After taking care of the merchants—and their horse—me, Lily and Grick began our journey in earnest. I worried Grick’s new supply of treasures might slow him down, but the goblin was proving to be a bit stronger and with a bit more stamina than I would have imagined. He didn’t have any particular skills that could explain it, but I supposed when it came to treasure, he just had extra capabilities he didn’t possess without the right motivation.
Actually… now that I think about it, all the times he’s had us carry stuff for him before, and I agreed, assuming he was too small to do it himself, he actually probably could have. I looked over at him with a suspicious glare. Noticing me, his ears folded down, and he asked, “Puppy needs something?”
I shook my head, thinking, “Don’t worry, it’s fine.”
Well, if I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, there was another explanation. He had at least tripled his level since joining us. Despite having only taken part in a couple of kills, they were for things far higher level than him. So suffice to say, he got power leveled quite nicely by hanging around us. Though I did wonder how he compared to other goblins strength-wise.
We continued to travel for the rest of the day, staying along the mountainside as Genzo had suggested, until we finally came to the river and the sun was beginning to dip below the distant peaks. Our next landmark was going to be some old abandoned church, but I figured we had made some pretty nice progress for the day at this point.
I slowed down, with Grick and Lily following my lead.
Lily turned her head as she looked at me, and I heard a whisper of her voice through Pack Bond. “Sleep?”
I nodded. “Den this way.” I had spotted a small cave a short time ago that I figured would make a good shelter for the night. Satisfied with at least finding the river, I doubled back until I spotted it again and gestured inside.
It was small but had plenty of room for the three of us. Grick put down his back and stretched, then rubbed his legs. “Aaaaah Grick’s poor legs. So tired.” He let out a long yawn to accompany his complaints.
I did a quick sniff around, looking for clues if anything else used this place for home, but nothing quite stood out to me. There were some old animal scents, but not the telltale sign of blood that might indicate a predator lived here.
As I finished my rounds, Lily came to my side and stared at me quite intentionally, tail wagging. “Hunt?”
My lips curled in a smile, and I looked over to Grick, who was taking things out of his pack and examining them. I said, “We hunt. Think for help if needed.”
“Grick is fine. Grick knows when not safe.”
True, he does have a skill specifically for that purpose. I suppose as long as he doesn’t fall asleep, nothing will sneak up on him while we’re out.
I turned to Lily and nodded. “Hunt.”
The forests outside the vale were quite different than those in our home. Actually, these trees looked much more like the ones I could imagine from my past life’s memories. Brown bark, a thickness that two humans could get their arms around, and branches that hung rather than reached. In the vale, the bark was brown and smooth, they were way thicker, and the branches were just plain weird.
As we descended into the forest, the sun finally winked out. I used {Pulse Sense} and was instantly greeted by dozens of heartbeats, though all of them were small. I wondered if monsters outside the vale were as strong as those inside? It was fully possible we were heading into some pretty low-level areas, which further made sense why the red masks used our home as their hunting ground. If they could find worthy prey just anywhere, why go through the trouble of all of that travel?
I didn’t want to give up on getting a decent kill right away, though, so I ignored the small heartbeats and led Lily deeper into the forest. Eventually, I saw a familiar green glow and headed towards it—healing shrooms! However, as we got closer, I saw they were much smaller than the ones I was used to seeing. In the vale and caves, they were big enough for a human to get both hands around. These were about the size of one of Grick’s hands. Not that we were in any desperate need of healing items—we had plenty of potions stocked in Grick’s bag, which would be much more effective should we need them. This simply gave the indication that my theory of this being in a lower-level area was going to prove correct.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The fact that those merchants had been traveling a road through the forest with no protection also indicated this. I wasn’t sure what level they were, but I could easily guess they were a far lower level than either of us. Even they seemed to know it simply upon looking at us. It seemed most humans had the ability to see levels before killing, which is a skill I hoped to learn at some point. It would really come in handy for determining which fights to pick in the future.
After a little more walking, Lily whined softly, apparently getting impatient. “Prey. Hungry.”
“Fine,” I thought back. “Okay, we’ll kill the next thing we see.” I used another {Pulse Sense}. “Over there.”
