5 Hunting through the night

By the time Carter got to the forest, the sun was starting to set and the nocturnal monsters started to rise. Carter always loved to hunt at night. Your vision shrinks, the slightest noise stands out, and the scents paint a picture for you. More importantly, most monsters are weakened during the day so they try to avoid hunters. At night, the monsters hunt humans, meaning that if you're strong enough you don't have to waste the whole day traipsing through the forest chasing a single wolf only for it to get away. Instead, the monsters come to you.

If you're strong enough it makes hunting a far more enjoyable experience, while if you're too weak you die a grisly death. Just thinking about how dangerous what he was about to do is for the vast majority of people made Carter smile. Maybe he'd gone a bit insane, but to him doing things the easy and accepted way was just boring.

At the edge of the forest, Carter took a deep breath and cracked his knuckles before slowly walking into the forest. He had no armor, a crappy dagger that'd break if used on anything more dangerous than a bunny, and hadn't put any points into Strength, Agility, or Constitution. Even someone as experienced as Carter had to be careful in a situation like this, but that's why he found it so interesting.

After going a couple hundred feet, the sun seemed to disappear as the tree limbs got thicker and blocked it out. Owls hooted, mice skittered, and he heard a grunt. Moving on auto pilot he dodged to the side, just barely avoiding what looked like a blur in the darkness under the trees. Whatever had just flashed past him slammed into a tree and got stuck. Carter could hear more grunting noises as it tore at the tree trying to get off, but couldn't spend the time to chase after it as another blur rushed at him from the side. This time he had enough time to counterattack, his left hand forming a blade as it smashed into the blurs back and a crackling noise was followed by the blur mewling on the ground as it tried to move with a broken back.

Suddenly, pink eyes appeared all around him and it turned into a crazy melee as blur after blur flew at him. Perhaps it was because Carter knew that it was the real deal this time, but he couldn't remember another fight in his last life that was so exhilarating. His blood was pumping, his eyes adjusting to the low light even as he fought.

Finally, he could see that the blurs were horned rabbits. A pack of 8, there were level 1 to level 3 monsters who were a pain to hunt during the day because they ran away as soon as they saw anyone, but at night they were overcome with a vicious rage and ganged up on anything they saw.

Seeing an opportunity, Carter dodged a lunge and grasped the rabbit that'd been paralyzed earlier.

Lifting it up, the next rabbit to rush at him impaled itself into his friend and lost enough momentum that Carter could catch it, breaking it's neck and using it as a pincushion for the next rabbit. This was a special hunting method he'd created out of boredom when playing the Planar Realms. Packs of rabbits where considered one of the most annoying monsters because they never felt fear at night and would constantly attack even if they were level 1 and you were level 60. To fight the boredom, Carter had started messing around with them whenever they attacked him and created this method of fighting them.

Quickly, the pack was killed off and Carter walked over to free the one left struggling to escape the tree before snapping it's neck. A rush of messages that'd been muted during the fight suddenly popped up in front of him as he began skinning the rabbits one by one.

-> You have entered the beginner hunting area "Angor Forest"

-> You have killed 3 level 1, 2 level 2, and 3 level 3 Horned rabbits

-> You have gained 56 Experience

-> Gather Skill(Skinning) Has reached level 3(15%)

-> Hand to Hand has reached level 5 (1%)

Waving away the messages, Carter sighed as he examined the hides that he'd just gotten off the rabbits. Three of them were so bad that he just threw them away, no one would buy those. The other would probably be worth something but he still threw them away to save space in his inventory. His rabbit missions where all about the horns and he'd managed to collect 8 of them after a single fight. He decided then that he'd stay in the rabbit area for a while before moving on, killing wolves and boars would be much more difficult and it'd suck to work so hard only to mess up the hide. This way he could level up skinning without wasting any money.

Hours passed, and Carter still didn't feel tired. He didn't have a clock with him, but he'd collected over 200 horns and reached level 4. Experience requirements double each level so it took 200 to get to level 3 and 400 to reach level 4. However, since he was still hanging on to all his attribute points his fighting power hadn't increased in the least.

At this point, he was expecting to run into wolves and boars at any moment. Carter was planning on stopping at the edge of their territory where he would hopefully run into only small groups. Going any deeper at night was suicide. With every step he took, Carter would pause and listen for a moment. To his right over a hundred feet away he heard tearing sounds and the wail of something dying. To the front he heard nothing but silence, while to his left he heard a small branch that'd fallen to the ground break as if something had stepped on it.

Moving as quickly and silently as he could, Carter ran to the right and saw three level 5 wolves chowing down on a group of 12 rabbits. One of them was bleeding severely, a horn having slashed its throat. The others had only minor injuries, but Carter could tell the injured wolf was likely to die soon. Unwilling to give up such free EXP, Carter pulled out his knife and threw it. He was aiming for the wolf's throat but missed, scratching it's side and dealing a single damage. That was enough for Carter though, that single damage would ensure all the experience of the wolf went to him since it's original attacker was already dead.

Unfortunately, the throw had alerted the wolves who howled and leapt into action. Carter dove and rolled to the side as the first wolf ran past him. Already on the ground, he continued rolling to avoid the 2nd as it tried to bite his leg. Maintaining his momentum, Carter got to his feet just in time to dodge out of the way of the 1st wolf again. This is how he had to fight for the next couple of minutes, constantly dodging out of the way at the last possible moment while waiting for an opportunity.

At last, the first wolf tired just enough for Carter to dodge it's attack easily and punch the 2nd one in the nose as it tried to bite him. The wolf whimpered as something in it's skull broke, and Carter didn't give it a chance to recover as he went to work. The punch was followed up by a snap kick to the left foreleg that crippled it and forced the wolf to roll on the ground where Carter could stomp it to death.

Within a couple of seconds, Carter had completely incapacitated the 2nd wolf but in order to do so he'd had to ignore the 1st wolf long enough that it tackled him from behind, sending him sprawling into the dirt. Tearing into Carter's back with it's teeth, the first wolf latched on and started to worry him back and forth.

Yelling in pain, Carter managed to roll onto his back dislodging the Wolfs grip and kicking it in the nose. Grunting, he dodged a swipe of it's paw and started fighting the last remaining wolf. In the end the wolf died leaving Carter with 28 HP and a minor bleed that might've killed him if he hadn't brought bandages.

Taking the time to finish off the crippled wolf, Carter sat down and tried his best to stem the flow of blood while he sighed. Monks are the only class that can fight hand to hand without wearing heavy armor due to their special skills. Monsters almost never travel alone, and at higher levels they're covered in thick skin and massive layers of fat that make punching one a waste of time. If he wants to take advantage of his passive Hand to Hand savant he has no choice but to become a monk.

"Hopefully I can find a training method that doesn't force me into asceticism." Carter said, talking to himself as he waited for his HP to regenerate.