I wiped away several beads of sweat form my forehead as I hauled another body into a pile beside the fire. There were more bodies than I was able to burn at this point. I dropped a few more beast cores into my pouch, satisfied with the jingle-jangle sound they made when I walked.
I had completely surprised myself with my progress this far, only two and a half hours in and I had culled thirty-eight beasts from this world. Only twelve more and I could stride out of the dungeon and greet Pain as his official pupil. The only problem was that the beasts had started to become suspicious of my trap.
I needed to change up my tactics, but with the first plan working so well, I didn't want to deviated too far from it. I decided to set up just outside the clearing to entice the beasts to come closer. The plan was to set up a ring of bodies that circled the clearing about fifty yards away.
I began dragging smelly beast corpses to the designated positions, I couldn't help but ask myself if all adventurers had to do things like this. I was almost finished laying my trap when I was suddenly tackled to the ground by something massive. I rolled over to see what it was, expecting to see a beast to snuff out.
I kicked whatever it was away and looked at it, it turned out to be a dead beast, but this one had not been killed by me. The poor creature had been drained of all of it's fluids and resembled a giant raisin. The head was also missing in addition to there being three massive holes in it's torso.
I then noticed an enormous figure being obscured by trees in the distance, I could almost make out what it was but not quite. One thing was abundantly clear, what awaited me was a beast, but not one that I had grown accustomed to. Either way I wasn't too frightened as this was a low level dungeon and the beasts here were the weakest of the lot.
The figure began to move toward me, it stood at around nine feet tall and had a thick muscular build. The first thing I noticed was it's hands, it only had three fingers that were thick and looked deadly. Any idiot could gather that those hands were the cause of the holes in the beast corpse next to me.
The moment that the creature stepped into the sunlight, I knew that I had good reason to panic. I had seen this type of beast before. I recognized the black fur that ran down it's body, the spikes that protruded from the spine, and the cold blue eyes of a killing machine. This was a Wendigo.
There were three different types of Wendigo, but all of them shared the same background, they all were once human. Not much was known about how the change was triggered, but it only happened if one spent extensive periods of time in dungeons. Something about being in a dungeon slowly drove human beings mad, eventually turning on each other. Some said that a Wendigo was born out of cannibalism, some said that dungeons held a special power to evolve humans into their higher forms.
Nevertheless, it was all conjecture. There were three types of Wendigo, red, white and black. A red Wendigo was usually the weakest as it still retained a part of it's humanity and chose to scavenge for food instead of hunt. A white Wendigo was the second strongest, it shed it's humanity but lived in a constant state of confusion making it easier to kill. A black Wendigo on the other hand, had no humanity left and was a cold and calculated killer.
This was truly a worst case scenario for me, a black Wendigo would require the skills of a B+ rank adventurer or even a member of the King's Guard. The small tricks of a H rank newbie was less than nothing to the Wendigo. The only reason it had chosen to throw it's last meal at me was because it wanted me to run, it wanted to be entertained.
I tried not to focus on the terrifying presence exuding from the massive Wendigo as I desperately needed to formulate a plan. Unfortunately for me, the Wendigo was blocking my path back to the clearing and the portal. I knew that if I tried to go around it, my end would be met. If only I was given some kind of communication device by Pain, there was no way to know that a Wendigo would appear in this dungeon.
I imagined what must have been going on between Brady and Finn, they must have been wondering where I had gone to. Would they forgive me for dying after I had declared that I would handle the assassin? Would they miss me when I was gone? I even found myself thinking about how Dana would react…that was an unexpected thought.
Bringing my focus back to my present situation, I felt that I would have no other choice but to run deeper into the forest. My only hope was that Pain would somehow find me before that Wendigo caught me. I used mist blanket and darted into the trees as fast as I could.
Behind me, I heard the heavy crunching of branches and leaves as the ground was trampled by the Wendigo. I knew that I couldn't match the speed of the beast and that it was holding back, just toying with me while I struggled to escape.
Once again I activated mist blanket and instead of continuing straight into the trees, I ducked right and dove into a hollowed out trunk. The entrance was just small enough for me to fit through, and as I entered I tried my best to stay completely silent. To my surprise, the inside of the trunk was huge, being almost the size of the living area in my dorm.
Now was not the best time to be comparing spaces though, I moved as quietly as I could towards the back of the space. I knew that sooner or later the Wendigo was going to locate my scent and track down but for now I was safe.
Looking around I noticed a small pile of dirt in the far corner. It looked like the kind of dirt someone would use to remember where they had buried something. Curiosity got the better of me as I began to dig into the dirt. It only took a minute or two and I had found the prize lurking beneath the soil, a book and a large black duffle bag.
I opened the book first and discovered that it was actually a journal left behind by somebody. Not having the time to read, I moved on to the duffle bag and my eyes nearly shot out of my head when I saw what was inside.
"Is this an ability orb"?