Don't lamia laugh!

John looked at his healthbar, seeing the bitch had slapped five hp off of him just like that. Before he had time to focus on her, she was already moving in on him. Luckily John managed to barely getting out of the way in time by throwing himself onto a different branch. barely scrambling up on it as the lamia picked the splinters from her teeth, her nose slightly bloodied.

“I will not give you Jack, you crazy bitch!” John yelled as he drew his bow, the woman disregarding his words and lunging right for him again. To his surprise, when he let the arrow fly, the woman nimbly moved underneath it, continuing her charge at him. Jack meanwhile tightly held on to John once more, not wanting to be caught by the woman whatsoever.

The boy drew another arrow, then jumped over her as she dove for his legs, scraping his heel with her claws as he fired an arrow deeply into her back. To John it was a weird moment, using his bow up close. The arrow barely left his hand, or it was stuck already, cobalt blood seeping from the wound as he rolled, got up and jumped onto another branch.

10 dmg

“You little fucker. Now I won’t let you off even if you hand him over!” the lamia screamed, breaking the arrowhead sticking out of her stomach, and then pulled the arrow out from the back, tossing both of them away as she reeled back, her cheeks slowly expanding while her face got slightly red.

John had no idea what she was doing, but he was not going to let her do it. He raised his bow at her face, then thought where her vitals should be, cursing himself for not immediately using the skill books. He shifted his aim down to her right breast, thinking that would be where a human’s heart tended to be. He let the arrow loose when the lamia moved forward like a catapult, spitting a globule of green liquid at him.

In a split second, John dodged to the side, but a droplet of the stuff hit his cloak. A sizzling hole appeared as the spot he had just stood on dissolved into a decaying green mush.

‘Why do I keep meeting these toxic people!? What is this? LoL?’ John lamented as he saw his last arrow sticking out of her shoulder. Her movement had struck the arrow off course, making it hit her shoulder instead.

10 dmg

The lamia broke off this arrow as well, clearly getting frustrated that he kept dodging her attacks. “Let’s see how you handle this then,” she growled, raising herself up on her tail, and then pounced for him again.

John, of course, dodged to the side again, only to be met by her tail that coiled out like a whip and wrapped around his legs. Then she smacked him into a nearby tree, knocking the air out of him and forcing him to drop his bow. Jack jumped down after it right away, not thinking he would be able to actively help his master in this matter right now.

John groaned as he tried to think of something to do, quickly going over the items that could help him in this predicament. Then, he had it. While the Lamia dragged him back over to her, hoisting him up in the air in front of her face, he tapped around in his inventory.

“Any last words, worm?” the lamia asked as she brought her teeth close to his throat.

“Actually, yes,” John stated slightly afraid. “Eat this!” he raised his right hand, pulling the trigger on the mini crossbow that Ilis had given him at their first meeting; the small metal vial lodged itself into the lamia’s forehead as she almost went cross eyed looking at it.

John had aimed for the vital spot on her head with the sedative, hoping that it would work faster by injecting it directly into her brain. Luckily for him, it worked: the lamia screamed at him, swiping at him with her claws, but before she could so much as scratch him, her muscles went weak, untensing and dropping him on the branch while her eyes slowly closed.

John crawled away from her as fast as he could, looking around for his bow below him while checking on the lamia every few seconds. After a few moments, he saw Jack climbing up the tree with the bow in his maw, dropping it at his feet while mewing softly.
John took up the bow with one hand, petting Jack and scratching between his ears with the second. “You did great, boy. If I didn’t have you… I wouldn’t know what I’d do,” he stated his heartfelt praise to the little furball.

“Now to take care of this,” John said grimly as he looked at the sedated lamia. He wasn’t sure if she would come after him if they left her like this, and he was not planning on finding out either. A saying he once read in a story came to his mind as he drew an arrow onto his bow. While he readied the shot from up close, he spoke to Jack: “If you don’t pull out a problem by the roots, it will grow once more and come back to bite you in the ass.” With those words, the arrow flew, penetrating the lamia’s head, ending her life.

+25 exp

John wiped his brow, only now realizing how sweaty it was as he kicked the corpse, finding a bottle of antidote, some lamia scales and one of her claws as a trophy in its place. He silently thanked Gaia she didn’t give him meat from the lamia as well; he was not sure if he would be able to stomach even looting it. Without further ado, he downed the antidote, seeing his status effect disappear, then he finally addressed the pop ups that had appeared to the edge of his vision over the course of the fight.

Skill unlocked: Point Blank Shot lvl 1
Use your bow in melee range, using it for a way of combat it’s obviously not meant to be used
+5% accuracy while firing your bow at enemies within 2 meters

Skill unlocked: Dodge lvl 1 (passive)
Dodging prevents you from having to block attacks, you know, better to prevent a wound than to cure it?
+5% dodge chance

With a quick flick of the wrist and a few taps of his fingers, he decided that finding a place to rest and use his skill books was probably a pipe dream, so he took them out of his inventory, learning both skills he had got from his previous hunt before saying to Jack,