Chapter 7:

At 10 a.m., we were all gathered at the marketer Victoria's home, as she had kindly offered her three-bedroom apartment as a meeting place.

“Is everyone ready?” I took on the role of leader and, as the experienced comrade, checked the equipment of those who had arrived. “Food, water, tents, sleeping bags? I remind you that we might be there for a while, so tell your family and friends that you're going to a corporate retreat and won't have any service there. In the portal, communication only works with users of Symb version 2.0 bracelets, and we’re all going into the portal. Well, or maybe someone wants to stay and keep in touch with the outside world?” I gave the doubters a chance to back out. “Great, since no one wants to stay, we’ll check everything one last time, and we're off. Get your weapons out and wait for my command.”

The assembled group pulled their bladed and pointed weapons out of their inventories and got ready.

“I bought three crossbows,” Pyotr said very timely. “They only cost ten thousand each at the hunting store, and I decided to invest in the success of our venture. I didn't get a lot of bolts, though; they're too expensive. But I got ten for each crossbow. Does anyone have any shooting skills?”

“With automatic weapons,” Nikolay raised his hand.

“Well, the general principle is the same. Stock, sight, aim, and shoot. It’s not complicated; we'll try it out as we go.”

Anna also asked for a crossbow and said that she had shot a bow when she was a child. We decided on that, forming a ranged squad with them. Khabib volunteered to lead the way and glanced at Katya (Ekaterina) to see if she had noticed his bravery. He brought a real, round medieval shield with him. When asked where he got it, he shrugged and said that he bought it at a medieval goods store. It turns out that you can really find anything you want in Moscow, and if you have the money, it's not difficult to find what you need.

[Subspace quantum capacity is full. Form a transition?]

I confirmed the opening of the portal, but a suddenly a pop-up with a clarifying message made me hesitate.

[A group of more than three users with full quantum capacity has been detected. Form a group portal?]

“Okay, guys. We can form a group portal. If a request appears now, confirm it.” I shared the news with the group and confirmed my choice again. The transition that formed, hanging in the center of the room, confirmed the theory that the first portal was forced, while the others gave you the option to enter them or leave them hanging in the air.

[Group Portal Level 5. Kobold Cave]

“Attention!” I opened the internet and searched for the name of the race. “Kobolds are humanoid creatures. Descriptions on the internet vary; they can be dog-headed, lizard-headed, or rat-like creatures. They walk upright, and their usual weapon is a pickaxe for mining rock. There are also kobold mages. But this is human mythology, and we don't know what awaits us after the transition,” I finished reading the article from the internet and continued. “Khabib goes in first, followed by the other guys. Then the lovely ladies, and finally, I'll go in and close the portal.” We didn't want to risk me going in first and came to a collective decision that the person who opened the portal would go in last and come out last as well.

The mountain man shielded himself, took a deep breath, and rushed into the portal with a fierce expression on his face, ready to engage in combat immediately. Khabib’s figure rippled and in a fraction of a second collapsed into itself, disappearing into the portal and leaving a fading image of space folded like a pretzel on my retina.

The other men of the group followed him, and after a moment of hesitation, so did the girls. I was left alone in the apartment, and with one last look at the morning sun outside the window, I stepped forward.

The whole company was huddled around the corpse of a dog-headed humanoid about the size of an adult human’s waist, looking at it with interest.

This time, for a change, we found ourselves in a classic cave lit by torches.

“Nikolay!” I called out to the security guard. “They're office workers. But you served and you should know the basics of discipline. What if we’re attacked right now? You can literally crush them with your bare hands like kittens.”

“No... Crushing them with your bare hands is exactly what Khabib does. As soon as we came in, we saw that he killed this little monster with a single blow. They’re kind of weak,” Smirnova replied to me.

“All the same, please. Don't lose your vigilance.” I already regretted getting involved with this company, which looked more like tourists on a picnic than people who had gone on a dangerous mission.

On the other hand, they hadn't had any dangerous situations yet; the first portal, according to everyone present, was more of an introductory one and didn't contain any special problems. And the sewer I had gone through was not even comparable to this kindergarten. They had never been on the brink of imminent death and saw all this as a fun game with no consequences.

“Okay, fine...” I continued. “What about experience? Did anyone besides Khabib get any?” Everyone shook their heads no. “That’s what I expected… When Anya and I went through the first portal, I also got all the experience for the kill. So, if you don't get the kill yourself, you get minimal experience for completing the location. A comforting reward for a pacifist.”

I picked up the killed kobold's pickaxe, examined the poor-quality tool, and threw it aside. I definitely wouldn't be able to fight with it, and no one planned to mine ore here. I might regret not taking the pickaxe, of course, but as a last resort, I still had the recently learned Hydrokinesis and two free construction slots. And inventing a skill that could drill through rocks was no problem at all for me. And the efficiency of hydro-abrasive cutting was clearly dozens of times higher than that of medieval pickaxes. A high-pressure jet of water can easily cut through a thick layer of metal, let alone a piece of rock.

