Linda saw that Dudian throw away the stone shell. She was startled. Although she didn't know what this thing was but it was familiar to the 'hissing' sound she had before. Why the sound was eliminated in his hands?
She tried to escape the arrows that were aimed at her but her legs were too seriously injured. One of the arrows hit her abdomen forcing her body to flew back and hit the ground.
As for the sword, she had lost it while the explosion and wasn't aware about its location.
Dudian quickly put the second arrow and pulled the string.
Puff!
The second shot hit her shoulder.
Dudian was relentless as he took the third arrow and aimed at her forehead!
Linda made a last ditch and quickly rolled sideways to avoid being hit in the face.
Dudian frowned and used his hand to take another arrow from the quiver but it was empty.
Linda turned around and noticed the scene. There was a trace of gloomy smile on his face: "Little devil, if you want to kill me then you will die with me!" She grabbed onto the arrow that was stabbed on her abdomen and pulled out in one breath. She staggered as she stood up but took a deep breath and rushed towards Dudian.
Dudian didn't escape as because of Linda's speed he wouldn't be able to run away. No matter how fast he run he will be caught so he stood and waited her while he stared directly at her eyes. When she was about three meters away from him, his hand suddenly lifted.
Whoosh!
A shadow left his palm.
Puff! Blood spattered off.
Linda who was running at full speed suddenly fell backward to the ground. A dagger had pierced into her throat.
In such a short distance, speed of dagger was in no way inferior to the arrow's speed. Linda couldn't react on time because of her serious injuries. Unless, she was brought back to the giant wall, even if Dudian didn't shot her she would die later on.
"Giggle ... ..." blood bubbled out of Linda's mouth. Her trachea was block so blood wasn't able to circulate properly.
Dudian grabbed few stones and throw at her.
Linda's body trembled. Her body struggled as she moved her head to stare at him. Her mouth slightly opened but couldn't utter anything.
Dudian's brows wrinkled as he got closer to her and said: "You and your brother are quite alike. He was so unwilling when he died. Oh, did I forget to tell you? In fact, it was me who had killed your brother!"
Linda's eyes widened because of agitation but it affected muscles of her throat. She coughed up a mouthful of blood. She was staring at her eyes as she issued a 'hum' sound. But her body was too injured and was unable to stand up. Her arm stayed stiff in the air before falling down.
Dudian looked carefully. It was not a lie. He piecked a large stone and hit her head severly. She still didn't respond. He was relieved to see her dead. He bent down and pulled out the dagger from her throat. However, for her not to turn into an undead, he completely cut it off.
Afterwards, he was completely assured of her death. His tight body loosened and he felt the cold sweat soaking down his spine. He sat on his butt as he began to take big breaths.
After a while his body was recovered a little. He brought withered plants and incinerated Linda's body and completely destroyed her head.
Chapter 126: Return
After dealing with Linda's body he found her sword at the bottom of the stone pile. He went around to a close by lake where faintly visible shadow of a huge beast was swimming. He raised the sword and threw it as far as he could.
The corpse was destroyed and sword was lost to the depth of lake.
Dudian patted his hands as he thought that even if the consortium sent a team to investigate and trace the clues nothing should get back to him. As the death of several others were done by brainpeckers while he had only shot Gale. However, few days ago he had smelled that Gale's body was incinerated by the young girl.
"Back to the wall ... ..." Dudian turned to leave. This time he had been for far too long outside the giant wall. He was soaked in pool of rainwater while he had ambushed Gale and Rona. He didn't know if there was anything infectious inside the water and he wasn't aware about the radiation content of the water pool.
However mutations could occur if body had accumulated more than 10% radiation content. In that case radiations spots would appear on human body as he had seen on people in bazaar and slums. Or maybe some parts of skin would change color, wrinkle, age or fester.
It would be serious but sterilization was possible too.
Before leaving Dudian once again returned to the fortress that he had previously found. He selected usable mines, grenades and firearms which had retained their condition and put them into his storage bag as he returned to area no 9.
Along the way, he relied on his sense of smell to avoid dangerous beasts. Basically, he didn't encounter any danger at all. Area no 7 was basically cleaned out of monsters. There were few ferocious monsters which would come here from other areas that would be hunt by the hunter teams.
As he returned to area no 9, Dudian went to the place where he had previously hid the bow and arrows of Brian. He found that none of them were noticed and taken. Moreover there were additional two hundred cold crystal in here.
The cold crystals that were hidden in here for more than two months were still intact without any sign of melting.
Dudian was going to take the bow given to him by the consortium back to the giant wall. However, he was going to hide landmines and other things over here including about 100 cold crystal. With his present power killing undeads was not difficult so he wasn't worried about his stash being low.
After covering the storage location, Dudian went back to the giant wall passage which he had used while scavenging. It was close to area no 9.
Halfway through the rain began to pour.
Dudian immediately went into a dilapidated building to protect himself from rain. After rain stopped he found some large leaves of plants and compiled them into a raincoat and put it on. It was enough to prevent the rain penetrating his clothes until he reached the giant wall.
