Night hunt (I)
We sneaked out of town with ease. We planned on going monster hunting, and thus we decided to head towards the western part of Cerbalon, given that a river ran through the area and vegetation was thicker there. It didn’t quite qualify as a forest, but it was close enough, so it definitely looked like a good place for monsters to inhabit.
“Limy, you’re up. Track down some enemies for me, will you?”
It was pitch dark, so I was having a hard time trying to spot monsters, or anything at all for that matter. The reason I brought Limy with me tonight was not only so she could level up, but to act as a radar. It was mostly the latter, to be honest. I needed to level up myself, so she would have to watch from the sidelines for a while.
“I sense something over there.”
Limy led us further into the darkness. We walked towards a large tree, and once we were close enough to it, I noticed something standing on one of its branches. It was too dark for me to see it clearly, but it looked like some sort of huge owl, over one meter tall, its claws sharp as a razor blade. It had a beak that resembled that of a crow and a black plumage that had a reddish hue on the wings. It also had a pair of horns on its head, akin to those of a goat. All in all, a rather scary creature.
[Bloodwing Nightstalker: Nocturnal Monster that resembles an owl. It specialises in swift and precise strikes. Its claws can tear through leather with ease]
Status:
Name: —
Kind: Bloodwing Nightstalker | Race: —
Level: 13 | Grade 2
HP: 292/292 | MP: 90/90
Stats:
Vitality: 56 | Strength: 28 | Agility: 71
Intellect: 20 | Magic power: 19
_________________________
“Grade 2, not too shabby at all…”
The problem wasn’t really it’s grade, it was that it could fly, which meant it would be able to easily give us the slip. Fortunately, monsters tend not to flee unless they feel cornered, so hopefully we would be able to taunt it into attacking us.
“Do you feel like having fried chicken for an early breakfast?”
“Of course, master.”
“Let’s hunt that thing down then.”
I approached it as sneakily as a stone can be sneaky, but it noticed me very easily. Birds of prey generally have fantastic night vision. Once it spotted me, it slightly lowered its body, spread its wings, and jumped from the branch it was standing on. In a matter of seconds, it was hovering over me. The menacing looking bird examined me, but it looked like it couldn’t quite understand what it was looking at, so it started turning away from me… a mistake that many others had made before, and it had cost them dearly...
It didn’t take long for the Nightstalker to lose all interest in me, and as soon as it did, it started scanning its surroundings again. It spotted Limy, who was standing not too far away from it, and immediately locked on to her and started spreading its wings again, ready to lunge at her new target. But I had other plans in mind. I aimed for its head and shot a Fireball that took it completely by surprise. The attack knocked the Nightstalker off balance, and bewilderment caused it to start flapping its wings rather clumsily. I didn’t give it any time to recover and launched myself towards it. The tackle managed to knock it down, and I used Mold Earth to keep it pinned down to the ground.
Status:
Name: —
Kind: Bloodwing Nightstalker | Race: —
Level: 13 | Grade 2
HP: 116/292 | MP: 90/90
_________________________
Despite having received a couple solid hits, the bird was still alive and kicking. That’s how tough grade 2 monsters were. I stood directly in front of it. Its face was now covered in charred feathers, by the looks of it, the burns had caused it to lose its eyesight. I readied my simplest, yet strongest attack, to finish it off.
“Thank you for your patronage.”
I ruthlessly fired my Mana Cannon.
[You have gained 1083 experience points.]
[Your level has risen to 5. Due to your kind, your stats can’t go up.]
“That was a good hunt, nice and easy. I even managed to level up. Let’s see if we can track some more of these crappy birds down.”
Limy consumed the corpse, and we resumed our hunt. We ran into another one soon enough, and we managed to kill it just as easily as we did the previous one.
[You have gained 867 experience points.]
Unfortunately, our luck ran out after that. We spent a good while looking, but couldn’t find any more monsters.
“It seems like there weren’t that many monsters near Cerbalon after all. Unless… there couldn’t be a deadly monster lurking nearby and scaring every other monster away, could it?”
“Master, I can sense something nearby.”
“Great news, let’s go hunt it down.”
“That wouldn’t be necessary to go.”
“What?”
Limy dodged to one side, and not a moment too soon. I couldn’t see anything, but judging by the sound and the deep scratch marks left on the ground, something must have charged towards where Limy was standing merely seconds ago. I followed the marks with my eyes, and managed to make out a menacing shape standing where the trail of marks ended. The only thing I could clearly see was a pair of red eyes. I readied a fireball to light the place up, and finally managed to get a good look at our guest.
It was some kind of gigantic dog, about 2 and a half meters large. Black wings like those of a bat grew from her back, and it had the tail of a lemur. It had claws that looked even more dangerous than those of the Nightstalkers we disposed of earlier. And that wasn’t even the worse part.
“Whow dur, what happened to your face? Did someone try to fix it by slamming a plank into it? You should sue your plastic surgeon…”
What an eyesore! Its face was like the worst possible result of combining the head of those abortion of a dog called pugs, yes, those dogs whose face is completely flattened as if someone smacked it with a plank the moment they were born, and the ears of a malformed bat. Eight massive fangs emerged from its ridiculously small mouth, 4 on the upper side, and 4 on the lower side. As a result, it could barely close its mouth, causing it to drool all over the place.
[Bolstgron: This carnivorous monster thrives hunting in the dead of the night. Its fur is pitch black, allowing it to camouflage in the darkness and ambush its prey, which usually end up dead without even noticing what hit them. It can use dark magic with ease.]
Status:
Name: —
Kind: Bolstgron | Race: —
Level: 3 | Grade 3
HP: 2224/2224 | MP: 1739/1739
Stats:
Vitality: 112 | Strength: 94 | Agility: 103
Intellect: 79 | Magic power: 67
_________________________
“Grade 2 monsters I can manage, but grade 3… they are something more… “
It even had a name that looked like someone had just smashed the keyboard to not waste time thinking about it.
“We’re gonna have to put in some effort to bring this thing down…“
I was at a huge disadvantage. I needed to keep a Fireball going at all times, just to light up the place so I could keep track of our prey, and thus I was unable to use any other magic spells. That meant I could only rely on my abilities. I made up my mind: the next thing I was going to focus on was learning how to multicast.
The bolstgron put an end to the impasse and prepared to go on the offense. It let out an impressive roar and charged again towards Limy. It was fast, deadly fast. I took aim and shot a Mana Cannon but it completely missed its target. Trying to aim at something moving that fast was utterly pointless.
Limy wasn’t wielding any weapon at the moment, so she used the only tool at her disposal: the perverted slime tentacles. She took the charging bolstgron head on and stopped it on its tracks. It couldn’t have expected a little child would have the ability to produce such tentacles, so it was unable to avoid them and thus found itself bound by something nasty and sticky. It did not seem that the tentacles would be able to hold the monster back for long though...