CHAPTER 13 - Prowling around
*yawn*
Morning arrives and I wake up ever so slowly, not wanting to even stretch myself. Then I think about what I am gonna be doing today and it brings a smile to my face.
‘Jejeje, it’s time to make some money!’
From today onwards I will be following an easy and quick way to gain both money and fame. Fame to earn the trust and support of the people living here and maybe another bases I can find later on, and money for… spending? I mean, it 's money, never gonna have too much of it. The problem is what is gonna be considered money from now on, I have no idea if our currency will keep up, maybe we end up with transactions or bartering beetween ourselves. That's not important for now anyways.
I will be hanging around the outskirts of the base, see what kind of monsters and animals are here and then expand my range of actions little by little. I am planning on getting stronger, richer and famous all at the same time. The hunts will help me get experience and make myself improve in strength apart from training. It will help me develop my own style when fighting derived from all the martial arts and techniques I know.
Meanwhile, I will be getting my hands on new specimens for my “anatomy research” and materials to sell or make better equipment for myself. I would definitely take some light armor to have better chances of surviving against those types of monsters that can k.o. you on one hit. Damn, I could even take something that lets me take out monsters for a distance like a bow or something.
Lastly, I will be mapping out the area of the settlement. I will be helping myself while I give the base something to thank me too. I am planning on expanding the area I will be covering every time a little bit more. I can’t rush it though, I still need to be careful of any possible threats that may pop out at any moment. Even while in base, these walls won’t last a second if a minotaur or an orc came by and decided to test them.
Good thing about it, expanding my acting range will may it easier to find survivors or people that I already know. Who knows, maybe it can even help me find my family, they have to be somewhere out there.
I finally leave the living quarters in which Jake and the rest let me stay for the night. It isn’t anything crazy, but it is not too shabby either, it has a bed.
I have something light for breakfast from Tom as I don’t have money on me just yet, luckily I will get some after the hunt. I prepare my things that at this point are only my longsword and a backpack where I carry some ropes and a folded piece of tarp to help me bring any corpses I hunt back to base.
The people at base were kind of confused and a bit skeptical when I told them what I needed, but it only took a few minutes to bring Jake and get what I wanted. Some perks that well-behaved people enjoy, not that I am talking about me, it is definitely nothing related to saving their life.
Moving on, I am already exploring the area, for now I am still in what they so-called “secure” zone as it is near enough the base to have a clear grasp of the situation inside. I am planning on keeping it simple for my first outing and from that find stronger and stronger foes to test my might against. Yet it’s hard to do that when you don’t know what might jump at you in the near future, because you may not know what it will be, but one thing is clear. It will happen.
I walk for a while and after some time it hits me. Do I have a death wish or something? First, I am all good about exploring the surroundings, hunting and so on, but while I was thinking about all that I didn’t take something into account. What happens if I am unlucky? What will happen if by any chance I get spotted in the middle of the forest around the base by a monsters that is stronger than me and outruns me?
Will I run? Yes. Will it work? No… If I were to bump into a monster the likes of the armored panthers I saw before it would be the same as the end of my trip, either I kill it or I die. There is no reason to do all the hunting and exploring in the forest if it implies a higher chance of meeting and premature death.
Some minutes after I find myself going back to the starting point and setting off again, but this time with the idea being following the road to get to a place where there are enough buildings around to make my way around. I will take it upon myself to explore the forest whenever I find a trump card to get myself out of tricky situations and maneuver around them. For now, however, I will play it safe, I dont want to die for a dumb reason such as thinking that I can outrun a panther or a something worse.
There are some disadvantages to choosing this path of action, that's for sure. To start with, I will be clearly limited for now as most of the urban environments and the nearest city are around a hour walk from the base. It is definitely a pain in the ass,yes, but something that I can work with. I can definitely stea- borrow a car from somewhere and use it to carry the supplies and loot I get from the fights I will be diving into.
I will have to be careful when coming back to base to not bring any unwanted guests, but apart from that it is the most obvious and in my opinion efficient and safest way of doing it.
Deciding on it, I start my journey back to the part of the city where I came from. I can clearly remember spotting a good enough pick-up on my way here that was idle in the middle of the road, just as many others. My little trip to the vehicle only lasts for fifteen minutes before I see it. The pick-up is in good condition and has enough space in the rear to carry a decent amount of goodies I will be taking.
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I try to remember the little information I know about cars and vehicles in general to try and look for any way to get the thing running if the key is not inside. However, to no ones surprise, the keys are inside. I mean, most of the cars like this one that are “parked” in a very doubtful way in the middle of the streets have their keys in. It probably has something to do with the monster wave that happened before, but who knows, maybe it was just a lone monster scaring someone or a blockage made by humans to stop people at some point. I would most definitely put my money on the first one, but you never know.
The important thing is, I got a car! I start the engine, and as if blessed by some kind of god, it has fuel, and its battery is working just fine, so I depart to the city. I approach the border of the city with precaution, I already experience once what is it to be ambushed out of the blue and I am pretty sure I didn’t like it at all. Odds are that I won't be so unlucky as to be ambushed a second time, yet I dont like to bet, my luck is rotten.
