Several kilometers from the territory, a bloody scuffle was ongoing and reaching its peak.
"Don’t go there, damnit!" A pudgy and dirty man yelled at his companion, who in his panic ended up running to the mouth of a monster instead of running away from it.
The man blinked and turned his head, and it was the last time he’d be able to do so.
Splack!
It was night and only the two moons partially covered by the dense foliage and a dimming flashlight were their only sources of illumination.
They couldn’t see what happened, but the gruesome sound of biting and chewing made everyone shake in fear.
Baron and the others were pale, but didn’t have the time to mourn the loss of yet another companion.
"Distract it!" He ordered his cousin, a buff woman named Bianca, as he looked at the monster they have been handling together.
They needed to end this one urgently because there was another monster was without an enemy, and it meant someone would deal with two.
Bianca nodded and she ran in another direction hitting the monster as she moved.
The monster—a 1-meter tall monster with three ugly eyes, saber tooth, and three legs—changed its target and faced her.
Baron quickly took his remaining iron stick and with all his strength stabbed the monster on its few vulnerabilities—the skin right under its 5th rib, something that they had discovered after the same monster killed their 6th companion.
[Killed! Tripiel (Lv2). +50 experience, +50 copper coins!]
They worked together beyond their capacity to deal with the remaining monsters. Some kicked, some hit, and some even used their own bodies to bump into it in desperation.
Sometimes it worked, most of the times it didn’t, because it was as dark and they were weak and these damned monsters had very thick skins!
After a few more losses, they were finally left with one, but in exchange everyone was nearly emptied and incredibly weak.
With a wave of its strong arms, the remaining monster hit two of their surviving companions, throwing them high in the air—BANG!—and making them hit a tree and a rock, respectively.
These companions lost consciousness the moment they touched the surfaces, leaving the two cousins behind to deal with it.
Fortunately, it was already sufficiently weakened and although they lost a few pints of blood, they still managed to hit its weak spots constantly, bleeding it to death.
This time, he let Bianca have the final shot.
[Killed! Tripiel (Lv2). +50 experience, +50 copper coins!]
When they saw it fall down, dead, their legs lost strength and they both fell down to the ground, unable to move anymore. Baron tried to raise his flabby arms but it was too heavy.
With a huff, he looked at the corpses of monsters and humans around them. He saw that Bianca was sobbing, and the other surviving companions that had their consciousness were lifelessly just staring at the trees.
Baron knew one thing: If more monsters were to be attracted by all this blood…, then it would be their end.
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