Lily’s ears perked up immediately in eager focus, and she began sniffing. I prowled alongside her, both of us staying low and hidden within the shadows of the undergrowth as we zeroed in on our prey. Lily’s tail swished back and forth excitedly as we went.
“Food. Food. Food.” I could hear her intent repeating through Pack Bond.
We crept closer, keeping our steps light. As the underbrush thinned, I finally saw it.
The creature looked like someone had started making a deer and forgotten to finish deciding what it was. It had the body shape of a small stag, but its legs were short and thick, almost boar-like, ending in broad, moss-colored hooves. Its fur was a muted gray-green that blended perfectly with the forest floor, and sprouting from its shoulders were clusters of soft, leaf-shaped growths that gently swayed as it moved.
I thought it looked quite tasty. Lily was practically on her belly, paws padding at the ground as if holding herself back from charging right after it. I gave a wolfy grin then told her, “Go get it.”
She instantly burst from the underbrush, though her paws landed silently as they left thin trails of mist behind that dissipated almost immediately after each paw lifted. The creature turned just in time to see her coming and let out an alarmed squawk.
It pitched forward on its front hooves and kicked back at Lily. However, she used {Slip Dash}, sliding right past it and putting her in position to take a chomp at its neck. The leafy appendages extended like wipes and took swipes at her, but she was already on it, and it didn’t seem those feeble attacks could do much damage anyway.
She tackled it, sinking her teeth in and instantly knocking it to its side. It kicked, squirmed, and squawked for help, but soon it was done.
Prey Eliminated level 6 Mossgrazer
No experience gained
As I expected, the experience gains were nonexistent. However, it did look like it had some good meat on it, and Lily did not seem worried about the experience at all. He tail wagged as she sniffed her kill, walking circles around it, deciding where to take the first bite. When she decided on its flank, she dug in with enthusiasm, biting down, then ripping and pulling to take a nice mouthful of meat with her.
As for me, I opted for opening up its belly. My teeth tore into its soft underside quite easily, and instantly I was greeted with a nice earthy taste. There was a freshness to this meat that had me digging in deeper, excited to get to its organs, which always had the most interesting tastes.
We lay with our kill as the slurping, ripping, and heavy breathing of two Hell Hounds sitting down to dinner filled the area and probably scared off anything else that might come near. When I had my fill, I looked over the top of the dismantled carcass to see Lily sitting on her haunches, tail beating the ground, muzzle slick and dripping with blood, and tongue lolling out as she panted happily.
It may not have been a challenge to kill, but it was tasty and satisfied my belly perfectly. If it tasted like anything, I could compare it to the leaf crawlers from the forest floor of the vale. Actually, as I took a closer look at its greenish brown hide, I realized it was fully possible this thing was an evolution of one of those.
In any case, I didn’t want to leave Grick alone for too long, and I had no reason to suspect we would find decent foes out here to level up on. We had another long day of travel ahead of us tomorrow, so I figured we should get some rest.
“Return to the den,” I thought at Lily, and she let out an affirming yip as she followed after me.
As we got out of the woods I saw the sky above was completely dark now, and littered with a beautiful mist of stars. I couldn’t help but gaze up at them and let my eyes drift around up there as a thought hit me.
Are those the same stars I’d see from Earth? I realized that this was my first time ever really looking at the stars in this world. When I was a newborn pup, still happily living with my family in our den, I never had a reason to go outside at night. Then there was my time in the forest where the sky was blocked out by tree coverage, and I was too worried about not becoming anything else’s dinner at the time to think of such a thing either way. After that were the caves, and it was much the same at that time as well.
I realized this was one of the first truly peaceful moments I had felt since losing my family…
As I continued to watch the sky, I began thinking about constellations. There was… the Little and Big Dipper, Orion’s belt, Ares, Cancer… uh…
There were a lot more than that, right? I couldn’t remember them now, though.
I tried searching out the Big Dipper since that was the one I could remember always easily finding on Earth, but I didn’t see it anywhere. It seemed like this really was a different sky entirely.
Not that it really mattered. Earth was a lifetime ago, and as the days went by, it became more and more like a half-remembered dream.
