After reminding his teammates of the plan, everyone moved into action.
Once Serandur had finished putting buffs on the party, he stayed at the rear to guard Abby and York.
Abby was very curious about the battle Gauss and the others were about to start, but she knew it wasn't a fight she could take part in.
With only a single cantrip—Light—under her belt, the best thing she could do was stay safely in the back and not cause trouble for Gauss.
The others fanned out across the wasteland, then slowly began to tighten in like an invisible net.
A few isolated gnolls spotted them early. Just as they were about to resist, Alia's Faerie Fire forced them to calm down.
The gnolls could only instinctively shuffle back toward their camp, trying to gather with their companions and mount a defense.
On Shadow and Albena's side, it was the same—they herded the gnolls toward the center.
From a distance, the scene looked like a pride of lions closing in on their prey on the grasslands. The only difference was that, unlike lions, the "pack leader" of this team—Gauss—also joined in the encirclement.
He casually fired off Magic Missiles, picking off the faster targets riding on dire wolves.
"Gnoll Mount (Dire Wolf) Slain ×1"
"Gnoll Slain ×1"
"…"
Under the combined herding, the originally scattered gnolls were gradually driven into a tight cluster.
Gauss glanced over the remaining gnolls gathered on the open patch of ground.
"As expected—no juveniles again."
The complete absence of young was a huge boon for his Total Kill Count—after all, juvenile monsters didn't count toward the tally—but it was clearly abnormal.
Gnolls, like most creatures, had all stages of growth.
A healthy tribe should have individuals of all ages—young, adolescent, adult, prime, old…
Even goblins—with their insane growth rate—showed up in his hunts with plenty of scrawny, little green-brat variants.
"Fireball."
Though he was thinking all this, his actions were crisp and merciless.
Once the others finished driving the gnolls into a tight knot and cleared the area, a fully-charged Fireball bloomed over the gnoll encampment.
Fireball was incredibly well-suited to this kind of open plains terrain.
And monsters rarely reacted in time.
Their pack instincts did them no favors—whenever danger appeared, their first impulse was to huddle together and look for their chieftain to give orders.
What they saw as the safest "shelter"—their camp—had become the best possible shooting range for Gauss's rapidly cast Fireball.
"BOOM!!"
The shockwave roared.
Alia squinted against the flare.
A squat little mushroom cloud rose over the gnoll camp.
Even the ground underfoot trembled slightly.
"So strong…"
Even from far back, Abby could clearly see the fireball and billowing smoke rising from the direction Gauss and the others had gone. The sheer force of it filled her with awe.
It was the second time she'd seen this spell.
The first had been when Gauss rescued her from the witch Megan—he'd ended that nightmare by calling down a world-shattering Fireball on that place of sin.
That experience had left Fireball etched in her heart as a sacred spell.
Beautiful, powerful—magic that could cleanse evil from the world.
Someday… I have to learn this spell my teacher uses. She told herself, quietly.
It was both longing and a promise—to herself.
She'd already asked Gauss about it: Fireball, a Level 3 Evocation Spell, normally learned by Level 5 Casters at the earliest.
To sling it as effortlessly as he did, she'd probably need to be at least 6th level—and that was assuming she was talented.
That level was a distant dream for most adventurers.
…
A single Fireball worked like a "desktop cleanup tool"—in an instant, what had been a tense standoff just… ceased to exist.
The gnolls were "calm" now—permanently.
Gauss looked over the empty camp and didn't feel any particular regret.
Gnolls were poor as dirt. Expecting to squeeze much profit from a pack of maniacs who couldn't even be bothered to build proper structures was wishful thinking.
That was why he felt zero hesitation about washing the place with fire.
He casually finished off the last few gnolls that had survived on the outer edges of the blast, then, once he'd confirmed there were no stragglers, the group doused the remaining flames and pulled back from the site.
…
"BOOM!!!"
Another fireball blossomed over the wasteland.
Gauss watched the numbers on his monster-kill tally tick upward.
Finally—
Total Monster Kills: 10,036
His kill count surged past the critical threshold.
He'd stepped into a new stage.
A surge of fierce energy poured into his body.
Once it settled, he opened his status panel.
[Total Monsters Kill: 10,036 / 10,000]
[Reward Unlocked: Level 3 Spell – Snowstorm, Level 3 Spell – Vampiric Touch]
[Reward Unlocked: +1 STR, +1 DEX, +1 CON, +1 CHA]
[Reward Unlocked: Blue-grade Racial Talent – Flight Instinct]
[Next Milestone: 20,000 Total Monsters Kill]
Just like before, there were several small reward nodes between 10,000 and 20,000 as well.
Gauss glanced through all the rewards.
Maybe because ten thousand was such a major milestone, this batch was by far the most generous so far.
First, the two Level 3 Spells—both offensive and both quite unique.
Snowstorm creates a localized zone of extreme cold and blizzard conditions, sapping and injuring enemies.
Compared to the single, massive burst of Fireball, Snowstorm—also Level 3—isn't about raw impact. It's more of a battlefield control spell: its main value is in changing the environment.
Anything within the area will be hammered continuously by cold; weaker creatures will also take ongoing damage from the icy magic itself.
And any fire spells used inside are partially suppressed—making it an excellent way to neuter fire-specialized foes.
Of course, to really take advantage of it, he'd need to choose his timing and terrain carefully. Otherwise, the results could easily be underwhelming.
It was a channeled spell, too—he'd have to maintain concentration. Under pressure, that could be risky, but for Gauss, that wasn't much of a problem.
