CH30: Virgin Party Nest Hunt

***

CH30: Virgin Party Nest Hunt

The Calmlore nest was about 250 kilometres away from Landrose City.

Although the Pastoral nest was a mere 50 kilometres away from the closest city, it fell under the control of the Capital city because of its ability to provide sufficiently meat for it.

Calmlore occupied an area about the size of 8 thousand square kilometres and was one of the largest nest in the Republic of Bayveth.

It was a major supplier of essential meat to almost all the cities in the country and had thousands of newbie hunters entering the land to hunt the Beasts in semi-captivity within.

The train myself and Zora's party were on arrived a dedicated Calmlore train station 10 kilometres from the nest itself.

We joined up with one of the Guild's logistic unit.

I had paid the price of 1000UC for the highest service provided by the unit so a caravan of multiple carriages was readied to move our loot back home for us.

The logistic unit didn't believe a party of seven, myself included, could kill enough beasts to fill up all the carriages, however since I had paid, they had no choice but to bring them.

We agreed on a delivery location as we didn't need them to follow us into the nest, they would only slow us down. Plus, them hurling bloody carcasses behind us would scare our potential prey away.

Fortunately, we had a way to deliver the carcasses to them without disturbing our journey.

*

We went ahead of the caravan and arrived at the nest.

The nest was surrounded by a city wall. However, unlike the massive city wall of Landrose, this was only 5 metres high.

Plus, the Calmlore wall was meant to keep the beasts in and not out like the Landrose City wall.

After a routine check and registration, we entered the nest.

"For the next one hour, you guys can act on your own. I'll assess you from behind."

Zora and the others formulated a plan, then entered into the expanse of the nest.

The Calmlore nest was mostly a lowland savannah with mostly short grasses. So the demand for survivor skills was minimal. However, it does pose a demand on hunting skills.

Sure, Beast didn't like the sight of humans, it didn't mean all of them attacked on sight, at least not the herbivores.

There was a stronger chance a herbivore beast would flee than attack at the sight of humans within the Calmlore nest.

Generation after generation of hunting seems to have driven home the threat humans posed to their lives.

However, if their numbers were large enough, these herbivore beasts would attack rather than flee.

So, one had to be on their toes to react to the situation. How the party achieved this was what I wanted to see.

*

The party went ahead while I followed leisurely from behind.

I wasn't as relaxed as I portrayed though. I kept my senses sharp and was ready to interfere should the kids need help.

Soon, the party spotted a herd of deer. There were about thirty to forty in the group.

The party quickly got low and completely hid their presence away.

Or at least they tried to.

They were still noticeable in my senses but it was good enough for the deers not to take notice of them.

They channelled mana to their eyes through a basic method thought to them at the academy.

{Life Vision}

{Life Vision} allowed a Hunter to tell the Life value or Aura of a beast. The colour displayed told the strength of the Beast.

From the lowest Beast-class to the highest Apocalypse class, their Life or Aura colour were Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Black and White.

Life Value or Aura differed from mana.

Mana is the energy possessed by all matter in the world of Arun. There was ambient mana in the atmosphere so everything will be dyed in it and possess it.

Aura on the other hand is a measure of state of being. It is determined by a number of things, power, attribute, nature, etc. However, all these can be summed up to 'experience'. Whatever one experienced would have an influence on their Life Value or Aura.

The colour of mana usually indicates the being's mana attribute. These colours were fixed. Red for fire, blue for water, brown for earth and so on.

This holds true for both humans and beast.

The colour of Aura on the other hand denotes the impact of the 'experience' a being has undergone.

The colour of Aura was fixed for beasts and it was a clear indicator of their strength as shown above.

The older and stronger a beast was, the higher their colour of their Aura or Life Value.

However, this wasn't the case for humans.

The human power system was dependant on the number of mana rings. Aura on the other hand merely showed experience.

Aura had nothing to do with strength. Instead, it had more to do with a person's nature.

Those in line with nature had green aura, those ones with death had black aura, overly nice or good people tend to have gold or white aura.

Human generally don't check the aura of other humans. One, you can tell if someone is checking you out and block it. Two, it's not exactly reliable as it changes with activity.

For example, an Assassin can have a black aura around them when 'working' but it can change to gold when they're back in their cover lives.

