Chapter 93

Chapter 93

93: The Hunt

-Whoosh!

I narrowly avoided the club swung with terrifying force by bending at the waist. It was a swift strike, unexpected for its large size, but easy to dodge because its trajectory was straightforward. “Kher-uh-uhng!!” But I couldn’t let my guard down. Even with my Ironclad Armor, taking a hit from a 2.5-meter-tall monster would hurt quite a bit.

-Slice!

I swung my sword, cutting the troll’s arm as it passed by. The strike, delivered with proper posture and weight, pierced the troll’s hide and left a wound on its skin. But, in other words, that was all. “Kwoh-ah-ah!!!” Without showing much pain, the troll roared and reached for me with its other hand. It wasn’t holding the club, but getting caught would still hurt a lot. Evading the approaching hand, I swung my sword again, but this strike also only managed to leave a scratch on its thick hide. This thing is really tough. As I complained inwardly and took stance again, a sharp voice rang in my ear. “Lyla!” The voice belonged to El. She was swinging her sword behind the troll, calling out to me. El’s specialty was hand techniques, but it was a bit much to try those on a troll. She could inject inner force to pierce the troll’s skin and tear its hide, but that wouldn’t be cost-effective. Inner force is precious in this world.

-Slice.

As I swung my sword again, a faint sound of tearing flesh echoed in my ear. But the troll didn’t seem to be in much pain. After all, its thick hide and excellent regeneration quickly healed minor wounds like scratches. Our fight was half in vain. However, we weren’t just wasting our time.

-Whoosh!

“The position isn’t good! Lure it outside!” As I dodged the swinging club, Mien’s shout came from behind. That was exactly what we were aiming for. As she said, the current terrain wasn’t in our favor. It was hard to move freely in the narrow space of the cave. Moreover, we had to consider that everyone had just woken up suddenly from sleep, so their condition wasn’t great. And for the sake of the plan, we needed to lure it outside. “Come on out!” However, the troll didn’t seem to be a completely stupid monster. Every time we tried to go outside, it seemed to try to go further inside, as if aiming for Mien and Eira in the rear. And each time, Charka strained every nerve to keep the troll in check, driving it away.

-Whoosh!!

Watching the club pass by inches from my face, I steeled my resolve. This couldn’t be done with just swordplay. It was a bit of a waste, but I had no choice but to use inner force. “Die!”

-Slice!

“Kher-uh-uhng!!” “Eek! I got spit on!?” Nice, Elysium. Thanks to El drawing its attention, the troll was turning around. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I leaped at the troll and struck its spine with my palm.

-Thwack.

The palm strike landed squarely on the troll’s back, making a satisfying sound, but it didn’t seem that way to the others. I heard Mien’s panicked shout from behind. “Lyla, what!?” But there was no time to explain. I used the Weight Amplification Technique to penetrate inner force into the troll’s body, then quickly pulled my hand away. It was a technique to destroy the inside using inner force. Actually, it was closer to just slamming inner force in to damage the organs rather than destroying them. It wasn’t as grand as it sounded, so it wouldn’t work on opponents who had mastered martial arts that protected their internal organs through qi, or who blocked inner force from the skin. If the inner force was low quality, like Demonic Art, it had the disadvantage of being blocked by pure inner force. Anyway, hopefully, this would slow it down a bit… “Khrk?” It seemed to have been in vain. The troll was moving just as vigorously as before, swinging its club at El in rapid succession. It was sad that the inner force I had put in had so little effect. I should have saved it. “Eek! W-wait a minute! Stop!” El shouted loudly, but unlike her words, she was surprisingly dodging and blocking the troll’s attacks well. And perhaps her screams had further enraged the troll, as it swung its club with the ferocity of trying to beat El to death. After swinging the club about three or four times,

-Thud!

“Khrk!?” Suddenly, the troll’s club slammed into the cave wall, causing it to momentarily stop its assault. The club was stuck in the dirt wall, and this was the perfect opportunity. I couldn’t miss it, so I infused inner force into my sword and stabbed it into the troll’s calf.

-Thwack!

This time, I didn’t regret using inner force. “Kher-uh-uhng!!!” A gruesome sound of tearing flesh echoed, and unlike when I had slashed it, dark red blood spurted from the troll’s calf. Perhaps it couldn’t move with the sword stuck in it, even with its regeneration, the troll let out a painful scream and knelt on one knee.

