WebNovels

Chapter 8 - Another Quest Triggered!

In the moonless night, inside the Kroll Forest, somewhere between the border of the Kruger province and the Parsley province, which is the place where the capital city of the Great Golden Empire is, the rough laughter of a group of men could be heard echoing in the forest as many men in dirty robes and worn-out leather armor huddled around the campfire with butchered rabbits and birds sizzling on the sticks around the fire, as the smell of roasted meat spread out in the surrounding area.

The men are joking around and laughing vulgarly with each other in the forest as if they are students on a school trip, but the weapons and some bloodstains on them say otherwise.

These men are a gang of bandits that just migrated from the other province since the presence of traveling people has been getting fewer and fewer recently in their previous territory thanks to the increasing bandit and monster attacks throughout the empire.

With very few prey traveling the land, the bandit gang can't sustain their banditry way like this, so the gang has decided to move for new hunting ground, expecting more prey, but reality is often disappointing as their situation only improves a little bit.

Among the group of rowdy bandits sitting around the camp, there's their boss, a large burly man who is missing two fingers on his left hand, currently drinking lukewarm ale from the wineskin in his hand before he puts it down roughly after he has had enough of the awful liquid and spews it out from his mouth. He felt like he was just drinking salty piss instead of ale!

"Fuck, let's go rob some merchant bastard again tomorrow," he grunted, wiping the droplets of ale from his beard with his thick arm before he continued to speak with pure greed in his eyes. "That last merchant caravan is too poor; they only have shitty grain and some coins! How am I going to become rich with this small fucking loot?!"

"Hehehe, Boss is right..." Some of the bandits chuckled along with their boss's ridiculous complaint, like employees who have to humor their boss' lame joke, while the rest of them just don't care and sharpen their blades with lazy strokes, looking out for any threat around the campsite half-heartedly.

They are quite lacking in terms of alertness because they think that they are a pretty good distance away from the road, so no people will stumble upon their bandit camp this deep in the forest, which just popped up in the area recently. They also didn't hear any rumor of a powerful monster in the area, which ended up putting down their vigilance even more.

Above the camp, ancient trees creaked in the wind, their branches swaying slightly as some leaves slowly fell to the ground. The forest was getting eerily quiet, while the bandits didn't notice a thing as they kept making noise.

Unfortunately for them, they are not the only ones who just moved into the forest, as the gang of bandits never expected that their merry moment was about to end very soon, as their unwelcome presence definitely didn't go unnoticed by the new apex predators that already think the whole Kroll Forest is their territory…

Then, with no warning whatsoever, a sudden heavy thud sounded as the silhouette of something big, comparable to a horse, just landed behind one of the sentries before the sound of bones crunching resounded in the camp as the big silhouette's long jaw clasped shut on the head of the bandit, who couldn't even react. This is, of course, drawing all of the bandits' attention to the sound as they stare at one of them who just got killed by something with wide eyes.

Before the bandits could scramble for their weapons, there were suddenly other movements around the camp as the same-shaped silhouettes with dark scales emerged from the darkness of the forest—three, then five, and finally eight creatures moving with agile speed from all directions, lunging at the still shocked bandits. The light of the bonfire reflects on the creature's long claws and rows of sharp teeth.

"What the fuck?!" The bandit boss instantly came back to his senses and then roared, swinging his axe wildly at the creature lunging at him, but with a clank of metal hitting metal, the axe bounced harmlessly off the creature's hard scales as the light of the bonfire finally illuminated the creature, fully revealing to him a Drake, the Lesser Land Dragon without wings, to the bandit boss's eyes.

'I'm fucked…!' The bandit boss is screaming in his mind as he realizes what is attacking them, and then the drake's jaws snap shut on his neck. Hot blood sprayed across the ground together with the other bandits that cried out in panic as they also got attacked.

Chaos in the bandit camp erupted. One bandit screamed, pinned beneath a drake's claws as it ripped his belly open while the stench of blood filled the air. Another tried to flee, stumbling over roots, only for one of the drakes to pin him down on the ground and shatter his skull with its powerful jaw snapping shut on his head.

Most of the bandits are trying to escape, as some who stayed and fought quickly found out how fucked they are. The drakes quickly finished off the dumbasses who stayed, and then they continued running after those who chose to flee.

The drakes moved in a coordinated manner, smartly herding the panicked bandits deeper into the dark forest away from the camp, where they will not be able to see properly in the dark as they get picked off one by one, with the constant deep growls of the pack of drakes that is full of primal fury demoralizing them.

While the chase was going on, one of the escaping bandits, who was bleeding heavily from his mangled right arm, suddenly swung his axe with his left hand blindly in desperation after he heard something getting close to him, and luckily for him, his attack actually hit something, as it did hit deep into a drake's scaleless flank. The blade sank into the drake's skin and made it bleed, but unfortunately he didn't do any serious damage.

