The Hunt for Blood Ores (3)

"Ize, I'm hungry."

"They're so noisy… When can I eat them?"

At her companion's careless ramblings, Riize nearly fell from her steed.

"Sushh!" She hissed at the slime in a low voice. Fortunately, no one heard the short exchange between them.

As she unrolled the parchment in her hand, she glanced at the red lines, crosses, and circles she had marked on the map, before raising her head to study the surrounding area.

Noticing her movement, Ethan rode beside her.

"Ms Riize, is it still far away? As you can see, the squad is getting weary. We can't afford to stay like this for any longer…"

"Don't worry, we're almost there." Riize said as she jumped off her steed. With slow and steady steps, she moved to a higher ground to get a better view of the area they're now in.

"Come with me," She beckoned for Ethan to follow behind her. After spending some time with the squad, Riize soon came to a realization that it was only the friendly Ethan who was willing to talk to her, the others forever maintaining a certain distance away as if she was some kind of a deadly disease.

Thus, she had no choice but to rely on the young man in times like this. For example, when she needed to inform the team of their current position.

Standing on the mountain's summit, Riize passed over the map to Ethan, who had gawked at it with foolish eyes.

"We're now here," She circled a certain region of the map with her finger, "Near the mouth of the Sage's Great Canyon."

"From here on, to the right, there will be a mid-sized abyssal crack with an approximate length of 12-feet-long." She slid her finger across the yellow parchment, "And here, these areas will be covered in rocky grounds with man-sized boulders scattered around, therefore ideal for camouflaging traps and ambushes."

"Now this spot, the land we're currently standing on, can be an ideal spot for scouting."

Ethan furiously nodded as if he had been enlightened. "I'll talk to the others." He said as he pulled her arm, ignoring her reluctance.

Relaying her exact words and suggestions to the squad, Ethan spoke out his own views.

"I suggest we target the Vernons. Of all the types abyssal spawns – Vernons (earth), Verals (fire), Viloids (wind), and Vernirs (water) – the Vernons were the ones with the mildest temper and slowest speed of movement, therefore the most suitable target of our purpose, which was to subdue and extract without much resistance."

"Moreover, these earth-type creatures usually travel in small groups." He said, bringing them to the summit before continuing, "Look there!" Ethan pointed to the far distance, where a group of bulky rock-made monsters with four thick limbs were huddled together, probably chewing grass or something.

"We can start from that group of five. With the twelve of us, we can form groups of two, one in charge of subduing and holding the spawn in place while the other extracts the ores. The idle pairs can help scout out for other incoming spawns and find ways to stir them away. One will stay in this summit, reporting live changes to the situation below."

The group of men nodded, finding sense in his arrangement, though one man with a long scar across his right eye slightly raised his hand to pose a question, "What about our path of retreat? The disturbance that we'll cause might end up attracting the whole surrounding spawns to place their sight on us and head to our position. By that time, how are we going to retreat safely from the area?"

By the time the man ended his inquiry, all eyes gathered on their guide who was standing behind them, maintaining her silence this whole time. "Ms Guide, you heard us don't you?"

Riize cleared her throat, feeling no less awkward from being caught eavesdropping on them. "Yes. There will exist two paths of retreat. First, the very path we'll be using to enter the canyon, which was the most convenient way. And the other, another narrower pathway on the sidewalls of the right that will bring us in a detour to the other side of the canyon. It'll be trickier to navigate but even harder for the bigger and less intelligent spawns to track behind and chase after us."

"Great. How about the rough estimation of time we'll need to reach the nearest fortified settlement?" Ethan and the hunters seemed uneasy as they waited for her response. It wasn't a wonder though as out of the 8 Hunting hours, they had spent a fourth of it just to reach their current spot, which left them with a remaining time of 6 hours.

In these short 6 hours, not only did they need to set the traps before launching their action, they would also have to calculate the time they'll need to get out of the canyon alive and rush into the nearest existing magical barrier before the start of the Hiding Hour.

Riize took the map from Ethan and unrolled it against the flat surface of a stone slab. Soon after, the hunters were quick to catch up and positioned themselves surrounding her and the stone slab.