Dudian soon find the entrance to the underground passage of the giant wall. But the channel had a lock and the layer of iron was very thick so it would be very difficult to break it with brute force. He felt that even if Glenn was present, she wouldn't be able to open the gate.
Dudian sat next to the gate and wait till the next time the gate would be opened.
If any scavenger or hunter would return then it meant that the gate would be opened and he would be able to enter too.
Dudian hoped that soon scavengers would either return or would be sent out so that he could get inside.
He wasn't idle while waiting for gate to open. Dudian thought of spiral arrows which could be shot. But he knew that to learn shooting spiral arrows was very difficult. It would improve the destructive and penetrative power but its shooting trajectory was different from ordinary arrow shooting.
"Anyway, practicing spiral arrows would be much better than aligned shooting." Dudian decided.
The difference of destructive power between ordinary shots and spiral arrows was like the gap between armor-piercing projectile and a bullet. There was two to three times of difference in power. Of course, if he could master spiral arrows and then superimpose them by using aligned shooting then it would be much more lethal.
However, mastering something like that wouldn't happen after three or five years of practice. He didn't know how much time would be consumed to learn something like that.
Dudian decided to practice spiral arrow shooting. He felt that through hunting experience his accuracy would get better too.
He knew that he was a bit lucky when he had shot Gale.
However, even if he couldn't kill dark skinned girl but was able to wound her whose was later destroyed by brainpeckers.
So the point was that if there was no accuracy then even if he could shoot 8 arrows at the same time, it was just meaningless.
<
br /> Dudian took out dagger and draw a circle on the wall. Although it was crooked but he didn't need to create an art. Instead of sitting idle he was going to practice.
"First, I have to improve my range. The thing is I have to learn step by step. If my range was three or even five hundred meters then to kill Linda I would need to go through that much effort. Moreover, I could attract few brainpeckers and they would do the job in my stead."
Dudian lifted the bow and began to swiftly take arrows and shot them.
"There is to too much deviation from the target." Dudian whispered. Although it was difficult to expect the spiral arrows to shot on target from the first try but he didn't expect such big deviation to occur. "Is the airflow impact to much?"
He began to analyze every shot and slowly practice.
Because of continuous archer he didn't feel how the time passed.
Six days had gone by in the blind of an eye.
Dudian was practicing when the iron gate slowly pushed open.
Dudian was excited as his food supply had already finished. Last few days he was in a hungry state. If the door wouldn't open then he was planning to find roots of grasses to fill his belly.
Peter was surprised and startled as he opened the iron gate.
"Dean?"
"What!"
"How come you are here? "
Several familiar voices resounded from behind Peter. They were Mason, Zach and Sham.
Dudian knew that Peter had brought them out for scavenging. Calculating his training time it was indeed the time they had to come out to perform tasks.
"I had come out to perform a task but unfortunately was separated from my team. So I came here." Dudian laughed: "Fortunately, you guys had come or I was going to starve to death!"
"Come on! You wouldn't die that easy... " Mason smiled.
Sham looked up and down at Dudian. : "What kind of monster were you guys hunting? You aren't hurt, are you?"
Dudian nodded: "I'm alright."
Peter asked. : "You were in training. How come they had sent you out to perform a task?"
Dudian looked at him.: "It was an urgent task and the consortium was short of manpower so they sent me."
"But you are rookie. How the consortium would do something so... ..." Peter's face had complex expression. He knew the even the primary hunters would die while hunting let alone a rookie. But he could understand the reason behind their decision as he sighed and thought in his heart. : "He doesn't have 'light physique' so the consortium doesn't put much of an importance on him.."
Dudian roughly guessed his thoughts from his face. He was touched as he smiled and said: "Anyway, the task has been completed and there should be a lot of reward. By the way, you three should be very careful while scavenging. I'll be waiting for you guys for a treat!"
"We are going to choose the most luxurious place then!" Mason maliciously smiled.
Zach's eyes also shone: "A hotel owned by aristocracy... "
"We can't waste Dean's money!" Sham was a little angry: "We're going to eat in Avi's pub."
"What!" Mason and Zach were surprised, "Are you his accountant?!"
"Alright, alright but you have to pay attention to your safety while scavenging." Dudian made the promise.
Peter laughed: "This time they are going to scavenge at area no 13. Basically, there is no danger. At best they would meet few rats or small monsters. So as long as they are careful and don't act alone, they won't face any danger!"
"Well, no resources." Mason whispered.
Peter laughed and shook his head.
The team who was going out with Mason, Zach and Sham had the students from the same training camp as they had graduation from. All of them looked at Dudian's fine style armor and black bow which he held. They didn't expect the person who had trained with them in short amount of time to become a 'big man' while they scavenged little resources.
Dudian bid farewell to three and followed Peter into the underground passage.
"You should wait here first, I'll go and inform the people form Holy Church to come and pick you up," Peter laughed.
