Defeated: Human(Level: 36, Tracker - Level:31)

+385 EXP

*Ding* You have leveled up!

I stare at the corpse of the man, blood and guts sprayed about and dripping down onto the ground. My fist still deep in his head after I smashed his face in. Then the nausea and disgust hit me all at once. I yanked my hand out of his head and fell back as my stomach heaved, trying to empty its non-existent contents onto the ground. Oh god, I knew I needed to kill the guy but I was not ready for the aftermath of that. After a minute of heaving I finally get my composure back and stop dry heaving. I have no problems with mauling and mutilating other monsters and animals but I guess doing that to people is still a bit much for me it seems. I guess the whole being a monster thing can only mitigate so much, note to self, make clean kills on people until I can get used to seeing them fucked up. I look back at the man's corpse, it still makes me a bit queasy but the initial burst seems to have subsided. I pick myself up and walk over to where the twiglings are still holding the body up, like it or not this dude still has good stuff on him, like clothing and armor, and who knows what else. I give the man a few looks over, finally finding and undoing the bindings that secure the leather chest piece, letting it fall to the ground with a thud. I repeat the same motion for the other pieces of armor, having a twigling collect all the fallen bits and take them over to my pod. After all the armor is off I pull off his belt and the two pouches attached. Both are nice leather pouches, the first one is much larger than the other, and has a tie down to keep it closed. Inside is an assortment of dried meat, berries, three potions, what look like bandages, and some salve in a wooden tin. Two greens and a blue, so two stamina and a mana potion. I wonder what the salve is for, I probably should have looted the dude then killed him so I could ask him what all this crap is. In the second pouch are three more potions strapped in by leather bands in a way that they can be easily pulled out. Again it's two greens and a blue, in addition there is a small knife, and another tin filled with the same salve as the other.

I'll have to figure out what the salve is for, but otherwise this is a good haul. Shame I had to kill a dude for it but it was preemptive self defense anyways. Now for the awkward part, do I want to wear the clothes of a dead man? I plan on wearing the armor and without clothes it will probably chafe bad, then again I ignore all but the worst of weather conditions, who's to say I can even chafe? It would also be nice to not be naked, period. I'm not desperate enough to go digging around under my pod and untangling my old clothing from my own bones. But a dead man? That's just within the realm of what I'll put up with. So I start stripping the man, first pulling off his shirt and throwing it on myself, it's a tight fit and has a little bit of blood stained around the neck area, but not as much as I would think. It's a manageable wear, I might acquire better fitting stuff after I deal with the rest of the expedition. I move down and start pulling down his pants and after stripping them off put them on myself. These fit a lot better than the shirt, and I have no problems moving around in them. With that out of the way I'm left with the now naked and deformed corpse of a man held aloft by a few twiglings. Should I give this guy a burial? No, he wouldn't have done the same for me, and the corpse flowers would have probably gotten him anyway.