The squad, after looking at the killed monster, finally started to come to their senses and looked around with interest.

“I propose the following course of action. The men go first and take the first blow. If possible, they should prevent the monsters from striking, either by taking their weapons or by cutting off their paws. Then we take turns finishing off the wounded so that everyone gets experience and we can bring up the stragglers. Once everyone reaches level two, we'll start acting in the same way to reach level three,” I consciously left myself out, knowing that I could easily make up for the lag in a solo portal with the dagger. And this self-sacrifice for the sake of the group could earn me a little respect, which I could use later. If I wanted to climb to the top of the world, I had to start gaining followers now, especially from among the first users, who were a priori destined to occupy the best position simply because of the fact of an early start.

Having created a weak semblance of a formation with the strong guys in front, we moved forward, and a couple of minutes later, around one of the turns, we immediately ran into another rat-creature, which was sitting and picking its nose with great enthusiasm, digging for minerals and immediately throwing what it found into its mouth.

The pickaxe of the would-be warrior lay next to it on the floor, and Alexey, who rushed forward, didn't miss his chance, kicking the monster, which was frozen in horror, in the chest and knocking it back.

The others reacted a little late and piled on the kobold, grabbing its limbs. The crucified humanoid screeched and twitched in an attempt to break free, but the difference in weight classes gave it no chance. Nikolay punched the dog-headed creature in the forehead, and it went limp, stopping its twitching.

“Whose turn is it to get experience?”

“Mine,” Anya came up to the monster with a cleaver in her hand and looked at it with pity. Despite its disgusting appearance, it was still a living creature, and judging by the scraps of cloth wrapped around its body and its weapon, it had self-awareness.

“Alert! Attack!” Khabib, who was watching the passage, shouted, and when I turned around, I saw five kobolds with pickaxes in their raised paws, rushing toward us. Apparently, the pathetic screams of our unfortunate lookout had worked as intended and attracted the monsters to our squad.

Nikolay, who was standing near the monster, didn't wait for Anya's reaction, and he mercilessly chopped the unconscious dog-headed creature in the head with an axe and, extending his hand, formed a fiery arrow. The flame that originated slightly in front of his outstretched palm swirled in a spherical spiral around a bright point until it broke through opposite his palm, forming a semblance of a rocket nozzle, taking on a conical shape, and flying toward the running monsters.

Surprisingly, the skill that was supposed to burn the user's hand every time didn't cause any problems for the security guard, unlike the kobold, whose torso was hit by a blob of flame that set its short, stiff fur on fire, causing a cry of pain from the humanoid. The ignited kobold threw its pickaxe and began to roll on the ground, trying to put out the flame.

Another one stumbled and rolled on the ground, and then a huge hunting knife materialized in its torso. I took a quick glance and, not seeing Ekaterina, realized that she, in her invisibility, had tripped the monster and then coolly finished it off. Brrr... I don't envy Khabib; such a quiet and decent-looking girl turned out to be a maniac with the makings of a true cold-blooded killer.

The remaining three kobolds, demoralized by their burning comrade, were beaten to death and trampled by the attacking squad members. All smeared in someone else’s blood and breathing heavily, they looked around with wild eyes for more victims.

Watching this bacchanalia, I vowed never to go into battle with them again in the future. At least not until they gained a little more experience. No planning, no composure, and no strategy. The crowd just ran at the crowd and won due to a numerical advantage and greater physical strength. What if the monsters were stronger than the average person? Then there would have been at least a few injuries.

“Is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt?”

The test subjects, looking around sheepishly, tidied themselves up. They took water out of their inventories and washed the blood off their faces, looking less like butchers at a slaughterhouse and more like people with blood-soaked clothes.

“This won’t do,” I decided to take the organization process into my own hands and continued, “Pyotr, Nikolay, Anna. Get your crossbows.” I walked up to the kobold carcass and, grabbing the light body, dragged it to the cave wall.

“Khabib, continue to watch the approaches, since you're so good at it,” I praised the mountain man. “And you guys, try shooting at the target. First, we'll check your accuracy, and second, the killing power of the bolts. It would be a shame if all they did was give these mutts a bunch of bruises.”

The twang of the bowstring and the squelching sounds of the bolts plunging into the flesh showed that they had more than enough killing power and that the light bodies of the kobolds were being shot through almost completely. The accuracy was a bit of a problem, but that could only be solved with practice and leveling up Dexterity. Fortunately, the thick and strong carbon bolts withstood the impact and didn't break after the shot.