The drake shrieked with fury, a sound like tearing metal and a whistle. Its serpentine neck snapped towards the not-so-lucky-anymore bandit as the drake's jaws engulfed the man's head. There was a wet crunch, a sickening gurgle, then silence. The bandit's body slumped in its jaw, twitching, as the drake shook its muzzle violently, scattering crimson droplets all over the place as the bandit's body swung around in its mouth.

At the same time in the other place, another bandit, eyes wide with madness, threw himself at a drake with nothing but a skinning knife, but the monster just swatted him aside like a ragdoll.

"Gah...!" He crashed against a tree trunk, ribs cracking audibly, before sliding down into a heap. The drake stalks forward, its low growl vibrating in the fallen man's ears. He can't do anything but scream and gurgle as the drake tears his throat open with its claws.

Another bandit, quite young, perhaps fifteen, fumbled with a crossbow, hands slick with sweat from fear. He then quickly shot the bolt at the circling drake. It, of course, glanced harmlessly off its thick scales near the drake's eye, sparking briefly. The creature didn't even flinch. It simply turned its head, vertical pupils like a serpent glaring at the boy, which caused him to freeze, the crossbow dropping from his grasp.

The pack of drakes has moved with brutal efficiency as they hunt down the bandits. They weren't killing them for food; they were exterminating them like an insect. Razor-sharp claws tore through leather armor like paper, and jaws snapped shut with bone-crushing force, silencing choked screams of their prey. The air in the forest grew thick with the metallic tang of fresh blood, the sour stench of spilled entrails, and the acrid reek of voided bowels that led to the bandit camp.

The eerie silent return as only the boy remained standing, frozen like a rabbit before a wolf pack. His crossbow lay useless at his feet. He stared, wide-eyed, trembling in fear at the drake whose eyes held him pinned in place. Its muzzle was slick with gore, fragments of skull and brain in the scales around its jaws.

It took a single, deliberate step forward, a low growl vibrating from its chest, shaking the boy's spirit even further. The sound wasn't just heard; it was felt deep in the boy's bones. He doesn't even have the courage to run away anymore; it's hopeless. He should just stay home and be a farmer just like his father and grandfather, but alas, his fate is decided...

"Ahhhhhghk—!" The scream was cut short as the drake crushed the boy's ribs with a heavy stomp after it pinned the helpless boy to the ground.

The drake glanced at its cruel handiwork briefly before raising its head and roaring in triumph, like it had declared the forest was theirs...

÷×÷×÷

In the morning of the next day, a luxurious carriage approached the Kroll Forest on the horizon with a platoon of black knights.

"We're about to cross over to Kruger, huh?" Zarba said as he stood on the seat of the carriage driver in his hunting outfit. They had been traveling for a couple of days now, and they were finally about to leave the Parsley province. An unthinkable travel speed for a group this size without ride animals, but they are also not a normal group of people, are they?

"Shall we rest outside the forest for today?" Xin's voice sounds from inside the carriage as she leans on the seat backrest with a glass of wine in her hand. She is dressed in an elegant black robe and a pair of black high heels today.

"No, we should keep going. I want to put the forest behind us tomorrow." Zarba shook his head in denial and decided to continue going through the forest. It's not like they can just relax and enjoy a trip, as Zarba is kind of paranoid that there might be a force already following them.

"We can slow down when we cross the border to another country!" Zarba said as he mentally commanded his summons to speed up a bit.

"Don't speed up anymore, my husband! The shaking will be unbearable!" Xin warned him as she felt the carriage shaking slightly; any more than this, she will have to make her displeasure known to her husband.

"Alright, alright, huh?" When Zarba was trying to reassure Xin, the long, silent SSS notification suddenly popped up in his vision with a quest, no less.

÷×÷×÷

[ System Alert! ]

—Quest triggered!

—Quest: Kroll Forest's Drakes Extermination!

—Objective: Kill all drakes in the Kroll Forest.

—Reward: [Obsidian Skeleton Horse Template]

÷×÷×÷

"Skeleton Horse…?" Zarba mumbled with a skeptical expression after he read the notification. He feels like the reward is kind of poor compared to the quest difficulty.

''A skeleton horse mount for killing a drake, really?' Zarba wonders if the SSS is malfunctioning or something; there's no way they are equal, as the drake is not a simple mob monster; it actually belongs in the mid-game. He'd win, of course, but it might take a while to find them all in the forest, a time he doesn't have!

'But do I really need a horse, though?' Zarba thought as he looked at his knights running steadily along the carriage while casually ignoring the ten units that were pulling the carriage in the front.

"Nah, I don't." Zarba just shrugs his shoulder like an asshole. He is not going to waste his time playing monster slayer in the forest.

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