Monster Hunting 101: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure (Titan Termination)

by Freaks, LitRPG

  Should I snap off another arrow? Or wait and continue tracking it to learn more? I was unsure. By all accounts, I would be safe up here in the tree line, forty feet above ground. Worst case scenario, I could simply jump down a few other branches while shooting at it any chance I had. I had thirty arrows in my quiver, enough to kill it, or at the very least weaken it for another attack later on.

  I hesitated only for a moment before I grabbed another arrow from my quiver and nocked it on my bow. I had the advantage; I had to make use of this opportunity. Killing this monster would only strengthen me, while also ensuring the Home Cave was completely clear. I raised the bow, took a deep breath and aimed right at the open mouth of the wormbeast.

  With a thwip , the arrow sailed through the air and crashed into the beast’s face. The creature roared at this and thrashed for a moment, giving me time to reload and fire another arrow off. This shot hit the underbelly, causing the arrow to bounce off onto the ground. While I readied another arrow, the wormbeast let out a deep hissing sound before releasing a stream of green liquid from its mouth.

  Things seemed to move in slow motion for me. One second, my hand was sliding an arrow into place, the next I could see a long torrent of bile heading towards me, inching as if time were stopping. I could barely drop the arrow and leap out of the way. The torrent crashed down on the branch beneath me, but thankfully I was already in midair, safely sailing towards another branch.

  Time sped up as I landed and I realized that my enhanced reflexes had allowed me to react to a surprise attack much faster. I prepared another arrow and snapped off a shot that went wide as the wormbeast retched another blast of bile at me. I didn’t have much time and I found myself leaping from branch to branch, narrowly avoiding blast after blast. I couldn’t see what was happening to the branches, but I could hear the violent sizzling sound that had affected my testing stick earlier.

  I scrambled on a branch behind the tree, losing sight of the monster, but shielding myself from any further bile attacks. I was panting heavily, exhausted from dodging so many times. I heard the wormbeast let out a defiant shriek and realized the sound was growing closer, not further. It wanted revenge.

  “What are you doing?” I groaned as I carefully stepped on another branch, taking a corner around the tree to get a glimpse of my foe. It was walking over to my tree, making retching sounds as it undoubtedly prepared to deluge the entire area with its disgusting secretion. It was angry, but focused, its eyes sweeping left to right for any sign of movement. How it had been able to pinpoint my location from so far away was beyond me, but I wouldn’t give it any indications of where I stood.

  Instead, using another arrow, I fired at the tree behind the beast, the loud thunk of the projectile on wood causing it to whip around. Distracted by this sound, the beast released its torrent of noxious bile onto the unoccupied tree. The stream poured over the poor tree and I watched in horror as the plant began to bubble over, breaking to pieces in a matter of seconds. The bark of the tree slid off and, within ten seconds, the tree was bent over, its structure irremediably destroyed.

  The wormbeast rushed over to the tree and pushed it down with its body, moving about its own bile as if looking for something to eat. The back of its head was exposed and I readied another arrow, drawing it back as far as it could go. “Please work,” I whispered, and I released the arrow, sending it sailing directly into the center of its head. “Yes!” I cried as I watched the arrow sink deeply into the fleshy head of the monster.

  This attack seemed to cause it a great deal of agony and the wormbeast let out a violent shriek before thrashing once more. It spun around and released another burst of bile and, once again, I began to leap out of the way. But I made a crucial mistake. The monster had learned its lesson, it would appear, and instead of aiming the stream directly at me, it sprayed in a diagonal manner, making it impossible for me to dodge to the left.

  This attack caused a moment of hesitation that was more than enough for the poison to land. As I changed my footing to leap to the right, getting in the air as quickly as I could, a splash of bile crashed against my left leg. Immediately the bile began to bubble up and burn my skin, eating away at my pant leg and my boot. The pain wracked my entire body and I cried out in agony as I landed on another branch. The burning was so distracting, however, that I couldn’t find my footing and I slipped, falling to the dirt hard.

