Chapter 97: How to Proceed
How to Proceed
Shortly after the moose fell, the other wolves slowly approached along with Theresa.
Meanwhile, Mike and the Alpha deactivated their auras, and when the wolves had gathered along with Theresa, the former stared at Mike expectantly.
Theresa walked over to Mike and whispered.
"Why are they looking at you like that?" She asked, and Mike tilted his head.
"I think they want me to divide the spoils." He said while glancing at the corpse. The answer threw Theresa off a bit. Why were they waiting for his permission?
However, he didn’t elaborate on his answer as he simply walked over to the corpse of the moose and stared at it for a few seconds. Then, he activated his aura again and concentrated it around his hand.
But instead of using Primal Rend normally, that is, to create several slices with his claws, he instead straightened his fingers like a blade and sliced horizontally.
A single, but considerably sharp wave of aura lashed out and cut into the moose. Now that it was dead, its energy was no longer supplementing its body, so it was a lot easier to cut through.
After a few more of these slashes, the moose was cut through completely. One section was about 20% of its total mass and the other was 80%
Seeing this, the wolves all looked reluctant as their tails slowly lowered, and even the Alpha looked a bit miffed as it stared at the smaller section. However, none of them tried anything.
Seeing this, Mike had a strange expression.
"Don’t look at me like that, that piece is yours." He said and pointed at the larger portion.
Seeing this, the wolves immediately became excited and immediately went after the larger portion, and the Alpha gave Mike a look that could be translated as gratitude before it too went to get its fill.
"... What was that?" Theresa asked with a frown.
"I think they believed I was taking the larger portion for myself." Mike shrugged, and Theresa squinted at him.
"... Why didn’t you?" Now it was Mike’s turn to frown.
"Why would I?" He asked back.
"You’re the one who killed the moose?" Theresa ventured.
"Yeah, but they are the ones that found it, and overall, they did more damage to it than all of us. Sure, I dealt the finishing blow, but the majority of its wounds leading up to the end were caused by the Alpha. Sure, you blew off its antler — thanks for that — but they are the ones that gave you that opportunity." He shrugged. "At the end of the day, it was their prey. We just tagged along. It wouldn’t be fair to take the larger portion."
Seeing how determined he was about the matter, Theresa stared at him with surprise.
’Right... He might be wild, but he’s also quite honest and has a pretty literal way of looking at things.’ She thought as she took in Mike’s behavior. He wasn’t the sort of person to take advantage of others so blatantly. If he believed that he deserved the smaller share of the spoils, then he would happily take the smaller share.
’... How refreshing.’ She exhaled. If it were up to her, or perhaps anyone else in their grade, they would have taken the larger share in a heartbeat.
’Is he naive? Or is something just wrong with the world?’ She thought briefly before asking.
"So, what now?" Hearing this, Mike tilted his head.
"We keep hunting, naturally. We still need those points." Theresa’s expression turned a bit strange at that.
"About that. Do we keep hunting with the wolves? As much as it’s a bit fun to have allies like them, it’s a bit... slow." She admitted, and Mike was silent as he consideredher words.
She wasn’t wrong. While the moose was a marked monsters and netted them a lot of points, it took them quite a while just to approach it before they took it out. In comparison, they could have hunted numerous beasts before reaching the moose and eliminating it.
As much as Mike enjoyed the experience, he was still vying for first place, and even if one could make the excuse that they were going for quality over quantity, it truly took too long.
It wasn’t a surprise, though. This wasn’t a competition for the wolves, merely survival.
That said, he still wanted to spend some time with them, so after a few seconds, he made a decision.
"We’ll hunt on our own for a while before joining the wolves for a while, and we will alternate between the two until... night time perhaps? How does that sound?" He offered, and Tgeresa tilted her head for a few seconds as she considered it, then she shrugged.
"Sure."
"Yay!" Mike grinned happily, and Theresa had to suppress a smile of her own. His expressions were quite endearing.
Mike then turned to the Alpha who seemed to have already had his fill of the moose, occasionally locking his bloody crops and said.
"We’ll be back. See you later." He said, and the large beast stared at him for a few seconds before turning away. Mike took that as an affirmative answer and turned back to Theresa.
"Let’s go."
***
’This is troublesome...’ Kris thought with slightly narrowed eyes.
Currently, he was half-crouched on a ledge in the side of a cliff, and below him was a valley.
Within the valley, though, was quite the disconcerting sight.
Countless small bodies ran through the valley, nearly filling it to the edges as they moved.
They were rats. Countless rats swarming through like a neverending stream.
When Kris had headed for Mike and Theresa, using the Titanic Corpse Flower as well as the chain he gave them as a guide, he stumbled upon a rat beast.
He didn’t think much of it and killed it when it tried to attack him. However, shortly after he did, the ground started to tremble, and from within, countless rats spewed forth like an unstoppable tide, their crazed eyes glaring at him with insatiable hunger.
He fought them for a while, but he quickly realized that it was a losing battle, as no matter the amount he killed, their sheer numbers were simply overwhelming. As such, he was forced to retreat. But as if they had latched unto his scent, no matter where he went, they always followed.
They didn’t always have an accurate grasp on his position, but they always seemed to know his general location, and all it took was a single rat to see him before the entire swarm came charging after him again.
Wherever they went, any creature that was unfortunate to be in their way would be devoured in seconds, sometimes even faster, and now Kris found himself in an annoying game of cat and mouse.
He would flee from the rats for a while, and after a while, they would find him again. He’d be forced to kill a large number of them before escaping once more, and the process continued.
It was then that Kris realized he had unintentionally stumbled upon a red mark in his haste to reach the others, and a particularly large one at that.
The Rat Tide.
One could argue that it was no different from a point farm, as even if eacg individual rat gave a small number of points, the sheer quantity would make up for it.
The issue with that is that these weren’t ordinary rats.
Besides the fact that each one was the size of a small dog, there was also the fact that they seemed capable of eating through... anything.
It wasn’t just flesh or organic matter. Lris could vividly remember how his chains had killed numerous of them before more latched onto the chains and ate them in a matter of seconds. Had that been all, it wouldn’t have been all bad. The issue is, they also devoured the energy within those chains. So any time Kris used his ability to attack, they could eat the energy within his chains and gradually tire him out, so fighting them for long was not a good idea.
Whether it was dirt, rocks, trees, or straight metal, they did not discriminate and simply devoured everything in their path.
Due to all of this, Kris was forced to halt his advance and figure out a way to handle the tide. Or at the very least, escape their pursuit permanently.
’They seem to each be connected. A hive mind, perhaps?’ He thought as he looked at the tide rolling through the valley.
Even though they looked uncoordinated, he noticed that when he was caught, even if there was a rat miles away, it would instantly start coming his way like it had been the one to find it. The same applied to if he sneakily killed one that was far away from the rest of the mass.
’If so, then there must be a central rat controlling the others.’ His eyes narrowed further.
’And i need to kill it.’