I have the twiglings drag his body over with the grizzly boar and toss it down, in a few days time he'll be providing me with more nutrition to make minions, which I'll unleash on his friends, how poetic. With all that out of the way I walk over to the leather armor pieces laying on my pod and take stock of what I have to work with. A chest piece that probably won't fit me very well but is better than nothing, thigh pads for the legs, and bracers for the lower and upper forearms. I start with the chest piece, throwing it on over my head and tying the straps together to keep it on, I also find the danger sheath sewn into the lower part of the armor. I have the twiging bring the dagger over and return it to its sheath for now. I'll investigate it more later but best not to lose it in the meantime. Then I try to put the other pieces of armor on. The thigh pads aren't that bad, just place on my thighs and tie them with the three straps meant to keep them on, they cover most of the sides and all of the front of my thighs. Unfortunately no shin armor, I don't know why the dude didn't have any but maybe there is a reason. Next is the arm pads, and that's where I have trouble. The forearm pads arnt to bad, just a bit awkward to do one handed but I manage it with the help of my pod's petals. The upper arm pads, those are a pain in the ass. I can't get them to stay on well and the awkward angle makes it impossible to tie them off properly. I finally get the damn things on after about twenty minutes of trying and having to lay down on my pod to tie them off.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Well, that last part was a pain in the ass. At Least I have some semblance of armor now, though I don't know how much it will help. I keep the belt off and tuck it under an outer petal for now. I don't want to find out how the items inside will do when they get sap logged, because that's exactly what I'm gonna do. I jump back into my pod, close the petals, and feel the sap start to refill. Next on the agenda, I need a lot more twiglings. So I get to work, unfortunately, I’m interrupted forty minutes in by a fairly large group of people crashing into my domain. I say crashing because the first one literally tripped on a bush while entering and immediately planted his face into the ground, that was kinda funny. Slowly twenty of them file into the area where I had captured the tracker and start searching around. Then the warrior who had originally been with the tracker finds the broken bow. Shit, I forgot to clean that up. Hopefully they take that as a sign he is dead and leave, sadly they don't. The twiglings don't leave much of a trail through the forest normally, but when you stack enough of something it's impossible to hide its presence. I'm pretty sure even without tracking skills they are figuring out the direction the hoard had come from. That's not good, I need something to distract them. Thankfully I don't have to look for long. For some reason, the warrior who had originally accompanied the track didn’t warn everyone of the blast plant nearby, or maybe he did and these people are idiots. This is clearly evident by a warrior walking up to the plant and looking it over, as if he would find anything. By the time someone else noticed it was too late for him.

“Hey! Get away fro….” The slightest nudge on my end bumped an explosive pod into the man’s overly close leg. The resulting explosion engulfed him for a moment, before his now black and burning corpse was flung away from the fireball while the rest of the group dove for cover.

Defeated: Human(Level: 28, Warrior - Level: 24)

+310 EXP

The resulting chaos was marvelous to watch, as all the remaining members of the group jumped back to their feet and started darting around, the tree archers taking up positions behind nearby trees while the warriors formed up into a defensive wall of some sort and took combat stances. They waited silently, with all their weapons oriented towards where the twiglings had originally come from. They waited, and waited, and waited. Finally after about five minutes of nothing, the probable leader relaxed his guard and called off the others. “Alright stand down, I don't think anything is coming. He probably just bumped into it and set it off. This, people, is why I said to stay away from the damn blast pod!” With that, everyone relaxed and the formation broke up, most of them going back to looking for something, probably clues about the tracker. The leader however stood looking deeper into the forest where they had all been on guard against just moments ago. An archer walked up to him and they started talking with one another. “Are we sure he didn’t get away? I don’t see any blood around here, or even evidence of a fight.” The archer asks. “Bob said his leg was fucked and that he told him to just run because the amount of monsters coming was too much for them to handle. He might have been dragged back to their den but there is no doubt he is dead. Even if he managed to hide he wouldn't have gotten far and would have called out for help when arrived. The only strange thing is the lack of blood, I don’t see any at all, I can’t imagine he was swallowed whole since it was supposed to be a hoard of them. Either way we aren't pursuing, we don't know enough and can't afford the risk.” The warrior says while looking into the forest with a contemplative look. Then he turns around and walks away while calling out. “Alright, gather up everyone we are leaving!”

And with that they all gather up and trudge their way out of my area. After the last one leaves I get giddy as all hell. My plan worked, mostly, but it was enough. They fucked off and left, they know something is here, but not what. And that will be the end of them, I’ll start picking them off, and by the time they realize something is off, well, hopefully the power differential will be enough that I can just steam roll the remainders by that point. After all, I need to make sure none of them escape. And I have a few ideas for that actually, those archers made me realize something. I don't have any ranged offense on the twiglings, or myself. And if those archers manage to get behind a wall of warriors they are going to get free damage out, so why don’t I do something similar, and I have just the idea on how to do it.