence, but they were deadly dangerous.
While he was in the air, aiming at it, this terrifying monster lunged at him with a leap.
"Shit." This forced him to shoot immediately. The monster's claws collided with his gun, and the shot went off.
*BANG*
The force of his shot was so surprising that the monster's terrifying body was pierced from its claws to the back of its back, opening a wound that should have been fatal.
Unfortunately, it wasn't.
There is no such thing as a mortal wound in an undead beast like this. It wouldn't do much good unless you manage to break a limb or something. At best, it would limit its mobility somewhat, but nothing more.
Even so, the impact between the claw and his gun sent Louis flying backwards, confused by what his eyes were seeing.
[The required number of shots has been fired]
[You have unlocked your Sequence Ranks]
[Armament Sequence: Front-Tier. Rank E.]
[You are a Rank E Novice Armsman within the Front-tier Sequence.]
[Continue on your path as an Armamentalist to increase your Rank and, consequently, your Sequence.]
[You have unlocked the ability to see the Magic Patterns hidden behind each attack.]
[This has unlocked your vision. You can now see things you couldn't see before.]
The messages that flashed and appeared constantly before his eyes confused him, but when he read that something had changed in his Occupation section, he looked at his stats window.
There, right where the Occupation section was, it was now complemented by his Occupation Rank.
'I guess it's like a level system,' he thought.
But what are Magic Patterns? He would have asked himself if he hadn't seen something that seemed to surround his gun in the previous shot.
Just as he fired, a strange pattern appeared, made up of what looked like smaller patterns forming a circle around his weapon.
It reminded him of something.
The magic patterns used to cast spells in fantasy novels.
'It seems they exist here too.'
Even so, what good was it to be able to see them if he didn't know what they were for or how to make them?
'Shit.' For a moment, he had let his guard down by paying too much attention to the system messages and had forgotten that he was fighting a pretty strong beast.
The claws entering his field of vision, mixed with something he hadn't seen before, made him realize the danger he was in.
[Undead Abyssal Tyrannosaurus: Level 30]
That name appeared above the creature's head as it attacked him, and it was thanks to the name that Louis had time to step aside to dodge it. At the same time, with his hand holding his weapon, he struck the creature's forehead.
His fist struck one of the bones in the leg that had been wounded earlier, breaking several bones, but forcing it into combat with its opponent, due to how close it was and the fact that he couldn't send it flying with his attack.
His mind moved quickly then.
'Agility of the Hunter Gunman.' He roared in his mind, activating his second skill. This time, he received a 10% increase in agility, consequently increasing his speed.
Thanks to that, he attacked several more times before jumping to dodge the incoming attack.
'He's very tough,'
His quick reaction had given him a slight advantage, and he hit it squarely on the head.