A rumored monster

Just as Jay had turned around and made the first step forwards, he nearly crashed into a rough skinned old man. As he excused himself the worker asked him why he was in such a hurry, so Jay explained that he was going to take care of some Murlocs that threatened the fishermen.

"If ya wanna erase a real threat, ya gotta look fer somethin' else. Ma name's Baren, the Dock-master 'ere…" B.

"What's the threat you're talking 'bout old man?" J.

Dock-master Baren laughed and then told Jay about a giant monster that supposedly lived in the lake. Jay listened to the old man even though he not only guessed he was a bit crazy, Baren even told him the citizens called him so as well.

He still insisted that he had seen the thing multiple times already, always around the middle of Lake Everstill where the water was the deepest. From the descriptions it reminded Jay of the legends about a certain scottish loch from his old world.

With the feeling that the Dock-master wouldn't stop pestering him if he didn't comply, Jay said he would take a look on the lake if he had some spare time.

Not in his wildest dreams would he have thought possible of what happened next:

***

Quest:

The menace in the Lake

Object:

Defeat the monster in Everstill Lake and deliver proof.

***

At least knowing the old man hadn't been that crazy, Jay finally left the dock and a few minutes later the town of Stillwater. Crossing the long bridge on horseback over to the other shore once again, he soon stayed from the road to the left side and traveled along the shore in eastern direction.

It took Jay only some minutes to encounter the first of the small monsters that came crawling out of the water.

He shot it with his bow from horseback with a single Arrow, even though none of his combat related skills with it had been risen in the past night.

Aside from a very fun night and one (Lover) on his Follower's list, Jay had only gained one little boost. It was [Hunting] that got up to Level 5 thanks to Sybill, though somehow the boost he got from her other skills felt a little off.

While his thoughts had drifted off a little as he rode on, Jay had taken care of two more Murlocs.

Though their levels had not been high enough to make Jay dismount, the reed was. He carefully proceeded along the waterline from there on and a minute later spotted the settlement that he got hinted to. It was build half on the shore and half in the water, displaying a surprising craftsmanship of those small monsters.

After passing through the last reed separating him from the Murlocs, Jay went with the fighting style of his old days and alternated between his lightning spell and cleaving the monsters in two with his sword.

That went well for about half of the swarm, but then the Murlocs took off for a run into the water.

Thanks to his [diving] skill, Jay had not too much problem following the fleeing monsters, though of course they completely out-swam him. He still swam towards the East where they fled to and soon arrived at the estuary of the Eldrin River.

Crossing it by diving down to see if there was anything beneath him and avoid the current, Jay minutes later arrived at the other shore. Instead of going on land he continued swimming along the shore and when he passed a promontory, he spotted another settlement. This was where the Murlocs had fled to.

Using the same tactic as before, Jay directly took care of the whole settlement. This time none of the monsters tried to flee into the lake, so at least he didn't have to hurry that much.

As those monsters generally were at most Level twenty, taking out somewhat over thirty of them still went by pretty fast. Jay checked the small settlement for a totem like the last one but found nothing.

When he gave it a little more thought, Jay wondered why the Murlocs fled to another settlement instead of diving deep into the lake after they must have noticed he couldn't follow. Then he remembered that last quest he had gotten from his system and decided his next step.

After prolonging his break a little, Jay went back into the lake again. Once in a bit deeper water, he took one last deep breath and began to dive into the lake. At first he only saw the sandy ground with sparse seaweed here and there through the astonishingly clear water.

Just as he was thinking about how seemingly much the water quality from his old world to this one differed, Jay made out a huge body in the distance.

Instead of swimming closer, Jay hurried up to the surface. His air had been running low and if what he had seen was what he had been looking for, a battle was inevitable.

Taking a few more breaths to fill his lungs with how ever much air possible, Jay once again dove under water. Whatever it was down there had seemingly not noticed him – or simply seen him as not worthy of any reaction – and kept floating where it had been.

Thanks to that Jay could carefully close in on the creature in hopes to get a better picture of it.

That thing though seemed to have other plans.

With shocking speed the humongous beast got closer and Jay was hard pressed what to do. He had completely miscalculated it's size, but even more so the speed it could move with under water.

Only thanks to his past experiences in diving did he manage to dodge by a very tiny margin.

It hadn't been due to any of his abilities, but the function of his inventory.

Jay had simply taken out the gigantic metal hammer he still had in his inventory which had then pulled him down. A few yards deeper he had stored it away again and looked after his attacker to finally analyze it.

The beast that looked like a Plesiosaurus was named Thresher, a Level 26 elite monster of a Threshadon called species. With way over ten thousand health points and a thick looking hide, Jay instantly knew that his breath was far from sufficient.

Knowing that arcane magic worked quite well under water, Jay shot a missile after the monster before it got out of reach. The damage it dealt really was neglectable, so Jay swam up for the surface.

The way was still long and he knew he would get attacked at least once more before he reached there, so he decided for trying to go up early.

Looking left and right, Jay suddenly got a very bad premonition. Just as he looked down, he saw Thresher darting towards him from behind and slightly below. With no chance to pull out his hammer again and somehow dodge anymore, Jay went with his fastest option.

The [Arcane Blast] he fired off didn't only push the monstrous creature back, it also hurled Jay through the water because of the weight difference.

At least a bit closer to the surface thanks to this, Jay took a few more strokes and finally broke through. He directly looked back under water again and kept searching for his opponent.

For a few seconds he thought it might have ceased to attack after he had left it's territory, but his system still showed it as his current opponent.

And then he saw it!

The giant and wide open Jaw, riddled with sharp teeth came closing in at an unfathomable speed, directly from below. This time there was no angle and he had the feeling [Arcane Blast] wouldn't work out well in this situation.

