Chapter 40: Mirewood Toads |
Ember shot one arrow after another at the Mirewood Toad, imbuing them all with mana. The gigantic frog let out a screeching ribbit, its tongue flinging towards him and spitting inflaming acid at his chest.
With blitz steps, Ember skipped through the wetland, nocking another arrow in a swift draw.
Applying mana augmentation to the arrow, he shot at the Mirewood Toad once again. The creature was over four metres tall, with a grotesque rotund form, so there was little margin for error in his aim. His arrow flew true, lodging alongside the five others he had struck it with. With the empowering effect of mana, most of his arrows had dug a few inches into its mucky flesh, yet the amphibian seemed far from dying. It could only mean that this creature was likely of the Iron Rank, perhaps even a low-levelled one among tier 4 creatures. Or else, Ember wouldn’t have been so courageous as to face it.
And these Mirewood Toads were timid to begin with. If they were unable to gobble up their meal in quick succession, they had no qualms about withdrawing without ceremony. Ember had chased after it for a while as the toad hopped through the bog, each of its lunges launching it several metres away and hurling muddy water all over the place.
Finding no purchase with his max-level archery, Ember finally decided to bring out his wand. He could have dispatched it with his sword as well, but he feared its acid attack might ruin his enchanted cloak and attire. Of course, he could still use his protective ward, but Ember was trying not to become overly reliant on it.
Yet, as he channelled mana into the tier 4 wand, a burst of wind bolted from the other side and eviscerated the creature into a bloody mess. Thick purple blood sprayed in a fountain. Only by activating the ward did he manage to keep it off his skin before his eyes darted to find the other boy, who had stolen the kill after all his hard work.
[Enemy slain: Mirewood Toad Level 27.]
Ember’s brows furrowed as he regarded Benny, who seemed to have been lying in wait on the other side along with the others in his group.
The high noble youth displayed his white teeth, clearly pleased with the display. A flimsy shield warded off all the filthy blood from staining him, though the others around him weren’t so lucky.
“You seem to have been wasting too much time on a single toad, so I decided to give you a hand.”
Despite himself, Ember glowered at the boy before swiftly bowing his head in case the high noble youth took offence.
“But it seems my assistance was unnecessary,” Benny said, the smile never leaving his lips.
Ember nodded and suppressed any words that were about to jump off his lips. It wouldn’t be prudent to argue with a high noble, despite how easy-going Benny seemed.
He had already butted heads with a couple of others in the group for the same reason, though it was the first time Benny had snuck in the final blow. Ember had spent a great deal of effort tracking and wounding the toad, and now most of his efforts wouldn’t even be acknowledged by the system, since the most damage had been done by someone else.
The worst part was that Ember couldn’t even say a word to Benny. He already knew the outcome of that.
This kill stealing had happened more than a few times over the past couple of days for Ember to believe it was merely a coincidence or the noble kid simply trying to lend a helping hand. At first, Ember thought they were bullying him because he was much younger than them. However, the same thing occurred with others as well. Of course, none of them had the gall to steal from Benny or any other high nobles.
It appeared to be a contest among the kids from the retainer clans. Until Benny decided to partake in it.
In most cases, the Oberon boy stayed out of it, exuding the aloof air that such crude tricks were beneath him. But it seemed that, after observing so many others in the group having no qualms about disparaging other people’s efforts, he had a change of heart.
All for the hope of upgrading the hunter title. There had been a silent competition growing among them from the very first day.
Some team-building exercise this was.
Unfortunately, upgrading the hunter title was more difficult for an unclassed ascendant, even though the condition was decidedly lower. The criteria for the hunter title was simple. Someone at the Copper Tier only needed to hunt down ten copper creatures, whereas one who had advanced to the Iron Tier would need ten Iron creatures or thirty Copper ones. There was some messy mathematics involved when ascendants hunted in groups. Ember wasn’t privy to how the system calculated it.
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Anyhow, to upgrade that title, an unclassed ascendant below tier 7 would need to hunt down thirty Iron creatures. The number rose to one hundred for a classed ascendant, but the task was much easier for them as well, whereas an unclassed one would have to pick each battle carefully.
Even a high-levelled tier 4 creature could spell their end if they were unlucky. Taking all that into account, it wasn’t even easy to find thirty low-levelled Iron creatures with limited fighting capabilities.
Ember had thought so as well, but then he found these Mirewood Toads. They were much easier to hunt than a hyena or one of those lizards he had faced. Though these amphibious creatures were quite skittish and quick to flee, hopping dozens of feet at a time, their combat power only amounted to acid spit.
He had killed a number of them, though most were the smaller Copper counterparts, while the larger ones could grow bigger than a horse carriage and gobble up an adult person with ease.
