Chapter 125
Maggot Hunt
Having finally arrived at the bottom of the pit, Erin and her companions started their search for their target, the Reaper Maggot. Knowing that separating was the dumbest thing they could have done, the group stayed together during their search. If any of them were on their own, that would just be asking to get snatched by either the Reaper Maggot or any of the other monsters that lived there. The Reaper Maggot specifically was a notorious monster that wasn’t just a simplistic beast, but a somewhat intelligent creature that had dealt with all sorts of hunters for years, thus reigning as the undisputed ruler of the area.
Erin looked around at her surroundings, memories of better times being brought up by all of the sights. The area was littered with the ruins of the city that used to stand much higher. What used to be a city of life was now closer to a graveyard, with decay covering what used to be places of residence or business for countless people.
However, this history wasn’t what was consuming the redhead’s mind at the moment. Instead, she was thinking back to the times when she and Devin ventured through these lands in search of the monster she was now hunting. Back then, it had just been an innocent game she was playing with a friend. Now it was a life or death struggle that she was trapped in. She just hoped that her luck with the infamous Reaper Maggot would be better now than in the game.
“Erin, you okay?” Ryle called out to the redhead, snapping her out of her thoughts. “You looked like you were spacing out.”
“...I’m alright,” Erin replied. “Just a bit tensed up due to the battle ahead of us.”
“I can understand. This is something that I hoped I would have never had to do in my life!” Lexton said, looking around a bit frantically as he was visibly shaken. “The bats were bad enough, but this place is where the real hell begins! I almost can’t believe that I somehow ended up here of all places!”
“Hang on… Didn’t you talk about how you went through all sorts of dangers and perils, when you were gathering wolf piss or whatever gross crap you were hording?” Ryle asked. “How is this any different from doing that? I’d say this is about on the same level of danger.”
“This completely different, you blithering ass!” the kobold said angrily. “For starters, simply trying to gather ingredients is far different from trying to actually kill a beast! Normally, I’d just hide away and wait for the perfect moment to gather what I want! This time, I can’t do that and I actually have to risk angering the creature we’re after! Do you think I actually did that when I went to gather my materials!?”
“Well… No? I mean, you do seem to be the type to piss off anything that you come across, but I guess even you know when to avoid it,” the blonde said with a shrug. “Any other reasons why you’re so on edge about this?”
“Oh, that’s very simple! It’s because we’re dealing with the REAPER MAGGOT!” Lexton said. “Do you have ANY IDEA just how horrendous of a beast this is!? Only a handful of creatures exist within this world that reach such a legendary status as it has! There is literally a list that contains all the monsters of such level, where they are classified more as natural disasters than simple animals! And now? We are right in the middle of the front yard of one of those things! Do you see why I’m so freaking nervous now!?”
Erin was a bit surprised by Lexton mentioning the list that contained monsters like the Reaper Maggot. In the game, it was essentially a side quest, where you went to the offices of local law enforcement and other agencies tasked with protecting towns and cities, and were informed about some well-known monsters appearing. The monsters ranged from large wolves to dragons and were all high level opponents. The story was that they were anomalies within nature and had become too dangerous for any normal person to handle, so you were tasked with killing them. The redhead couldn’t help but wonder what the origins of the list in this world was.
The truly frightening, however, was that the Reaper Maggot was one of the lowest ranked monsters in the list. This meant that it wasn’t even among the top, when it came to dangerous creatures in this world. There were much more dangerous monsters out there and she along with Devin had been unsuccessful in beating one of the low ranking ones. Erin just hoped that they would only have to deal with the Reaper Maggot and nothing else on the list.
“Yeah, I get that this thing is dangerous. I mean, I was scared when you said that it was more dangerous than the dragon we saw, right? But my question is, why worry so much?” Ryle asked, breaking the redhead out of her thoughts. “No matter how much we may hate this, we have to face this thing and take it down, so why keep whining about it? The way I see it, we have done all we can to prepare, so let’s just go there and take that thing down! That’s all there is to it.”
Lexton couldn’t even muster up the words to shout at the blonde. Her response was so ridiculously stupid and simpleminded to him that words failed him.
But while the kobold was struck into silence and disbelief, someone else found strange comfort in what she had said.
“You’re right, Ryle. It is that simple,” Erin said with a chuckle, surprising everybody else in their group. “Simply crying about it isn’t going to do anything for us. We have done everything we could do to prepare, so all that remains is for us to actually get this done. Besides, with you all here, I’m sure we can manage.”
“But… That doesn’t even… You can’t be-!” Lexton struggled to argue back, but stopped upon feeling a hand get placed on his shoulder from Durge.
“You should just give up, Lex,” the orc said with a smile. “I doubt you’re going to change their minds. Not to mention, why do that? The morale has been lifted up, which is something we really needed, so why ruin that?”
