Chapter 71 - The Trolls Nest II

The troll growled proudly at its regenerated leg. It jumped up and down to confirm that the legs were working fine. The creature started to move uncontrollably, crazed by its happiness.

Bryn kept looking at the scene, confused by the troll's reaction to his attack and its regenerative capabilities. He activated Bryn’s Inferno once again, this time at its fullest. The temperature around Bryn dropped as his eyes glowed a light blue color. The smoke coming out of Bryn’s breathing increased its density as he emptied his lungs, preparing for his second attack.

Both hooves and his left hand touched the ground as he repositioned low enough so that the bushes and logs hid him from the beast. He got as close as possible without being revealed, waiting for the best opportunity. The tempo from each jump, the height the troll reached, the angle of movement from each limb, everything went into measuring the best strike he could muster.

Inhaling deeply, Bryn waited for the creature's next jump. As soon as both feet left the ground, he moved. In his place, the hooves used all possible friction to add speed, leaving two holes over the floor vegetation. Bryn crossed the bushes in the blink of an eye, reaching the troll almost instantly from his distance.

Akusashi emanated so much mana that Bryn feared not controlling the area implicated in the attack, but considering his previous experience; it had to be done. Aiming his blade at the troll's left leg, the sword slashed the back portion of the creature's knee. The lower portion of the leg was instantly sent flying away, and the other portion froze from the cut to the beast's waist. Bryn kept running to hide himself again in the jungle, observing the situation.

The troll cried; his sounds resonated around the forest, but the distance to its nest was too great for them to hear. Bryn kept his focus on the severed leg.

One second passed, and nothing changed apart from the screaming.

Two seconds.

Three.

In the fourth second, no signs of regeneration occurred in the frozen areas, and Bryn went for the kill. The creature's confusion was noticeable. It focused only on the ice covering its wound. It used both hands to hit the frozen portion of its body to the ground, trying to break the ice to no avail.

Bryn's eyes were now focused on his next target. Once again, he used his entire body's energy, covering himself and Akusashi in mana and attacking.

He focused entirely on the blade's swing without using any energy to cover up his presence. The troll was sitting down; it had lost any logical thinking it once may had. Bryn's attack faced no reaction from the creature. His blade's only resistance came from the thick hide around the beast's neck. The moment Akusashi sliced the flesh deep, frost entered the troll's body, freezing its inside around the entire neck. The creature's decapitated corpse dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Bryn looked at the body; there was no blood around it. Both wounds were wholly frozen solid. Its torso and shoulder were covered with ice spikes from the neck down.

Its head fell five feet away, unlike the left chin. It was similar to a block of ice formed from the base of its neck to its hair. Bryn could still see the dilated pupils and the opened mouth, screaming in panic inside the solid ice covering its mouth.

The key for these bigger ones is mobility and forcing them to focus on anything other than my presence here.

He went back toward the nest. Their dynamic was still the same, but this time, Bryn noticed that both the types of creatures he had faced so far were the least threatening from the bunch.

For the first time, Bryn realized that a group of trolls had arrived with food for the others. Many boars and elks were brought by their paws, dragged from wherever they had fought, and killed them. The creatures holding them were strong. Bryn could tell since the appraisal was unable to account for all of their status, but the ones he could check were higher than his.

Watching the nest and trying to find opportunities to kill a few more trolls that day, he didn't find any. Still, the day was well-spent. The first groups of trolls and the smaller ones were children; they were excited about anything that happened; they simply played with each other and were ignored by all the others. The second group he had faced was already bigger, and was not impressed by merely living. Still, they followed others around and imitated them. From Bryn's perspective, they should be adolescents or the step between the newborns and the functioning workforce of the nest.

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They were the stronger ones; they went out the most. They posed two problems; the first was that their eyes, posture, and levels were on a whole different level than the two Bryn faced. The second was they hunted in groups. Bryn would have to get strong enough to face them simultaneously.

For today, it was enough. Tomorrow, I'll have to check the speed at which they reproduce and verify if I can keep going like this to guarantee they remain at an acceptable growth rate and increase my level. To be safe, I should be able to face them if I level up five or ten times.

His day passed as the trolls destroyed a bit of forest around the nest to create room for their youngsters to rest and for some of the stronger trolls to have their own area. As the night came, Bryn left before they all slept. He took a long way to reach his camp and closed his eyes before the next phase of the plan.