For humans, Aura is something we can school to control.

I can do it. I also taught Zora to do so.

*

Anyway, the team use the {Life Vision} to check the Beasts' aura.

They were all red, meaning all the deers were Beast-class. The party decided they could easily handle any of them as long as they weren't overwhelmed.

Still, my constant nagging of caution stuck in their heads. They didn't charge out like some foolish newbie hunters would do.

Instead, they used a hunt formation.

The Archers, i.e. Ramla and Zora, and the healer, Ella, stayed behind while the boys pushed forward.

Milos stopped halfway to the beasts while Jaras and Fenton spread out.

Once everyone was in position, Jaras summoned Arakus.

The surprisingly nimble Minotaur circled around the beasts. The deers noticed him, but perhaps they didn't consider him a threat since he looked like one of their fellow inhabitants.

Then again, I'm more willing to believe it was because it was still outside their danger range that they didn't take-off yet.

However, this changed when it entered their range. The herd took off.

In Jaras' direction no less.

The big guy laid in a prone position and waited for them to get close.

One of the deer broke the rule of the savannah and vied off from the herd while it ran. To make matter worse, it ran dead centre towards Jaras.

The big guy shot up when it was close by. He tackled the beast to the ground and broke its neck in one swift motion.

The other deer were shocked by his appearance and changed direction... towards Fenton.

The swordsman slashed out with his sword and took down two prey before having to sidestep away.

"Now!" He shouted back.

Stalk of vines shot out from the new direction the herd turned. The fifteen vines entangled fifteen of the biggest deers.

Then, as if waiting for the moment, arrows rained down and took three more of the escaping herd.

The party took care of the fifteen trapped deer when they were done with that.

A good hurl of twenty-one carcasses laid before them.

"See that, Teacher. No problem at all." The ever energetic Jaras said.

Ella healed the scratches he got from tackling his kill.

I didn't respond to his claims. Instead I nodded to Zora.

She channelled her mana and activated her Dimensional Door Pangea. A tear opened in space and the area before the logistic unit appeared.

"Hurry." Zora shouted.

She had opened a four square metre door. It took a toll on her mana and concentration.

Fortunately, the hurl had already been bundled together so the boys worked together to quickly push it through.

And so, the hunt was transported about a kilometre to the logistic unit outside the camp.

From this, it can be seen why the Hunter Academy thought the best place for Zora was in a support unit. Her Pangea was just too convenient in a world where there was no common spatial transport.

"Your cooperation was okay, but you could have done better." I said to them. "There are different types of parties. Most parties out there are just individuals working together. What I want is for you to be a unit."

"We still have sheep and cattle-type beasts on our target list. Very well. I'll take command once and show you how to takedown your prey with minimal effort."

They nodded.

We continued our foray into the nest looking for our targets.

Eventually, we chanced upon some cattle-type beast.

These beast looked like buffalos to me and they numbered in the hundreds. A group this large would sure be led by a Monster-class beast at least.

As expected, when the party used {Life Vision}, they noticed five within the herd were Monster-class while one, the leader, was a Threat-class beast.

Under normal circumstances, it would be difficult for the party to face this herd due to their size and strength of their leaders. However, I knew we had a chance because of the type of beast they were.

These Buffalos were called Cavalry Bulls.

They were mostly earth attributed beasts.

Unlike humans who unlock their mana attributes at their sixth mana ring, Beast have mana attributes from the moment they can use mana. Usually, their attribute is determined by their race.

For most humans, their mana attribute is determined by their Pangea.

Ella is light, Jaras is earth/steel, Ramla is lightening, Milos is Plant, Zora is Spatial. Only Fenton doesn't know his attribute as Andirin was attributeless.

He'd have to wait until he unlocks his attribute at 6 rings to know what the attribute is. The others also have to reach 6 rings to unlock their attributes and be able to use it through their own mana, however, they can use the attributes to some extent through their Pangea.

Anyway, the earth-attribute Cavalry Bulls had a trait that was usually their undoing. And I planned to take advantage of that.

I had the party get into what would be their party formation.

