Chapter 14: First Hunting

After purchasing the portions and quiver Allen left the guild and returned to his barracks.

He will be leaving for Northern city in a week. During this time, the military has given time for them to relax and there was no training scheduled.

Allen wanted to use this time to hunt and increase his power as he wants to level up soon. He already got approval from Bones to go hunting.

His teammates wanted to join the hunt, but they did not want to go beyond the lower-risk area which will only have low-level private-stage monsters.

He informed them that he is going to hunt mid-level monsters and might also try to hunt high-level monsters to improve his battle experience.

They boarded a military truck that goes out to get supplies and got down at the border of the city. The city was encircled by a huge wall about fifteen feet in height and five feet in breadth.

Allen was accompanied by his teammates since he has to cross their hunting area to reach the mid-level zone.

He checked the map which was on his bracelet. This bracelet was provided to all military personnel once their training is completed.

It acts as a communication device and a mini laptop with a global connection. Along with this, he was provided with a shoulder bag to keep necessary things like ration, potions and store-hunted monster materials.

The bag is enchanted with low-level magic so he can carry many items. It has a storage capacity of three cubic metres and even if it is filled with materials, the weight will not exceed thirty kilos.

This allows the archers to use their agility without any issues. Allen kept his extra quiver and potions he purchased in the shoulder bag.

All of them were in their military uniform and had military-provided weapons as they did not have any other armour or weapons.

He was convinced by his team to stay with them just for today to see the coordination in real combat. He had no other option but to agree.

They reached the forest area and started walking slowly into the forest.

Allen was in the lead with the remaining four teammates following him closely.

All five were nervous as this is their first hunt and real combat against monsters.

"What monster did you guys plan to attack?" asked Allen.

"Anything that is below the high-level private stage is fine" said Kumar.

They don't want to fight the peak-level private stage monsters as they will be 2 levels higher than them. All 5 were in mid-level private stage.

Sam, Kriti and Abdul were quiet as they were nervous about their first real combat.

They found a few groups of trainees fighting low-level monsters on their way. They saw them fighting Blood rats, Shadow rabbits, Giant ants, life snakes and a few other monsters.

Since they started a little late than others, they had to go deep into the outer region to fight low-level monsters and get much-needed experience.

Being in the forest is not new to Allen's team as they are all from villages surrounded by forests.

They killed a few low and mid-level monsters which were roaming alone in the forest.

After noon they decided to find an ant hill to kill giant ants. They did not bring any ration as they will be in the forest for only a day.

The anthill will have at the very least a peak-level private stage queen and it will be easy for them to kill if they don't overwhelm them with numbers.

The giant ants are weak and usually use numbers to kill their enemies. But to get the highest number of them to come out, the ant hill needs to be disturbed directly.

They found ant hill after 30 minutes of searching. As per their plan, Allen will use an explosion arrow to attract a few ants from the hill and they will kill them.

Once they kill the ants, they will retrieve their arrows and collect the materials that can be sold. Allen already had 2/5th of his bags filled with materials and meat.

The only drawback for archers is the number of arrows they can carry. They will have to keep a good amount of arrows with them or scavenge once they used all the arrows in their quiver.

"Use your explosion arrow to attract ants as planned Allen" Sam said while climbing a tree few feet away from the ant hill.

Allen made sure he and others have climbed a tree and are at a safe distance before taking an arrow from his quiver.

He fixed the arrow to the bowstring and drew it back. He infused his mana and it appeared as a small ball of fire at the tip of the arrow. He aimed and shot the arrow.

The arrow landed five feet away from the ant hill and exploded. Giant ants started coming out of the ant hill. There were about 20 ants that rushed outside after the explosion.

The monsters were confused to see no one near their home except for a small fire 5 feet away from their home.

The explosion arrows will destroy the arrow because of the explosion and that is the reason Allen bought an extra arrow quiver to use explosion arrows and can stay in long-range longer.

Allen was able to kill quite a few ants using his bow skills effectively.