CHAPTER 124: THE MONSTER FOREST (2)

North of the forest, Thrall moved like a shadow given shape. He leapt from branch to branch, the wood creaking under the impact of his landing, then falling still again as if afraid to make a sound in his wake. Thrall hunted like a beast.

He stopped at the crook of an old oak, nostrils flaring. The smell was there, wet fur, iron, rot. His lips peeled back in a grin that showed just a bit too much tooth.

"Hungry," he muttered to no one, voice low, almost a growl. Below, something shifted in the underbrush, heavy, clumsy, unaware. A monster, but not alert, well, not yet.

Thrall crouched, muscles tightening like drawn wire, every breath a quiet drumbeat in his ears.

The thing below moved with the careless rhythm of something that had never been hunted before, its weight making the roots tremble.

The stench was rank wet fur and curdled blood, but to Thrall, it smelled like dinner. Thrall licked his lips and grinned. Kill first, eat after. One more breath, then he dropped.

The impact was thunder through leaves and loam. The beast, no, the monster was a being that looked like it was twisted wrong, its shoulders too broad, its tail ending in a club of bone, screeched as claws raked for its unseen attacker.

Thrall’s fist slammed into its jaw before the claws found him. The monster’s bone cracked. The creature staggered.

He didn’t give it time to recover. He was on it again, knee driving into its ribs, elbow smashing into its throat. No weapon, no magic, just raw, practiced brutality.

By the time it stopped moving, Thrall was crouched over its chest, chest heaving, knuckles dripping with blood. He ripped a length of its hide free, wiped his hands, then tore into the flesh with sharp, hungry bites.

"Not bad," he said, mouth red, chewing like this was a roadside snack instead of something freshly killed. Despite monsters having toxins that were poisonous to humans, Thrall, who had a bit of poison resistance, was not bothered in the slightest.

Above him, birds took flight in panicked bursts, scattering from the canopy. Whatever was left of his monster would draw others soon.

Thrall looked up, licking blood from his fingers, and grinned. He then continued onward, and once he was far away from the corpse, he rested.

Lucen, who was watching in his room, blinked at the scrying feed. He stared at the quiet, blood-smeared warrior, "Well... That was unexpected... That kid is f*cking terrifying."

Seeing that Thrall was going to rest for a bit, Lucen decided to watch another person.

***

Elsewhere, Daniel snored softly on his branch. The forest beneath him had gone quiet, too quiet. Leaves trembled where no wind moved. In the gloom below, pairs of faint green lights appeared, low to the ground, blinking in unison.

Three of them, no, four. The first hiss cut through the silence, followed by the slow rasp of something dragging across bark. The things climbing toward him were sleek, scaled, their limbs bent at angles that suggested neither speed nor comfort, but purpose. They moved like hunger wearing skin.

Daniel cracked one eye open, sighed, and closed it again.

"...Really?"

A clawed hand reached for the branch, scraping along the wood. The weight shifted. The branch sagged under the sudden pressure of bodies hauling themselves up. Daniel rolled onto his back, still not sitting up.

"You f*cking needed to bother me while I was napping."

One of the monsters lunged, jaws unhinging with a wet snap. Daniel’s leg shot out fast and heavy.

The heel caught the beast in the side of the head with a crack that sent it spiraling off the branch and down through three others before it hit the ground with a thud. Daniel stretched his hands and yawned.

"Still here, huh?"

Another leapt. This time, Daniel didn’t kick; he simply leaned sideways, letting it sail past, claws swiping air. His hand lazily caught a branch as he hung by one arm, then swung himself up again as though gravity itself had gotten bored with arguing with him.

The monster hit the trunk, stunned, then tried to scramble up again. Daniel didn’t even look; he just reached down, grabbed its tail, and flung it like a sack of grain into the nearest tree. The wet smack echoed through the canopy.

Seeing what happened to the first two, the last two creatures hesitated. Daniel finally sat up, rubbing his neck.

"If you’re going to do this, then do it so I can get back to napping," Daniel provoked the monsters. For a single second, there was an incredible pressure being emitted by Daniel. The monsters felt danger and fled.

"I guess since I’m up already, better get to eat a little." Daniel jumped down to the ground, picked up a few rocks, and threw them upward, and within a few seconds, several dead birds fell from the sky.

Daniel was quick to move as he started a fire and cooked the birds. Once they were cooked well enough, he ate them. After he was done with that, he went a bit forward and jumped onto a large tree branch.

He yawned and lay down, adjusting his cloak into a makeshift pillow, eyes already sliding closed again. Before he went back to sleep, he looked to his side for a second and shrugged his shoulders and slept.

Lucen stared at Daniel’s projection in silence for a full five seconds, shook his head, and chuckled.

"Heh...He didn’t even draw his weapon, and it seemed like he sensed me looking at him." Lucen then started laughing a bit.

"That guy is awesome! As expected of the lazy type protagonist. This type is usually in the overpowered category, and if he isn’t, most of the time they’re f*cking super strong."

Lucen then looked at the information he had on the guy. The name written was Daniel Kross, ’even his name sounds like a protagonist’s name.’

Daniel was a second mantle aura user, and he was one of the few people who also had a mana core at the same time.

’Is this guy really a protagonist of a different game, a spin-off, or something?’

Lucen was currently the most interested in Daniel. He had already asked a few people to investigate his background alongside Veronica, Thrall, and Bram.