He had talents, gear, and experience specifically to help with concentration.
As for the other spell—Vampiric Touch—he knew it well.
He'd actually wanted to buy it before, but the small towns he'd passed through just didn't stock the spell—likely because it wasn't very common.
It was difficult to learn. Even for casters with sufficient level, a lot of them would hit a wall trying to grasp its framework.
Now that the system had simply awarded it to him, so much the better. He could skip the tedious study phase.
If it was infamous for being difficult to master, there was a reason. Gauss wasn't picky—if he could save effort and still get the spell, he was happy.
Vampiric Touch would reinforce his staying power in actual combat.
Normally, it's a bit of a paradox: it lets you drain life from the enemy, but requires you to get into melee range and lay hands on them.
Any mage could tell you how bad that sounds on paper.
But—
"Good thing I'm not a squishy mage."
Gauss exhaled in relief.
As a close-range brawler-mage, this sort of touch attack fit him perfectly.
He liked getting into the thick of things.
Vampiric Touch would make him even harder to put down in drawn-out fights and desperate situations.
"What a shame…"
A ripple of regret passed through his thoughts.
He'd realized what he was still missing: a way to freely convert between three energy pools—life, stamina, and mana.
If he ever unlocked that conversion, he'd become terrifying.
Imagine: surrounded by an endless sea of goblins, casually siphoning life with Vampiric Touch.
His title effect, Bloodthirst, would replenish his stamina whenever he killed goblins and related creatures.
His Special Stomach could convert gems and mana-rich minerals into both mana and stamina in emergencies.
Those three—life force, stamina, mana—would all be refilled from the outside world, constantly.
If he could unify those three into a single convertible pool, he'd have a three-in-one engine inside him.
Get injured? Convert spare stamina and mana into healing.
Run low on mana? Drain it back with Vampiric Touch and Bloodthirst.
Arms too tired to swing? Convert from the other two.
He'd become a perpetual motion machine.
Those "death by infinite goblin attacks" scenarios would no longer apply to him.
"Just thinking about it is making my heart race…"
If he really managed to unify those energy types one day, maybe then he'd count as a proper "monster."
"I'll have to think on this carefully."
Gauss knew it wouldn't be easy, but that didn't stop him from treating it as a long-term goal.
Next, he looked at the attribute boosts.
The 10,000-kill milestone had given him four points total: one each to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma.
He didn't need to say much about STR and CON.
More strength meant heavier hits; more constitution meant better survivability—for basically any class.
Dex made him more coordinated and agile, useful in melee.
And Charisma had gone up again…
Hadn't he just gotten some from the robe?
He checked his stats.
Charisma: 13 (11) → 13 (12)
Right—total CHA stayed at 13, but his base Charisma—the raw number under the gear—had climbed from 11 to 12.
Strength: 12 → 13
Dexterity: 10 → 11
Constitution: 11 → 12
Intelligence: 16 (15)
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 13 (11) → 13 (12)
Lastly, the new talent: Flight Instinct.
He closed his eyes and felt it out.
It was already active.
Unlike a flat stat increase, this racial talent was exactly what it said on the tin: all about flight.
It reduced mana costs for flight-type spells, lowered air resistance, boosted max flight speed, and sharpened his aerial maneuvering and combat sense.
Fly was an acquired spell that gave him wings—but Flight Instinct nudged that acquired skill toward something more like a built-in racial trait.
As soon as he thought of Fly, his shoulders and back almost itched with the phantom sensation of wingbeats—like invisible wings had grown there.
"My back feels like it's sprouted a pair of ghost wings…"
Gauss smiled faintly.
He finished absorbing the rewards and let out a long breath.
The haul from 10,000 kills was huge.
Well worthy of the milestone.
His attention drifted back to the battlefield below—the camp shattered by fire.
That last Fireball had left nothing alive.
He'd hit his primary goal—10,000 monster kills—but he wasn't planning to stop.
As he and the others finished sweeping the area and prepared to regroup with Serandur's side before moving on to the next gnoll camp—
"BOOOOM!!!"
A deafening blast thundered across the plains.
The ground trembled underfoot.
"Gauss? Did you cast Fireball again?" Alia whipped her head toward him in surprise.
"What do you think?"
Gauss spread his hands helplessly.
He'd been standing beside them the whole time.
He didn't have a clone running around throwing extra fireballs.
"Could it be an earthquake?" Albena muttered.
"It sounded like an explosion. It's still some distance away," Gauss said, analyzing.
"Want me to go scout?" Shadow looked over at him.
"Here's the plan: you three go regroup with Serandur and the others. I'll use Fly and go take a look," Gauss decided after a moment.
He and Shadow both had scouting tools; hers were more discreet.
But he had the combat edge, plus better escape options thanks to flight—and that was even more true now that he had Flight Instinct.
So he'd go.
He hadn't forgotten the gnoll stuff either. The demon-tainted leader and its shrine still bothered him.
"I'll go with you—"
"I'll be back soon," Gauss cut her off, waving a hand.
"Then be careful."
Under their watchful gazes, his body rose from the ground.
Gauss shot into the sky, donning the Eagle-Eye Monocle as he went.
A beat later, it felt like a powerful force grabbed and hurled him forward in the direction of the distant blast.
And that sound…
He couldn't shake the feeling the explosion hadn't been caused by magic at all.
If anything—it sounded… familiar.
Like a method he himself had used once, a long time ago.