Creative hunting practices

Author's note: Merry Christmas, have a good time of family and friends and food and stuff like that. Thank you all for the past 8 months of support, and I will probably say something of this sort at new year too, but hey, I get to be sappy! Anyway, enjoy the chapter.

“Wait, wasn’t that against the rules?” John asked Arnold as he gestured at the clearing and the barbequed lynx.

“Why would you say that, John?” the older man asked with a raised eyebrow.

“She wasn’t quiet? We could hear her singing!” John objected.

“John, you can’t be fully quiet. Bows make sound, clothes make sound, breathing in itself makes sound. The rules are the rules, yes. Try to follow them as best as you can, but don’t prioritize being quiet over quickly taking down a prey, ok? Being quiet does not mean make zero noise, it’s try to not make more noise than is appropriate. If you can kill something quickly and make a bit of noise, that works better than attacking something silently ten times and not taking it down, right?”

“And with that,” Cynthia cut in, “I need to chant that song to unleash my lightning arrow. Remember how in old fairy tales there is always a chant, like hocus pocus or something? This is mine. Not everyone has that ridiculous learning ability of yours.”

“When she was younger and awakened her mana, we taught her to find a gesture or something to focus on while casting her spells. By doing the two things at the same time, you start associating them with each other. I’m an old rock fan, cause I’m old and I like rock. Get it?” Arnold grinned. “Lost my wild hairs a bit, but still like to listen to some good old AC/DC. So Cynthia chose that song, it’s fitting, we sang it a lot in the car when she was younger, logical pick, right?”

John could not refute that. With a good natured hand over his head, Arnold started to walk into the forest. “You are right, though, that we will need to find a new prey now, seeing as lightning discharges do tend to drive creatures away…” Arnold winked, then whistled to Marco to start scouting again.

And so John found himself on a branch a kilometer away from their last hunting spot. Arnold had told him that there was a simple prey around here and that it was up to him to find it, kill it, and not get spotted by it. Time to put the lessons into practice.

John first activated his Tracking skill, looking at the ground from his branch, the crisscross of multiple prints lighting up for him. John focused his gaze, dismissing some of the tracks outright. First was a track of bear prints of which the mud had already dried up. A, Arnold would not send him after a bear, and B, if the mud was dry, that meant the print must be older than the ones that were still moist. Even though he was new to the whole hunting thing, he could still think rational thoughts and deduce some things from that. Eventually his eyes settled on a trail of hoof prints, and activating Camouflage, he moved perpendicular to the tracks across his branch.

John kept repeating the basics of the hunt to himself. ‘Be quick, be quiet, be merciful and don’t kill werecreatures. Think and stay alive.’ As he slowly made his way across the branches, John heard a sound. The cry of a deer ahead of him. John stopped in his tracks, canceled Tracking and instead went for Hawkeye. He looked around, spotting some movement ahead, the red flash of a weakness indicating it was indeed a prey. His prey.

Now that he found what he was looking for, John made his way closer while trying to make as little sound as possible. He stopped and observed the deer when he was roughly fifty meters away. The deer was male to begin with, its long and heavy antlers showing off this little bit of information. At the moment it was eating from a nearby bush. Crying out into the forest every so often. It wasn’t fully grown yet, but it did look healthy, no sign of corruption or anything else on its body.

John silently drew one arrow from his quiver. He had remembered the special property that it had and, instead of fully loading it right now, was filling it only for a tenth of its maximum capacity as to increase his damage output as much as possible. This was to coincide with the rule to be merciful to your prey, of course. John didn’t draw his bow yet, just placing the arrow on the string while he thought. If his prey would move, he would be able to shoot it in reflex; otherwise, it would not prevent him from planning. He was already thinking ahead.

John was going over his skills, thinking which one would be the most appropriate in case something went wrong. He studied the environment around them, thinking, if he shot from here, where would the deer flee to if he missed? John took a deep breath, clean fresh filtered air flowing through his mouthguard. He gave himself a slight nod, then got into action.