The kobold looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but realized there was no point in doing so. In the end, he simply threw up his hands in surrender and let out a deep sigh.
“Excuse me?” a new voice suddenly called out to the group, making them turn towards it. They saw a member of one of the groups that had come by using one of the other lifts. “Hi. My name is Travis and I’m here on an expedition to analyze the ground in order to find out what caused the collapse all those years ago. We hope to discover the cause in order to prevent it from happening anywhere else or at least minimize the damages. However, we are finding that very difficult right now with all the noise you’re causing. Not only does it distract us from our work, but it also has the risk of attracting some of the local monsters. Including the infamous REAPER MAGGOT. So could you please KEEP IT THE HELL DOWN OVER HERE? We want to get out of here alive, thank you.”
“Hey, funny you should mention the Reaper Maggot!” Ryle said, causing Travis to give her a confused look, while her friends look at her in shock. “The thing is that we actually came here to-”
Before the blonde could tell their purpose for being there, Erin quickly stomped on her foot, stopping her from talking due to the pain.
“We’ll make sure to keep the noise down over here!” the redhead quickly said with a forced smile. “Sorry for the commotion!”
“Thank you very much. As long as you don’t drag us into whatever it is you’re doing here, we honestly don’t care what you do around here,” Travis said, happy that his request had been listened to and understood. “By the way, just out of curiosity, what are you doing here? You don’t look like scholars or scientists, so I can only assume you’re here on a hunting trip. But you don’t seem to be the usual hunters that come here either.”
“Well that’s because we came here to-” Ryle began to speak up again, only to get hit on the head this time by Erin, who made sure to use her mechanic hand.
“Shut up! Are you trying to get us into trouble, you ass!?” the redhead angrily whispered to the blonde before turning towards Travis. “We are hunters! It’s just that we are still kind of beginners, so we came over here to practice our tactics and skills!”
“I see… I suppose that makes sense, but I’d say you guys picked a bad spot to hone your skills,” Travis said before he started to walk away. “Well, each to their own, I suppose. I do recommend that you don’t try to push yourselves too much and leave once things get tough, okay? This isn’t a playground, after all.”
“We will! Thanks for the advice!” Erin said with a smile as she waved goodbye to Travis.
With the outsider having left, the group was allowed to let out a sigh of relief, with the exception of Ryle, who was angry at what she had just gone through.
“What’s the big deal!?” the blonde asked angrily. “Why did you guys have to keep shutting me up like that!?”
“Because you were about to tell everybody here what we came here to do, idiot!” Erin said angrily. “How do you think they would react to knowing we came here to kill a legendary monster!?”
“Obviously with praise, duh!” Ryle replied. “Hell, I’m sure Lex could put his scam artist skills to use and sell tickets to these people to watch our epic battle against that thing!”
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“Yeah, sure! Talk about a show! Come see a bunch of random schmucks take on the most ferocious creature in the area! Be there right next to the action, where even YOUR life is in danger!” Lexton said with voice dripping with sarcasm. “Should I make it mandatory for people to have life insurances or would that be too much to ask!?”
“You tell me! You’re the damn scammer here not me!” the blonde shouted. “I guess whichever is the scummier option is the one you should go with!”
“Hey! What did I just ask from you people!?” the angry voice of Travis called out to the group, as he stomped over to them again. “Didn’t you just say that you would tone down the noise!? Would you mind actually doing that now!? Also, get your friend under control! She’s freaking everybody out!”
“Our deepest apologies!” Erin apologized as she bowed her head down while forcing Ryle to do the same. “I’ll make sure to keep the noise down and make sure she behaves!”
“That’s good, although she isn’t the one that’s freaking everybody out!” Travis said, before pointing in a direction where the problematic person was. “She’s the one!”
The redhead turned to look where he was pointing at and saw something that made her face turn pale. Over there, she saw Zeldana harassing some of the other groups that had come there.
“I see that you’ve sprained your back! That’s very unfortunate and not good for your profession at all! How about I fix it for you!?” the elf was offering one of the researchers with a crazed grin on her face. “It will be a quick and easy job! Not to mention, I’ll actually reinforce your spine so well that you’ll never have to worry about it ever again! All I need to do is cut you open right here and I can get to work!”
“Stay away from me, you crazy bitch!” the researcher yelled, completely freaked out by the look on Zeldana’s face.
image [https://i.ibb.co/7jB2T4Z/Ch-125-Pic-1.jpg]
“Oh my good God… It’s like I’m watching over a kindergarten where all the kids are on drugs or something!” Erin said as she felt the urge to tear her hair out. “I’ll go get her and make sure she doesn’t bother any of you anymore!”
As the redhead walked away to fetch their wayward companion, Lexton turned to Durge.
