[Melas] Chapter 90: Packs of Kobolds

“So, what are we doing?” I asked, turning to Gennady. The Dwarven man smiled.

“We’re hunting.”

“By just being here?”

“Yep.”

“...and it’s supposed to work?” I quirked an eyebrow, looking at him dubiously.

He nodded and shrugged nonchalantly. “Of course. You’ve never been hunting proper, have you? This is what we do.”

I wanted to believe him, I really did. However, I glanced around at the empty forest. “Are you really sure about this? This seems like a thing hunters do. Not Hunters.”

“Look, do you trust me, Melas?’ Gennady turned back to me with a boring gaze— in both meanings of the word.

“Mhm.” I made a sound in agreement. “But this just doesn’t seem… appropriate.”

“You think it’s dull, don’t you?” he finally asked.

“I know it’s dull. We’ve been lying here doing nothing for the last three hours!”

The Dwarf shook his head.

“If you’re so impatient, fine. We’ll head back for now. But what do you suggest we do to draw out the Horned Ursa?” He gave me a look. I sighed.

“If we knew it was a Horned Ursa, I’ll be fine with this,” I said, glancing down at the heavily enforced bear trap he had set. “However we don’t. And we’ve been here for so long, Elda got bored and went back to the village with Sevin.”

Gennady snorted. “They don’t have the patience because they aren’t Hunters.”

“I appreciate your advice, Gennady. I really do. You’ve helped me through so much. But I think we should go back for now. Rethink our strategy for tomorrow, alright?”

“Can’t appreciate genius, the lot of you,” he murmured under his breath. “But fine. Let’s go.”

I smiled back at him. Then I looked down.

“So, uh, can you give me a hand and untie me? I’m not exactly good with heights.”

“Just cut it.” Gennady grinned and flicked a small dagger at his ropes. He fell to the ground with a thud, then raised the weapon. “They always say the best bait is live bait, but it seems the fish didn’t bite today, eh?”

“Wait no—”

The dagger went flying, cutting the rope holding me up in half. I dropped to the ground next to him, staggering, but managing to stay standing. I looked back up at the branch hanging 30 feet off the ground.

“I hate heights.”

That had been a horrible plan. Gennady used us as baits for the Horned Ursa. We were dangling off a tall tree branch, as if that would stop the giant Monster from reaching us.

Well, technically the distance between us and the ground wasn’t what the Dwarf thought would keep it back. He was planning on me using magic and using his own mana tech tools to hurt it, and lure it into the bear trap he had set up. It would not have been ‘trapped’ by the bear trap, per se. However, it certainly would have impeded its movements for a moment, allowing us to launch a salvo of attacks on it.

I’d have preferred another strategy though, which was why we were returning to Qala’taw.

“Finally grew some brains and left, huh?” Elda greeted us as we stepped foot into the inn we were staying at. It was not a large inn by any measurements; it was quite small, and completely empty apart from the Dwarf innkeeper that wasn’t even here right now.

“More like I grew tired of hanging off a tree,” I muttered under my breath. Gennady snorted.

“You lot just aren’t made up of what it takes to be a Hunter. I’m a Tinkerer and a Scientist, but I’ve learned how to hunt. And that is what you have to do. It requires patience.”

“Sorry, can’t be patient when dealing with Dwarf crap. Like refusing to move away from an active volcano.” Elda grinned.

I grimaced, thinking that the former pirate took it too far. However Gennady simply smirked back. “At least we aren’t trynna fix a broken system of government by robbing merchants.”

“Aw, how cute. The little man is trying to banter—”

“Alright, that’s enough,” I said, glancing back at Gennady to confirm he wasn’t offended. He wasn’t— he seemed to still be taking it in stride. But I wasn’t just going to let it devolve into a possible tense real argument. “We’re just taking a break for today. Tomorrow we’ll investigate.I trust Gennady, and if we find out the Monster is really a Horned Ursa, then we’ll do what he suggests. For now, we find out more.”

Elda shook her head. “You’re no fun.”

“Seriously. What a killjoy.” The Dwarf sighed over exaggeratedly. I rolled my eyes and turned to Sevin as he entered the common room of the inn from outside.

“Where have you been?” I asked him with a raised brow.

“Just asking around. Questioning the locals about what they’ve seen and whether it fits the description of a Horned Ursa.”

“Been productive, eh lad?” Gennady laughed. “Guess you’re really my better student, huh?”

“Shut up,” I scoffed, ignoring the Dwarf. “What did you find out, Sevin?”

“Well, other than the fact that the Monster looked like a large bear, nothing really. It has completely mauled everyone it has attacked, leaving very little behind.” Sevin hesitated and glanced between me and Gennady. “I’ll be honest, I agree with Mel— Aria’s assessment. I don’t think it’s a Horned Ursa.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t a Horned Ursa,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure before we do anything. However, why don’t you think it’s one?”

