Night Ranger

”Work? What do you mean working with my body?”

Lola jumped, scared. She immediately had all kinds of bad thoughts.

But Marvin didn’t do anything weird. He only sat cross-legged in front of her and firmly said, ”Tell me all the vocabulary and grammar of the gnoll language you know. I’ll only ask once.”

”Aaah?”

Lola blankly looked at him. She didn’t think he would raise this kind of request.

He just wanted to learn the gnoll language?

”Sir, forgive my offense.” Lola timidly said, ”Although the gnoll language is simple, it’s not a language you can learn quickly.”

Marvin didn’t feel like saying much, he took out his curved dagger and put it on the side.

”You talk. I listen.”

Lola wanted to cry but no tears came out.

She just had to be his gnoll language teacher.

‘Truly a single-minded bad guy.’

Even though she felt like that, she still forced herself to explain all her knowledge of the gnoll language.

...

Although the gnoll language was relatively simple, it was still a language. It wasn’t easy to master it.

Lola’s explanation of the small bits of the language that she knew took a bit more than two hours.

She looked at Marvin warily, ”Sir, I’ve already given you all my vocabulary, there isn’t much more.”

Marvin remained motionless.

Before long, his mouth uttered a very queer sound.

Lola was shocked when she heard that sound.

This sound meant ”food” in the gnoll language.

‘How could this happen? I took more than a year to learn the gnoll language, yet he is able to speak it after listening to me speaking it for only two hours?’

Lola felt like she was dreaming.

But next, Marvin began talking to her in the gnoll language. ”You did a good job. Definitely helped me. But I cannot let you leave now.”

He then stood up and used the rope to tie Lola to the bed.

After leaving her a few pieces of bread, Marvin sealed the doors and the windows of the farmhouse and left alone.

Lola was sitting on the bed with a blank stare, as if she saw a ghost.

She even forgot to resist!

Although, it would have been futile to resist.

...

Marvin did learn the gnoll language.

And it only took two hours. This seemed miraculous, but it was actually true.

After getting rid of Miller, Marvin didn’t only reach level 5 ranger, he also took a look at his own original class.

Nobility.

This life class could also be promoted. Baron, this rank could let a noble reach level 4, and then it wouldn’t get higher. Marvin surmised that he might need a higher nobility title.

Marvin casually added 10 general exp to the original 40 Nobility exp to level it up.

His Noble class reached level 4!

After reaching level 4, aside from the 20 noble special skill points, he also found out that he got an extra skill.

[Quick Study] (Level 4 Nobility Specialty): When you activate this specialty, you can learn knowledge in a short time.

Can be activated for 3 hours every month.

As for the target of study, it could be: any language, geography, culture, astronomy, etc. Gnoll language was included in that.

It was because of this specialty that Marvin made Lola lecture him on gnoll language.

It was a success.

[You used a specialty – Quick Study]

[You are learning new knowledge…]

[Study finished – Knowledge +1]

[Knowledge – Language (Gnoll Language)]: You mastered the elementary gnoll language. You are able to have the most basic conversation with gnolls.

He had successfully learned the most basic gnoll language. Even if it was only the lowest rank, it would still be enough to use.

He was here to scout, so being unable to understand what gnolls said wouldn’t do.

‘As such, Nobility, this life class isn’t worthless. I heard that the pearl tower’s scholars have similar skills. They can quickly learn knowledge thanks to a few skills. I didn’t expect Nobility to have this kind of skill.’

However, based on Marvin’s conjecture, this kind of ability wouldn’t appear 100% of the time and was decided at birth.

Nobles in this world were all wizards or their descendants. They had outstanding blood flowing in their veins.

This let them have a chance of learning some unusual specialties when they leveled up as Nobility.

And [Quick Study] was a very useful one.

Marvin no longer hesitated after he settled the matter of the gnoll language. Under the cover of the drizzle, he checked around the bottom of the castle’s east mountain wall.

There was a secret escape path there.

The secret path led directly to the lord’s room, under the bed. During the sneak attack, Marvin was having a meal in the dining room, so he wasn’t able to use the secret path.

As a result, this secret path probably hadn’t been exposed.

Marvin took advantage of stealth and clever movements to stay out of sight of the gnoll sentries in the castle, before parting a thick bush.

He lifted open a plank from under the sunken grass pile, exposing the secret path in front of him.

Marvin’s torch was inside the void conch so even though it was raining, once he got inside the secret path, he was able to use a flint and light his torch.

The torch flames were very bright and the quality of air inside the secret path seemed quite good.

Marvin closed the plank and then went along using a sneaky, cat-like walk.

...

The humidity was different. It was very dry inside the tunnel.

Even though there was a lot of dust, the completely soaked Marvin still felt a lot more comfortable.

He quickly made his way forward by relying on his memories of the path.

There was a fork in front of him.

According to his memories, there was a staircase on the left path leading to the exit; the right path was sealed.

A huge rock blocked the path, hiding the other side.

Marvin suddenly remembered that before Miller’s death, he had mentioned a secret path below the castle having a treasure.

‘Could it be behind this huge rock?’

Marvin was puzzled. He wasn’t very anxious, as even if there was a treasure, it wouldn’t escape on its own.

He still had to finish scouting first and leave it for later.

Scouting was decisive in winning a battle.

Because having enough information could give you victory. Marvin wouldn’t feel reassured if anyone else did this job so he could only do it himself.

He followed the secret path very carefully, arriving to the lord’s room.

There were no voices, so it seemed his luck was pretty good.

Marvin infiltrated the castle and used stealth, being extremely careful at every step.

Gnoll shadows began appearing one after the other in the castle surroundings.

The more he looked, the more alarmed he felt.

These gnolls weren’t fighters!

There were only common gnolls without any fighting strength, and for the most part, old weak women and children.

There were more than two hundreds of those gnolls!

This meant that it was a medium sized gnoll tribe. They should have about one hundred and fifty gnolls with real combat classes.

This wasn’t an amount that a twenty man garrison could deal with, let alone all those mutated aardwolves.

He walked around the castle very carefully.

Fortunately, he was very familiar with the terrain and the gnolls had pretty poor perception. He was able to calmly withdraw.

But what made him somewhat puzzled was that he had met the majority of the gnoll tribe forces, but still wasn’t able to find the boss.

The gnoll tribe roughly had a hundred and fifty qualified as fighters. Among them were six level 3 Petty Officers and two level 4 Adjutants.

The leader was definitely a rank 2 class-holder

Marvin noticed that those mutated aardwolves didn’t listen to the ordinary gnolls, or even to the adjutants.

They seemed to be controlled by someone even more powerful.

‘Their leader, what is it?’

Harboring doubts in his heart, Marvin clenched his teeth and wanted to go further in.

But at that time, on a street not far from there, a group of gnolls were escorting a thin and small guy.

Marvin narrowed his eyes and was immediately startled!

Gnolls were normally small enough, but that guy was especially abnormal.

It looked as small as a five or six years old child. His fur and color was actually very smooth and the rest of the gnolls looked at him with eyes filled with respect.

‘Oh my god! Am I mistaken?’

‘The gnoll race widely known for being dumb as fuck, actually gave birth to a Sorcerer?!’

Marvin’s quick judgment told him to quickly get out of there.

The most basic innate Sorcerer spell, [Eye of Pain], was the bane of all stealth techniques.

He was alone in enemy territory, he couldn’t stay there!

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1-The character for work can also mean ”to fuck” (干)