“How many cases has it been this week?” Tor asked as he stood at the mess by the roadside. He was with another man, a village from Beanstalk Village called Hanson. He was the village chief’s son, a young strapping fellow that wore a kind expression his face. However, today, what was on his face was disgust. Tor and Hanson were standing by side of the road that connected Beanstalk Village to Hosenka, a road that fringing the forest of Sakuramori and one that had to be taken if the traders wanted to travel between the two places. What laid in front of them were the extremely destroyed remains of a trading caravan, broken pieces of wood tossed around messily. There were some contents of the caravan left behind by whatever attacked, basically inedible items. Fortunately there were no deaths.
“This is the eighth,” Hanson replied heavily with a sigh. Only three days into the week and eight cases. The week before this, the cases weren’t that frequent, just four cases in seven days.
“Anyone told you what did this?”
“A pack of Genprey. Raptor-like creatures, as tall as an average human, green and orange skin. A pack of them would appear every once in a while, but while they have the numbers, they don’t really attack humans that much. This is the first time we’ve seen such frequent and fierce attacks,” Hanson said as he took out a small notebook from his back pocket and read through the notes he had taken down when he had interviewed the victims. “Oh yes, some of them has said that they have seen a Genprey that’s particularly larger than the others, but we can’t really confirm that.”
“Got it. Well, I guess I will just follow this trail and see what I find,” Tor said with a confident smile as he patted Hanson on the back and began to walk off the road, into the forests of Sakuramori.
“Careful!” Hanson shouted out from behind him, to which Tor merely held up his left hand and waved to show that he had heard it.
Within the forest, every single noise that Tor made seemed to have been amplified. Every time his foot stepped on the grass underfoot, he could hear the rustling. Every now and then, when his foot crushed a twig or thin branch, the crack sounded like a gunshot. It was eerily quiet, as though as he was the only living thing in the forest but Tor could feel the hair on the back of his neck tingling. He could feel himself being watched. Feeling unsettled, Tor raised his right hand to shoulder height and slowly rested it on the hilt of the sword he had strapped to his back. It was the wrong thing to do.
The same second he unsheathed the sword from its scabbard, the crisp slide of metal against wood ringing out, the brushes around him exploded with activity. All he could see was claws and more claws flying towards him all around, and he quickly threw himself to the ground, rolling a few times as he felt successive thuds landing on where he had last been before rolling away. Shriek cries pierced his ears, as the first call was responded to one after another.
After rolling a few more times and finally feeling that it was safe, Tor quickly leapt to his feet, sword in hand as he laid eyes on his attackers. It was the same monsters that Hanson had told him about. He was currently facing a pack of eight Genprey, and when he stood up, he felt a bone-chilling shiver ran down his spine when all eight of them locked eyes on to him. However, Tor quickly tided over that sudden nervousness and showed a grin on his face.
With practiced moves, Tor leapt at the one nearest to him and hacked downwards on the monster. It was nimble, hopping backwards to avoid the downwards slash while two of them tried to attack Tor from the side and back by leaping onto him with their legs pulled back, claws outstretched. The Rune Knight hadn’t a doubt that he would be incapacitated if he took their jumping lunge, but he wasn’t going to just roll around on the ground again. A black shield with the motif of a dragon’s head appeared on his back and without wasting time, two streams of dark purple energy erupted from Tor’s back, taking on the form of draconic wings and beat to the front, forming a protecting shield against the incoming attacks.
The two Genprey struck the wings with their claws but before they could kick off, Tor had already willed for the wings to open up, effectively sweeping the two Genprey higher than they could handle into the air and crashing back down onto the ground. With his Wings of the Hell Dragon active, Tor began putting his all into the offensive. At the beginning, he would find himself constantly missing his targets as the monsters would always cleverly jump backwards and made use of the opening after Tor had completed his swing to leap forwards again with their powerful leg muscles and try to claw wildly into him with a jumping lunge.
The first few times, Tor was reliant on his wings to deflect them, constantly sweeping them away when they “landed” on the wings but their attack patterns were easy to discern after that. The Genprey relied on their powerful leg muscles to launch themselves at their targets where they would pull up their legs in front of them when they got airborne and either land on the target with their killer toe claw that was larger than the other claws, piercing into the target with unstoppable momentum or kick wildly at the target to slash at them.
Grasping their behavior, Tor began to adapt his attacks and combining magic spells into his move. He would be able to take down one with every spell. At times when the Genprey leapt backwards after his initial swing, Tor would keep the low posture after the end of the slash and dashed forward to fiercely slash upwards at the monster or he would cleanly slice through their legs, cutting halfway into their tough muscles. Some of them he chose to take out with magic, baiting them into attacking him before ending them with a well-placed Roaring Lightning Fist to smash them or a Lightning Beast Claw to slash at them. It was a one-two hit affair, but when all said and done, Tor looked around him to find the dead bodies of twelve Genprey scatted around him. The original eight’s calls had been answered by four more.
Tor took a careful sweep across all of them and disappointedly discovered that all of them were similar. There wasn’t any one of them that was particularly larger like what one or two people that Hanson interviewed had said.