I leave the pick-up parked somewhere around the edges of the entrance and go in by feet. I am not keen on bringing so much attention to myself as to go by car inside a ghost town plagued by monsters. Not today at least.
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I scout the streets, tiptoeing around every corner and trying to get myself better at undercover operations. Even though the horde of mutant rats that invaded at first is nowhere to be seen, I know there are a lot of different dangers lurking all around, the calmness is but a mere ilusion. The peace doesn’t last that long either, about twenty minutes in and I find a group of a new type of monsters.
They are small, really small in fact. At first sight they appear similar to some kind of hedgehog, yet they are different, very different. Their bodies are of similar size, just a little bit bigger on average taking the group in front of me as standard. Practice that will probably come to bite myself in the butt at some point for sure later on, if not with these guys with another ones. You can’t be so naive nowadays.
The monsters, other than the small size are all covered in spikes, yeah, I would say quills, but it’s kind of difficult when the things defensive look like skewers that are about the same length as their body, some probably larger. The group is formed by 3 little ones and 5 a little bit larger. I was going to charge at then seeing how little they are, but again, let’s not judge a book by its cover, who knows what devious antics these little guys could be hiding. I still decide to take the chance to attack them, but first I will be testing the waters.
I approach the little guys and first I try to make myself seem neutral, who knows, maybe they are friendly. We are free to dream at the end of the day. As I get closer and closer I get more nervous due to their uncaring behavior. If it wasn’t for their spikes, and tinstead, they had fluffy hair , I am sure they would be super cute. With such foolish thoughts I keep approaching.
They react when I am about 5 meters away or so. The little ones get flustered as they face me with all their spikes on end. The bigger ones instead start running away, and the smaller ones, noticing the absence of their seniors and seeing them fleeing, decide to follow swiftly.
I, surprised by their reaction, decide to chase after them after they picked my interest. The little twerps start picking up speed, at some point making me question if chasing them is really the right call. They are still running from me though, so it has to be because they are weak and scared, right? Well, it seems like my naive practice of before about judging standards with the first thing you get starts to show some cracks.
The little guys turn right on a corner for me to get jumped on by a bigger one of them just as I am turning right too. I crouch fast enough to dodge the attack and then roll to avoid any following up attacks. I look at the new enemy that doubles the size of the other ones I was chasing, yet it is when I look where the other little ones are going when I know I fucked it up.
More of the now not so cute spiky monsters are staying still while looking at me while the little guys I chased here are at their feets. However, the problem is that these two are the size of a car and looking at their body language, they don’t seem to like me. I don’t lose time and start running the moment I lay my eyes on them. I haven’t even move 2 meters when I hear the big ones giving chase.
I escape as fast as I can, yet I can’t manage to spot any alley narrow enough to lose them, so I run. They are by far faster than me so I use everything as cover, cars, trees, traffic lights… Everything I put between myself and them is destroyed seconds after, they keep ramming through everything without a care.
They do not seem nimble enough to dodge the obstacles, but they are durable enough. The only thing that I can get from this interaction is that they are still affected by the impacts somehow. That is in fact the only reason they haven’t caught me yet. They keep getting slowed hit after him slowing their pace just enough for me to barely keep my lead.
Finally after a stressful run I see a chance to lose them. I see the entrance of one of the nearby buildings open, and it is probably the best shot I have to run from these guys before I run out of gas or obstacles to divert their attention. I risk it and go for the open door, I dodge everything on the way and manage to get inside.
I dash to the end of the hallway just in case and to the start of the stairs, yet the clear crash sound I hear halfway there makes it clear for me that they can’t fit in here throuth the entrance, at least the biggest two. I turn around to see what they decide to do and assess the situation.
One of the huge ones is stuck, its head caught in the entrance as it tries to force its way out again while all the smaller ones are forced to watch powerless as I leave. I don’t waste time and leave before another threat shows up after all this noise. I climb to the first floor and jump out of the first window I find while reinforcing my legs with qi as much as I can to not get hurt. I land just fine and continue running in the direction I came from.
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A few hours pass and the only things I can get are a few encounters with enemies too strong for my current self. All the monsters in the area are either too many or too strong for me to deal with. I would either bump into a big group of those hedgehogs or into small groups of the mini-orcs. Even if I can’t deal with any of those for now, I don’t lose hope, I will be able to care of them just fine at some point, I am sure of it. Actually, if I were able to maintain my qi running at full strength for more than 3 minutes I could deal with both types of group just fine.
The main problem with the hedgehogs are the car-sized ones that guard the little ones, but they do not have such a strong defense, they are just a little bit more durable as they are, well, humongous. In regards of the orc like guys, it's a little bit different, it is a matter of risk. I have the equipment to deal with them, but as I don’t have any armor, if I get hit in a bad spot or stunt I would then get jumped on by the other ones of the group and killed. Now that I think about that, I can probably try something else…