  Hitting the ground knocked all of the wind from my lungs and I was gasping for breath. My leg was numb at this point and I was terrified to look at it, afraid that it had been reduced to nothing more than a stump from the bile. I tried to scramble up to my feet, but I must have hit my head during the fall, for I kept losing my balance, falling over every time I got back up.

  As I lay on the ground, gasping for air and struggling to stand, the wormbeast began to come towards me. It too was moving erratically, swerving left to right as it tried to focus on me. I expected another blast of bile, but the creature could not keep its head straight. I could see a lot of blood pouring down from the back of its head, proof that I had struck somewhere vital.

  My hands grasped for my bow, but I had somehow lost the weapon in the fall. All I had was the small carving chisel that Rashar had let me borrow. How I wished that I had a knife right now. One of my jobs coming out here had been to find the remains of the scouts who took the last of our knives for their mission above. I had forgotten about such a search in the heat of things and now…that slip of the mind might kill me.

  I drew the chisel and waited as the beast staggered towards me, its movements becoming more and more erratic with each passing second. My leg was shot; there was no way I could get out of the way of an attack. So I would have to simply try and stab the monster in the eye. Drawing on my experience from previous encounters, I merely played dead, staying perfectly still.

  The wormbeast was too disoriented to realize that I was motionless and continued to walk up to me, hissing and shrieking. I prayed that the monster would bleed out before it had time to retch more of that dreadful bile. But the monster did not use its spray attack; instead it clambered over me and reared up, triumphantly shrieking as if it had won the encounter. The beast then lowered its head to begin devouring its new meal.

  I waited a beat as its pale, pulsing face came down towards me, mouth open wide for feasting. Then, I raised the chisel and stabbed the beast right in its eye socket. It let out an ear shattering cry, one so loud that it continued to ring in my ears long after it stopped. The two long mandibles, green and dripping with bile, opened wide and snapped down towards my head to crush me to death. But I was fast enough to see this coming.

  I raised my arms up and caught the mandibles as they closed down, gritting my teeth as I strained to hold the jaws at bay. As I struggled, my arms beginning to weaken, a strange ferocity came across me, a burning anger, a primal rage. Little by little, I began to push back the jaws, each hand forcing them further and further apart, away from my head. The anger roaring in my mind was the aspect of the Kinru, blessing me with greater strength. My limbs felt like iron, tireless against the forceful wormbeast.

  I let out a loud scream of both anger and anguish as my hands forced the two mandibles apart so hard that they snapped right off of the wormbeast’s head. Blood gushed down on me, blinding me as the wormbeast rolled away from me, hissing and screeching for a few seconds. I felt its large body smash against the ground as it thrashed and I slowly crawled away, still unable to see a thing.

  Then there was…silence. No hissing. No shrieking. Just silence. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears and the sound of my own panting as I gasped for breath. My eyes were burning from the monster’s blood and I fumbled to clean myself off enough to see what was going on.

  Lying across from me was the wormbeast sprawled out on the ground, covered in black blood and motionless. Groaning from the pain, I stood to my feet and hobbled over to my bow, which had been lying in the bushes a few feet away from my landing spot. With the weapon
in hand, I nocked another arrow and leaned against a tree, aiming the bow at the beast. It remained motionless.

  I fired an arrow into the corpse, just to check, to make sure it wasn’t trying the same play-dead tactic I had used. No response. No reaction. I began to laugh at the realization that the thing was dead. I had killed a monster, in its prime, all by myself. My leg began to give out again and I slid down against the tree, still laughing. I had almost died, but all I could do at this point was just laugh and laugh and laugh.

  Chapter 9

  Once the adrenaline and shock of the battle had worn off, the real pain began to set in. My leg injury did not magically go away after the fight, and even after I opened up the corpse of the wormbeast to get Bloodpoints, there was no regenerative effect. My leg was still severely injured and I couldn’t walk without the use of a stick.

  I hadn’t taken much time to butcher the wormbeast. Opening up the body gave me 400 Bloodpoints, certainly enough to take more advancements in different class aspects. But I noticed quickly that the beast had no bones. Even the protective plates on its underbelly had grown soft and useless after it was dead.