But then again, he still had the giant hammer on quick access.

Ramming the over sized weapon down so Thresher couldn't close its powerful Jaw, Jay felt himself getting pushed out of the water. Due to it's speed, the monster had half left the water as well when he took his next action. Putting as much mana into it as possible, Jay cast two [Lighning Bolt] as fast and strong as he could.

The moment gravity pulled back the giant monster first, Jay fired an until that moment loaded fireball down while at the same time having the giant black hammer vanish into his inventory.

Thanks to the following impact, the wide open Jaws didn't snap closed while he was in range and it distanced them even more.

As Thresher splashed back into the water, it had lost more than half of it's health. Most of the reason was due to the fact that Jay had found a way to circumvent it's thick hide with a corresponding defense by simply shooting his spells directly into the monsters throat.

Still airborne, Jay already readied his next attack while not letting his opponent out of sight.

The next second he fell down as well, his lightning loaded fist held backwards for the last bit of attack power in his following attack.

Two seconds later his fist connected, causing huge waves to flow in every direction as the lightning bore deep into the Treshadon's massive body.

Just for cautions sake, Jay fired off another [Arcane Blast] and had the meaty island he was standing on dive some few feet under water and then float up again. It could no longer be called Thresher as the monster had lost his last health points even before that last attack.

His [Lighting Fist] had punctured the creatures heart and ended the fight prematurely.

Sitting down on the floating corpse for a moment, Jay took a few breaths as he had spent quite a huge amount of mana over a short period.

A minute later he got back to his feet and simply stored the whole creature inside his inventory before all of the surrounding water turned bloody. After crashing back into the water and getting swept over by the incoming waves due to the missing body, Jay swam back towards the shore.

He took the shortest route, then summoned his horse and rode until he reached the Eldrin River again.

Over on the other shore he once again rode until he got close to the long bridge leading to Stillwater. He there went back into the lake, swam a bit deeper into the water and took out the Threshadon corpse again.

Tying a rope around the monsters neck, Jay slowly passed through under the bridge while swimming towards the town with it in tow.

The first to spot him was not one of the guards but Baren who still stood on the pier. Jay saw him rush back to the city a second later and heard him yelling loud, only to come there long before Jay reached the shore next to the bridge.

Even Magistrate Solomon and Corporal Keeshan had come rushing there as Jay climbed on land again.

Numerous soldiers, guards and fishermen there helped Jay pull the tons heavy monster on land. Jay thanked them and directly went to Solomon and Dock-master Baren who stood next to each other.

This decision proved just right as the moment Baren uttered "See? It was no mere legend!" a screen appeared in Jay's field of view, informing him of another completed quest.

***

Quest:

'The menace in the Lake' cleared!

Defeat the monster in Everstill Lake and deliver proof.

4200 XP

***

All people present got into a celebratory mood and Solomon took Jay to the side and hinted him that though there had been no official request out, he knew just the right person to buy the corpse. He send his attendant to Femmel's specialities while Jay gave a small report about the Murlocs he had eradicated.

Both men agreed to Jay's guess that the strange behavior of the small monsters has had probably to do with the menacing beast that had lingered about in the lake.

They corrected him though in his misspelling that it had been a monster and not a beast, what was the reason they called for someone else.

Just as Jay got the quest for the Murlocs completed and rewarded with another batch of XP, the person they had been waiting for had arrived. She was a quite beautiful redhead wearing a white apron over her extremely abundant seeming chest.

The woman curtly greeted the other men and then businesslike Jay as well, getting directly to the point if he was the one wanting to sell the meat.

After Jay nodded, she went to the giant corpse and checked it for a moment, then returned to Jay stating it's a monster. He didn't miss her sly grin as she continued that in this case the meat should be a bunch cheaper.

Just then Solomon once again interfered and explained that woman was Gloria Femmel. Jay might not have heard of her, but she was one of the very few people in this world who can cook meat like this so it got eatable for humans.

She looked anything but amused to this, but then the magistrate pulled her to the side and after a few glances over to Jay her expressions got back to normal.

When she walked back to Jay, Baren had whispered him a price that would be about fair for the whole monster. To his surprise though, she stated an even slightly higher price, to what Jay suddenly offered it to her at ten percent less.

As he was in no need for the few gold coins it was worth, Jay asked Gloria if he gets therefore treated to a meal of it, getting surprised to irritated looks from all three of them.

Gloria suddenly got a wide grin, stating he was an interesting fellow and shook his hand to conclude their deal.

After their negotiations she directly went back to the corpse and started to cut huge chunks of meat out of it. She got a bit surprised when Jay appeared next to her and offered to help bring the meat to her restaurant but didn't decline.

Instead she started to explain the process of preparing the meat in general.

While cutting appropriate portions, she kept pulling out most of the lingering mana from the meat to make it consumable later on. If the miasma would stay inside it, it would poison whoever eats it though a tiny bit left was what made it so special.

Then she placed some herbs between the cuts before they loaded them onto a pushcart that one of her helpers then pulled to her place. As it looked like his help really wasn't needed, Jay decided to visit the inn to wash and change.

Gloria had asked him to visit her store about three hours later so she could prepare a meal.

Even if his clothes had by then dried up again, Jay took another bath in the lake before he went to the Inn. Some water dripping from him was still better than leaving bloody footprints.

Brianna had seen his action as she went looking for the commotion outside as well and thanked him for his thoughtfulness.

Somewhat over two hours later, Jay had washed properly, then rested for a while and came walking back down to the dining hall in another set of clothes.

When Brianna saw him she asked what he wanted for dinner and learned he would eat out this night.

Stepping out of the inn, Jay took a breath of warm air in the setting sun and went on his way to Femmel's Specialities.

It was time to taste the massive monsters meat...