Alex woke up at the break of dawn once again and started his early morning routine of stretches and light exercises before he leaves his hut and walks to the village to get his breakfast. Most people in the village were awake at this time since they try to make the best of use of the sunlight as once it gets dark it becomes a lot harder to do things and it can be dangerous as well. As Alex moves through the village he can see a lot of new beast pelts being set up to dry in the sun so that they can be used for a variety of items that were used by the people of the village. Still, as Alex walked through the village he received a lot of attention which was to be expected since he had gone into one of the most dangerous areas of the forest on his own and brought back some beast and animal corpses of above-average quality.
It was nice to receive the attention but Alex paid them no mind as he did not want to receive any benefits or anything like that from them since he might one day enslave their race.
Shaking away those thoughts out of his head Alex sees that the construction of the village wall was making good progress with the help of the village town's people and the ideas Alex gave them. As of now, there were only roughly about 2 ft of the height of the wall built which was looking more like a fence that was only taking up only one corner of the village for now. The reason that this was taking so long was that Alex had introduced the concept of bricks to the people which was instantly deemed as extremely difficult to make as they had no modern methods of making bricks and would have to make them from boulders and stones which was time-consuming and inefficient.
So instead large stones and boulders would be used to make this wall for the village which was taking a while as the stones had to be dragged over before they were chipped at and formed into something to use for the wall. The process was going to take a while but Alex knew that it would be for the better if he were to help this village have some defenses than having none.
Moving along Alex entered the training field to see that Sheila was bust instructing the new hunters on some new tactics and other group hunting stuff that Alex was not paying attention to. He did not think that any tactics would be the best thing to utilize since the ones being taught to him were very primitive as they many involved surrounding the target of the hunt or having someone lead the prey into an area where the others waited so that they could kill it. Alex could definitely come up with something better in a casual thought than these pincer maneuvers and fake-out tactics. Since he was a history teacher he taught a lot about war through many different ways whether it be through simulations or from the textbook, Alex knew a lot of future and more advanced tactics than anyone on the planet right now.
Still, Alex knew that he could not successfully implement these tactics with the current level of technology here on the planet, unfortunately. Unless there was a nuclear-powered space ship somewhere on the planet then Alex could not implement the fake-out kamikaze attacks anywhere. That was just an example of such tactics that were taught in the curriculum of Eve that Alex remembered.
Still thinking about that stuff would not help him so Alex just waits until Sheila is done talking before he goes up to her.
"Hey, Shelia you free?" Alex asks
"Yeah I am for now at least"
"Perfect then let's head into the forest then I want to try and get that flower today if possible" Alex says as he moves to the weapons rack once again and grabs a few weapons that he may need
Two stone daggers were placed in his inventory without Sheila seeing it and he took another dagger which he placed in his belt and he took a club studded with stone to make it more deadly. With that Alex moves out of the way so that Shelia can get what she needs from the rack. She grabs two wooden spears and three daggers from the rack as her weapons which are then placed in her own belt.
With the both of them armed up and ready they head off into the forest with Alex leading Sheila towards the area of the blue flower and the beast that guards it. Still, though it took about an hour before they found the place even though it was probably the only big clearing in the forest that Alex had encountered so far.
Entering the area though both of them were extremely surprised by what was in the clearing.
Besides the flower in the clearing, there was also a hand full of beast corpses laying in the clearing dead from various wounds from bites that tore off chunks of flesh to one beast having its bones bent and broken at odd angles. They were all fresh corpses too as the smell around them and the fresh pools of blood under them showed that they were alive at least a few hours ago before the sun came up.
The scene sent chills up Alex's spine as the only culprit behind this massacre would be the beast guarding the flower in the clearing. Alex looks around but of course, sees nothing of the actual beast that killed them as it really likes to hide and only attack whenever someone enters the clearing.
The strange thing though was that besides the bite wounds and marks on the bodies of the beasts there seem to be no signs that whatever killed them actually started eating them. Unless there were more beasts that it killed and already ate before cleaning up after itself Alex was still wary about the whole situation. Sheila was showing the same thoughts about everything that Alex was as she surveyed the scene before moving to the very edge of the clearing and the forest.
She bends down before grabbing a fallen branch and then with a speed that Alex can't follow throws it at one of the corpses in the clearing. The stick actually stabs into the side of one of the beasts and embeds itself inside.
