Me and my wives were leaving the castle and just as we were opening the doors to the outside we get stopped by one of the maids who hands me a map of the surrounding area. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow but she only smiled.
"Lord Necro knew you would be needing this and sent me to deliver it before you left." She gave a quick bow and walked away. I looked at the map and saw as there were multiple areas circled, there were also areas labeled with the names and a quick description of the monsters that lived there. I saw an area with boar like monsters that were said to be the descendants of a species that were experimented on and then left to survive in the wild. This was the biggest area circled aswell as a little asterisk next to the description.
*Please bring back any material that contains the elements, I would like some tusks and hides please. I'll pay you for the extra work. - Necro freewebno vel.com
I chuckled as I read that and then looked over at another area, this one was the second largest and it was in a place that shared a border with the boars territory. Reading the name and description I gasped and smiled with amusement as I started to feel a little giddy about hunting these.
"What is it Vexsus? Did you find something good to hunt?" Lula asked as she tried to peek at the map but she had to get on her tip-toes just to see a small part of it. I smiled and lowered it down as I pointed at the monster.
"This is our target, These guys were alive at one point in time on my old world but that was billions and billions of years before I was born. People still found their bones in the ground but how I found out about them was from a movie that I saw as a kid and fell in love with them, Even if they are scary to think about in real life. But this is a dream come true girls! I say we go hunt these, not only are they a big monster, but they also pose a serious threat to the nearby town according to Necro in his description here.
*I do not recommend hunting these, but if you do I can pay you a big amount as a 'Defense fee' since these guys are constantly trying to destroy the town nearby.... Still haven't found out how they got there or who put them there. - Necro
"So you want to go hunt these so called 'Deinonychus Rex'? Necro doesn't think we should though, shouldn't we pick another monster to hunt honey, I mean just to be on the safe side." Kitsoma looked a little worried at me since I still had a goofy grin on my face as I shook my head.
"Nah, it should be fine, I mean if I remember right the name means something like Terrible claw? It's been awhile, also I think Rex is supposed to mean like lord or king? so maybe it's going to be a monster that is big and has huge claws? But I say either way we find out!" I looked up with a smile but soon that disappeared as the faces of worry were on every one of the girls.
"Ugh, fine, why don't we go hunt the boars then. Thinking on it I'm not 100% healed and hunting a few boars would be better than trying to hunt something that could hunt me back. I mean the boars are elemental but that shouldn't really hurt to bad aslong as we take precautions so how does that sound?" I smiled again albeit a little weaker this time since it really wasn't what I wanted to do, but I couldn't disappoint the girls so soon after messing up. They nodded their heads and off we went towards the boar territory.
It took a good hour and a half to walk towards the nearest town that was close to the hunting spot. I stayed outside the town as the girls went and bought up the necessities for the hunt, water, tents, things like that since I didn't know how long we would be hunting for. They came back after a couple hours and gave me all the supplies to carry. Vannessa wanted to share the load as to not wear me out to quickly but I brushed her off and said that I needed the excercise.
It was another 30 minutes and finally we hit the hunting spot and right away we could see signs of activity in the area. Trees were knocked over and burnt along with some parts of the ground that were frozen and still in the process of thawing. one tree was split in half and still smoldering as if it was struck by lightning. I could see signs that the very ground itself was altered as huge chunks of it were gouged out of the ground to form pits all over. It looked like a damn warzone around here.
"Well good news is that we're here, haha, but bad news is that it looks like the monsters might be a bit stronger than I expected."
"Either way let's prepare and get started ok? The sooner we do this the faster we can get back to the castle, and the sooner I can take a dip in the hot springs that Hannah mentioned shortly before we left.... It's like she was incentivising us to hurry up lol. That girl I swear." Mara chuckled as we all came to a spot that looked decently usable for a campsite.
I looked around and oddly enough I spotted some strange looking flowers that encircled this area in a damn near perfect circle big enough for... Hell atleast 2 or 3 more decently sized parties to camp out at. I didn't sense anything magical about them as I bent down to examine them closer. Since they didn't have magical properties they must do something to keep the boars away from this area naturally? I picked one to sniff and it smelt sweet and had a weird smell aswell? Almost like some kind of honeyed almonds? Something inside my head was sending out warning signals but I couldn't remember why that was. I knew the smell of almonds was the sign of something.... But what? Meh screw it if it's poisonous then I'll just get the shits at worst.
