System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 87
They slipped aside from the wagons in the afternoon, while the troupe ate and rested. Letho beckoned Roy and the two found an excuse to move off the road and slip into the scrub.
“Do you smell that...”
Roy nodded.
The heavily laden caravan had been less than half a day out of Shaerrawedd, not far along the road, when an abnormal stench of blood drifted in from the roadside.
“Not human, carries the pheromonal note of an arthropod-like creature.”
Letho opened his Witcher senses and trailed the scent-particles past a few crooked trees for about five minutes. He parted an alfalfa thicket and came to an abrupt halt.
“Hiss—” Roy drew a breath at the sight. Beneath waist-high tangles of shrubs, a dozen or more carcasses had been piled into a small hill; a vague rot and copper smell seeped outward.
From a distance they looked grey-brown all over, like great, magnified spider-like arthropods.
It was winter-cold, yet the bodies seemed unnaturally fresh.
Roy and Letho did not rush forward. They took up their weapons and moved cautiously, and then Letho used an Aard Sign to topple the heap, confirming the creatures before them were no longer a threat.
“How can such a number of monster corpses be found in the wilds? Gathered together like this — that’s not the work of mindless beasts.”
Letho gave a sign, and Roy crouched to inspect a nearby corpse.
The corpse stood roughly knee-high to a man.
“Spindle-shaped body covered in fur ... four chitinous plates ... the thorax and abdomen have no clear division ... four jointed limbs at the sides ... the head is small, facial features nearly indistinct...”
“Endrega?” the Witcher offered experimentally.
Roy shook his head, “Trying to mislead me? It lacks a scorpion tail and pincer-legs; this is clearly Kikimore...”
Endrega and Kikimore were both insectile beings that appeared after the Conjunction, often gregarious in the wild and liable to attack other beasts or passing humans. Both were dangerous to Witchers.
Roy turned over the small bucket-sized corpse. Unlike the thick grey dorsal carapace, the belly of a Kikimore was soft and pale yellow, extremely vulnerable.
“Fatal wounds ... to the abdomen, ripped open by sharp weapons or ... claws.” Fetid, green innards pooled on the ground; the four insect-legs were smeared with earth.
“You can imagine the violent struggle before it died.”
Roy did not flinch as he stretched a finger to touch the edge of the wound on the Kikimore’s belly; his expression grew grave.
He checked another corpse.
“The hard dorsal shell is furrowed with claw-marks; multiple dislocations of the body ... the killer’s strength was astonishing ... almost ripped it in two.”
“Several fist-sized holes burst the abdomen, wounds shaped like a beast’s bite; the bite’s center is relatively neat, edges torn in saw-like rips ... made by canines.”
“Oh? There’s one not quite dead yet; insectile life is tenacious.”
“Pfft—”
“Killed Kikimore, XP +30.”
“Not bad, only two types of magical creatures to go.”
Roy drew his bolthead from the small creature’s tiny skull, green blood spattering his hand, tore a handful of dewy grass and wiped his palm clean.
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