-Swish!

Not missing the opportunity, Eira, who had run up from behind, sprayed some liquid on the troll. From the strong smell, I could tell it was oil. …Don’t tell me, it’s that method I’m thinking of. “Lure it outside as it is!” After spraying the troll with oil, Eira quickly leaped towards the cave entrance and shouted. There were still belongings left in the cave, but this wasn’t the time to worry about that. “Hmph!” Charka was the first to move. Unlike Eira’s signal, he ran towards the troll, who was kneeling, with his double-bladed axe. “Kher-uh-uhng!!” The troll roared furiously and reached out its arm, but Charka swung his axe, still in his running posture, and struck the troll’s arm. Flesh and blood arm versus steel weapon. The result was obvious.

-Crunch!

“Kieh-ek!!” If it were a human, the arm would have been severed, but the tough troll was mostly intact, except for the arm being half-split. You might ask how that’s intact, but it looked intact enough considering its arm had been struck by a large double-bladed axe. The troll let out another painful howl and clutched its arm. Taking advantage of the time Charka had bought us, we all escaped out of the cave. It was still the middle of the night, but it was bright outside. The bright moonlight caressed us as we emerged from the cave. “Everyone’s out, right?” “I think so.” Eira asked as she took out her bow, and I nodded. Me, Eira, Mien, Charka, El. A total of five people, so the numbers were right. Eira didn’t have time to check, so she connected the bowstring to the bow and sprayed something on the arrow she was holding in one hand. “Kheu-eu….” Meanwhile, the troll pulled the sword out of its calf and began to approach us with staggering steps. Even with one leg unusable, the troll was still huge and imposing. Its eyes were filled with anger and hostility. However, the situation was already over.

-Whoosh.

Eira, who had already nocked the arrow, was aiming at the troll. Red flames flickered and burned at the tip of the arrow. She fixed her gaze on the troll and gave us a light warning. “Be careful, it’s going to thrash like crazy.” With that, she released the bowstring she had been pulling. // “Kher-uh-uhng!!!!” A roar that could only be described as tremendous echoed, as if shaking the entire Great Forest. The troll’s body, covered in oil, was burning as if it had always been that kind of monster. I wondered if it would charge at us in that state, but it didn’t even seem to think of doing so, only rolling around on the ground. I had been so tense, but it was a relief for me.

-Whoosh!

“Kher-uh-uhng!!” The troll continued to roll around on the ground as if trying to put out the fire, but the fire on the oil didn’t go out easily. The troll rolled around on the ground for a while before finally slumping down and becoming motionless. “….” It was a slightly pitiful sight, but the troll’s grim appearance had the power to make the scene not so pitiful. I tensed my body and watched the troll, who was burning like a pile of firewood, with my shield raised. But there was nothing for me to do. Mien, who had been preparing behind us, walked towards the troll as soon as it stopped moving. She pointed her staff at the troll and approached it, chanting a spell. “Arlto Ademo.”

-Whoosh.