I started bringing it closer to my mouth but stopped as someone started to yell in my direction as a sound of running to my left distracted me.
"DON'T EAT THAT! IT'S POISOUNOUS AND WILL KILL YOU!!!" A woman yelled as she ran up to me and slapped the flower out of my hand.
"What were you thinking doing that! Were you just going to eat that without knowing what it was!?" She stood above me with her hands on her hips and spoke in a stern tone. I got a good look at her from the ground up and I wasn't disappointed. She wore beige pants that seemed to fit her legs like a hug and showed off well built calfs as it seemed to stretch a little as it enveloped her thighs and hips. She wore a blue buttoned up shirt all the way to the neckline that showed nothing but I could see a couple hidden gems nestling in there. She was a bit on the leaner side of things above the waist but hey I'm not one to judge beauty. She had red crimson hair that flowed down to her shoulders that contrasted with her sparkling almost golden green eyes and a pair of glasses that seemed to highlight them.... Wait, They were actually green eyes that had a almost golden circle around them... Hmm that's still cool and very pretty. But taking that all in I shook my head as I stood up and looked down at her.
"I have a good digestion ma'am, I didn't do anything that could kill something like me so easily. Plus it smelt sweet and it made me hungry. By the way I'm Vexsus." I held out my hand towards her and waited.
"Hmph This kind of poison goes beyond a normal poison, it can kill anything easily so I don't believe you when I've seen first hand how painful a death it causes to the boars dumb enough to eat it." She huffed and said before turning around and picking one to show me.
"This flower is locally called the flower of death, when eaten it causes intense pain and full body shutdown within minutes of eating as you start to bleed out of every orifice. Look here at the petals, See here how it has this fine film that covers it? underneath that film is a gooey substance that emits that sweet smell you spoke of, it uses that smell to draw in insects that then break that film and kills that insect that then falls down into this opening down the stem."
She took a knife from her belt and used it to cut that film. As soon as she did I smelt a more intense honeyed almond smell and I saw as a hole opened up down the middle of the flower that revealed a damn graveyard of insects. HUR~~~ I gagged and had a full body shiver as I imagined how close I was to munching on those. I may eat some weird and varied things but man I have to cross the line at bugs.... most of the time.
"This is where the flower gets it's nutrients. Notice how it has no leaves? That means it cannot use the sun to produce energy, This type of plant has evolved to soley rely on meat as a food source. I mean it's so fascinating how this plant works! Just look at these!" She bents over and pulls up the roots from the flower she plucked while I snuck a good glance.
She didn't even notice as she was so focused on showing me the roots of this plant. "See here? The roots aren't meant to allow much in the way of water or soil nutrients, but instead see how they are barbed? I didn't know if you were paying much attention to anything other than my ass but I had to exert a good amount of force to pull these up from the ground."
Uh-oh, How did she know? I nervously chuckled as she gave me a narrowed eye but soon chuckled aswell.
"Anyways, back to the roots. These are meant almost solely to keep the plant firmly in place and not move, I've seen those boars hurl giant pieces of earth with these things on it and the whole time they didn't move or fall out. I have a theory that someone made these plants and then let them run wild after making this area. Ofcourse I can't confirm that but I mean just look at how perfect this circle is outlined! That doesn't happen naturally."
She was still talking but I stopped listening as a cold chill ran down my back and the feeling of death came from behind me. I turned to see 4 lovely ladies standing in front of a big tent and there was a fire going inside of a fire pit but those 4 sets of eyes were glued to me with a look of pure death.
"Um, miss? I have to get back to my party now, it was great to meet you." I quickly walked back to the camp and apologized.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that to happen, how was I supposed to know a woman would come out of knowhere and start blabbing on about a plant?"
"We aren't mad about that Vex." Vannessa said.
"Yea, what we are mad about is you checking her out so openly!" Lula said while raising her hands into the air.
"I mean she does look good though... But still you should have just focused on talking to her and eye her discreetly like everybody else does." Mara muttered the first part but backstepped when she realized she said it outloud.
