Chapter 77 – The Eye of Trouble (6)

Lightly, the rain poured down this fern-ridden area. The rainwater glazes the leaves. Each droplet traced the patterns in each one of them and making them shine as it falls down the ground with a patter. He could smell the wet ground and the water rising above. He could hear the sound of his cape meeting the rainwater.

Joshua was holding his rifle tightly. He was hiding in this tall bush with his eyes squinted. In front of him were hunters hunkered down as well. Their eyes focused on the bloody piece of land. If it wasn’t for the rain, they would have smelled the blood coming from that place.

“Bloody hell, another land filled with corpses?”

“Kars, what should we do?”

“Silence, just hunker down in silence. The blood’s fresh, so hunker down silently until I say otherwise.”

The Hunters nodded their heads. They kept their body down as they stare at the pile of freshly tattered corpses. Joshua did not move an inch like them. He was stiffed and his right foot was hurting. It was bothering really. Despite wanting to help, it seems like his right foot would falter his will down.

Silo could see Joshua struggling to hunker down. He approached him quietly while stilling keep his body low. He crouched near him, saying. “You okay?”

‘I am. Right foot’s hurting but I can manage.”

“Your right hand is shaking too.”

“It does?”

He looked at his right hand. It was indeed shivering

“Damn, it really is shaking isn’t.”

“Did you take those painkillers?”

“Nope, I think I should save them. I’ll manage I think.”

Silo looked at Joshua as if he wanted to tell him otherwise. But Silo instead nodded his head and keeps his body near the bushes.

Kars and the others were gazing at the pile of bodies. There was a hunter clinging to a tree. He was using the binoculars to survey the fresh pile of bodies in front of them. He was covered in rain gear. His hooded cape made him blend.

The hunter scanned the area. Raising his left hand, he pointed in one direction, making Kars and the others move to where the hunter was telling them to go. Kars and the others were used to this. They were able to silently traverse the bushes silently without making a sound. The rain was giving them cove so it was like there was no one moving. The hunter above then turned to Joshua and the others. He directed them to a position, which Joshua and others moved too.

Kars and others were near the place. They could smell the nose stunting corpses. They were mutilated and skinned to such degree that if it wasn’t for their shapes. Kars and the others wouldn’t have known what the corpses are. Their miserable appearance was quite shocking. Kars has seen these beasts roam around the lands. Their might was tales for the young children’s of any settlement. But yet here they are reduced to tattered and torn sacks of meats.

A hunter stood up while leaning his rifle on his shoulder. He walked to one of the corpses with a ghastly face.

“This no joke at all Kars, this thing’s a spike hog! And a big one that is!”

“What?”

Kars shouted. He ran towards the corpse and there he made a horrified expression. Joshua stood up and abandoned cover like the rest of them. The area was clear and the hunter was giving them a go to take a look.

“What’s that?” asked Joshua.

“It’s a dire monster that belongs to the ‘Don’t fuck with it without cannon’ class. You see those giant spikes near that bloody corpse?”

“I do,” Joshua glanced at the spear-length spike of the hog.

“Those things can punch through ten-centimeter metal plates likes nothing. When firearms weren’t invented it would take an entire elite battalion of hunters just to take one down. They have thick hides and are fast. They can roll like boulders and break any wall with those giant spikes. But look at this monster. Cut to pieces, lacerated, battered and torn. There are long cuts on its pelvis area and it looks like the poor thing got its spike torn pluck off one by one. Good God, what kind of monster does this? Are we even facing a monster here?”

There was a trace of fear on everyone’s faces. Joshua looked at that mutilated spike hog. He was feeling anxious even more now that he has seen such dangerous monster fall prey this easily. What’s worse was that when the hunting team inspected the other corpses. They found a dangerous monster that was far dangerous than the spike hogs.

It made the hunting team even more afraid of whatever. There was nothing they could for the dead monsters. So the hunting team decided to trek back to the plateau where they gathered around the campfire and started to discuss what to do. Can they even find the thing? And even if they do find the thing, can they defeat it with their flimsy and meager flint-flick rifles?

The Hunting team knows that whatever killed the spike hog and the other dangerous monsters. It was dangerous and that there was a big chance that they are just heading to their own deaths. Kars was starting to understand this. But even so, he urged everyone to still push through this mission. Even if they don’t kill the thing they are looking for. They at least need to know whatever the thing was. Kars didn’t want to go back without taking revenge. Silo shares the same feeling but seeing the monsters dead like that. He can’t help but wonder if this was all indeed suicidal.

Joshua could tell that the bits of enthusiasm that everyone had the moment they saw those dead monsters were gone. All of them now were looking like they were afraid. It was as if the reality of whatever their fighting was and how dangerous it was finally starting to kick in their heads. Like a bucket of cold water over their heads. The hunters realized that the enemy they are facing might be too much for them.

But even with that. They must at least know what the thing was. They need to soldier on and find out! They would go out there and search for the damn thing.

And that was their biggest mistake.