“You know, I might have said all that stuff about the Reaper Maggot and all, but right now I feel like she’s the scariest thing down here,” the kobold said.
“I am more than willing to agree with that assessment,” the orc replied.
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With the group’s antics toned down, they were left in peace by the others that had come to explore the pit. Unfortunately, due to their lack of knowledge when it came to their target, they were left with very little to do for the time being. This was due to the fact that they had no idea where exactly the Reaper Maggot was or how to track it or even lure it to their location. With nothing to do, the group had taken shelter in one of the collapsed building, using it to shelter themselves while using the windows to observe what was going on outside.
“Well, this is boring,” Ryle said with a yawn. “You know, hunting a legendary monster sounds all epic and great, but doing something like this is the furthest thing from it. I guess they don’t write this into the stories of great heroes, huh?”
“There’s not much what we can do about that, I’m afraid,” Durge said with a shrug. “In order to actually hunt something, we need to know where it is and how it moves. While we might be in its area, we have no idea what to do in order to actually find it.”
“My God, you guys are just hopeless without me, aren’t you?” Lexton suddenly said, getting the attention of the others. “How about looking at some of the other people here? Do you notice anything special about them?”
Following the kobold’s instructions, the others began to observe what the other groups were doing. At first, it didn’t seem like there was anything special that stuck out, but when looking at them for long enough, Erin picked up something.
While most members of the groups were busy doing regular tasks, there was always at least one person who had a special device with them. It was different between the groups, but they all seemed to function in a similar manner. One end of it was stuck to the ground, while the user was looking at the other end where a monitor of some kind was located.
“Could it be…?” Erin said as she started to realize what the others were doing.
“I see that one of you knows to use their eyes properly,” Lexton said with a smirk. “You are correct in your assumption. They’re monitoring the vibrations that are coming from the ground to keep an eye on the creatures living right beneath us.”
“So they keep an eye on the vibrations in order to tell when dangerous creatures come! Or use it to locate the prey they’re hunting!” the redhead said in a slightly excited tone. “That’s the key to us beating this! All we need is one of those devices and we can go hunt the Reaper Maggot!”
“Well, what are we waiting for then!?” Ryle said with a grin. “Let’s get one of those gizmos and get this over with!”
“...Yeah, about that,” Durge said awkwardly. “How are we going to that exactly? I don’t think there are any shops nearby. And I doubt any of the others are going to just give us one.”
Gloom fell over the group, as they realized just how badly they had prepared for this. Not only were they in an area they had never been to, hunting one of the most dangerous creatures in the world, but they also lacked some of the most vital of equipment.
However, there was one person still among them who hadn’t let his mood go down by this recent revelation. A certain kobold to be exact.
“You guys just keep showing how much you need me around, don’t you?” Lexton said with a sigh. “Did you guys think that I was going to allow myself to come down here without at least something that vital?
“Lex… Do you mean to tell me that you actually have one of those things with us?” Erin asked with a wide eye. “You actually went and bought one before we came here?”
“Of course not, you half-brained simpleton! What do you take me for!?” the kobold shouted angrily. “Obviously I made one myself!”
Lexton pulled out the device he was talking about, showing it without even attempting to hide the pride he was feeling. However, his companions were not too impressed by what he had built. In fact, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that they were actually somewhat disappointed.
The device the kobold had built was obviously made out of parts found from a junkyard. It was made of a small monitor that had a noticeable crack on the bottom left corner and its sides were covered in scratches and bumps, like it had been thrown down a rocky hill. From behind the monitor came a long thin wire that ended at what looked like a tuning fork.
“...Lex, I know you’re a skilled alchemist and that you can make some of the most incredible equipment by yourself easily. I have no issues with using whatever it is you build, because I know it’s of great quality, as my own sword and many other things prove it,” Erin said. “But I can’t help but feel like that thing isn’t exactly of that level of quality. I mean, does that thing even work?”
“Of course it does! I’ve tested it myself!” Lexton said angrily, offended by the accusation. “I know it doesn’t look all pretty, but that’s simply because I didn’t have the time to work on the appearance!”
“Yeah, that would sound more convincing, if your gizmo didn’t look like it was dropped here,” Ryle said. “Besides, it looks different from the stuff those other guys are using. Is it really gonna do the same thing theirs do?”
“Oh for the love of… Somebody save me from these barely functioning dumbasses,” the kobold mumbled to himself while pinching his nose out of frustration. “Look, there is a fully functional reason as to why this looks so much different! It has to do with me not wanting to become some underground monstrosity’s lunch!”
Erin was about to ask what Lexton meant, when she realized that all the people operating these devices had to stand on ground when they were observing the vibrations they were measuring. In other words, they had to put themselves at the risk of getting devoured by whatever they were on the lookout for. This is what the kobold wanted to avoid.
