[A/N: Unedited]
'Quiet… quiet… I got this.' Seth chanted in his mind.
He hid behind a bush and aimed his crossbow at the face of the howler. The howler appeared normal, with the usual viciousness of its race.
It was too absorbed in its meal to notice Seth's presence a few meters away.
'Slow and steady.'
In the real world, there would have been a scope to assist with the aiming, but in here, Seth could only rely on his vampiric sight. The strangeness of his action made him quiver a few times.
'Slow, steady, and shoot!'
Aiming at the main eyes of the howler, Seth hit the crossbow's trigger. The arrow in it fluttered in the air like a bird out of its cage.
It knew its target!
Seth watched everything happen so fast. The oblivious howler remained ignorant of its impending death till the end. Hunger took all its attention, nothing else was important to it.
*Phew!*
The arrow reached the end of its journey. It flew past the howler's eyes and stabbed into the tree just beside it.
'Sh*t! Sh*t! SH*t! I missed.' Seth cursed and he ran away from his previous location.
The howler jumped back in shock when the arrow came near him. It stopped eating and focused on its surroundings with a cruel eye.
Hovering its tail in the air, the howler got a much clearer perspective of its surroundings. It once again gazed at the arrow in the tree.
After deliberating on it for a few seconds, it roared. "Roar!"
Moving about, the howler searched for its attacker.
Howlers were a mix of horror and intellect.With such a few gazes, this howler understood that someone attacked it.
It furiously searched for this person!
Meanwhile, Seth hid on top of a tree.
"If at first you don't succeed, try again later… isn't that how the phrase is said." Seth thought.
He loaded another arrow into his crossbow and waited for the right time to shoot it!
'I need to train my aim later.' Seth made the decision.
What was the use of carrying a crossbow as his main weapon if he could not use it?
Seth could easily jump down, and fight to the death with the howler, but that was not the way of a hunter. Not every battle was fought with pure aggressiveness.
'I also need other items that would help with my hunt like a smokescreen. I bet the adventurers have something like that.'
Seth noticed the howler coming his way. However, he was confident that his location had not been unravelled yet.
'This is my best chance.'
His left hand reached for the dagger in his boot. Holding it, he flung the dagger at the howler. In turn, the howler reacted with a tail swipe.
Its movement increased in pace. Seth's objective had been achieved. He made the howler paranoid.
The howler ran at the tree the dagger came from. When it got closer, it realized that nobody was atop the tree, unlike it had speculated.
"Checkmate!" A voice distracted the howler.
Before it knew it, a piercing pain attacked it as an arrow impaled its main right eye. Its wagging tail was cut by its hunter and blood left its body rapidly.
Soon, the hunter reflected in its left eye. "I guess I win! This feels f*cking good."
The hunter's crossbow aimed at its left eye. A flash of light left the crossbow, and before the howler could blink, it was overcome by a great shadow.
Seth moved closer to the howler. Despite the howler rendered immobile, he could still hear its heartbeat, but that didn't matter. The howler was without sight and could only operate on smell. Yet, Seth was a vampire. Vampires gave no scent!
Holding another dagger in his hand, Seth stabbed the injured right eye of the howler. He dug his hand into the howler's eye liquid and reached for its brain. After a great push, he gutted the brain of the howler and its heartbeat ceased.
Seth smiled. "Done. My first kill as an adventurer. Now, I have to kill five of them."
Seth was not done with the corpse though. To prove to the guild that he had completed the kill, he needed to cut the horns of the howler. Each horn was unique to the howler. So, by providing a pair of horns with distinct patterns, he would be able to claim the kill.
"Now, all I need is to wait. The smell of howlers always attracts other howlers. This is going to be bloody."
.
.
.
.
Five hours later.
Seth panted fervently. "F*ck, I'm tired."
Despite his crafty plans, nothing went his way. The first howler to approach him detected the scent of the dead howler on his body, and that led to a chaotic scene that Seth could barely control.
He had to say being ganged up by a group of howlers wasn't fun at all.
'Next time, I'm definitely not getting its scent on my body.' Seth nodded his head passionately.
Anyway, he was done with the objective. Five howlers.
Not wanting to attract another howler, Seth left the site before more of them arrived.
"Let's see… the next thing on my list is the venom of basilisks. This is a cool one!" Seth became happy.
According to what Vesstan told him, basilisks were habitual. They slept in lakes, where they also laid their eggs. During the day, they would stay in the lake. When night came, basilisks would go out to hunt, but they never strayed far away from the lake.
"I just have to find a lake and hope those creatures are in it."
Seth wondered how many people had fallen prey to basilisks.
'Just imagine a young lady trying to take her bath in a clear lake, but is assaulted by a basilisk. Or maybe I should think about it from a different perspective. Maybe its the young lady that is intruding on foreign territory. Hehehehe.'
While these thoughts were swirling in his head, Seth stopped when he noticed the glow of light in a near distance. Walking closer to it, his eyes beamed as he realized he found a lake!