Kitsoma didn't say anything and just sighed with a head shake before coming and handing me a big pot. "Go fill this up with water at the nearby stream, There is a sign that points that way so that means no wandering off got it?" She narrowed her eyes at me with a 'Don't mess around' look and I quickly nodded and jogged off towards the path with a sign infront. fr eeweb novel
"River this way, beware boars huh. Well that makes sense it's a water source. Animals would naturally go towards a water source. Wonder if I'll encounter some food while I'm there." I said outloud but sighed as another voice spoke up.
"It's also a great place to study plants! I've spent a few weeks here already but every day I still find something new to study!" That woman from earlier said with a level of enthusiam that made me feel wore out already. Her happiness level is way to high for this.
"Oh great it's you. Did you plan this or something?" I turned my head and asked as I started walking down the path.
"I was on my way to study the river plants when I stopped you from dying so if anything it looks like you were waiting for me." She said as she placed her hands on her hips and cocked them to the side while she looked me up and down.
"You look strong so you'll do for a bodyguard let's go." She walked past me and waved her hand forward. I just stood there in confusion. "Bodyguard?"
She stopped a few feet ahead and looked back. "What are you waiting for let's go bodyguard. We have some plants to study and only a few hours of daylight left."
"Hold up you mean me?" I pointed at myself and looked around for anybody else. Finding no one as I already knew I would I sighed and started walking after the crazy lady that had kept walking, not like I could let a woman just be out here defenseless can I?
She pointed out a few trees and some plants that I tried to mentally jot down as she said they had some properties good for healing or one that had an stimulating effect like coffee. That last one would be good, I miss having coffee every morning. We soon reached the river and she got giddy all of a sudden and took off towards a log that was half submerged in the river with its other half out of the water and laying against a giant boulder. There was a covering of green all over the log and that was what she got excited about.
"This is a plant that creates a relationship with trees it grows on. It sucks out some nutrients from the tree but in exchange it acts like a food factory for the tree. This thing can't use the food it creates for the trees but takes the processed nutrients the plant gets from said food. It's so weird but so intriguing at the same time right! Like I said every day I find something new to get excited about!"
I just sighed yet again but stopped as I took another look at the log. There was deep scratches on the wood with one large gouge out of the middle of 3 claw marks that spanned half a foot. This was no boar sign. Looking again I noticed that the end of the log was broken apart and the ends were jagged that only happened when it was snapped off with force.
"Hmm? It's odd but this these two are still alive. But then how did it end up here?" The woman was still studying the plant and tree and still hadn't noticed the huge claw marks that were a mere few feet from her down the log. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she just had tunnel vision. I started to look around and up the river making sure to watch the nearby bushes for any movement as I walked slowly toawards the woman.
"We need to go." I said as I tapped her shoulder and then pointed towards the claw marks. "Those were not made by boars. There's something worse than boars here if it's what I think it is. They shouldn't be this far from their territory." From where we were the territory of these things were clear on the other side of this forest that spanned hundreds upon hundreds of miles.
Her eyes widened as she finally saw the claw marks and she jumped up and started to run off but I grabbed her and stopped her. "Don't run off. We have to take this slowly. I don't know where they are and I can't sense anything nearby. But look up the river." I pointed towards an area just off the side of the river at a tree trunk that was broken 3 feet off the ground. The tree was much taller than expected. But that was what worried me because that means the creature that made those claw marks was even bigger than I expected.
I started moving us away from the river and slowly down the path as slowly as I could all the while paying attention to our surroundings. The woman next to me was doing the same but she was a bit more shaken.
I heard a rustling come from our left side and on the side the woman was. I quickly moved her behind me and prepared myself to fight.... Until I heard a guttural clicking sound come from behind us. I heard as the woman hiccuped in the middle of a startled gasp and she started shaking. I turned and saw as a reptilian head the length of my arm come slowly out of the bushes as it looked between me and the woman. It was showing off its mouth full of teeth as it raised up and gave me a full look at it's huge body. It blended in so well with the surrounding greenery until it showed itself that I couldn't see or feel its presence. IT chose to reveal itself and that scared me.
I looked up and met its gaze as I smiled through the fear and grabbing onto that small spark of excitement that was growing inside my heart as it pounded against my chest.
"Clever girl."
This chapter is updat𝙚d by f(r)eewebn(o)vel.com