Thankfully it was actually only mud and not some large animal’s droppings.
With a grunt, he stomped through the sludge and walked up to a nearby fallen tree. Plopping down on it, he grabbed a handful of giant, dying leaves from its branches and got to work wiping his boots clean.
He even took out one of the small, plastic water bottles from his left pocket and used it to wash off the filth.
Once he was somewhat clean, he got up and activated his Tracking boon.
It functioned a lot like a compass but gave him a rough direction to get to whatever prey he was seeking, which in this case was a troll.
It sounded like a great boon when he got it, but it wasn’t all that useful compared to what other classes had.
The only time he could remember it ever really being important was when some random criminal syndicate tracked down an exotic tiger by using a group of hunters to triangulate its position.
Still, if what the scientist had said was true, then he just had to follow this sixth sense for a little bit and he would find his quarry.
Just a few steps and everything would be over, at least for today.
Brushing aside a large leaf, he started to stalk through the thick undergrowth.
At first, he thought that he was in some sort of swamp, but now he wasn’t so sure and thought it could be a rainforest.
He took care not to touch anything and kept his head on a swivel; there was no telling just what sorts of poisonous plants and venomous creatures lurked here.
But rather than having trouble finding the troll. He smelled blood after just a short trek through the thriving jungle. If he smacked his lips, he could even taste it.
Cautiously, he flicked the safety off and began to slowly inch his way towards the source of the metallic scent.
He wanted to hide behind trees and use them as cover for his approach but he shrugged off that illogical thought and kept silently striding forward.
Any extra bit of noise he made could give him away and his clothing didn’t exactly fit in with the environment, better to be more open that way he could fire quickly and flee equally fast.
That’s when he saw the troll’s prey; the deer was brutalised beyond belief.
Its head was missing. one of its limbs had been torn off and used to pin the mutilated skull against the brown bark of an elderly tree.
Its guts coated the ground and were so utterly pulped that Thomel couldn’t tell what was what. He couldn’t pick out the intestines, heart, stomach, liver, or anything else.
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The only thing that kept him from puking was his own experience with gutting animals, when he did it though it was out of hunger.
Whatever did this, did it for the joy of killing; the thrill of taking another living being’s life.
There was only one creature that came to mind.
“Are two magazines really going to be enough?” He wondered out loud.
Well, he actually had three counting the one already loaded, plus they were Cosco bullets, so he should be fine. Should, being the keyword here.
Glancing away from the gory scene so he could avoid looking at all the ravenous insects crawling over the smashed meat, he spotted movement.
A bush swayed ever so slightly. He didn’t even think twice. He just shot a look over his shoulder, backed up slightly, and pulled his gun up.
Knowing its ruse was blown, the creature behind the bush burst out of it with a screech of anger.
And Thomel immediately put a single bullet straight through its vivid-green forehead, splattering brain and skull fragments onto lively plants and skittish critters.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, the goblin slammed face-first into the ground and slid forward a little, leaving a pale green trail on the now crushed foliage.
Thomel let out a breath of relief he hadn’t even been aware he was holding. It was just a goblin.
Suicidally territorial creatures, the little pest probably thought he was here to eat the deer or something.
There was something he had been wondering about for a while now and, thanks to the goblin, he now got a chance to satiate his curiosity.
He got experience points when he did hunting-related tasks, like shooting wild hogs or deboning a fish, but would it count killing a sentient creature?
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The answer was a resounding yes! If anything, it looked like it gave him even more experience; he was almost at level twenty-eight now.
That would place him still quite firmly in the bottom bracket of a fair few corporations, but he never put effort into levelling up for those white-collared vampires.
He did it for the feeling of success and progress. What better metric could be used for how well you were doing in life?
Then again, it wasn’t really a good indicator of how good you were since, just like with everything in life, there were always ways to cheat. One of the instances he had heard of was how soldiers in the Kala Republic were forcefully extending the Nebraxen war so that way they could kill more people and level up faster.
Now wasn’t the time to worry about geopolitics however. If there was one goblin then there was no doubt going to be more.
And if goblins were living in the same area as a troll, it meant that the two races probably had some sort of agreement.
Normally they wouldn’t live together, but still, he might end up having to fight a troll and a small cohort of its servants.
It shouldn’t matter, he told himself. After all, goblin tribes were only a hundred strong at most, counting non-combatants, and these magazines carried thirty potent bullets each.
He didn’t remember what percentage of the goblin population were adults, but he should have an excess amount of ammo for both the goblins and the troll.
He narrowly avoided a spear flung at his head, more so due to the poor aim of its thrower rather than skill on his part.
Swinging around, he hurriedly blasted the first goblin he saw apart with ease. It helped that the savage was only an arm's length away.
But that was far from the only one he had to contend with, so gritting his teeth he knelt down and brought the gun up.
Then, as the horde partially hidden within the brush recovered from their surprise and rushed him, he opened fire.