"Look here." Riize pointed at the red signs littered all over the parchment. "From the border's gate to our current location, we had passed 6 checkpoints so far, which were scattered all over the place and therefore had cost us this much time. Not to mention the large number of abyssal spawns we hadn't bothered to avoid."

"If we were to trail back our previous footsteps, we can head to the 4th checkpoint, the Dragon Breath's settlement. If nothing hinders our way, we should be able to reach the settlement in an hour." Riize told them, before adding in a solemn voice, "That, if we can retreat out of the canyon by the direct main path."

Riize's pessimism poured a bucket of cold water on them. "What about the other path?" Another hunter asked her.

"If it's the narrow path of the sidewalls we're taking, which was heading to the opposite of the previous direction, there will supposedly be 2 other settlements that are about a 40-minutes ride from the canyon. It's just that, the time spent to navigate the way out may be longer and as for the 2 settlements, it'll be a bit costly…"

"The cost doesn't matter." Ethan briskly cut in with a smile, as if attempting to assure the others, "What matters more are our lives and the success of our expedition. Don't worry, we still have 2 days of time left before the date of submission."

"That…" Riize hesitantly reminded him, "The topography of the Red Sea will undergo a major shift with each sandstorm that will regularly happen at 11 of the Hiding Hour, just before reset."

"Which means…" Her eyes swept over the look of realization on their faces, inwardly pitying them while at the same time, gloating at their misfortune, "We'll have to start over with the blind exploration and study the new topography."

For a moment, she seemed to have seen the despair in their eyes, before they were all dispersed away by the vigorous thunder-like claps of Ethan, "Alright everyone. You heard her. 200 blood ores, let's gather as many as we can and hope the leftover quota will be filled by the merchants. If not, well… we'll have no choice but to return to this Hell-like realm and suffer a bit more..."

"Come on, let's start working!"

"Yes!"

His words seemed to have lit a fire within them as the hunters shouted in unison.

With nothing left to do, Riize leaned against a nearby boulder, chilling as she lifted Pookie on her arms, feeding the hungry slime the snacks she had prepared beforehand.

Feeling the scorching wind of the Demon realm caressing against her skin, she finally couldn't take the heat any longer, taking off the cloak and exposing her long midnight-blue hair to the air, letting it gently sway with the wind.

This scene was what had exactly entered his sight when Ethan first swept his eyes to her direction. And for a moment, he seemed to have forgotten to take a breath, too lost into the breathtaking scenery.

"Hey, look at you." A passing fellow hunter, upon noticing his enthralled figure, chuckled as he patted the young man's shoulders, "Whatever's going on in your mind, you better forget it lest you want to end up dying without knowing why."

At the hunter's kind advice, Ethan merely laughed it off with a shake of his head.

After they finished setting up the traps, the group soon entered another round of discussion. "The preparations are all ready. All we have to do is lure them into the designated spots and once we have binded them to the ground, we can immediately start the extraction process."

"As to how we're going to lure them…" The hunters looked at each other as if considering which one of them would be the most suitable one. "The reason why Vernons are considered the mildest ones is due to their disinterest in 'picking out fights'. In other words, they would only target easy prey and ignore ones that seemed to be 'hard to get'."

"To get them moving, we will have to either threaten them to force them to attack us in order to defend themselves, or act as the easy prey and let them come by their own initiative."

"Obviously, the latter will make it easier for us to do the work as this will lower the Vernons' guard against us. But before that, we will need an easy prey first."

"Come, don't be shy. Who looks 'easy' here?" A hunter playfully whistled, throwing a teasing gaze to the few scrawnier and feminine-looking hunters in the squad.

"Fuck you. Why don't you go? So round and bouncy, those savages would literally salivate the moment they lay their eyes on you, the literal living pound of meat." The feminine-looking hunter counterattacked, earning a hateful glare from the well-fed hunter.

"Why you bastar–" 

"Enough."

A fist was just about to fly when Ethan raised his voice, putting all kinds of arguments into a halt. "Why fight when we have such a natural easy prey by our side?"

"You mean…"

Ethan grinned, pointing at the harmonious pair chilling by the side with his chin or to be exact, at the plump-looking slime lying on the demon guide's arms.

'Me?' Pookie silently expressed in surprise.

Hah.

Riize raised her cold eyes to stare against the young man's playful ones. And here she was, wondering how she'll sabotage their plan.

Just in time.