  Unsure of how to harvest the essence of this creature, I hastily tried to use the hand drill on one of the mandibles I had broken off. Much to my surprise, this worked! The essence of the fallen beast was drawn into the mandible and I’d be able to craft that into a new charm. Once I had access to a workshop, that is.

  Standing over the dead body, leaning hard against a long stick that was not suited for supporting a full grown human, I wondered what I should do with the remains. That bilious beast had sprayed a lot of dangerous liquid when it died, literally leaking out of every pore of its body. The Kinru was more of an animal-looking monster, and I had no qualms about using its meat for food. But a strange wormbeast that secreted a burning chemical? The mere thought of serving this meat to the village children sickened me and so I decided to merely leave it for some other, braver scavenger.

  I winced with each step, making my way to the Home Cave. It wasn’t too far from here and eventually I’d meet the guards who manned the secret passage to our village. They’d be able to take me the rest of the way, back to see Dr. Jace to fix up my leg. I just needed to make it to the cave without running into anything else.

  The trip through the forest, though less than ten minutes, felt impossibly long. My heightened senses informed me of each snap of a twig, the footsteps of a solitary little animal running through the woods, the sound of the wind against branches. My hyperawareness led only to fear, fear that something was coming to finish off a weak and defenseless human. With my current condition, I would stand no chance against a monster.

  The only thing I could do was select new abilities from the class menu, as a way to prepare for any future dangers. Fortunately, after this last encounter, I knew exactly what I needed to pick. The first was the Archer’s Eye ability. It would allow for me to see the known weak spots of my enemies. The back of the wormbeast’s head had been very vulnerable and, now, if I were to encounter any more of them, I’d be able to target their weak points with ease.

  The second choice was Safe Fall, from the acrobat ability list. Taking that fall had almost killed me and I had to prepare for those kinds of situations in the future. If I were to be fighting in the jungle, I’d be using trees a lot. A failed jump could certainly cost me a lot, even my life. I wouldn’t take that kind of chance again.

  These two selections were good and I had 100 Bloodpoints left over. I couldn’t spend them on anything, but it was nice to have some points to save for the more expensive options. With the selection of the second acrobat ability on the list, a new Tier opened up for me to choose from, yet those abilities cost 500 Bloodpoints each. I’d need to round myself out with the cheaper abilities, for survival purposes, before moving on to the more advanced techniques.

  These choices helped distract me from the pain, long enough for me to reach the underground tunnel where the concealed passage to the village awaited. I staggered forward, still leaning against the stick that was threatening to break at any moment.

  “This is Avery,” I said, knocking against the hollowed out piece of stone in the wall. “Open up.”

  There was a long silence until I heard someone whisper. “You have to tell us the password,” said Johns, one of the regular passage guards.

  “I don’t remember the password,” I said, dropping the stick and sliding down to the ground. “But I know it’s you, Johns. And I know your mother will kick your ass if she finds out that you kept her favorite nurse from coming back into the village.”

  There was a moment of hesitation and I could hear hushed whispers from two men on the other side of the wall. After a few minutes of arguing, the passage slowly opened up, but only enough for someone to look through. My vision was fading at this point, the exhaustion and pain of my leg finally taking their toll on me. I heard Johns shout something about an injured person and calls for Dr. Jace before I finally slipped away into the darkness.

  I awoke in the familiar medical ward of the village. There were eight beds, four in a row across from the other set. The ward was empty, but I was unsure as to whether that was a good sign or a bad one. Normally the beds were filled with people struggling with some kind of illness or malnourishment. I glanced down to see that my leg had been bandaged and well cleaned.

  “There she is!” Dr. Jace said as he entered the ward, clipboard in hand. The old man was wearing his usual white, threadbare coat that had more patches than original fabric on it. His face, weathered by years and years of hardship, had deep wrinkles that showed his great age. But the man was chipper as ever, humming as he came in. “Glad to see you’re awake.” He walked over to me and sat on the chair beside my bed. “I don’t know what happened to your leg, but fortunately I managed to fix it. At least, I’m assuming it’s fixed.”