Nevertheless, Tor let out a contented sigh as he shook his left hand, dispersing the residual currents of lightning from his usage of magic and sheathed his sword as he retraced back his steps to the road. It was mission completed, and time for him to collect his rewards for a job well done.
[1213 words]
“This is the eighth,” Hanson replied heavily with a sigh. Only three days into the week and eight cases. The week before this, the cases weren’t that frequent, just four cases in seven days.
“Anyone told you what did this?”
“A pack of Genprey. Raptor-like creatures, as tall as an average human, green and orange skin. A pack of them would appear every once in a while, but while they have the numbers, they don’t really attack humans that much. This is the first time we’ve seen such frequent and fierce attacks,” Hanson said as he took out a small notebook from his back pocket and read through the notes he had taken down when he had interviewed the victims. “Oh yes, some of them has said that they have seen a Genprey that’s particularly larger than the others, but we can’t really confirm that.”
“Got it. Well, I guess I will just follow this trail and see what I find,” Tor said with a confident smile as he patted Hanson on the back and began to walk off the road, into the forests of Sakuramori.
“Careful!” Hanson shouted out from behind him, to which Tor merely held up his left hand and waved to show that he had heard it.
Within the forest, every single noise that Tor made seemed to have been amplified. Every time his foot stepped on the grass underfoot, he could hear the rustling. Every now and then, when his foot crushed a twig or thin branch, the crack sounded like a gunshot. It was eerily quiet, as though as he was the only living thing in the forest but Tor could feel the hair on the back of his neck tingling. He could feel himself being watched. Feeling unsettled, Tor raised his right hand to shoulder height and slowly rested it on the hilt of the sword he had strapped to his back. It was the wrong thing to do.
The same second he unsheathed the sword from its scabbard, the crisp slide of metal against wood ringing out, the brushes around him exploded with activity. All he could see was claws and more claws flying towards him all around, and he quickly threw himself to the ground, rolling a few times as he felt successive thuds landing on where he had last been before rolling away. Shriek cries pierced his ears, as the first call was responded to one after another.
After rolling a few more times and finally feeling that it was safe, Tor quickly leapt to his feet, sword in hand as he laid eyes on his attackers. It was the same monsters that Hanson had told him about. He was currently facing a pack of eight Genprey, and when he stood up, he felt a bone-chilling shiver ran down his spine when all eight of them locked eyes on to him. However, Tor quickly tided over that sudden nervousness and showed a grin on his face.
With practiced moves, Tor leapt at the one nearest to him and hacked downwards on the monster. It was nimble, hopping backwards to avoid the downwards slash while two of them tried to attack Tor from the side and back by leaping onto him with their legs pulled back, claws outstretched. The Rune Knight hadn’t a doubt that he would be incapacitated if he took their jumping lunge, but he wasn’t going to just roll around on the ground again. A black shield with the motif of a dragon’s head appeared on his back and without wasting time, two streams of dark purple energy erupted from Tor’s back, taking on the form of draconic wings and beat to the front, forming a protecting shield against the incoming attacks.
The two Genprey struck the wings with their claws but before they could kick off, Tor had already willed for the wings to open up, effectively sweeping the two Genprey higher than they could handle into the air and crashing back down onto the ground. With his Wings of the Hell Dragon active, Tor began putting his all into the offensive. At the beginning, he would find himself constantly missing his targets as the monsters would always cleverly jump backwards and made use of the opening after Tor had completed his swing to leap forwards again with their powerful leg muscles and try to claw wildly into him with a jumping lunge.
The first few times, Tor was reliant on his wings to deflect them, constantly sweeping them away when they “landed” on the wings but their attack patterns were easy to discern after that. The Genprey relied on their powerful leg muscles to launch themselves at their targets where they would pull up their legs in front of them when they got airborne and either land on the target with their killer toe claw that was larger than the other claws, piercing into the target with unstoppable momentum or kick wildly at the target to slash at them.
Grasping their behavior, Tor began to adapt his attacks and combining magic spells into his move. He would be able to take down one with every spell. At times when the Genprey leapt backwards after his initial swing, Tor would keep the low posture after the end of the slash and dashed forward to fiercely slash upwards at the monster or he would cleanly slice through their legs, cutting halfway into their tough muscles. Some of them he chose to take out with magic, baiting them into attacking him before ending them with a well-placed Roaring Lightning Fist to smash them or a Lightning Beast Claw to slash at them. It was a one-two hit affair, but when all said and done, Tor looked around him to find the dead bodies of twelve Genprey scatted around him. The original eight’s calls had been answered by four more.
Tor took a careful sweep across all of them and disappointedly discovered that all of them were similar. There wasn’t any one of them that was particularly larger like what one or two people that Hanson interviewed had said.
Nevertheless, Tor let out a contented sigh as he shook his left hand, dispersing the residual currents of lightning from his usage of magic and sheathed his sword as he retraced back his steps to the road. It was mission completed, and time for him to collect his rewards for a job well done.
[1213 words]
