Death Trail

Reflexes kicking in, Aldritch's body moved out of the danger zone towards the carcass so fast that the unsuspecting predator could do nothing about it.

'Do wild animals also have skill? I couldn't even sense it, even with my enhanced senses.'

Aldritch took out the second dagger the moment he stopped and turned to face his adversary. Even he knew nothing of how he was able to move the way he did. It felt like the natural thing to do and move, it was really amazing.

'It was definitely a good choice to invest in those stats.'

The dog-like creature was at least 3ft in height and had a bulky body that matched its height, giving it an intimidating look. For some reason however, Aldritch did not feel any sense of danger from it. It was more like facing off a scrawny angry dog on a random street, no one would be scared of it, but they would still be cautious.

'Will hypnosis work on such creatures? It should, but then again…' Seeing as this was not a kind of beast to threaten him, Aldritch planned to test his strength first. Aldritch made a simple plan, he would counter attack instead of attacking the beast.

The beast however seemed a little agitated, because of fear or fury, it was unclear. It was evident that it's food was about to be stolen, and the prey before it had entered its territory.

The beast's growls and barks were very loud, but that was it, it didn't make any attempts at Aldritch. Not wanting to waste anymore time there after the beast had made all the noise, possibly calling for back up, Aldritch moved towards the carcass, lifting it up slowly with an arm, while holding a dagger on the other. Surprisingly, the carcass was not as heavy as Aldritch thought, he attributed it to the fact that his strength stat was higher than normal.

The beast only watched as Aldritch did so without making a move, but it kept growling.

Aldritch quickly dragged the carcass around, making sure to keep some distance between himself and the carcass.

*Snear *Growl!

The beast pounced on Aldritch with speed and force, the only thing was that Aldritch was expecting this and had purposefully left an obvious opening to encourage the beast.

Once it leapt, Aldritch dropped the carcass, holding his dagger with both hands while moving his body slightly towards the left, the beast did the rest of the job perfectly, jumping into a perfectly placed weapon and dying as Aldritch only had to apply subtle pressure. As it was to be the case.

The beast was still not dead, but after losing enough blood, it would surely die. Not that Aldritch would waste it like that though. He grabbed the beast's neck and raised it just enough to trickle some blood into his mouth, needless to say, it tasted bad. Anyway, he had already drunk goblin blood, this was bearable.

After some time, the beast died, so Aldritch got to work. First, he took the parts that still had meat on them from the carcass the beast had killed and eaten from. Aldritch made sure to move fast, unless he wanted to attract the attention of a maybe stronger beast. This beast was also not as heavy as he thought and dragging its body was not difficult at all.

Aldritch took the dead beast back to the place where the goblins had set up camp. Luckily, he ended up not needing to make use of the directions he carved into the tree barks.

"Master!" Lina who was worried and couldn't help but stand close to the side of the camp closest to the forest spotted Aldritch when his figure appeared from the shrubs growing around. Seeing that he looked alright, she was filled with joy and ran up to meet him.

'Lina?' Aldritch smiled. The underlings were really loyal, just the way he liked it. At least he didn't need to worry about being stabbed in his sleep like this.

Lina came running towards Aldritch like she would tackle him to the ground, but when she got close in front of him, she stopped in her tracks and greeted him. She bottled in her excitement, but it still shone through her lips. Seeing her like this, Aldritch gave a warm smile before handing the beast's body to her.

"You've looked after the place well in my steed. Take this, after it is prepared, share it amongst the strongest hobgoblins. While the rest get the rest." Aldritch handed the beast and the parts he took from the carcass to Lina before heading to his bed couch to rest. 'I need to learn how to speak like a noble of these times... hehehe.'

Once his body touched the couch, Aldritch heaved an animated sigh of relieve. 'That was so dangerous. Going to the front lines myself is really not my style, heh... Well, I'd need to learn how to fight later when I encounter humans.' When properly fed, Aldritch looked just a little pale, and instead could be regarded as exceptionally handsome, probably in his own league, after all, that was what he had chosen.

That night went smooth and everyone slept until they were all woken up the next day by a foreign group that had come not in good intentions.

"Master, it seems they followed your tracks here." Lina said after waking Aldritch up. The goblins that appeared from the forest were actually very talkative and openly stated their plans.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, after all, I left it there intentionally." Aldritch stood up with a smile on his face, after all, he was able to sleep through the night. Being a vampire, that was a feat. He found himself feeling more energetic at night "How many have come?"

'Surely, my master is such a great man.' "100 of them, master. All of them are normal goblins." Lina answered.

"..." 'So little? And no hobs?' Aldritch didn't understand why at first, but then, they wouldn't bring the hobs if they didn't have enough of them or didn't have at all.

"That's good, kill all and leave at least five as captives."

Aldritch was surely not encouraging homicide, after all, these guys already fought amongst each other already. He also took this chance to drink a lot of foul blood with a shit face, it was just too unbearable.