Chương 409: (402) 6.16. Hardcore Camping

As expected from the frigid temperature, most of the wildlife in this new fragment seemed well equipped to handle the cold. They spotted a few animals that reminded him of groundhogs, other than the fact that they had a lot more fur and couldn't move about as quickly. There were fairly normal-looking squirrels running up and down some of the pale trees, eagerly hunting for nuts or other tidbits to shove into their mouths. And then there was the monster that wasn't a monster.

"That thing seriously isn't a monster?" Shia muttered, staring right beside him at the giant, four-legged beast with its head down, peacefully munching on grass. Even from this distance, Vin could tell that the animal's back was almost up to his shoulders. It looked like someone had tried sprinkling protein powder all across their lawn, and a deer had discovered the combination was its new favorite snack.

It had two equally large antlers growing out of its head, each one ending in a number of deadly points that Vin had no doubt could tear a man to shreds if needed. Its shaggy mane looked incredibly warm, and its long tail flicked out behind it as it ate.

"I'm telling you, it's not," Vin repeated, having already tried casting Sense Magic, narrowing the spell into little more than a beam of mana which wouldn't really do anything beyond give a monster a taste of their presence. The animal hadn't reacted in the slightest, which meant it didn't have a taste for mana.

"That thing might actually be able to give a Trunkback a run for its money," Shia said, shaking her head as she turned away.

"It looks like it would have enough meat on its bones to feed me for a year!"

"It definitely looks powerful," Vin admitted, finishing up his sketch of the animal before putting his journal away.

"I wonder how fast it can run." Drawing increased to lvl 13! 1, 300 exp gained.

"Let's hope we don't have to find out," Shia snorted.

"I can't believe something that big eats grass." It wasn't too long after their surprise encounter with the biggest animal Vin had ever seen that the two of them ran into their first monster of the new fragment. As they ran through the forest, Vin's high focus alerted him to the sounds of branches snapping and beasts panting, and he quickly spotted the small pack of monsters heading their way.

Looking almost like a pack of wild hyenas, the group of monsters were making a beeline straight for them, their tongues hanging out of their mouths and slobber going everywhere as they ran. New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.

"Monsters, nine-o-clock," he warned, pulling up short and preparing himself for a fight. None of them looked particularly powerful, but any monsters that were smart enough to attack as a pack weren't to be taken lightly. Before Shia could even say anything, Vin initiated." Fireball," he said, firing off a ball of condensed flame directly into the middle of the pack. To his surprise, the pack actually scattered in response to the attack.

Half of them ran to the left, and half of them ran to the right, circling him and Shia rather than coming at them from the front. His spell detonated without taking out a single one, and he grunted in acknowledgement. Fireball wasn't exactly the fastest-moving spell, but it had been awhile since he'd hit absolutely nothing with it.

"Nice shooting," Shia teased, not sounding concerned in the slightest by the ten monsters running circles around them, waiting for an opening.

"My turn! Grass Spikes." Again, the monsters showed off some startling agility as the three she'd targeted leapt to the side, two of them managing to get away with little more than some minor cuts. The third wasn't quite so lucky, however, and it was skewered by the sharpened blades of grass that erupted into its underside before it could move.

"They're fast, I'll give them that," Shia admitted, growing a touch more serious as the monsters growled as one in response to their packmate's death.

"And clearly hidden monsters, seeing as they're not just lunging at us. Though this is the strangest ambush I've ever seen."

"I guess they make their own ambush conditions," Vin said, deciding he'd had enough of trying to track the circling monsters." Enhance Gravity." Casting his spell in a wide enough area to encompass all the monsters was a massive drain on his mana, but it was quite effective.

Using Runic Recalibration, he managed to avoid including himself and Shia within the spell, ensuring they were entirely unaffected as the nine remaining hyena monsters all stumbled and crashed to the ground, their speed and agility meaning little in the face of gravity tripling out of nowhere.

As they struggled to get back to their feet, Shia cast Grass Spikes a few more times, finishing them off in short order.

"Man, that's a serious drain on mana," Vin complained, letting his spell drop the moment the last of the monsters was dead.

"Gravity magic is beyond useful, but it guzzles mana like nobody's business." If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Anytime you adjust a spell to such a degree it's going to become less efficient," Shia pointed out as she prodded at one of the monsters, looking it over more carefully.

"And I was right, I thought something felt off about how the monsters were fighting. Take a look at this." Crouching beside her, Vin blinked as he immediately spotted what she'd noticed. The fur around the monsters' necks had been partially worn away and flattened, as though they'd been wearing collars most of their lives.

"We're dealing with some sort of Tamer then?" Vin asked, wincing as he realized they may have just killed a handful of pets without even realizing it.

"Tamers can tame monsters, right?"

"Devin has, back in Terra," Shia nodded.

