Chapter 10

The voices came nearer and the pair peaked around the boulder. A group of four people came into view and Rain instantly recognised them as an adventuring team, one he had never seen before.

He was uncertain exactly how long it had been since he had died, days probably, but he was still frustrated to realise that it wasn’t Brax’s group, he had hoped that his murderers might have stayed by the lake. He let himself relax slightly, he wasn’t sure it would have helped if they had been Brax’s, he had no way of defeating them in his current state, levelers killed monsters all the time and he was by no means an atypical challenge for someone immensely strong like Brax ... yet.

He didn’t let himself fully relax. This was still a dangerous team of levelers and he intended to gather information if possible.

There were four of them in the team, a male human, a male elf, a female Satyr, and a female half-elf-half-felis: that is an elf with feline features.

No one Rain knew. He suspected they may have come from out of town as he knew many of the adventurers who made a home there. A pretty common occurrence as the town of Lynthia was built originally to be a stopping off point before entering the local dungeon. People came from far away to get access to the dungeon all the time.

“What the? What a monstrous alligator! We don’t have to run do we?”

“I don’t know Belle, how would I know- hey stop!”

The male elf booted the giant alligator. The alligator didn’t respond.

“Hey, that’s dangerous! What would you have done had it been alive?” snapped the Human.

“It’s fine, I used one of my Skills to check. Things stone cold dead, died of old age by the looks of it.”

“That’s the kind of thinking that gets an adventurer killed, especially when they aren’t familiar with the local monsters. For all you know it could have been hibernating and giving the illusion of death, or hell, it might be an undead, it’s the right color for it.”

The elf pursed his lips but took a step back from the alligator.

“Look at that thing on its head! That’s got to be worth a few coins.”

“I bet the monster parts are worth more, high levelers will pay out the nose for good quality materials.”

“I don’t know, that is a fair bit of gold.”

“I checked the sides, looks completely unmarked, no sign it was killed by a monster or adventurer. As the elf said, it most likely died of old age.”

The Satyr wandered up to it and withdrew a longsword from a scabbard at her side.

“Good, that means it’s ours. All we got to do is lopp of a foot and take it back the guild as proof of our claim. Then we can come back with some pack mules and cart it to the surface in bits. Hopefully no one tries to poach it while we’re doing that.”

She took a few steps back and swung the sword around a few times to warm up, then stretched her neck and shoulders. Finally, she raised it above her head and with a yell swung it down on the wrist of the alligator.

‘Tink!’ Her sword snapped in two and the broken part of the blade flew off and plopped into the lake.

“OH MY GOD MY SWORD!”

“What? What happened?”

“My sword! Do you even know how much I paid for this?!”

The Satyr hopped up and down on the spot in pure rage.

“Well, it can’t have been very much if it broke like a cheap piece of tin.”

“It was enchanted surefire steel damn you!”

“Well damn. Maybe you got scammed?”

“ARGHHHH!!!”

“Look, just let me handle it, I have more levels than you anyway,” said the Human as he unhooked an axe, one of two, from his back.

The Satyr glared at him as she cradled her broken sword like a wounded child.

“It’s not gunna work.”

The man rolled his eyes and without preamble heaved his axe down on the alligator’s wrist. The axe head promptly shattered and chunks of metal exploded across the ground.

“This thing is made out of bullshit!” screamed the man.

“I told you! I told you so! But would you listen! Nooo, nobody listens to the Satyr. Just a dumb drunkard species, who needs their advice? You just had to try it didn’t you!”