Another Dangerous Beast?

Although Matthew's intention had been found out by the first kobold kid after only the first few sentences, Matthew felt that needed to commit to it and at least finish this one 'sales pitch' that he had just come up with while watching the kobolds hunt the group of boars earlier.

Matthew coughed a few times and pretended that he didn't realize that the first kobold kid had his eyes locked onto him and said,

"Sadly Mutt can't go out hunting because he's already old and his stamina is not that good anymore, if only there's someone else that can use the amazing fire magic…"

Hearing this, the first kobold kid started to frown and squinted his eyes while they are still stuck on Matthew, but Matthew ignored this because even though the first kobold kid already found out what is Matthew trying to do, the kobold twins are still oblivious about it and their next response is exactly what Matthew wanted,

"You're right big brother, if there's someone else who's able to use fire magic then the kobolds would be able to hunt easier while getting much more meat than usual."

"Brother, didn't the village chief want to teach the first brother magic…?"

The second kobold kid eyes then light up as he had just remembered something then said,

"Yes! I've just remembered, you're right sister! First brother, why don't you learn magic from the village chie…"

The second kobold suddenly closed his mouth after seeing that the first kobold kid had shifted his sharp gaze from Matthew and stared intensely at the second kobold kid.

The first kobold kid then said,

"I already told you that I don't want to be like grandpa! I want to be a kobold warrior like our parents! Don't you see that brother Matthew is also strong without using fire magic at all!!"

Matthew then shrugged and didn't say anything anymore as he knew that pushing it too hard will only backfire on him and made the first kobold kid hate it even more.

'There's always next time. Consistency and timing are key, be patient Matthew.' he thought to himself.

While the 4 of them were chatting and arguing with each other, the other kobolds had finished draining the boars' blood and removed their bladder before they started dragging them back to the group.

Matthew saw the other kobolds coming and he came up to them first and asked,

"Should we bring them back first or do we hunt the next group right away?"

"I think it's better that we bring them back to the village first since we wouldn't be able to do much if we ran around while constantly dragging two boars on the ground. Let's go back to the village first so that the others could prepare them before we go to the next hunt and we would also be able to help brother Matthew properly if we didn't have to drag and keep watch of the two boars."

Matthew nodded before grabbing one of the boar's legs and started dragging it along with the other kobolds back to the village.

After his third evolution, the boar that had been heavy for him and used to take him about 30 minutes to drag it for about tens of meters is now light enough that he could drag it only using one hand. And with the help of the other kobolds, it didn't even give Matthew a noticeable burden.

The journey back to the village was quite smooth as Matthew relied on the map function to properly navigate through the forest as if he had already gone through the path countless times before.

Matthew walked at the front of the group full of confidence in each of his steps, leading the way back to the village. The other kobolds who saw this were doubting him at first as even they relied on the marks that they had left on certain trees throughout the forest and they have to check every once in a while if they went in the right direction, but Matthew was walking while looking straight at the front as if he could see past all the trees and knew exactly where the kobold village was even though it is his first time going out hunting with them.

However, after seeing that Matthew really went in the right direction and even using shortcuts that went directly towards the direction of the village, all the doubts they had were erased and replaced by awe instead.

And even some of them thought that either Matthew had lived and traversed the forest ever since he was born or he had an excellent memory and extraordinary sense of direction to be able to memorize the path from just passing through it once.

By the time the group arrived at the village, the sun was only a few steps away from being directly on top of their heads and since the group had already been fortunate enough to find a group of boars early and caught two of them, the hunting group had finished their job for the day.

But since Matthew had promised that he would show the group how he hunted, the group willingly walked back into the forest as they wanted to see directly how the kobold that had defeated the 200 men army alone would hunt his prey.

Before starting their journey back into the forest, Matthew looked at the minimap on the corner of his vision and realized that in the direction that he had gone earlier, his minimap still looked empty since he had only gone there once. And this time, Matthew planned to go slightly deviating the last path that they took to fill up his minimap, but when the kobold warrior saw the direction that Matthew was about to go to, he stopped Matthew and said,

"Brother Matthew, I don't think it's a good idea to go that way. There's a high chance that we will encounter the humans again because that's the direction where we first met the humans."

The direction Matthew was about to go to was the opposite direction of where he thought the deeper part of the forest was,

'It's logically true since the humans are supposed to have come from outside the forest. Then if I ever wanted to go explore the outside world then that's the direction that I should be going.' He thought to himself.

Knowing that, that direction is off-limit, Matthew chose another different path, and this time it deviated to the other side towards the deeper parts of the forest, but the kobold warrior once again stopped Matthew and said,

"Brother Matthew, I'm sorry but that direction is also dangerous because there's another dangerous beast some distance away towards that direction."

"Another dangerous beast? What does it look like?" Matthew's ears and eyebrows perked up at the same time.

"It looks the same as the one on the other side of the forest, huge intimidating body, brown fur, and monstrous strength, it's the one that you call a bear, brother."

'A bear!? Then it won't be too long until I complete the bear monster data...big strong muscles, sharper claws, and possibly those aura blades too… Bear body parts, here I come!!' Is what Matthew was saying inside his head, but since nobody can understand this besides himself,

"I see, it's true that we shouldn't go near that beast at all, it took me everything that I got and some extra luck to defeat the bear from before. You're right Nass, we should avoid it."

Nass, the kobold warrior then nodded his head before continuing to follow Matthew from behind. And this time, Matthew walked in the same direction as last time.

The journey went like earlier this morning, Matthew continued his story that was cut halfway earlier with the kobolds and the kids listening closely to Matthew's stories.

The group had been walking for about 55 minutes before they finally met another group of boars. Matthew had already stopped telling his story by the time they reached the quiet zone where Nass reminded the group once again to keep their mouths shut to prevent the boars and the deers from noticing their whereabouts.

But while the group stayed fairly silent and waited for Matthew to move, Matthew had already been thinking about how he should hunt the boars because he can't just hunt them like he usually does.

'Using venom is certainly a no-go since I don't want to kill the last remaining kobolds living in this forest… Aura ability is safe since they had seen me suddenly reappear right in front of their eyes, camouflage is also not needed since I could just use aura ability.'

'Come to think of it, I feel bad for my color-changing scales… they didn't get much love after the chameleon aura ability came up.'

'Then is using my tongue safe? Ah, it's only a group of boars, I don't need to try too hard and makeup explanations to my already weird anatomy.'

'Alright, no venom, no tongue, let's go.'

Matthew then closed his eyes before quickly activating his chameleon aura ability and slowly moving towards the group of boars.

The group then all watched Matthew suddenly disappear right before their eyes. While Nass heard something moving through the nearest bush, all the other kobolds and the kids didn't notice anything and didn't know where Matthew had gone to until they heard a loud squeal coming from the group of boars.