“We’ll proceed with the following plan. Khabib goes first with his shield and takes the first unexpected blow. Behind him are the three archers. If we encounter one or two kobolds, we’ll distribute the targets. Try to shoot them in the shoulder or stomach so you don't kill them right away and we can distribute the experience among the others. If we encounter a large group, like the one we just valiantly dealt with, then there's no time for sentiment. Shoot to kill. Katya, for the future, think about carrying a piece of a fishing net with you. If you throw it over a lone opponent from invisibility, they won't pose any danger to you, and you can easily kill them without getting any closer. That's all; let's move out,” I finished the briefing.

The next lone kobold we encountered was hit by three bolts at once, killing it instantly. I gave a reproachful look to our archers and commanded them to move forward. A sharp turn in the cave ahead and a brighter light coming from there made the group slow down.

“Katya, please see what's going on there,” I asked our designated invisible person.

The girl cautiously walked up to the turn, rippled slightly, and disappeared from the visible spectrum.

“About fifty meters down the passage, there’s a hall with ten kobolds,” she reported cheerfully. “But one of them is huge and is holding a hammer. He looks pretty dangerous.”

“Did anyone bring a rope?” I asked the group.

“Yeah, I have a roll of a tourist rope,” Alexey took a coil of braided rope out of his inventory and showed it to me.

“That’ll do. Let's go back, collect the pickaxes, and make some tripwires that we’ll place near the turn. Then our archer squad will carefully peek around the turn, get closer, take a few shots, and run back to our protection. The kobolds will chase them, and some of them, the unluckiest ones, will fall into the trap, stumbling to the ground and allowing us to kill the rest.”

“That sounds easy,” a voice from the crowd said.

We collected the pickaxes, inserted the sharp ends into crevices in the walls, and tied an entire web out of the hundred-meter roll that was supposed to delay the opponents.

The trio of archers, waiting for us to line up in a battle formation, carefully climbed over the obstacle and, approaching the turn, looked around it.

“Ahhhhh!” Volkova screamed. “They're coming!” In a panic, the girl fired her crossbow in the direction of the monsters and ran back.

Apparently, our fuss had attracted the semi-sentient creatures, and they decided to see what was happening. Nikolay and Pyotr were more composed, getting down on one knee and firing twice. The security guard also managed to launch a fiery arrow and only then rushed back to us.

Realizing that everything was going wrong, I decided to back up the group. I stepped slightly forward and to the right, extended my palm, and as soon as the barking creatures appeared from around the turn, I said: “Eat this!”

Five percent of my energy reserve went into the transformation launched by Thermokinesis, and the air around us got noticeably colder. The monsters, which had slowed down in front of the taut rope and saw the squad of people, huddled together, and were hit by a single blow. A long, agonizing moment of silence, and then the frozen chunks of dog meat fell to the floor.

[Weak Kobold Miner Level 3 killed. 5 experience points received.]

[Weak Kobold Miner Level 3 killed. 5 experience points received.]

...

[Weak Kobold Foreman Level 4 killed. 7 experience points received.]

The killed group of monsters brought in fifty-two experience points, and even the kobold foreman, the size of a short person, didn't escape the fate of its brethren. It still wasn't enough for level four, and the experience points stopped trickling in again, freezing at one hundred fifty-nine points out of the three hundred fifteen needed.

“What the hell was that?!” Nikolay exclaimed in surprise. “I thought I had a cool magic skill. And you didn't say anything?”

The questions came pouring in, and even Anya, to whom I hadn't told about the second skill, looked at me meaningfully, promising me a painful death for concealing important information with a single look.

“Well...” I was a little flustered and awkwardly scratched the back of my head. “I didn't expect it myself. I thought I would get two, well, maybe three monsters, and it would be easier later. Who knew they would line up so perfectly?”

“You're lucky to have gotten such a cool skill,” the security guard continued with envy.

I didn't tell anyone that I could construct skills myself, as this ability clearly stood out from the others, and I decided to keep it a secret. Everyone else received random abilities related to either body enhancement or elemental magic, with rare exceptions like invisibility. But even that was most likely just based on a single principle.

For example, Nikolay’s fiery arrow at level one had a specific formation speed and temperature. The description said that adding skill points would increase the creation speed, temperature, and piercing power, potentially turning the guy into a walking fire turret. But give me a few hours, the internet, and a physics textbook, and the result would be nothing short of surprising, leaving the security guard far behind.

The next half an hour of our advance was uneventful. The lone kobolds were disarmed, after which they were given a quick and painless death as much as possible, in turn. There were some bumps along the way, of course. For example, when it was Anya’s turn to kill a monster again, she squeezed her eyes shut, stabbed it with the knife, and, failing to kill it on the first attempt, continued to torment the dog-headed creature. As a result, the kobold died from multiple stab wounds inflicted by the blonde girl in a fit of rage. And she herself, once again covered in blood with a wild look in her eyes, continued to stab the corpse.

