Fear Of The Unknown

After activating his full invisibility, Matthew started to inch slowly towards the group of boars. Although his aura ability gave him full invisibility, it doesn't mean that his steps will be soundless and leaves wouldn't rattle if he walked through them, hence why Matthew is still careful when approaching the boars to ambush them.

'Hmm... How should I deal with them?'

Matthew knew that there is a very high chance that the boars are capable of using an aura ability because he had seen it for himself back then.

It would be very troublesome for Matthew if he wanted to hunt all of the 4 boars, but right now, he only needed to hunt one. With his aura ability and his potent spider venom, hunting one of the boars is not a difficult task.

With the aura ability, Matthew can slowly approach the boars from behind their backs and with one full dose of venom from one of the venom glands, Matthew is sure that the boars will either be incapacitated or straight up die without being able to activate their aura ability.

But what Matthew was worried about is whether the other boars will just run away like the deers or will they stay and search for the culprit who took down one of their friends.

Although Matthew is considered quite strong right now, he still didn't have the intimidating look that the other predators have. If the boars decided to stay there and look for the culprit, that means that Matthew wouldn't be able to drag the boar that he had hunted back to the lake since the other boars will prevent him from doing so.

When the boars were circled by the wolf, they knew that their main priority was to run and ensure their survival. But if they saw that the one who attacked them is Matthew, whose body was smaller than them, they might think that Matthew is an easy target despite the fact that one of them just died easily by Matthew's hand.

And with that, Matthew has to deal with all of them, which is not that difficult compared to dealing with the wolf, but it will still waste his time and more importantly waste his aura ability if he wanted to get rid of them quickly and without being noticed from the start.

In the end, after wasting his time thinking of the perfect way to deal with the boars, he saw that the boars had almost finished eating the berries and he didn't have a lot of time before the boars went away to who knows where.

'Ah, whatever, I will just see what happens later, if they did disappear and run away from this place, it will be more troublesome to run and follow them around the forest rather than fighting all 4 of them here at the same time.'

'If they don't run away after I take one of them down, then I will just have to do it as fast as I can with the aura ability, after that, I will take a nap or meditation or whatever to speed up the aura recovery time before nighttime. It is still early afternoon after all. I had plenty of time before then.'

And with that resolution in mind, Matthew slowly walked towards a tree that was the nearest to the boars' location. Matthew used his usual tactic to ambush his enemies from above the tree because it has never failed so far.

When Matthew was halfway towards the top of the tree, he started to search for the appropriate branch that can hold his body without breaking because his weight is not negligible anymore to just pick any branch to walk on.

After finding his branch of choice, Matthew looked down at the boars and concluded that he has to use his tongue to swing his body towards the boar that was nearest to him since the branch was not directly on top of the boars and it's not that close for him to jump directly on top of the selected boar's back.

And with that, Matthew started to coil his tongue near the base of the branch where it was the strongest to minimize the sound that he would make when he put his weight on it. Then Matthew started slowly lowering his body from the tree.

When Matthew was about a quarter down from the tree, he stopped extending his tongue and started to move his body forward to gather the momentum needed to make the jump.

Because the distance is not that far, Matthew didn't need to gather the maximum momentum, and with the possibility of the tree branch making a sound if Matthew swung too hard, made Matthew only swing enough times before he aimed his body toward the boar that he had targeted. And when his body was swinging towards the direction of the boar, Matthew quickly released his tongue and let his body launch towards the nearest boar that he already targeted.

With the minimum sound that Matthew made and his invisibility, Matthew was able to launch himself towards the group of boars without them noticing. But unfortunately, Matthew's calculation when swinging his body is quite off and if he didn't do anything about it, he would land on the ground beside the boars and totally miss the boar's body which can startle the boar and make them wary of attacks.

But Matthew didn't stay idle either when he noticed that he failed to aim properly, he quickly launched his tongue again, but this time, not towards another tree branch, but rather, towards the boar's neck and coiling it around before he used it to pull himself towards the boar's body.

The boar, who suddenly felt that its neck was tied and choked by something, was shocked and jumped forward to shake off whatever it was that was coiling around his neck. But alas, his effort was useless as Matthew's tongue muscle is capable of easily hold on its tight grip onto the boar's neck, and Matthew who was about to land on top of the boar's back, positioned his 4 claws so that it will stuck deep into the boar's back and serve as a handle for him so that he won't be shaken off the boar's back.

When he landed and his claws were planted deeply into the boar's body, Matthew didn't waste any second and quickly bit the boar's neck with his wolf mouth and made sure to clamp them tightly before injecting one full dose of his upgraded spider venom into the boar's bloodstream.

The boar who felt attacked but didn't know what, who, or how he got attacked, could only thrash his body around in place hoping that the attack would stop. Unfortunately, Matthew didn't have any plans to stop his attack and 15 seconds after Matthew's venom had traveled all over the boar's body. The boar had stopped from jumping and running around, but instead, it slowly went down to the ground and its body went limp. And soon, the notification from the system confirmed its death.

-Level 11 Scrofa Boar Killed-

After Matthew was done with his rodeo with the one boar, he looked up and tried to see the other boars' reaction. And to his surprise, they didn't activate their aura ability nor are they trying hard to find the culprit.

Because they are standing still and not running away, Matthew has to do something to send them away, 'I guess, I can try to scare them off then. Hopefully it works.'

While still fully invisible and the blood remains on his claws and teeth are also concealed, the boars still couldn't see that Matthew was slowly walking towards them.

When Matthew was directly in front of one of the boars, he raised his right foot up high before using all his body weight and arm muscle to swing down as hard as he could towards the boar's face.

The poor boar, who was stunned seeing one of its friends die without a clear reason, didn't expect that he would suddenly feel excruciating pain on his face.

When the boar started to feel the pain and the smell of blood on its face, it jumped backward and made a squealing sound. When he tried to find who was attacking him, he couldn't see anything in front of him nor to his left and right, he also looked at his back where his friends were standing and still couldn't find anything or anyone who was responsible for doing that.

It started to get warier and called out to his friends to get into their defensive position, but before they moved in position, the boar heard another squeal and he now could see a claw mark was etched deep on the side of one of his friend's body.

Although the boar couldn't understand what just happened to him and his friends, the blood that was pouring out from the wound on his face and the claw marks on his friend's body could only explain that whatever is happening right now is very real.

And after realizing that, the boar could only squeal and the tree of them soon ran away from that d*mned place and they will surely not go back there anytime soon.

When the boars finally leave, Matthew sighed in relief since it didn't take him long enough to do that and his aura consumption should not be that bad.

Matthew was planning to scratch them over and over again until they leave, and he definitely didn't guess that 2 claw attacks are enough to make them run away since he looked at their fight with the wolf and their tenacity is nothing to be scoffed at.

What Matthew didn't know is, while the wolf pack might look scary and intimidating for the boars. The fear of not knowing what attacked them is greater than fighting against the wolf with their sharp claws and teeth.

If they fought the wolves, they could at least prepare themselves, defend and anticipate the wolves' moves and attacks. But if they couldn't even know what happened and suddenly claw marks and blood appeared on their bodies without the means to retaliate, what could they do?

As animals who lived following the rules of the jungle from their birth, their survival instinct could only tell them to run away from that unknown danger that is proven could take their life.

But Matthew wasn't aware of all this and he could only understand it as he was being lucky and nonchalantly continued his activity without knowing what kind of fear he just inflicted onto the deers yesterday, the boars earlier, and the enemies he will come across in his journey.