Chapter 183 - Night Hunting (2/2)
”Slaine and Roll, there are a few trees here. Climb them and check for salamandrids. I would suggest to not use pets in this area. Most beast are higher level and could kill them easily,” said Shadow sending the team a picture of the beast that he had previously killed. He had the others hiding behind shrubbery.
The team slowly scouted the area and found quite a few new beasts that they haven't seen before. They soon noticed that all those beasts, the ash panther, cinder wolves, ember horn deer. All of them were above level 18 and few of the beasts were even stronger.
The ash panther was the only one that they found alone, the rest were all pack animals and were in small groups at the very least. If they weren't hiding in the surrounding vegetation or they didn't have scopes which extended their range of vision, they would have certainly died.
”This place is much more dangerous than you have described,” said Roll. He was having a really hard time as he and Shadow were the ones that had to scout ahead to check the surroundings before they could move. They didn't want to get towards the volcanoes as the beasts would only get stronger. So, they were moving in a curve maintaining the distance from the volcanoes. Shadow and Roll, being assasin class players had to take on the duty of scouts in this place while Slaine kept a lookout at the rear.
Though they didn't actually get to kill any salamandrids for the past half hour, they managed to make note of the terrain of the place and mapped it. Through their scopes, they found a few herbs like the flamegloves and sootleaf which can be used in potions and also had a few glimpses of the fire spouting from the ground and once a lava chunk that fell through the air. It frightened them as the damage from such a thing would be fatal to the players.
Shadow had slowly had them get to the places of these environmental hazards as there was a high chance of finding ores at these places. The others were afraid to get closer, but Balthazar knew that there was no chance of another hazard close to the vicinity of a previous one in a short frame of time. So, he went to the place to check. He wasn't very lucky and got only a few copper ore and a silver ore. Though the rest of the team were impressed by these, Shadow was not. He had seen better results in his past life, and he didn't yet find any fireglows.
”I think we should also concentrate on the Welog town and the place. This is like a treasure trove. We couldn't find copper on sale and we got both copper and silver along with a few unknown herbs,” suggested Perennial Light as they were checking the area.
”No, this is just the outskirts and we are a small team. When more people come in large numbers to farm here, the reaction from the native life here would be large. It is best to not involve the guild in it. There will a number of deaths and the place will be much hotter during the day and will be impossible to stay here without fire resistance. Magical classes will find it hard as all strong spells need a few seconds to cast them, but the fire damage will continuously interrupt you,” explained Shadow.
”I have tried to be here during the daytime, and I suffered fire damage during last few hours of the day time, so believe me it is a waste. There will be high level beasts even ones with level 30 and 40 as we go a bit closer to the volcano. We will simply waste our experience if we farm here. So, it is best to do this at night. We can have a few players get reputation in this town, even get a good number of players posted here, but don't go deep into this area in large numbers,” warned Shadow.
After that they continued for another 5 to 10 minutes when Slaine finally spotted a salamandrid which popped out of the ground in the area which they had already crossed. ”Found a salamandrid. It is level 19 and 2-metre-long,” informed Slaine in their chat.
They quickly moved back towards the location of the salamandrid. There were two fireglows that were already hovering over it. ”That is very large, and it will be hard to kill it,” said Rudra looking at the beast. ”Can we just capture the two fireglows and escape?”
”Once we capture the fireglows the salamandrid will attack and follow us. It is quite fast when it is aggravated and capable of jumping long distances. It won't be possible to get rid of it easily or quickly which only makes it more difficult for us in this environment,” said Shadow.
”I will take lead with Roll to capture the fireglows. We need to get into stealth capture them at a time,else we will lose them. When you are ready, we will count to three and capture them at a time.,” said Shadow as he took out the other net he had brought from store and gave it to Roll along with a contaner. ”Don't let the net touch the body of the salamandrid. It will burn up.”
”After you two capture the fireglows?” asked Slaine.
”Roll gets away and I will attack it temporarily. I will give the signal when you guys need to attack. Just be ready and don't attack till I give the signal. Aim for its head,” said Shadow.
He went into stealth along with Roll and a few seconds later the pair of them were behind the salamandrid. They ended up catching the two fireglows while salamandrid attacked them and a couple of seconds later, Shadow had moved away and used the same method as always to cut up its belly when it jumped at him. He immediately called for the others who rained their attacks on the salamandrid.
The salamandrid was level 19 and his attack had caused less damage on it, but the beast had a big enough cut on its underside to hinder its movements like it happened before. Though his own attack didn't cause as much damage as before, the attacks from five others caused much more damage to it than he managed to individually.
He followed up with his usual attacks on its head and then used the dynamite in meat to injure it further. This time the attack didn't cause the same amount of damage as before, but the salamandrid still died under the attacks of the five players.
”Might need to get better explosive designs if I plan to use it in this manner at higher levels,” thought Balthazar as he realized that the dynamite caused less damage than before. He might have had to continue fighting it for at least double the time as the other salamandrids.
”Dude! Are you a bit suicidal that you ran in its direction, when it jumped at you?” asked Brick. ”Even a guardian would be crushed by that monster.”
”Its underside was its weak point. I can't think of a better way to kill it faster,” replied Shadow.
”Still, that was a bit reckless. It also made a lot of noise. I think it is better to injure its belly like you did and use that chance to escape from the next time,” suggested Slaine.
”Why? We got a great haul. Even got 140 experience points each. We were hardly getting a total of 400 points per beast when we killed in the forest,” asked Brick who was cutting up the salamandrid corpse to forage for materials. Shadow only took the firestone and left the rest for the team.
”Because it is taking time and the area is dangerous. The beast roared very loudly after the explosion in its body. We have managed to kill it but, I already see an ash panther in one direction and cinder wolves in the other coming here due to the commotion.,” explained Slaine. ”We don't want to fight them and might have to use our hearthstones to get away and return again.”