This time, Bryn used the night as his ally. Arriving at the trolls' nest with a long time ahead of him, he tried the second way he thought of dealing with the smaller ones. He approached them even calmer than the day before. The creature snored much louder than his movements. They moved around while sleeping, but clearly, it would take some effort to wake them up.

He activated his skill, slowly reaching the troll closest to the forest edge. His hooves aimed for the areas without roots or branches, trying to prevent any extra sound in his path. Reaching the creature's head, he used Akusashi to hold it with two hands and bring it down on the troll's neck. The blade passed the skin like it was cutting butter. The frost blocked all blood from coming out, and the vessels inside the creature heac froze solid as Bryn listened to its heart stop beating. Bryn had a happy expression as he moved to the next troll on his list. That night, he killed eighteen youngsters. The five he had disposed of the day before did not affect the nest's size. In fact, from the first day, they increased the output of young trolls by another fifty percent.

I'll have to kill all youngsters every day until I find a way to diminish their reproduction capabilities… But if I do it, they will notice something is wrong. I did it today, But I'll have to develop a more sustainable method. Also there is the second problem. Bryn thought as he looked at the corpses before him.

One by one, he took their bodies away from the nest, creating a small pile of trolls' bodies near where he had killed the other the day before. It took more effort than actually killing them, but the job had to be done, and before sunrise, no less. After all bodies were moved, he used water to mess up the tracks from the trolls being dragged away from the nest. He remained there, analyzing the night's effect on the trolls.

With the sun came the first visit to the area. One of the trolls that had brought the food walked near the area, realizing no one was in that space. It scratched its head, smelling the floor all around the wet floor. It used its hand to compare the moisture in the ground from the other places near the kid's space; confused, it went back inside, calling others to come. They spoke in noises to one another. Bryn couldn't make a language out of it, but there was clear communication among these bigger ones.

That day, the group stayed in the nest and searched the area for the missing trolls. The patrols raised Bryn's perception of the trolls. They were really like a small society he was trying to eradicate. He bit the middle falange from his index finger every time he thought about it; still, his mind was more interested in whether he could clean the entire nest out than the ramifications of his slaughter.

He decided not to take any patrol the board just yet, afraid that he would trigger a repercussion more significant than the commotion already occurring. He decided to improve his game for the next night.

As the night climaxed, Bryn left again toward the nest.

This time, the area with the youngsters had two bigger trolls with them. They took care of ten smaller creatures, sleeping at the sound of the snoring. Bryn went a different route, going after the slightly stronger ones on the other side of the nest.

The twenty-something trolls echoed their snoring. Unlike the youngsters, these were sleeping in a denser portion of the forest they had chosen not to clean up. The beasts slept in the most random positions, some sitting down, others laying their heads on roots and using leaves to cover their eyes.

I have to kill them one by one, or if any of them wake up and see the dead ones, I'm toast. He thought the different gloomy colors reflecting their image were something out of Bryn's nightmares, especially since any mistake might wake them all. His additional status from the previous days helped Bryn's mobility and strength to use the same technique from the night before on these.

By the time some creatures woke up, Bryn had eliminated seven. His level had risen once again, but he was uncertain if his efforts were enough to prevent the nest from increasing its size once again.

They started, and to his surprise, the trolls didn't notice the missing ones. They were all happy that all nine young ones were still there. The group of stronger trolls had increased by a few more creatures during the previous night, and Bryn realized that the boars and elks had completely disappeared. The speed at which they devoured the food supply was incredible. Still, the total number of trolls was around a hundred now.

The hunting party, formed by almost thirty trolls, left the area toward the east, leaving few to organize the expansion of their nest. Bryn also realized that many visited a central location a few times daily, but Bryn needed help approaching and checking what happened inside.

Instead of going all the way back to his camp, Bryn decided he would watch the trolls for a whole night to understand when the new trolls would be taken to the area he had attacked. It made no sense in his mind that they simply appeared there.

As the sun started to set, young trolls from the central area were thrown away from a structure formed by many trees piled on each other. When thrown, they still had a mucus substance around them and were a bit smaller. These things were taken by the bigger ones toward that place, and they started to lick the substance in their bodies thoroughly. The moment they were finished, they slept almost instantly as their body began to grow. If Bryn hadn't seen it with his eyes, the entire thing would seem farfetched. In a single night, the beasts grew hair, beard, and about half their size to be what he had disposed of.

Today, there were 15 new creatures, totaling twenty-five young ones in the area. The moment the new one's status reached the same level as the others, their transformation stopped.

Looking at the increasing size of both areas, Bryn worried about the speed of his development in dealing with the nest.