An unknow beast
The fight finished as quickly as it began, a single strike with the sword was all it took for the forefront coyote to fall dead. This was only possible because of Leoric's tactics and his experience as a hunter, if he fights by himself he would probably die fighting this beast, but as a ranged fighter, his strength shined when assisting a close-range combatant like Ryu.
This team is capable of taking down any rank 0 beasts quite easily, at least if Leoric's arrow could penetrate the iron skin boar they would have a chance against it. But the arrows can't do any damage on that beast, in this forefront coyote it has barely penetrated, on a rank 1 beast, it will probably rebound on the skin, especially if it is on a beast focused on defense like the iron skin boar.
Ryu collected the coyote carcass to use later, Leoric said the meat of this beast has a bitter taste, it is not useful as a food for humans. But it has its own use, it can be used to attract carnivore animals, or it can be used as bait for fishing larger fishes.
The hunt was becoming more efficient as Ryu absorbs Leoric's teachings, it was not on the level to trigger a skill yet but at this rate, in just a few days it should happen. When this time comes he will have much more liberty hunting, as for now, he has to depend on Leoric.
As the hunting progress, they were only seeing small animals, which they decide to skip. They were after the big ones, those that could provide sufficient food, if they go after each hare or beaver they encounter there would be no end to this hunt.
The first day ended like this, with just some small gains. It is not entirely true for Ryu, when they reach the village at night he received a notification.
< reward: 175 exp, total exp: 505 / 1300>>
At first, it may look like the reward was small, but looking at how easily he had dealt with the beast it looks that this amount of exp is a good sum. If he finds two beasts or three he can get a large sum in a single day.
The following days Ryu Sei's routine was just this simple, he would wake early and go hunt with Leoric, at night they come to the village and have a party with Kevin at Susan's tavern.
Eventually, they got a deer and others animals better suited for food storage. Ryu kept training with the bow under the tutelage of Leoric, on the second day.
< Despite acquiring a bow mastery skill, his ability with the bow was still a disaster. Before he gets the skill his arrow flew far from the target, some times it would land on the ground just a few meters from him. After the skill, he at least managed to successfully launch the arrow but it was still missing the target by a great distance.
There were a few encounters with the beast too, But this time Ryu asked to hunt it by himself, Leoric should only launch an arrow if he finds that Ryu was in danger. By fighting alone, he was expecting to raise the bonus received as a reward in the bonus quest, this tactic actually worked and his exp was raising at a decent rate.
< < < They were making good progress hunting, not only they were gathering food in preparation for the winter, but the pelt from the animals and beast was used to make clothes. The whole village was involved in the hunting business.
Since the frontier was closed the villagers couldn't work on their usual jobs, so they shifted the job to work with the animals brought by Ryu and Leoric. The process of preparing the pelts to use them as clothing is hard by itself, but the difficulty of the job was raised by many folds because they couldn't allow the smell of dead animals to spread at the risk of attracting a beast. Everybody was busy those days.
Meanwhile, on the fourth day of hunting, Ryu was getting confident with his ability, the rank 0 beast was not a threat for him at all, about rank 1 beast they haven't met any in all those days. With their teamplay working better, Leoric sent Ryu to stay at some distance so they could cover more ground while tracking.
This tactic was progressing quite well, they were walking among the trees producing no sound. Then Ryu spotted a beast ahead. He approached it sneaking until he could see the eyes of the beast, he was unable to identify this beast, the different types of beasts are endless and it is almost impossible for one person to know all types.
This beast shared some resemblance with a lynx, but its fur was green and its tail has a ball at the end. Ryu was preparing to launch an attack on the lynx when the beast raised its ears looking to the side, it was the side where Leoric was located.
With the beast on alert, Ryu was afraid of it running or attacking Leoric, so he decided to take the lead and attack the lynx. As he rushed to the lynx, it turned to face Ryu ready for combat. Ryu slashed with the sword trying to hit the lynx but the lynx managed to avoid it by jumping back.
The lynx looked at Ryu then it looked at Leoric and turned to its back and started to run, the beast saw it was at disadvantage and decided to make its escape. Ryu was not in the mood to miss this prey, he runs after the beast with all his speed, he was getting near at every step.
"Stop. Don't chase this one, it has..." Leoric's voice is lost in the forest while Ryu runs.
When Ryu was just one step from the lynx preparing to slash the beast, the ball at the end of its tail opened and a dart was sent flying at high speed. Ryu was not able to react in time, the dart pierced his chest making him stop in pain, blood started to flow dying his white robe in red color.
Leoric arrived panting, he saw the dart on Ryu's chest and make and worried expression.
"I told you to stop, this dart has poison. We have to go back to the village."
"Am I poisoned? tell me how bad is this poison? tell me the truth."
"If you were a normal person it would be very bad, I don't know you will deal with it. But you don't have to worry Anne is very skilled she will know what to do."
Leoric went back with Ryu at the fastest speed he could, he said to Ryu not to worry but it was evident that he himself was very worried.