System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 76
Roy cut off the heads of eight Nekker and two Nekker Warriors with an ease he’d never known, and the Witcher, his body still recovering, was sensible enough not to steal the kills; he only finished two stragglers whose decapitations had faltered.
Then the two of them moved down the tunnel and methodically slaughtered the Paralysis Poison–dulled Nekker one by one.
When the tally was done, within Letho’s crude, almost laughable trap, twenty Nekker and five higher-grade Nekker Warriors lay dead in less than twenty minutes.
Roy was drenched in sweat and his hands tingled, but not a single wound marred him.
Nekker Warrior yielded 30 XP, ordinary Nekker 20 XP.
That slaughter granted him 550 experience in total; XP became LV3 (1080/1500).
At that pace he would level up soon.
His face flushed, his breathing quickened.
The Witcher shot him a glare and warned, “Kid, don’t think Nekker are harmless, at your current skill three of them can make you cry.”
One died to an arrow, one to Intimidate; the last had to be dealt with in melee.
“You can only pull this trick here in the peculiar terrain of the Smaerk Mine tunnels.”
“Don’t worry...” Roy nodded solemnly, his face settling, “I was thinking of other, more pleasant things.”
“I notice your pleasant dream ends now. The guards are all dead, time for us to enter.”
Letho led. They left the litter of bodies and followed the tunnel to its end.
They entered a wide pit where the dense web of tunnels converged, the way beyond plunging deeper into Smaerk Mine.
They scavenged every bone and tatters nearby, found over a hundred crowns and pocketed them, then bowed to the strewn human remains.
“Though we took the dead’s coin, as principled Witchers we won’t keep it without respect, we’ll make a grave for them later,” Letho said.
Roy scanned the cavern. When his gaze fell on the northeast corner he froze.
Piles of pale skulls had been stacked into pyramids, the tallest about two feet high.
Each pyramid contained at least thirty crania; Letho and Roy moved closer to inspect. Most were human, dwarf, elf, goblin, and the rest small animals like rats and lizards.
Nekker secretions glued the skulls tight, like crude masonry, an unfinished monument of madness; the black eye-sockets stared mute and terrible, as if speaking of the pain and terror those heads had known in life.
“All Nekker work? What’s the point, some display of bravado?” Roy’s face went thin with a mix of horror and anger.
Letho’s expression remained cold, his voice steady, “To a Nekker a human is just walking meat, no different from sheep or cattle. Nature’s law is the strong feed on the weak.”
“Don’t trouble yourself over it, just remember to kill them on sight.”
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