John drew the bowstring back, waiting the 5 needed seconds, aiming at the neck of the deer, wanting to cut off its air in one shot. The string pulled against his fingers, the gloves luckily preventing them from cutting into them. While he breathed out, he let go of the string; the arrow was propelled through the air with a swishing sound. The twang of the bowstring caused the deer to look up, the arrow slightly missing its mark. Instead of piercing its throat straight through, it created a big wound just short of it.

The deer cried out in pain and distress, bucking as it turned to leave. “Oh no, you don’t,” John mumbled to himself as he fired his next arrow into its path. Long vines sprouted from the ground and wound themselves around the deer’s body, immobilizing it as it tried to kick and get away. John jumped down as quick as he could, landing on the forest floor and drawing his short sword. With one well aimed slash, the distressed sounds of the deer stopped, blood seeping the ground as John recovered his two arrows. He placed his hand on the deer’s head, and it disappeared into a puff of smoke. One of its antlers, a piece of leather and a bone lay in its place.

+81 exp

John placed the three items into his inventory, then turned around to the sound of clapping. Cynthia and Arnold were applauding his kill.

“Good, well done. We saw it all,” Arnold spoke with a smile. “It seems you are taking the lessons to heart already. A few points of critique. Some things to work on if you will. Don’t aim at a creature’s neck when you are unsure if you can hit it before they react. And in the future, try to keep your prey more quiet. The sounds of distress made by this deer have attracted some unwanted attention.”

Cynthia cut in, “But, you did think ahead, you killed it before it could get away. And your reaction speed was quite good! I’m proud of you babe!” She ran up to him and kissed his forehead, the only part of his face not hidden by his gear.

“Thanks, it feels good to actually know what I’m doing,” John quipped.

“Good. Okay. John, your actions drew over a bear. It’s coming this way right now. It is coming from…” Arnold’s eyes flashed purple, “the north. That way. You caused it, now it’s up to you to clean up your mess. It will be here in half a minute. Get ready. Don’t worry about failing, we are still here to help if needed. But show me how you deal with the semi unexpected.”

With those words Arnold walked up to a tree and started climbing. Cynthia chanted a few words and, with a breeze flowing around her, jumped up a nearby tree as well.

John looked a bit dazed but quickly regained his thoughts. His first reaction was to activate Wildrun and disappear into the foliage of a nearby tree. Looking at the bloodstain on the ground from up high, John was trying to come up with a way to deal with a bear. He looked around the forest, trying to think of a clever solution. His mind worked like a train as he thought back to how he solved these kinds of things in video games before. Then he had a flash of insight. John drew an arrow onto his bow, charged it with a total of two skills, then waited.

The bear appeared like Arnold had predicted from the north, sniffing around as it looked for the easy meal it had expected. It sniffed the air, making it’s way over to the bloodstain moments later. John mentally crossed his fingers, then shot the arrow the second the bear bent over. The arrow pierced the bear’s shoulder, vines sprouting from the wound as the arrow stopped halfway through the bear. A loud roar was the result as the bear’s front paw was immobilized, the vines tugging the head and the paw together, binding it. The vines showed direct signs of tearing, however, the strength of the bear showing itself.

John had thought this would happen, so he quickly used his second step of the plan. He shot an arrow at the root of a nearby tree, a hole appearing silently. The tree, now without anything keeping it upright on one side, started to keel over. A loud rumbling and creaking of branches snapping off was the result. The tree fell over, coming down with a loud crash directly on top of the bear. One of the broken off branches pierced the bear’s back, ending its life too.

John jumped down from the tree, patting the dead bear’s head and retrieving his loot: three bear claws, a fang and some fur.

“That was… unorthodox,” Arnold spoke as he jumped down too. “I won’t say it was ineffective though. I thought I’d have to step in, but you managed to kill it without breaking a sweat.” Arnold laughed and slapped John’s shoulder.