Those larger toads were none of his concern. Ember was years away from clashing with them. The more concerning matter was whether Benny would continue stealing kills.
If that was the case, Ember wouldn’t be against ditching the group, though he was unsure how the others would take it. His safety might be of some concern as well.
In the last couple of days, he had barely encountered anything he couldn’t flee from. Illclave wasn’t merely a hunting ground in a low-mana zone like the wilderness of Desir. In Desir, Ember had ventured along the outskirts of untamed wilderness, whereas Illclave’s whole economy seemed dependent on the hunting zones. The fauna here was essentially cultivated, or else it wouldn’t have been teeming with such low-level monsters lacking in combat power.
They had kept most of the predatory creatures away from the bog, making the hunting zone invaluable for unclassed ascendants. But there were usually one or two accidents every year where some kids never managed to find their way back.
Muffling his nose and mouth with a palm, Ember inched closer to the eviscerated corpse of the toad to recover his arrows. Then he eyed Benny quizzically.
“You can take the spoils,” the teen said.
Ember nodded and got to work. There was nothing too valuable to collect from the corpse save for its iron core, but even then, Ember had to be careful while prying open the back of its head, as the whole body of the Mirewood Toad was poisonous.
“Look at the dolt lacking manners,” snickered a girl standing behind Benny. “Not even thanking Young Lord Benny for his generosity.”
“Who lacks manners among us five is pretty evident to all of us,” Ember retorted after making sure he wasn’t accidentally slighting Benny. The girl, Erling, was certainly waiting for him to make such a mistake.
“It's you, no?” Erling snickered, nudging another boy from her clan, who snickered along with her.
Now that Ember had grown more prudent about his surroundings, he had learned the names of everyone in their group, their backgrounds and skills, and anything else he could pry from their conversations. It helped that these teens were loudmouthed and never stopped boasting about their capabilities. The girl chastising him was Erling Huan. House Huan wasn’t as influential as the Blackstones, even during their decline, but what they lacked in ability, they seemed to make up for in bootlicking the Oberons.
After the few instances in which she had slighted him, Ember had decided to have no exchanges with her at all. Regrettably, from the look of it, Erling seemed eager to scuffle with him from day one. For some reason, she appeared to detest the Blackstones even more than she detested him.
“Don’t berate him, cousin,” the boy named Erming said. “It's not his fault his clan failed to teach him basic etiquette.”
Ember could have said far worse things, like how they were still tier 5 and lacking in skill despite being four years older than him, when Benny interjected before their snickering could continue.
“Enough already. We aren’t here to belittle one another.”
“Pardon us, my lord,” said the Huan pair in unison, shooting a glare at Ember, who didn’t join them in apologising.
Since the fault didn’t lie with him, why bother with excuses?
“Anyways,” Benny continued, “I don’t know about you folks, but I’m bored of killing these pesky toads one by one. It's about time we looked for something bigger. Well, more like we go after a whole flock of them.”
“My lord, you know where those Mirewood Toads dwell?” asked Erming.
“Obviously,” Benny scoffed. “The clan paid a large sum for us to get into the hunting zone. All of my cousins would look down upon me if I failed to get less than the sum’s worth.”
“But what if there are too many of them?” Zea voiced her concern. She had a bow slung over her shoulder, though her swordsmanship was refined as well, if lacking in killing power. “And we aren’t enough to dispatch them?”
“Bah!” barked Erling. “We won’t be assaulting them on sight, will we?”
“Yeah,” her cousin agreed. “After we track them, we’re gonna make sure they can’t overwhelm us before making our move.”
They all turned towards the high noble.
“My lord, do you know where we should be looking?”
“Better,” Benny said, fishing out a folded fabric from his belongings. “I have a map.”
He unfolded it to display a rudimentary map of the region. It wasn’t highly detailed or did it display the entirety of the hunting zone, but it showed the way from their camp to the barren hills on the northern side, all etched with distinctive marks denoting areas with higher monster density.
As the Huan cousins praised Benny’s brilliance, Ember etched all the details of the map into his mind. In case he were to ditch the group, those locations could prove a godsend.
“With this, what are we even waiting for?”
“Wait,” Zea piped up. “Isn’t that place deeper into the bog? We shouldn’t venture there without consulting the instructors.”
The group dithered at her reminder while everyone’s gaze darted to Benny. Although they were all part of the group, most of the decision-making power revolved around the high noble youth, and he decided that they should move right away.
Thus, the group of five trudged through the wetlands. The midday sun drifted across the sky, still glaring brightly, as they travelled over ten miles through the mucky bog, only to find that they weren’t the only group with the bright idea of hunting down Mirewood Toads in flocks.
There was another group, from somewhere else, that seemed to have the exact intention in mind.