  “It’s good to see you, Doc,” I said, slowly sitting up. My head was spinning and I felt unbelievably disoriented. But I had recognized this feeling from experiences before; it was Jace’s special painkiller brew, a concoction he often used for both serious injuries and evening get-togethers. “You would not believe what happened out there.”

  “A monster almost got you. But you managed to bring back quite the haul of meat,” Jace muttered as he began to change the dressings on my leg. Usually, that would be my job, but I certainly didn’t feel up to the task. “You must have stolen some terrible monster’s dinner. That meat is so fresh, it almost moves when you poke it with a fork.”

  “I didn’t steal anyone’s dinner,” I said, wincing as Jace poured a salve on the wound, sending waves of pain through my leg. “I killed a Kinru. And that is only a fraction of what I have stored up above.”

  “Oh, I forgot to mention, you are extremely medicated right now,” Jace said. “You were in so much pain during the surgery that I thought you’d die from it. You won’t be thinking straight for a while.”

  Didn’t he hear me? “Jace, I said that I killed a Kinru,” I repeated.

  Jace nodded. “Of course you did,” he muttered, his voice patronizing and unconcerned. A flash of anger rose up in me, but I held my tongue, thinking out his reaction. The Kinru in the region had been the death of many a scout, and no man or woman had ever fought one and lived to tell the tale. For young Avery Lorn, the resident nurse, to have killed a Kinru would be sheer nonsense. And indeed, for any regular person to slay such a beast would be regarded as a tall tale. But I was a Venator now.

  “You won’t believe me, but…and I know it sounds crazy, Doc, but I became a Venator.”

  Jace’s head immediately snapped up and looked right at me. “What?”

  His reaction startled me. I had been expecting him not to recognize the word, or to simply treat my rambling as if I were some feverish patient. But he seemed to know the name. I had never heard of a Venator until meeting Rashar. Did some people here know what they were?

  “I said I became a Venator, a hunter,” I rep
eated. “That’s how I was able to kill a Kinru and bring back its meat.”

  Jace slowly stood from his chair and bowed to me. “I’ll be right back. You just hang tight.” And without a further word, the man scrambled out of the room. I frowned, unsure of his reaction. He seemed panicked, perhaps even afraid. What did Jace know about Venators?

  Chapter 10

  Hours passed as I waited in the medical ward. Jace said he’d be right back, but that was probably four hours ago. There was no way to tell the exact time underground so instead someone would ring a bell from the church building every hour. We didn’t use times based on the position of the sun, but rather bells as a way to arrange for meetings. Breakfast was at the 9th bell, lunchtime at the 12th and evening meetings on the 18th . I heard four bells go by in the time that I waited. By the 5th bell, I was ready to find out what the fuss was about.

  Grimacing from the minor pain my leg, I decided to get up and get dressed. Jace was a bit scatterbrained at times, but he was a skilled surgeon. If anyone could repair my leg, it would be him. I took a deep breath and slowly stepped on the right leg, to get balance, and then the injured one. There was no pain. I put more weight on the left leg and, still, aside from the general achiness of the area, my leg was fine. I could walk.

  “Oh thank goodness, “I whispered, praising the name of Jace and his surgical skills. I wasn’t permanently disabled due to the injury. I walked around a bit, then tried a few hops, to see if any stress would bother it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been doing this immediately after surgery, but I felt good enough to test my luck. Still no pain, the ankle had no trouble absorbing the shock. I was fine.

  As I examined my foot, the door cracked open, prompting me to leap back into bed and pull the covers up as if I had been resting. Dr. Jace would throw a royal fit if he knew I was testing his handiwork out so soon.

  “She’s in here?” said Elder Verna, looking behind her as she walked into the room. Despite the title of Elder, Verna was on the younger side in the village, only 36 years old. But she was a stern, no-nonsense leader who had the perfect blend of conservative and progressive ideals. She was conservative when it came to keeping the village safe, preferring to go with what works, but progressive when it came to expanding the education of our village. She had been the first to commission scouts to collect books of all kinds to build a library, a campaign so attractive that even the previous Elder, Lanny, had voted for her in the election.