Dudian nodded. Hunters as well as scavengers had to undergo rigorous testing after they come from the outside.
Chapter 127: Detention center
After leaving the aisle Dudian saw Peter using a flute-like pipe to whistle. A black crow flew afterwards, he wrote a message with the pen and it carried the message away.
"The area within the giant wall is to huge so consortiums have raised crows for carrying message. If you are in hurry to report something you can also use them." Peter explained with smile.
"Are not they afraid of radiation?" asked Dudian.
"This crows are not only smart but also resistant to radiation. They can also be used in radiation area while hunting too. " Peter laughed.
Dudian knew that crows had mutated to something unique which was resistant to radiation.
Peter accompanied Dudian. He saw the huge storage bag on Dudian's back: "Even if you are a hunter you haven't forgotten to scavenge various materials. It should not be as profitable as killing those beast.?"
Dudian knew that Peter was worried that they would be delayed of unnecessary things so he truthfully said: "These are materials from beasts."
"Ah?" Peter was surprised and stunned as he asked. : "From monsters? All these? Is this...Did you hunt on your own?"
"Almost right," Dudian replied in a general manner.
Peter recovered himself as he was aware of his rude attitude: "I thought...I didn't expect you to go out hunting in so short time. You can hunt beasts on your own. Well, thinking about it you already have the power of a hunter, it's just you lack skills and experience. Gee! Look at your storage bag! Worth a dozen coins, right?"
Peter was a bit envious.
Dudian understood that Peter thinks he had hunted 'bone rats' or small monsters similar to those. Those monsters had little valuable material. If they were accumulated to such a large size then they would really be worth about a dozen gold coins. However, there were more than 700 pieces of cold crystals in the storage back which was about 700 gold coins. However, he hadn't brought the materials that he got from Linda to prevent any unnecessary exposure.
After all, Glenn was going to give him 4000 gold coins. Now, he could be regarded a rich man. Most of the other primary hunters would not have as much money as he would.
A steel casted wagon came over. It was like a dark cage made of iron. There were two Knights of Light in front of the carriage. But after checking their badges he saw white flames engraved on them which meant they were apprentice knights.
"Let's go," Peter said Dudian.
Dudian nodded and went into carriage.
The carriage stopped moving two hours later. Dudian lifted the curtain and found that they were not at the castle from the previous time but in a desolate and empty town. Leaves were all over the place while almost all the shops were closed and buildings looked stale.
"Where's this?" Dudian inquired a nearby apprentice Knights of Light who was in charge of the escort.
This apprentice knight coldly glanced at him and indifferently said: "hold still!"
Dudian didn't expect his attitude to be so cold. Apprentice had a trace of disgust on his face. Dudian couldn't help but wrinkle his brows. But he didn't care much so put down the curtain. It seems the place where he was taken to was not the same castle as the last time.
A moment later, the carriage stopped.
One of the apprentice's came forward and handed a pair of steel handcuff to Dudian.: "Its part of the regulations, please cooperate!"
Dudian was flabbergasted.: "Why do they attend to me as if I'm a prisoner?" However because of the white flame medal on their uniforms he hold back his anger. If he over-reacted they could mistakenly believe that he had been infected which could lead to unnecessary trouble. He moved his hands and let them handcuff him.
Afterwards, the apprentice knight took out the key and unlocked the carriage.
: "Please, walk in front!"
Dudian sullenly said: "What about my luggage?"
"You shouldn't be worried about it." Apprentice knight indifferently replied.
Dudian no longer said anything as he turned around to walk in front. It felt as if he was a prisoner and they were the guard who were escorting him.
A female Knight of Light was inside the hall when they came in. She clutched her nose as she looked at Dudian and waved. : "Shower! Get him to take a shower and clean himself!"
"Yes." Apprentice knight answered in hurry.
Dudian was brought into a huge bathhouse. There were no rooms for private shower. Moreover he felt angry as he would be supervised even while he took the shower and they didn't even uncuff him.
Although he felt that he was humiliated but he barely hold back. Afterwards, he was given a new clothing by the maid who had brought them in advance.
Afterwards he was brought into another hall. There were rows of cages in this one. But they were totally different to the ones he had seen previously. This cages had steel cast which were as thick as baby's arm. Even senior hunters wouldn't be able to easily break them apart.
"Go in and wait. Someone will come to you to test." Apprentice said and left.
Dudian didn't replied but quietly went into the cage.
All the other cages were empty. The book of light was on table near the bed.
He didn't read it but instead leaned against the wall. He was thinking about archery training and alchemy plans.
A few days passed in the blink of an eye.
Few doctors had come to check his body on daily basis. The inspection method was different from the last time. Not only the radiation content of his body was checked but also his blood and magic marks.
The method to test the blood was very simple. They would fill a bowl with water. Then they will fill few drops of Dudian blood. Afterwards they will add few drops from a normal person and will see whether Dudian's blood will try to engulf it.
If it happens then it is a proof that Dudian's body was infected with virus and someone will be sent to destroy him.
The Dark King Page 51