"I ran into him once while checking out the forests on your plane. He had a few of the wolves at his side, and was riding atop of a big bad bear."

"Seriously? Alright, I've been putting this off way too long. I need to meet this guy," Vin decided.

"But if these monsters also belonged to someone, why would the Tamer have them attack us?"

"There's a chance they might just be following general defensive orders," Shia pointed out.

"Remember, whoever lives here had to fend off the Red Dawn for months. It wouldn't be surprising if they just gave their monsters a general 'kill any approaching humanoids' order."

"That's a good point. Well damn, now I feel bad about killing them. I wonder how long it takes a Tamer to tame a new monster."

"Why don't we find them and ask?" Shia grinned, pointing in the direction the monsters had come from.

"You've got Tracking, right? Looks like a good time to use it." While Shia remained on the lookout for more approaching threats, Vin did just that, getting low to the ground and giving his old Tracking skill a workout for the first time in what felt like ages. Despite being the very first skill he'd ever picked up on Edregon, hilariously, Tracking was still tied with Cartography as his lowest-leveled skill.

With how many different sensing spells he now had, and having figured out how to send out pulses of the spells across an entire fragment, he didn't have too much of a need for manually tracking stuff these days. Still, it was nice when he didn't want to risk accidentally killing himself from magical feedback, and it still had its uses. Tracking increased to lvl 13! 1, 300 exp gained. Tracking increased to lvl 14! 1, 400 exp gained.

It took Vin a solid three hours to follow the monsters' tracks back to their original location, and he managed to level the skill two more times while doing so. Admittedly, he and Shia probably could have made much better time. If it hadn't been for the constant patrols of monsters accosting them what felt like every few hundred feet. More packs of hyena monsters that tried to circle and pick them off just like the first.

Large, stealthy panthers which tried to leap down from trees and rip their throats out before they were detected. Even a good number of flying monsters that shot down from the heavens and tried to tear into them with jagged talons. Vin hadn't seen this many monsters since the battle for wave five at Terra, and with each pack they took down, he grew more and more confident that Shia's theory was correct.

After finishing off another swarm of birds with a few well-placed Stone Shots, Vin went to go back to tracking before realizing he could now see the edge of some sort of settlement off in the distance. It was hidden decently well within the forest, but the large, wooden wall was a dead giveaway.

"Finally," he said, pointing it out for Shia and Reginald.

"That was a pain and a half to find. I'm pretty certain they actually trained those hyena monsters to run off in a different direction first before going on their patrol, because we were going in the entirely wrong direction for a while in the beginning!"

"If anything, that just shows these guys are cunning," Shia pointed out.

"No wonder they managed to survive being adjacent to the Red Dawn. The real question is do you think it's a lone Tamer controlling all these monsters, or a society of them, like how all the neilans were Ritualists?"

"Guess we'll find out soon enough," Vin said, walking the last bit toward the settlement. As they approached, he noted how the logs making up the wall were carved into spikes at the top, which definitely added to the 'KEEP OUT' vibe he was getting from the people of this fragment. As he and Shia walked up to the single gate, four elves suddenly stood up from behind the top of the wall, each one with a longbow drawn and aimed at the two of them.

"If you value your lives, you won't take another step closer," a man with a deep voice called out, his eyes narrowed as he took them in. The elf wore large, shaggy furs that looked like they'd come from one of the panther monsters that kept trying to land on their heads, and he had a nasty scar running down the center of his face.

"Sorry, we didn't mean to startle you!" Vin called up, noting the surprise on the elves' faces as he spoke their language.

"And our apologies for killing so many of your tamed monsters! We just wanted to come say hello and see who lived within this fragment."

"You are not with the deranged ones?" a second elf asked, this one a woman with what looked like jewelry carved from bone pierced through her ear.

"If you mean the Red Dawn, no, we're not," Shia snorted.

"And if you're wondering why you haven't seen them in a while, that's because we actually killed all those guys."

"The fact that you are an elf is all the proof we need that you are not with the deranged ones," the first man said, lowering his bow and motioning for the other three to do the same.

"They had large, green men packed with muscle, and people who were half-human, half beast. And dwarves. But no elves."

"Those are orcs and beastkin," Vin called up helpfully.

"Just some of the many races across Edregon. Any chance we can come in? It sounds like you guys haven't gotten around much, which makes sense, what with the Red Dawn prowling around all these months. We'd be happy to fill you in on some of the stuff you've missed." The four elves turned and quietly chatted among themselves. After a few seconds, the woman with the bone earrings nodded, motioning for them to come forward while the rest of the elves went down and began opening the main gate.

"We welcome you within our walls," she said, lifting a horn to her lips and blowing into it, sending a deep, rumbling tone throughout the forest. Putting the horn away, she gave them a warm smile.

"If what you say of the deranged ones is true, then you are more than welcome. Come and feast with us!"