Hunt. Part 3

Morning came and as normal Sheyken woke up before sunrise, did his morning training routine, freshened up, and changed to his normal clothes. As he reached Ningal's storefront, he saw that she was standing by the door looking outside. When she saw Sheyken, she was visibly happy but did not step outside of her house.

As soon as Sheyken got closer she grabbed him, closed the door, and hugged him. She then looked all over his body as if checking if he was not hurt.

"After you did not come back yesterday I was so worried. Are you ok? Are you hurt anywhere? Did you eat something? How was the forest? Why did you not come back?....."

She had to stop herself after seeing Sheyken's embarrassed face. After pouting and bloating her cheeks she ruffled Sheyken's hair while standing up and inviting him to the table.

"I'm sorry to make you worry, I got back late yesterday and did not want to inconvenience you so I called it a day and set up camp."

"You little rascal, don't you know if you go out to a place that is dangerous and you have someone who cares about your well-being you should at least let them know you came back safe as soon as you are back?"

Sheyken did not know what to say. He was now used to being alone and all he did for two years was train with an Undead. They don't have feelings and he was used to caring about himself only.

"Anyway, it is good you came back alive. I remember I used to be so tired when I came back such that I would just sleep as soon as I got home. so I will let it slide. What do you have for me? It better be good since you made me worry all night."

Sheyken smiled and secretly hopped his haul would impress her. He thought that he might just have brought back beasts that any exceptional kid from the village would have easily hunted down.

He took the bag from his back down and took out the Pinschs first. After seeing the one split horizontally in half, her eyebrow went up.

"So in your first hunt you were ambush by three Pinsch and you manage to kill all of them, impressive."

"No, I was ambushed by seven but the four ran away as soon as I killed these three."

Sheyken said not knowing why he was embarrassed. Ningal thought Sheyken was making a story up to impress her. It was not common but they did sometimes hear of them running away if they underestimated their prey. Looking at the Pinsch cut in half, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, besides, killing three on his own was impressive on its own as when she was young never managed to do it.

"Ok, is that all you managed to hunt?"

She asked curiously.

Sheyken took out the Cossowa. She was visibly shocked. Only those from the past had managed to kill a Cossowa on their own. She was now visibly impressed.

'He must have a powerful Blessing. Wonder what kind of weapon he had to go toe to toe with a Cossowa.'

She thought looking at the Cossowa's chipped razor helmet.

"I see you are impressive. Your father must have trained you well."

She said seeing Sheyken smile as she said those words to him. That gave him confidence and he pulled out his last beast corpse.

As soon as Ningal so it, she started taken steps back while her mind went blank.

"You.... you.... what.... did...."

She fell down hitting her buttocks on the floor not able to say a word out of shock. Sheyken found her being shocked by his kill a good sign. He went to her and helped her get up, wanting to dust off the imaginary dust he saw on her buttocks but managed to hold himself together.

After seeing that no blood was coming out of the corpse she was relieved but only to be shocked again when she came to the realization that it being dead meant Sheyken had killed it. After getting herself together, she could now piece together her sentences in her head. Sheyken was looking at her wanting to know what he had killed.

'What is his Blessing. It must be a very powerful one. I can not let him know he killed something I had a hard time killing myself when I was fourteen. Even now that I am an Initiate I think I have a 60 to 70 percent chance to kill it. If word gets out about this, it would put our village to shame. How powerful is this kid? I should not ask him about himself to protect him. The less I know the better. He did say his father told him people wanted to kill him. Is he a busted son of an imported person? No.... the less I know the better.'

As she was going through her thoughts, Sheyken was quietly waiting for her to talk to him.

"How did you kill it?"

She asked pointing at the Hippo-like beast corpse.

"I assassinated it."

Sheyken answered shrugging his shoulders like killing it was a walk in the park. This almost coursed a tear to fall down Ningals face.

'He assassinated something that had an automatic defense? He even knew not to get sprayed by the blood, even draining it all.'

"How did you not get hurt by its blood?"

"I did not want to get myself dirty so I moved away from it as soon as I cut it."

Ningal was now trying to hold tires back with all her might.

"Where did you store the blood?"

"In my storage device."

'He is even not afraid of something that can liquefy him. He is a monster.'

"What is it."

Sheyken finally asked.

"It is a Vatagreos, the unevolved form of the Vatadustria. It is one of the hardest unevolved beasts to kill. Its blood is also sorted out by mages and witches to make their potions which are used by their mage apprentices and witches initiates."

Sheyken was dancing a rich man's dance in his mind.