“For starters, no account I’ve heard about the Monster includes the most important part of a Horned Ursa— it doesn’t have horns.”

“Are you sure?” I gave him a dubious look.

“Yep. No mention of horns, at least. I’ve also sketched out the descriptions of what I’ve heard and shown it to various people who claim to have seen the Monster. But look, I purposefully left out the horns and they all didn’t even notice it.” He lifted a piece of paper with a pencil drawing on it. Gennady, Elda and I peered at it.

“This looks like a bear,” Elda commented. “Like a regular bear. Not even a Monster.”

“Exactly my thoughts,” Sevin said. “So I don’t really know whether we should believe them when they say it’s a Horned Ursa.”

“That’s not possible though.” Gennady frowned, glancing up at the young man. “There’s no way a bear would be able to destroy all the golems we’ve stationed here. Maybe one or two would be overwhelmed, but all of them?” He rubbed at his scruffy beard. “That’s not possible.”

I considered this for a moment; it definitely seemed unlikely for a regular bear to be doing all that this Monster supposedly did. So we knew for sure it had to be a Monster. I turned to Gennady.

“Could you pull out your bestiary? Find any Monsters that fit the description of a bear.”

“I can think of a few, but nothing that would be this dangerous.”

I nodded and pulled out a chair. “Right,” I said as I sat down. “We’ll piece together whatever information we can today, and tomorrow we’ll go out and try to track this Monster down. But first—”

I raised a hand, calling over the innkeeper behind the bar.

“We eat.”

Our group of four left Qala’taw the next day, going down the dirt road that supposedly had the most sightings of the Monster. I glanced back for a moment, looking at a building in the distance separated from the main village area. It went higher up the mountain, closer to the volcano, but still enough of a distance away that the ash explosions wouldn’t reach it.

I saw steam drifting up into the sky and knew that was where the supposed Springs of Recovery was. I really wanted to go there, just to relax— maybe take a nice clean bath. However, I promised Birzhan we would take care of their Monster problem before I used it. It was a simple trade, quite skewed in his favor since entry to the hot springs wasn’t actually that expensive.

But he said I’d be able to use it for free forever, so I graciously accepted his offer. I wasn’t sure how often I’d visit this place, due to being next to an active volcano and all, but I wasn’t going to turn down a possible vacation location for the future.

We continued down the dirt road, keeping a careful watch for anything that could be lurking behind the trees just in case the Monster decided to show up. Gennady, however, paid attention to the tracks and footprints on the ground— as a Hunter, he was aware of what was made by animals and what was made by Monsters. I never would have thought a Dwarf would be a good tracker, but apparently he was.

Seeing him bend over and carefully inspect any suspicious trails was pretty funny too.

“What are you laughing at?” he asked as he straightened.

“Nothing,” I said, suppressing a smile. “Found anything yet?”

“‘Course not!” the Dwarf snorted. “Did ye really think we’d—”

“Shush.” Edithe snapped her gaze to the side warily. Immediately, Gennady, Elda, and I spun in the direction of some rustling bushes. Sevin was a step behind us, but he readied his weapon all the same.

I felt the very tip of a spell rest on my finger, however I conjured nothing yet. Instead, I reached for a pouch on my belt and grabbed one of the Cluster Bomb spheres I had prepared. The bush stopped moving as the last of the snow fell from its leaves. A pair of glowing eyes looked up at us—

“Oh, it’s just a Kobold.”

We stared at the small dog-like Monster as it growled at us. A small group of four surrounded us from all around. I sighed.

“And I thought it was something actually dangerous.”

The Kobolds leapt at us, and in an instant a knife stuck out of the head of the first. The second fell to the ground, littered in holes through its body. The last two were blown apart by my Cluster Bomb, not even a threat. Sevin just stared as the three of us took care of the Monsters without even trying.

“You guys…” he trailed off.

“Come on, let’s get moving,” I said, looking up at the location of the sun in the sky. “I don’t want to freeze out here for nothing.”

So we continued on; we ran only into animals and Kobolds. No other Monsters showed themselves, which was rather odd. According to Birzhan, Qala’taw was native to quite a few Monsters which weren’t showing up. And that was quite odd.

The only time we found a group of Monsters that weren’t Kobolds— well, they were being feasted on by Kobolds. The large, rhino-like creature lay dead alongside its kin. They had been torn apart— shredded. All that was left of them were now being chewed out by the small dog-like Monsters.

A single Cluster Bomb obliterated the Kobolds.

“A Triosp,” Gennady observed. “They’re B Ranked Monsters— there’s no way these Kobolds took them out.”