Then before Alex realizes what is going on the head of the already dead creature is gone and is now flying up in the air as the beast guarding the clearing makes its appearance and stays in the clearing looking at the dead beasts.
Alex takes the time to use the identify skill from the system.
[???
Lvl: ???
Health: ???
Stamina: ???
Stats: Strength ???, Endurance ???, Luck ???, Intelligence ???, Charisma ???, Mysticism ???
Skills: Stat Cloaking, Burrow, Leave no trace, and Boost]
'Crap...' Alex thinks seeing that the system will not be of any help in this situation
Still though looking at this beast Alex can't help but get chills at how this thing even exists. Unlike regular beasts which look like some sort of big animal with some variations or changes to it, this beast was not like regular beasts.
It had a human torso that had two arms with their being four legs underneath it that branched out to make the corners of a square if someone were to look from above and down on this creature. The human arms are not strong-looking and are really thin which is the exact opposite of the legs which are bulging in muscles and screaming that this thing did not skip leg day. Its feet were more like hands that were stuck on the legs but there were only four fingers instead of five. Still, the thing that grossed Alex out the most was the head of the thing. It was literally a disfigured lump of meat with various eyes on it that was allowing it to have 360 vision of its surroundings.
There was no mouth that Alex could discern on its horrid face as it looked around the clearing and soon returned to the earth. That [Leave no trace] skill was coming in handy as Alex could not see anything wrong with the earth in the clearing.
Seeing that thing though Alx could safely assume that the thing in the clearing could be classified as a monster rather than a beast.
Monsters are a thing in the universe and not the kind of monster in humanity and other various races, no they are literal monsters and abominations that dwell in the universe. To be classified as a monster a beast has to have the looks, the power, and finally the weird quirks of the monster kind.
Alex can check those three boxes off and safely classify it as a monster due to what he has observed up till now with the corpses of the dead beasts in the clearing serving as a testament to its strength. Well, that is the good news as most of the classified monsters in the universe are hunted to extinction rather quickly by various civilizations as they can bring many merits, rewards, and help a lot of people rather quickly. Still, though monsters are pretty rare to find in the wild as most of them are bred and created in labs so finding this thing out here on this planet has got to be some sort of cosmic plan or something.
"So... we gonna still fight that thing?" Alex ask Sheila
"Of course we are if not then how am I gonna hold up the end of the bet?"
"Fair point... but we need a plan to deal with that thing though," Alex says
"Alright then you come up with one then"
"Alright but first how confident are you that you can beat this thing?" Alex asks hesitantly
"Not sure if I can beat it but I can defiantly keep it busy for a while"
"Perfect then," Alex says as he tells her a plan
...
Synthia was now at the edge of the clearing once again, this time with the spears in her hand as she looks around the clearing for a second and formulating a general idea of how to proceed.
Then once she has an idea she acts upon it and runs into the clearing making a beeline straight towards the flower. As soon as she enters the clearing though the monster appears underneath and its hand-like feet try to go for her neck to quickly break it effectively killing her in one fell swoop, but she was expecting this.
With a quick jab with one of the spears and using the other to block the incoming hand, Sheila lands a hit on the monster's body. However, the spear simply breaks upon contact with the monster's skin causing Sheila to hastily retreat while she takes out one of the daggers she brought while getting in a defensive stance with the spear above her head in a throwable position and the dagger close to her body in case it gets to close.
The monster charges Sheila who responds with the throw of her spear at its head which it dodges and the two of them continue their deadly dance to the death.
While Sheila was taking care of the monster Alex was busy up in a tree at the edge of the forest as far away as possible from the monster and Shelia who were fighting. Alex had chosen the closest tree to the clearing that was as close as possible to the flower itself with Alex's weight which was causing it to slowly move down above the clearing. With that happening Alex hefted the club in one hand and he left the other hand free to use to snag the flower once he was down there.
Yeah, that was the plan, to distract the monster with Sheila fighting the thing as best she could, and then when it was distracted Alex would snag it from under its... well whatever it used to smell with. With the tree down low enough Alex jumps off and starts booking it towards the flower in fact Alex used his unused points on his endurance and strength in the hopes of making him just a little bit faster.
As soon as Alex's feet hit the ground through the monster which was attacking Sheila who in turn was dodging to the best of her abilities from the stick arms and muscular legs stops in its tracks before turning around and charging at Alex at full speed. If he were a lesser man he would have pissed himself while frozen in place by fear, but a lesser man he was not as he pissed himself a little while running even faster from fear.