"It absorbs the sun's light or energy and stores it in its blood which makes it very hot and acid-like. That is why other beasts stay away from it. So, it has two defenses, its blood and its scales that activate automatically when it perceives danger that is also razor-like and uses them to attack with. You must be one of the most skilled assassins for your age to get through its scales. It is also very fast for its size, having a great amount of stamina, and also attacks by biting its prey as it has huge tusks. You do not want to face it head-on as it also has thick skin that those who usually hunt it have no weapon that can go all the way through it."

Sheyken was praising Plot Armor with his whole heart.

'Yep, If I massed that attack up I would be dead. That thing is a walking tank. Note to Sheyken... Stay away from Hippo-like beasts.'

Sheyken ridiculed himself. Ningal looked at him and sighed.

"You must be the most skilled kid I know, you know that? Anyway, You should store it in your storage device. It must be a good one if you can place its blood in it without any problems. We can not sell this here. You will get much more if you sell it at a mages guild, especially the blood. I can make you a dish when you want to eat it but only if you can give me a little bit of the blood."

Ningal said with one of her contagious smiles that made Sheyken say yes to whatever she asked for. She gave him a black flask-like bottle for him to pore the blood in. He asked her to turn around and Ningal did without any hesitation. The less she knew about him the better she thought she could protect him after all. Sheyken made Ruby absorb the Vatagreos and then feel the bottle with its blood up. When he finished Ningal showed him how to process the beasts' corpses. It took some time as they could not damage some organs as they cut around them or they risked spoiling the meat. After about 3 hours they had finished.

"Ok little assassin let's see how much we make, and you keep on bringing quality beasts."

Ningal said while saying her goodbyes.

"You can count on me."

Sheyken replied going out the door.

A week and some days passed with him bring many different beasts but none as shocking as the Vatagreos. He had also eaten his second Beast meat which was the Cossowa that tested heavenly but not as the Shadow fox he first tested. Ningal told him it was because the Shadow fox lived in the Benevolent woods.

He was now in the Trial Forest facing one of his hardest hunts yet. This was also one of the creatures he saw on his way out of the forest the first time. It was a spider beast that had scythes for front legs and was as large as a dog.

He was bored of hunting easy prey and when he saw one that Ningal had warned him about, he pounced on the chance. Ningal at the start told him to run away when he saw beasts that she did not tell him about but changed her mind when she saw the Vatagreos corpse.

The beast had an exoskeleton which was had and would have given Sheyken trouble to get through it if he did not have Plot Armor. He did not want to kill it yet though. The Spider beast had four forms of attacks and each one was deadly for someone who did not have a form of defense.

if it felt threatened it would primarily attack using its scythes and spray a web that was so corrosive it melted a bird-like beast that he saw attacking it within a minute. The bird-like beast died a horrible death and Sheyken did not want to become one of that corrosive web's victims.

Sheyken had stalked it to see how it hunted. He had learned after the Vatagreos that even though he has confidence in his skills, the upper tier of the beast his hunting will have something that can also kill him in one strike if he was not careful.

He saw that when hunting it stalks its prey and when its prey's guard is down, it shoots out a web that is so sticky that it binds its prey as soon as it touches it. Knowing that such material in a world like where he was now would be valuable, he had put away Plot Armor and walked past the beast to make it assume he was prey. Seeing that they have both noticed each other and that what just walked past it looked appetizing. It started pursuing him, immediately fire ring its sticky web.

Sheyken had been avoiding it for the past ten minutes and he now thought it was time to kill it before it grew tired of the game they were playing making it more fierce with its attacks. He dodged the web shot aimed at his legs and and after dodging it trying to ram its body against him to knock him down possible to also kill him, he got close while pulling out Plot Armor from Ruby and turning him to a short sword. He dodged the two scythes-like front legs trying to shop his head off and stabbed it in its head while also twisting to do more damage to its brain, killing it intently. As expected Plot Armor went into the exoskeleton like he was stabbing jelly.

After pulling his sword out, he collected the corpse and thereafter went throughout the area collecting the web using Ruby while being careful not to touch it with any part of his body. When he was about to finish he heard clapping sounds coming closer and closer.

Two boys looking worst for wear came out of the tree line with one of them still clapping. The other had a missing arm and Sheyken was sure he would otherwise be clapping too.

"For a kid you sure are impressive. They had said Finisrepo does not train kids or even have kids to train using the forest anymore. You guys are amazing."

Sheyken had dozens of questions in his head. Looking at the finger he had just used to absorb the web using Ruby intensely and with greedy eyes betraying their friendly attitude, One of them was answered. He might have to kill a human being for the first time in his life.