I joined Zak's team again today, this time Hope was at my side to learn how to hunt, with the old rifle on her back and my old handgun on a holster in her waist she seemed eager to kill beasts. After introducing Hope to them, we left the city.
I wanted to take her with me once she was able to control the Railfle but with the investigation, we have to do tomorrow, I might take more time than I think, also even if it was not with the Railfle, controlling her aim and getting used to the recoil would be good for Hope. Also, a static target wouldn't help her improve as fast as real experience.
I was hoping that Dante would come today, but after the reunion with Johanna and Dr. Harting, he said that he had something to do and left. I asked him about it but he said about this being a cat's job, so I don't have to worry.
Rose didn't appear either, but she had already told me that she wanted to investigate a little more about souls and try a couple of things by herself today, so it was only Hope and I from our group.
This time Leon took the rear, and I went on the front with Zak. He still had some injuries from yesterday's fight, but they were all superficial and even if they had some impact on his battle prowess it was not to the point where he was useless, or he could have troubles with the normal beasts, so there was nothing to be worried about. I used my enhanced sense to the max again to look at my surroundings.
The hunting parties had different mission depending on the needs, so the orders of each party could change any every day.
The scouts get information about the current state of the city and how are moving the beast. Then the real hunters are divided in those hunting for food, these teams, in general, have to go to the east of the city to look for farm animal which people is more used to eat. The other group is in charge mainly of the west of the town were the beast from the swamp appear.
Usually, the scout parties had a specific skill set that helps them in that regard, so it's weird for them to change the party or to change their job. The other hunting groups continuously change, since their job is a little more dangerous from time to time there are casualties, and they have to rearrange the teams. Also, since there is not that much difference their job can change between going east or west depending on the scout's info or the amount of food in the warehouse.
The current job of Zak team is to hunt swamp beasts, so we moved towards the edge of the city at the west, where apparently there was a little rise in the number of beasts and a scout saw a snake larger than usual.
As we advanced I mostly used the kukri to slice beasts, when they were harder to cut I would use the tomahawk to strike them, if they tried to use some distance ability I would use my Five-seveN to shot it down at distance too, this didn't happen too often tho. Since I was using these beasts for my investigation, I classified them on my mind as I was killing them.
Normal…
Normal…
F-Rank… Spitter
Normal…
E-Rank… Fast… too fast.
I had to use Time bubble shortly to avoid it, but luckily, I think no one noticed it.
I only counted the snakes I killed, I was focusing my investigation on that for now, and it was possible that there are differences from one species to another, so I didn't want to mix them yet. I took care of most of the beast that appeared, so Zak was taking care of most of the snake's bodies.
I grew accustomed to killing these low-level beasts. My skill set showed better results than I thought it would, each skill acted in some way, and they were synergizing with each other. I could dodge to minimize the damage I suffered and even if they manage to hit the damage is further reduced. The most amazing was my strikes. The mix between Krav Maga instincts, Zoology, Weapon Knowledge, and the specific weapon I was using made that almost every attack I landed on my target hit on a weak point.
And that was before I counted my enhanced senses and reflexes, even if they were low-ranked, it was difficult for something to escape my eyes and ears when they did slip by I was already avoiding and countering them thanks to my sixth sense.
Right now I felt that the main threat to me is related to the appearance of a potent poison so I was thinking if it was worth taking poison resistance Lv. 1 from the shop or if a should try getting it by poisoning myself. It was risky, but if I buy the skill on the shop it would cost 150 System point which would leave me in poverty, and the better antidotes in the shop would be out of my reach in the case that some else is poisoned.
The direction we were taking was towards the same place that I fought the alligator before so I knew the area.
Hope was doing alright, at the beginning she missed almost everything she shot at. Unlike Rose and I, who have a better time learning from studying books and theory first, she was the instinctive, hands-on type, so she learned better from experience. If Hope was able to link her instincts with her eidetic to remember how it felt a shot a particular time, she would learn faster because her memories about it would be more vivid. At least that's what I think, if it doesn't work at least she is getting real fighting experience.
Gabriel and I would correct her from time to time, and from what I could see most of what I thought was right, every time we told her what she did wrong, she would correct it and will not make the same mistake again.
This made me think how lucky she and Rose were when they got those two mental abilities.
During the fast-paced hunting, I got some notifications related to the skills I was using.
[Dodge Skill Level up, Lv. 1 -> Lv. 2]
[Short Blades Skill Level up, Lv. 1 -> Lv. 2]
[A student got a skill level from the user teachings]
[Mentor Skill Level up, Lv. 0 -> Lv. 1]
Unfortunately, even if I got the Mentor skill at level 1, I could teach her only to one level less than my own, so I couldn't teach more about firearms to Hope. This didn't mean that I couldn't teach another skill, so I started to explain about weapons to all of them, this might help to level mentor faster. I don't know if she already had this skill, but I know that just memorizing a book doesn't mean that you understand it, so I tried to help her with the doubts that she could have and explained some of the experience that I got from using the weapons.
I feel like the mentor skill would be a powerful ability when I manage to level up my skills, so I want to do my best to level it fast. I used it to let them know the best way to attack a weak-point, the advantage of the different weapons depending on who are you fighting against and the most effective ways to prevent being damaged, I even added some ballistics and projectile movement explanation to advance on her physics studies.
This sounded all good, but since I was trying level mentor together with my other abilities, I lost my focus and almost got bitten by a snake that got close without me noticing. Thankfully Zak made a snake skewer when the snake was about to jump at my back.
I felt my sixth sense tingling softly when Zak helped me. Probably with time bubble I would have been ok, but I understood that even if leveling mentor might be necessary, I can't lose my focus in the middle of a fight.
We arrived at the place that we were told at noon, so we looked for a place to eat something and rest before looking for the big snake.