<h4>Chapter 223: Upstairs</h4>


    Looking at his sword Lake was happy with how clean it was and put it back in its sheath. He had noticed his sheath smelled kind of bad a few days after he had started to kill bandits and realized it was because he never cleaned his de off before he put it away. He then looked at his stats because he had leveled up to level nine of Swordsman during his battle with the Demon Worshipers and he wanted to see how far off he was to maxing it out.


    Race: Human Lv.14 ( 9/10 )


    Job: Swordsman Lv.9 ( 1789/2560 )


    Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 4/5 )


    Stats


    Health 140


    Stamina 140


    Mana 570


    Strength 125


    Endurance 15


    Agility 107


    Dexterity 121


    Perception 101


    Intelligence 134


    Charisma 41


    Free stat points: 144


    He would need to kill a few more people at the level of the ones he had just killed then he would be able to try and get another job to level up. Looking at his bow Lake tried to think of him doing what he just did but with a bow instead of a sword.


    There were times he had been able to kill multiple of them with one swing of his sword but to do that with a bow he would have to line up multiple of them or shoot multiple arrows that hit their targets. Thinking about it some more he remembered his skill that let him control arrows while they were in the air.


    Magic Arrow (L) Lv.1


    Lets you infuse some of your mana into arrows so you can control it.


    Reading the description, Lake wondered if he even needed a bow to use this skill. Pulling an arrow out he used the skill and feeling the arrow be infused with his mana let it fly up from his hand. Seeing the arrow fly around under his control he realized he had underestimated the skill.


    He understood now why this would be such a boon to an archer because it worked at close range; something lots of archers struggled with. Most of them had to switch to another weapon if anyone got too close, with this skill they could continue to shoot arrows while protecting themselves from anyone trying to get them.


    He wondered if killing people with this arrow was enough to unlock archer-like jobs. It would be nice because he wasn''t particrly interested in using the bow. He didn''t even like the sword as much as he liked his bare hands so switching to a bow would be a real downgrade.


    Looking at the opening in the barrier Lake thought about going to get the others but decided to just leave them a message. Pushing all the bodies into a line that would show them the opening while he checked them for anything that could be useful he walked away with two things he thought looked simr to the thing he had stolen from a Demon Worshiper during the forest massacre.


    He was sure they wouldn''t do the same thing as the one from back there but having it would probablye in handy once he used Decrypt on them. He would do thatter though because he wanted to get up to the next tier which meant he had a real climb ahead of him.


    Looking around Lake realized the elevators were actually inside the barrier which meant they were useless which meant these Demon Worshipers had probably had another way down here. He had already found one of their secret staircases so he set Detector to look for a hidden staircase.


    It didn''t take long for him to find it since most of the tier was inside the barrier leaving a very small area for him to go through. Looking at the staircase that was inside the wall he looked at the stone that was in front of it and wondered if smashing it was his best option to get inside.


    Taking his sword out, Lake used Crunch and started to cut the stone, only stopping to carry the boulders that came loose until he could see the stairs. Climbing up the stairs Lake found it was pretty short, ending after the first door he found. This should lead to the 41st tier unless this was some secret base the Demon Worshipers had built.


    Using Mana Vision, Lake looked around to see if there were any people around before he tried the door. Seeing he was surrounded with there being people in every direction he looked he had no choice but to go for it. Opening the door Lake was happy to find he was in a room that had no one in it but with Mana Vision he could see there was a person next to the door he needed to go through.


    This could be an opportunity for him to blend in if he was able to get them without alerting anyone else but he didn''t know if there was anyone else that could see this guard or maybe notice the small amount of time they would be gone before he reced them. Lake decided he should just take a while to watch to see if anyone moved pass or if there was some kind of rotation that was happening.


    After a while Lake saw the movements seemed to be kind of random and realized most of the people here were just milling about and very few of them were guards. He could also tell almost everyone here was in bed. The few that weren''t were most likely undead because he was pretty sure they didn''t sleep.


    That wasn''t something he knew for sure but he felt like it was urate because he didn''t think they needed to eat either since he had seen the ones under the Alchemist guild survive in barren tunnels. This made him think they were probably fully powered by Unholy mana.


    It was a very interesting difference between them and normal people and it made him wonder if Undead were the Demon Lords version of the God of Metals dwarves. He felt it was possible that a lot of the gods had their own type of people with their own special abilities.


    If he was right undead were pretty powerful with them not needing to eat or sleep and them being harder to kill. He wondered if dwarves had their own awesome abilities thate from their race and if regr humans like him had any he hadn''t noticed yet. He was probably taking them for granted because he didn''t realize they were special.


    Seeing the person he had been watching for thest few minutes start to move he realized they were about toe into the room so he moved back into the staircase and closed the door. He guessed checking the stairs every now and then was part of their job as well and the time hade.


    He felt this would be his best chance to get them in ce no one else would notice and just hoped they came toe down the stairs so he could hide them here. Seeing them reach the door, Lake was already a few loops down the spiral staircase and was getting ready to attack them once they started to descend when they turned and started to walk away.


    It seemed all they nned to do was look into the stairs and return to their post. Activating Mute Lake rushed up the stairs and grabbed them before they were able to leave the small room he had been hiding in. Lake sunk his dagger into their neck but he was pretty sure they were undead so he didn''t think they would die from this.


    Getting them into the stairwell Lake finished the decapitation then watched the arms il for a while before he went for the core. While cutting out the core he couldn''t help but think about the fact the body had continued to move after he had cut its head off, which would be impossible for a human, and that he still hadn''t received any Exp meaning it was still alive.


    When he saw the core he remembered the undead under the Alchemist guild again. They didn''t really have a core because they were young so this was the first normal sized core he had seene from an undead. He didn''t know if that meant they had been alive for a long time or if this was an undead they had been made from a corpse that already had a decently sized core.


    Thinking about the core some more made him wonder what would happen if he tried to use Impersonate with this core. Reading Impersonates description Lake didn''t get much from it other than that it would probably work.


    Impersonate (U) Lv.1


    steal target''s identity and add it to your collection.


    (Uses targets core.)


    He also felt that the Insider would stop him or that it wouldn''t work at all if it was dangerous so he shrugged and activated Impersonate. The core disappeared from his hand and Lake took that to mean it had worked. Opening his stats Lake saw that he was indeed a different person but it said he was still human.


    He didn''t know if that meant he had be the person the undead had been made from instead of the undead but decided this should be enough to get to where the humans were sleeping to get a better disguise. Putting the ck robe on he looked at the blood stain from where he had cut their head off and decided he needed to make his way to the humans right away.