As the clear voice rang out, the flames that had been burning with the momentum of never going out extinguished at once. What remained in the place where the flames had disappeared was the troll’s body, half of which was horribly burned. I wondered if it was even alive. “Ugh, disgusting…” “Is it dead?” El turned her head away as if the sight was disgusting, and I asked Mien. “No, it’s just unconscious. Trolls don’t die from that much.” It was Eira who answered my question. I felt like I had heard that yesterday, but it seemed that it was normal for monsters in the Great Forest not to die even if their heads were cut off or their bodies were burned. While I was contemplating the existence of living things, Eira put her bow back on her back and let out a sigh of relief. “Phew, that was a surprise. I really thought we were going to die…” “I agree. If she hadn’t handled it well, we probably would have died.” I wondered if that was just Eira’s usual exaggeration, but seeing even Charka nod, it didn’t seem to be just exaggeration. I felt strange being praised out of nowhere. I didn’t do much. I just shouted loudly, ‘It’s a troll!’ and fought it 1 on 1 for a while. If that’s a big deal… no, on second thought, is it a big deal? “That’s right, you were really great!” El also smiled at me as if she agreed. As we were building camaraderie, Mien, who was drawing a magic circle near the troll, looked at us and shouted. “Could you guard this place for a while?” Come to think of it, it wasn’t over yet. At her words, me, El, and Charka each took up our weapons and surrounded the troll. In my case, I had to go with my bare hands because I didn’t have a weapon, but it was better than nothing. As the three of us surrounded the troll side by side, Mien seemed relieved and quickly increased the speed at which she was drawing the magic circle. “Can you lift it?” “It’s okay, just give it some strength.” Soon after she completed the magic circle, we dragged the unconscious troll’s body and placed it on the magic circle. The type of magic circle was the Familiar Summoning magic that we had used when we made Aruem our familiar. Even if we were hunters, we couldn’t carry a troll that weighed over 300kg. That’s why it was common to use this kind of contract magic for requests to capture monsters alive. “Contora do Mien…” The effects of Familiar Summoning magic were weak on magical creatures as powerful and intelligent as trolls, but if we used magic while they were unconscious, it was possible to cast a weak suggestion, so we could last until we returned to Karaldin. It wasn’t without risk, but it was a much safer and easier way than carrying an unconscious troll. “…Sa Noma.” Soon after the spell was finished, Mien sat down on a nearby rock. “Phew, it’s finally over. I almost had a really big problem.” With that, she slowly looked around at us. As if the battle until just now had been a lie, the surroundings were quiet. Since it was still night, only the sound of insects chirping echoed around us. “…Yeah, tell me about it. I still can’t tell if this is reality or a dream.” “Still, it’s good that the request is over quickly.”

When Era grumbled, sounding bored, El chuckled and replied from beside her. If you excluded the fact that we were ambushed, this request was lucky. We found the troll on the third day, and now all we had to do was take it to Karaldin, and it would be over. “Surely, there’s no one faster than us.” Era was half-convinced. And for good reason, the troll capture request came suddenly, and the deadline was tight. If we gathered people and set off within a day and caught the troll on the dawn of the third day, it was worth aiming for the reward. And even if not, we could just sell it to the dismantling yard for a good price. // The next day, we packed our things and immediately headed towards Karaldin. Thanks to Mien’s suggestion, the troll, which had been rampaging until yesterday, followed us quietly as if it had all been a lie. It looked more like a golem moving under a wizard’s command than a ferocious monster. And one shocking thing was that the body, which was clearly severely burned yesterday, had regenerated to some extent. Of course, it wasn’t fully healed, but even that much was an amazing level of regeneration. “Does it heal burns quickly too?” Considering that burns generally heal slowly naturally, this regeneration was definitely unnatural. But that’s just my Earthling thinking, and Mien, Era, and Charka seemed to think it was natural. “Of course. There’s a reason why it’s used as an ingredient for potions.” “…I see.” …El, the fact that you’re so convinced makes me feel like I’ve lost a comrade. But since this is normal in this world, I had no choice but to accept it. Even the calf where I stabbed the troll with my sword yesterday only had a faint scar left. They said it was a monster with excellent regenerative abilities, so it seemed like I shouldn’t look at the monsters of this world from an Earthling perspective. “By the way, can’t you just wipe everything out if you tame it with that familiar thing?” El, fascinated by the tamed troll, asked Mien with shining eyes, but there was a reason why that wasn’t possible. “Unfortunately, that’s impossible. Monsters that have already grown into adults have very strong egos, so even if you put a suggestion like this on them, they quickly recover and wake up. You have to renew the suggestion every day, and even then, if they receive a big shock or are given unreasonable orders, the suggestion will be broken.” There’s a reason why wyverns and griffons are raised from eggs. Even if the human mental structure is the most outstanding, complex mental control is required to tame powerful monsters. Some even say that a tamer doesn’t dominate monsters but becomes friends with them. That’s because it’s easier to handle them if the intimacy is high. However, raising a troll from a young age is a bit much. Unlike griffons and wyverns, which have imprinting, they are ferocious, and there’s no reason to raise them. They also look a bit grotesque, and even if you want to draw blood, there are wild trolls, and if you bother them, the taming magic might be broken, and they might go berserk. It didn’t take long to return to Karaldin after capturing the troll. Perhaps because we were carrying a troll that looked scary at first glance, demi-walkers like goblins and wutans didn’t even show signs of approaching, and the adventurer team members we occasionally encountered were people who knew professional ethics, so we exchanged light greetings and parted ways. On the morning of the fifth day since we set off, we arrived in Karaldin and were able to hand over the troll to the Adventurer’s Guild.