Chapter 51: Plan of Monstrous Operations

Whether the Immortal Citadel was a republic, oligarchy, monarchy, or an imperial country didn’t matter. In the end, it was all arbitrary semantics.

His Night Elf body and that side of the equation could also be temporarily forgotten about.

What mattered to Peace was the ’here and now’.

And — here and now — his life was in jeopardy.

Assuming the search for him was organized and operating as Peace expected...

’How the hell am I alive?’

Peace, if he were in charge, would have started from where the monster had last been spotted, then fanned out from there.

While he’d run as far as his little legs could take him, that distance could be covered by Tier 5s in a couple of minutes.

He had been running while poisoned.

His only true break had been the Sun Drinker and whatever other monstrous beast had shown up below — plus the sheer luck of ending up on one of the only surviving trees in the area.

In essence, Peace should have been located within an hour or two.

Hell, even if the search was unorganized, they had his general location and several hours of searching during which he wasn’t even in his body!

Well...

How much time he had spent in or outside of this body wasn’t something he truly knew. There could have been some time shenanigans going on; however, Lacan’s corpse and the fact that this new battleground had already been cleared suggested that time wasn’t being messed with like it had been in the dungeon.

’Should I... stay here?’

There was a chance he’d somehow avoided detection entirely, and that the scouting party had simply failed to locate him.

’They think I’m a monster — a fiend that acts purely on instinct...’

And, thus far, Peace had reinforced that assumption by consistently choosing flight.

Granted, they didn’t have a complete behavioral profile on him. They would account for possibilities like burrowing, concealment, or some other form of evasion. What they probably wouldn’t anticipate was a sudden deviation from his established pattern — simply ceasing to flee.

That predictability worked in his favor.

As long as he avoided returning to the location where he’d first been sighted, he could potentially remain outside their primary search parameters. They might interpret that area as his den, territory, or spawnpoint and concentrate their surveillance there under the assumption that an instinct-driven creature would eventually return — or that another one might emerge.

But, because he was of human mind...

He could deliberately break expected behavioral patterns.

And that had become exactly his intent.

He had his plan: stay in the general vicinity of his current location, only coming down to scavenge when he needed to eat.

If he evaded detection for long enough, the search should die down as they’d conclude Peace had been slaughtered. Sadly, Peace doubted he’d be completely forgotten about.

’That said...’

There were a few things he needed to do.

Tracking those tracking him was out of his wheelhouse; but, at the very least, Peace could map out the area.

Maybe he’d even be able to recognize where he was.

Retracing his route toward the Sun Drinker scene, Peace found the tree he’d stuck the Shadow Dancer in, the same one he’d been asleep on.

By some miracle, it was still there. But that wasn’t what he was concerned about. He was mostly concerned about using it as a landmark.

Since Peace felt the terrain could change fairly often because of the creatures inhabiting it, he needed at least one constant to keep his mental map relevant.

Assuming that constant stayed constant.

The next step...?

’Become strong.’

It was quite apparent Peace, in his monster body, would never escape danger: running into the Corrupted Lands meant running toward more harrowing creatures, while running toward the Immortal Citadel meant a higher chance the humans would find him.

Meaning...

The only way to survive was to become stronger — stronger than those hunting him and the corrupted beasts roaming the land.

Sadly, Peace’s chance at scoring a kill in his current predicament was lower than 1%...

Even that was being generous.

He’d only be able to finish off something already on its way to the grave.

Though, increasing his Rank didn’t seem to be the only method for getting stronger.

His unknown Trait...

He’d noticed it in the dungeon, but each time the counter went up, he got slightly stronger — emphasis on the slightly. That wasn’t something that happened merely from gaining EXP. A boost in strength like that only came when one leveled up or acquired a Resonance/Trait, assuming they didn’t possess an ability that granted incremental stat increases — like one of the effects Peace suspected his Trait had.

One could also grow stronger through working out, but like back on Earth, those results were anything but immediate.

In any case...

’Unlocking it seems like the next, and only, step.’

Unfortunately, his odds of finding enough usable corpses to do so were almost entirely dependent on luck.

At least he had something to do in the meantime: mapping and testing out his body.

He didn’t necessarily want to test his healing factor yet, as blood was an attractant, but he could at least make himself an arbitrary stat sheet.

’Time for the monster combine!’

First event...?

Running from this tree to that tree.

Of course, the running would be done through the trees.

Jumping from branch to branch, he mentally timed himself while also trying to memorize and theorize the optimal path. Once at his destination, he repeated the process, only with the ’that’ tree becoming the ’this’ tree and another tree being selected as the new ’that’ tree.

In time, he eventually circled back to his starting location.

Then he began again in the opposite direction. His intent was to make arcs like a clover intersection, with the Shadow Dancer tree as the center point.

Also...

[???] — (condition to unlock: 22/100)

Luck was indeed on his side for once as he ran into no scouts and even found another free corpse for the taking after patiently waiting for a heavily deformed Tier 6 A-class Rat King to leave it behind...

’Once again... something.’

Savoring his meal and feeling the time approaching, Peace returned to the Shadow Dancer tree. Hugging the branches tightly, he let the drowsy feeling take hold.

Peace blinked his eyes open, seeing only white.

’Welp...’

’I see things didn’t magically solve themselves. I was really hoping for that.’