Jaras would take front as the tank. Zora and Fenton were behind him as damage dealers. Behind them was Ella, ready to heal the frontliners, and Milos, ready to control the flow of the battle with his vines and grasses. The furthest back was therefor Ramla who had the longest range.

They spread out widely but kept the line.

The Cavalry Bulls got into a tight charging formation once they noticed Jaras.

The Buffalos charged down with great momentum like an Army Cavalry.

The momentum of the herd soon reached the peak.

Then, the party got to work.

Ramla notched and released an arrow which landed on the leader. It didn't cause any damage to the Threat-class Beast. Heck, it didn't even scratch its skin.

However, the point of the arrow wasn't to harm the herd leader, instead, it was to deliver its payload.

An electric discharge ejected from the arrow, covering a ten metre radius, thus affecting all the leaders at the front of the charge.

They were 'shocked' and sent tumbling into the ground, only for them to be stampeded by those behind them.

With just one arrow, Ramla took out the leaders of the heard.

The charge fell into confusion. Some tried to stop while others wanted to continue the charge.

This was when Milos acted.

The grasses before the charge tripped the feet of the new charge leaders, causing them to fall. They were also soon trampled by the rest of the herd.

The momentum of the herd had reduced significantly at this point.

It was Zora's turn to make a move.

A ten centimetre radius spatial channel opened before her and she thrust her spear out. The spear appeared out of another channel of the same size before the new leader of the herd and found itself in the beast skull.

It also fell and disturbed the charge's momentum.

At this point, quite a number of beasts had stopped from the charge.

The number of the Bulls still charging didn't number ten, plus their momentum was significantly low.

It was Jaras' turn.

Arakus merged with him and his skin took a steel-grey colour.

He shot into the incoming charge, sending some Bulls flying.

These Beast-class Bulls couldn't compare in strength with him.

Finally a scatter mob of five Bulls passed Jaras and headed towards Fenton and Zora.

It was Fenton's turn.

He shot forward and jumped on a Bull. He drove his sword downwards through its neck. Then, he quickly jumped onto the next moving Bull. Then, the next and the next.

The last bull managed to reach Zora but it was dispatched easily.

When the party turned to look at the other bulls, they discovered the herd was escaping in different directions.

Without a strong leader to lead them, the Bulls escaped.

Soon, there were scores of dead and almost dead Cavalry Bulls littering the grassy planes.

"How was it? Easy, right?" I smiled. "This is why wit is important on a hunt. Of course, power is also important. The plan wouldn't have worked if you all were weak."

The party nodded in understanding.

"This is going to take some cycles to send them all." Zora commented.

"Then you better get to work. We still have sheep to hunt."

It took an hour to move all the carcasses. There was a limit to Zora's mana so we needed to wait for her to recover her mana after each cycle.

Fortunately, there weren't any carnivores in the nest so we didn't have anything to worry about.

We eventually succeeded in finding sheep-like prey too.

At the end of the day, the number of the game we hunted reached hundred. The face of the captain of the logistic unit was quite rich when he saw the sheer number we hunted.

However, even after our large hurl, we hardly made a dent to the number of beasts in the nest. After all, not everyone had a super convenient Pangea like Zora's Dimensional Door.

Most Party hunted a dozen prey at most before they called it a day.

Anyway, we left the carcasses to the logistic unit. They'd help us deliver the hurl to Landrose where Guild butchers would do their work and separate the carcass into useful parts and meat before delivering them to the elite camp.

I'll have all the meat I need to use the A.P and then some.

Fortunately, there was a variety to enjoy.

*

Aside the meat and blood (Herbology material), I didn't have much use for other materials harvested from the beast carcass.

I intended to get someone from the Guild to sell them all for me when I had the idea to use their hides and skin to update my wardrobe.

Leather, wool and yarn can be made from the hides and skin of the three beast-types the party hunted. I just needed to take some time to process them, then I can have someone turn them into proper fabric for me which I can have tailored for me.

*

Everything was quiet for about a month and a half.

The leather from the hides and the fabric from the hairs were ready. I just needed to find a competent tailor to bring the fashion designs I had in mind to life.

I was musing about the matter of how to get a competent tailor when I received a message on my organisation Comms crystal.

It was a message from DarkBlade.

[Message: Meet me at the Charwell Mall in three days.]

(To be continued...)