“I see your point,” the redhead said. “But does your machine still work well enough for us to know when monsters are coming towards us? Even if it lets you stay away from danger, it’s kind of useless if it doesn’t help us find the Reaper Maggot.”
“Just watch,” Lexton said as he walked outside the building they were hiding in.
The others watched as the kobold simply took the part of his device that looked like a tuning fork and stuck it into the ground. He then walked back into the building and flipped a switch on the monitor, turning it on. Although a bit blurry, the monitor showed some of the nearby people as dots.
“Do you get it now? Just by placing the sensor into the ground, the wire connected to the monitor allows me to watch over things from a safe location,” Lexton explained with a smug look on his face. “This way, there is no need for me to risk my own life walking around like some idiot, who might as well cover themselves in ketchup for the monsters.”
“That’s really clever of you, Lex! Great work!” Erin said with a big smile, happy to hear that the risk they were facing had lessened. “So with this device, we’ll be able to find the Reaper Maggot?”
“Not exactly,” the kobold replied. “While this thing will be able to discover it, its range is nowhere near enough to cover the whole pit. If we want to find that thing, I’m afraid we are going to have to lure it here ourselves.”
“...And how do we do that?” the redhead asked, already fearing the answer.
“Isn’t it obvious? We need to place a bait to get it to come to us. And that bait needs to be something that it wants to eat,” Zeldana explained. “And THAT is us. Isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s YOU guys specifically. I’m afraid I’ll be too busy watching over the monitor to bother with that,” Lexton said with a smirk. “I’ll be leaving the job of being bait to you chuckle schmucks. Have fun out there! And try not to let the big bad maggot bite you.”
“...What did we do this time to piss you off?” Erin asked with a sigh. “Sometimes I have to wonder if you’re actually on our side or not.”
Despite the danger they were placing themselves into, Erin and most of her companions proceeded to try and lure out the Reaper Maggot. They did this by simply walking around the place, occasionally stomping their feet on the ground in the hopes of attracting their target to come to them. They made sure not to stray too far away from the building Lexton was at with his monitor, as they would otherwise get easily snatched up by the monsters living there.
However, even though they were putting in their best efforts, they seemed to be unable to attract the Reaper Maggot towards them. Outside of some regular underground beasts that lived in the area, their hunt had been rather uneventful.
“Lex, are you getting anything?” Erin asked as she stomped her feet, hoping that their target would come to them. “I don’t know about the others, but my legs are starting to get tired.”
“Nothing so far, I’m afraid,” the kobold replied with a shrug. “I think even some of the regular animals are starting to avoid us. Besides you guys, I can only see the signs of the other group that’s doing their research nearby.”
“So you’re telling me that we’ve been doing this dumb stomp dance for no reason at all?” Ryle asked with her voice coated in displeasure. “How about we come up with a plan that doesn’t make us look like a bunch of idiots?”
“I’m afraid that this is the best plan we’ve got,” Arkay said, hoping to calm the blonde. “We know how the Reaper Maggot hunts and how it hunts, so all we can do is use that. I’m sure Lex has thought of every other possible thing we could do, but this is all we have.”
“Arnie, I love you for your kindness, but you need to know when to not give it to someone, okay?” Ryle said with a sigh. “I mean, look at the scaly bastard! He’s sitting on his ass in safety, while we are out here acting as snacks for the monsters! If that’s not complete bullshit, I don’t know what is!”
“The reason I’m here is because I’m the only one who knows how to handle a delicate device like this! Can you do it!? I freaking doubt it!” Lexton shouted angrily. “In fact, I’m sure the most complex tool you’ve ever used is a hammer and even then you-!”
The kobold suddenly stopped his angry rant, upon something appearing briefly on his monitor. It was only for a moment so small that you would have missed it had you blinked, but he could have sworn that he saw it. For just the briefest of moments, he thought he saw a very large blip appear on the monitor, indicating something big moving in the area.
However, as he watched the monitor, waiting for it to happen again, it didn’t appear. This caused him to eventually chalk it up to being just an error of some kind. After all, nothing that large could just disappear without a trace like that.
The mistake Lexton made was rooted in his assumption that the Reaper Maggot, despite its fearsome reputation, was still a simple beast in the end. Nothing but an animal to be lured into a trap. The fact was that the Reaper Maggot hadn’t earned its reputation on strength alone, but on its cunning as well, which it had cultivated through decades of hunting those who came to hunt in its domain. In that time, it had learned how to avoid detection, only appearing when it knew it would catch its prey for certain.
Had the kobold paid enough attention, he would have noticed how one of the signals of the nearby group had just disappeared along with the large blip that had appeared.
Unknown to all of the people there, the Reaper Maggot had come to hunt.
image [https://i.ibb.co/BPfdBg5/Ch-125-Pic-2.jpg]