A message popped up from Maki.
[Do we kill it? Also, I think we should use interface messaging to communicate around wreckages. Stops us from alerting anything hiding.]
It seemed she’d sent Lily a message too, as the girl’s head perked up as well.
Looking forward, I found Maki staring straight at me.
Wordlessly, I pulled up my interface before replying to her.
[Good call. Also, no. We aren’t hunting at the moment. We are trying to get to the city. We should avoid any fights we aren’t forced into.]
She just gave me a nod at that, before resuming the walk.
Her path carved a wide arc around the vehicle, and Lily and I traced closely behind.
We followed the same routine for about thirty minutes. Walking along the path, avoiding wreckages where we could, even going off-road when we occasionally came across a particularly nasty pileup.
Although that had its own share of risk, given that the thicker snow there made it easier for monsters to hide, while simultaneously suppressing Lily’s detection.
Luckily, most of the wreckages were empty.
As with all good things, this period of uneasy peace came to its unfortunate end.
Maki had been leading us around a wreckage, and although Lily hadn’t given any warnings of movement, she still chose to err on the side of caution and lead us past it.
It might have been that caution that saved her.
Without any warning, a white blur burst out from the open door of the car, heading straight for her.
Maki immediately threw herself forward, just barely managing to escape the figure. Hitting empty air, the figure crash-landed into the snow, rolling once before stopping.
It allowed me to get a proper look at the horrid thing.
It was pale, hairless, and emaciated like the rest of its brethren.
However, its face was completely featureless, save for a gaping maw and a pair of particularly large ears. Fused roughly to its torso were three sets of human arms, each bent backwards in some mockery of canine anatomy. It dragged two abnormally small, malformed legs behind it like a tail.
The moment it landed, the thing immediately tried reorienting itself to face us. My weapon was already leveled at its head by then.
Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger.
Its skull burst open easily, and the monster instantly dropped dead.
[Noble hunter, you have slain a Fledgling Whelp: Shambler]
Maki pushed herself off the ground, before giving me a shaky thumbs up. I nodded back.
On the other hand, Lily clenched her fists into shaky balls, out of shame or frustration. I couldn’t tell.
Either way, both paused while I got down to the dirty process of retrieving the bolt.
Behind me, I could hear Lily’s voice.
"I-it didn’t make any sound before moving. Otherwise I would have heard it. I-I should have heard it."
"It’s fine, just keep focusing on sensing for now."
I groaned as I cleaned the gunk off the bolt, before loading it again.
’She’s going to have to kill something eventually.’
You couldn’t be a hunter without killing.
Still, I kept such thoughts to myself. Now simply wasn’t the time for this.
’Plus, more bounty points for me.’
I gave Maki the OK signal, and we were on the move again.
We walked for about ten more minutes, before coming across a collapsed pedestrian bridge, going across the width of the interstate.
The moment we drew somewhat close to it, I got a message from Lily.
[Stop. There’s movement near the bridge.]
Our procession came to an immediate halt.
Looking at the bridge, I was first confused by Lily’s words. Until I saw it.
A snow-covered ’rock’ unfurling itself into a lanky four-legged form. The moment it did, its pitch-black eyes stared directly at us.
Then it shot forward, heading straight for Maki.
I raised my crossbow, activating [Error Sense] to fix my stance, as I tried to lock my target on it. But it was moving, and while my [Error Sense] technique worked well enough for static targets, mobile ones were a different ballgame.
I pulled the trigger.
Although I’d been aiming for its head, I only managed to hit its shoulder.
Still, it’d been enough to completely disrupt its momentum, sending the pale beast stumbling.
Maki wasted no time in stepping forward, metallic wires shooting out of her wrist to bind the monster’s wounded front limbs together. Finally making it collapse in a tangle of limbs.
She gave it no chance to recover, as she thrust forward with her rapier, punching straight through its skull.
[Noble hunter, you have assisted in the slaying of an Adolescent Whelp: Runner]
It was no wonder my first shot only sent it stumbling.
Maki kicked the corpse off her blade, before turning to Lily. Likely sending her a message through the interface.
Lily shook her head, making Maki give a sigh of relief.
I stepped forward to retrieve my bolt from the lanky corpse, only to find it warped and its tip bent. The poor thing likely hit the monster’s shoulder plate.
’An adolescent, huh?’
It certainly looked less emaciated than the ones we’d run into thus far. Not like that made it look any less bizarre.
I sighed, before retrieving a new bolt from my hip quiver, then loading it on the crossbow. I went back to my position quickly.
Maki looked back, before saying.
"We’ll go around the bridge."
Then she began moving again. We wordlessly followed.
The telltale signs of my burden had already started appearing now.
I felt a light sense of dizziness now, that didn’t show any signs of dissipating. Beneath all the clothing, my body kept growing increasingly uncomfortably warm.
My arms had already begun sagging under the weight of the crossbow. Still, I held steady.
I hadn’t put myself through hell each morning for nothing.
We’d walked about twenty minutes from the bridge by now.
When all of a sudden, Maki froze ahead of us, then crouched.
A message popped up before me.
I wasted no time in crouching too, before following her lead to hide behind a clearly empty wreckage.
The moment I did, another message popped up.
[There’s a crowd up ahead.]
I gave Maki a questioning glance, before carefully peeking out through one of the many holes in the wreckage.
Further down the highway, in an area packed to the brim with wreckages, lay a horde of more than 20 Shamblers.
I had no doubt there were at least two adolescents among the crowd. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel⟡fire.net
’What’s a horde doing this far out from the city?’
They didn’t even bother hiding like their isolated brethren, choosing to linger listlessly out in the open.
Luckily, they hadn’t blocked both lanes of the road. The lane leading out of the city lay completely clear of them, plus there were enough wreckages there that would allow us to easily conceal ourselves from their view.
I quietly sent both girls a message.
[We need to move to the other lane. We can use the wreckages there to escape their line of sight.]
Maki sent one back to me.
[What if there are monsters hiding in the wreckages?]
[We just have to be very careful then. This is a risk we have to take.]
Maki contemplated it quickly, before sending me a message.
I sent Lily a message as well.
[I need you to focus completely on using your ability, forget everything else. Tell us if there’s even the slightest hint of movement.]
She gave me a light nod.
Maki sent a final message.
She stepped out still crouching, before quietly sprinting across the opening between both lanes. Lily and I both followed as best we could.
The moment we reached it, we all dived behind another clearly empty wreckage.
Maki waited for Lily to give the signal.
Then we were moving again.
Slowly but steadily we were bypassing the horde, with Lily telling us which wreckages we could use for hiding and which to avoid.
It wasn’t until we’d almost completely escaped the horde that Maki suddenly froze.
Looking ahead of her, I very quickly understood why she did.
A hairless, pale head poked out from the bottom of a wreckage not too far from us.
Its pitch-black gaze lay squarely on us.
Just when I was about to send Maki a message, the thing slowly opened its mouth.
I felt my eyes widen in realization, as my heart suddenly sank to the very bottom of the abyss.
’No. No no no no. No. NO!’
The bastard actually fucking screamed.
The sounds of sudden movement from the other side of the road were all I needed to know that the horde got its message loud and clear.
I shouted at the girls.
"We have to run. Run! Run! Run, dammit! RUN NOW!"
They didn’t need to be told twice, as we started blazing down the snow-covered road.