“Think the ‘Horned Ursa’ bear thing did this?” I asked, frowning.

“Probably. But this doesn’t look like the work of a Horned Ursa.”

“Why not?” Elda gave him a dubious look. “As far as I can tell, some large Monster attacked some other large Monster and killed it. I don’t see how it disqualifies a Horned Ursa.”

The Dwarf Hunter shook his head. “Look at its corpse. It had been killed, and left uneaten. That was why the Kobolds were here. They aren’t very smart, but if there’s food, they’ll take it. Horned Ursa’s however, are intelligent.”

The woman shrugged. “It’s probably just mad. Being intelligent doesn’t mean you don’t make stupid decisions from time to time.”

“That’s true,” Gennady said. “However for months on end? That’s unusual.”

“Weren’t you the one who insisted it was a Horned Ursa? Why are you changing your stance now?”

“I’m not changing my stance. I’m reassessing the situation.” He turned to her with a frown and folded his arms. “What about you? You haven’t had anything constructive to say since we came here.”

“I’m just here to throw knives at things,” she said simply.

“Then maybe stick to doing that and keep your mouth shut, eh?”

“What’s wrong, Dwarf? Can’t keep up some banter—”

“Guys,” I sighed, interrupting them. “Can we not argue, and instead focus on the task at hand? Look, more Kobolds are coming.”

“I think I can argue and fight at the same time quite well,” Gennady snorted, raising his hunting rifle. Elda grinned, flicking a knife onto her hand..

“Probably too old for that.”

I just stared at them, blank faced as they flung their projectiles at the oncoming Kobolds. Sevin was faster this time, scurrying for his own rifle and firing it at the Monsters. He missed most of his shots, but landed a few and even killed a handful of Kobolds.

This pack was relentless. Over a dozen of them charged us at once. The pack leader took a few blasts to the face, undeterred by my Shock Pistol’s supposedly deadly bolts. I lowered the weapon and tossed another Cluster Bomb at the charging group.

The explosion blew apart the nearby Kobolds. The leader was sent flying in the air. The last of the Kobolds fell, dead.

“Hah, did you see that? I took out half of them on my own—”

“Only because they’re so weak. All you had to do was point and shoot—”

I ignored the two as they continued bickering. Aren’t I the kid here? I thought as I rested my forehead on the palm of my hand. I only looked up when I felt someone prodding at me.

“M-Melas?” Sevin tapped me on the shoulder quickly.

“What is it?” I asked, blinking. I narrowed my gaze as I saw what he was pointing at. Amongst the pile of dead Kobolds, I saw a figure moving. It was the pack leader— its body was convulsing.

Or at least, I thought it was convulsing at first. Because of that, I just watched as it suddenly shifted. The rough-skinned body of the Kobold morphing as thick, gray fur grew out of its sides. At this point, even Elda and Gennady had stopped, having noticed what was going on.

The ‘Kobold’ slowly picked itself up, pawing one clawed hand to the ground as it grew larger and larger, now towering over us at nearly 12 feet. Its canine head turned rounder as its fangs detracted, but its front legs grew longer as they almost became arms. Its eyes flashed red as it faced us in the middle of its dead kin.

Well, they weren’t its kin. Not anymore.

“Uh oh.”

“What is that?” I asked as I raised my pistol and aimed it at the Monster.

“That, lass,” Gennady started and turned to me, “is a Werebeast. An A Ranked Monster, just like a Horned Ursa. I guess we found our culprit after all.”

It charged us with a ferocious roar.

Author's Note:

31/12/2020 Sorry for the late chapter. And unfortunately, there will only be one chapter this week.

I can't lie and say it's not demotivating to see the chapters after my break get less than half the views of my chapters before I took my much needed break. And seeing my ranking drop from 500 to 600 and my rating drop from 4.37 to 4.33 is equally demotivating.

However, those weren't what delayed the chapter. The real reason for the delay and the only single chapter this week was A) I got sick and B) I'm celebrating the holidays. Unlike Salvos, I don't have a backlog for Melas so I can't just enjoy myself while I post chapters and occasionally write them over the holidays. And again, I couldn't write as much as I wanted to because I got sick, so even my backlog for Salvos has gotten eviscerated.

Anyway, I'm not proud of the most recent chapter I wrote. I have once again fallen for the trap of writing what I feel are hollow chapters: nothing really happens and scenes are dragged out to reach a certain WC. I need to revisit the Plague Doctor and Hunter arcs to be perfectly honest. They're my favorite arcs, and I want to see what I did right there, and try to implement that for future chapters in Book 3. This means that chapters will be more sporadic, which is the bad news. But if I want to write Melas in a way that I'm proud of, I have to get better at writing.