"What kind of trap were you thinking about setting?" the first woman asked with a raised eyebrow, and I shrugged my shoulders.
"I don't know yet; I need help with that. You all seem pretty good at this sort of thing, so maybe you can help me come up with something while we wait for whatever it is to show up? Otherwise, we could just head back into town and try tomorrow night again," I said while shrugging my shoulders in response to her question.
The woman was quiet for a moment before looking towards her companions, who all shrugged their shoulders in response since none of them really seemed like they wanted anything more than getting out of here alive tonight without any further incident. "We will do it," The woman said after turning back towards me again with a determined look on her face now instead of the scared one from just a minute or two ago.
We spent the next hour or so setting up some simple traps, but we didn't catch anything. The six women were getting impatient and wanted to head back into town, but I talked them into staying for a little longer. I told them I would pay them each an extra gold if we could wait another hour or so. They hesitated at first, but after a few moments, they all nodded their heads in agreement before settling in to wait some more since there really wasn't anything else they could do out here except maybe get killed by whatever was out here stalking us right now.
A few minutes later, something finally appeared on my Mana runes, though it looked more like two something heading our way from the northeast side of the pond at a relatively fast pace, considering how far away they still were from us right now.
"It looks like we might have company," I said while quietly standing up from where I had been sitting on the ground close to one of our traps with my hand resting on top of one of my knives that was tucked into my belt; ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.
"What do you see?" The woman who had been doing most of the talking for their group so far asked while standing up from where she had been sitting with her hand resting on the handle of her own weapon. The rest of their group was also standing up now, and getting ready to fight whatever was heading our way, considering how scared they all looked right about now too.
"Two things, but I can't tell what they are just yet," I lied, not wanting to give away that I could see perfectly fine in the dark using my Mana runes since it would probably freak them out a bit more than they already were. "They should be here any minute now."
Sure enough, a few moments later, whatever it was showed up on the other side of the pond from us, though they didn't seem to have noticed us just yet, which probably meant that we still had the element of surprise working in our favor. The creatures were more significant than I had thought they would be based on the Mana signatures that I had been seeing, and they looked like a cross between a hyena and a wolf, though they were easily twice the size of any normal wolf too.
"What are those things?" One of the other women asked in horror while taking a few steps back from where we were all standing near the edge of the pond. They kept their eyes on those two monsters as they continued to make their way toward us without showing any signs of slowing down.
"I am not sure, but we need to be careful. They don't look friendly," I said carefully while thinking about our best course of action. The girls outnumbered the two monsters, not including me in that number, obviously, since I could take care of them independently.
The creatures finally noticed us and let out loud growls before picking up their pace as they charged toward us. I could almost feel the pure murderous intent burning in their eyes as if killing us was their only desire.
"Get behind me!" I shouted and pushed the six women behind me as I pulled out my knives and got ready to fight.
The creatures were upon us instantly, but they both ran into the traps we had set up for them. The first one was a simple pit trap where one of them fell into head first with a loud yelp, while the other ran into a wire attached to a large tree branch that swung down and hit it in the side of the head, knocking it unconscious.
I walked over to the pit trap and looked down into it, but I couldn't see much since it was pretty dark there, so I pulled out a fire rune and threw it down. The whole place lit up for a moment, and I could see the creature trying to climb out, but its leg was broken, so it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. The other one was knocked out cold from being hit in the head with that tree branch, so I ended their suffering quickly by throwing my knives at each of them, driving them through their skulls, which killed them instantly.
The women all let out sighs of relief when they saw that those two creatures were dead now as well before turning toward me with grateful looks on their faces. It was as if they thought that I had saved their lives or something along those lines, even though the traps did most of the work.
"Great work. You all take one, and I will take the other back to town, and then I will pay you there for helping me out," I laughed, but the women had somewhat defeated looks. I guess this must not really feel like a win for them. "Listen, I didn't do this all on my own. I got you all to help me, and I told you what to do, but I am sure you can all do this again if you want. Still, you have to be careful and patient. That can mean the difference in life and death when you run into a beast like that."
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