I should remember not to anger Anya. And in general, not to let her near the kitchen and to do the cooking myself. An explosive temper and knives are not the best combination. The next time, she was given a crossbow, and she would hold it to the monster's head and pull the trigger.

Conversely, the plump Katya showed herself to be the best of the girls, killing the monsters without much objection, often bloodying them unnecessarily. I was deeply impressed by a scene where the guys held a kobold, and Katya walked up with a smile and, plunging her hunting dagger, mistakenly called a knife, into its stomach, dragged it upward, gutting the kobold like a fish.

Somewhere on the edge of my consciousness, a thought flashed that our behavior was quite strange and atypical for civilized people. We were calmly, with jokes and fun, killing possibly sentient beings instead of trying to contact them, but I didn't have time to latch onto that thought.

From around the next turn in the cave, a pack of monsters led by an old, gray-haired kobold with a staff in its hand flew out and rushed toward us, barking and yapping. My intuition screamed in alarm, but it was too late. The small creatures swarmed our squad and, turning feral, rushed into melee combat.

Khabib took the first blow, taking a small creature that had broken free on his shield, grabbing it by the throat, and, with a swing, throwing it into the crowd of its kin. By breaking the initial charge and giving the others time to gather themselves, he allowed them to also prepare for the fight and bristle with sharp blades.

I noticed the lagging kobold shaman, who was suspiciously waving his hand in front of a staff that was filling with a crimson glow, and I shouted:

“Katya! The shaman!”

The girl nodded silently and dissolved into the air.

Nikolay also heard me and, extending his hand, sent a fiery arrow at the old kobold. The incoming arrow had no effect on the monster, simply splashing on a slightly visible rainbow-colored film around it. But the hunting knife that emerged from the monster’s scrawny chest proved to the shaman that his protection was not a panacea, but he didn't have time to do anything else and died, having never finished his spell.

Realizing that my skills would likely harm my comrades, I pulled out my dagger and rushed into the fight, instantly piercing the throat of a small creature that was about to sink its teeth into Anya’s backside, which she had so inconveniently exposed.

“That’s! My! Ass! Don’t you dare touch it!” I shouted at the monster as it choked on its blood and jerked the weapon to the left, practically slicing its neck off.

[Weak Kobold Miner Level 3 killed. 5 experience points received.]

After the shaman's death, the other humanoids lost their momentum and were more on the defensive than trying to attack fiercely.

The result of the battle was seventeen killed monsters, one of which, as the system commented, was indeed a level six kobold shaman. There were several lacerations from bites, which almost everyone received, and a penetrating wound to the arm from a pickaxe for the slow-witted Pyotr.

If the kobolds had attacked as an organized group rather than a rabid pack, we would have been much worse off, but apparently, the skill used by the shaman greatly lowered their critical thinking and simply turned them into wild animals that used their teeth and claws rather than weapons.

“Pull yourselves together! The wounds will disappear after the portal ends. It looks like those were the last monsters the kobold gathered for the attack.” I tried to cheer up my comrades and, taking bandages from the first-aid kit, began to help bandage the wounds of the injured.

The rest of the journey looked more like a medical convoy with people who were bandaged and groaning in pain than a procession of conquering warriors. I broke ahead and, approaching the turn from which the monsters had attacked us, I saw the familiar pedestal in the hall and a body shield lying on it.

“And here’s a new toy for our hero,” the bitten mountain man, slightly pale from blood loss, was standing supported by Katya by the arm, and smiling weakly.

A request to open a return portal appeared, and I, answering it affirmatively, gestured toward the passage.

“Ladies first.”

The bitten and groaning girls went into the portal first, then the other injured, who had held on more courageously in the presence of the ladies, and finally, I went in last, closing the portal behind me.

[300 experience points received for completing a group portal. 1 bonus attribute point received.]

[Level 4 reached. Experience points: 149/407]

I came out and laughed. The whole squad collapsed on the floor, just as I had recently, and looked with relief at the previously bitten spots, rejoicing that all the wounds were gone. Anya even pulled her pants down a little and happily felt her butt, which a kobold had managed to bite, sighing in relief that the wounds were gone.

“Max! Guys!” Anya had already gotten into her communicator, looking at the messages that had arrived during our absence. “A very important news update was sent out while we were committing genocide in the portal. A Syntech warehouse was robbed, and a batch of five thousand communicators was stolen! The internet is full of news from new owners who bought them on the black market for insane money, activated them, and are now filming reviews of the new version’s capabilities.”

Everyone fell silent in shock, and Alexandra, who had pulled her jeans back up, said what was on everyone's mind:

“And that means that in three days, there will be five thousand more communicator users in the world, and just as many portals.”