Rise of The Strongest Monarch-Chapter 38: The Hunt [2]

A strange feeling goes down my spine as I feel something dripping onto my shoulder.

I quickly roll to the side as a claw goes past me, just barely grazing my shoulder as I roll out the way.

The pain isn’t really noticeable as I push myself back up. It just barely cut through my cloak and a bit of my shirt, but it is not going to kill me.

Its speed is definitely a lot more than the previous zierel I ran into earlier. I can’t let it beat me in a game of speed or else I’ll be the one on the ground.

The moment I look towards it, it is gone once again. But there is no reason for me to be panicking about it.

Panic will only put me at a disadvantage and that’s not what I need to be doing right now.

Shuffle!

Without thinking I swing my sword to the left and I can feel a little bit of resistance before it finally is free.

Drip. Drip.

Something begins to hit the ground, a liquid of sorts. This causes me to step back a bit until I know what the liquid is... Since it could be something acidic.

I quickly look down at my blade and realize that a shocking amount of blood is all over it, new blood.

Did I actually manage to time that attack perfect enough to slice across its flesh somehow? My hearing really is good, I’m surprised.

"When you need to rely on other senses that tends to happen," She speaks up.

I guess that is true. I’m certain that this isn’t the only one of these things around the area. I’ve come to learn that it is quite rare for them to be by themselves.

"That is actually true. Hunting alone is usually quite dumb, we aren’t dumb," She replies with a laid back tone.

I hunch down to look at the Zierel a bit closer since it is different from the other ones I dealt with earlier. Getting a closer look I noticed that this one has an extended jaw with sharp teeth coming out from its jaw.

Its head is nothing like the other ones, it kind of seems a bit more human like... Besides the extended jaw.

The body is quite slender with shorter arms than the other zierel, it also has the green eyes from before. Speed is also one of its greater skill sets.

I’m guessing this thing must be one that excels in hunting on its own since it can move faster than a normal human being or animal for that matter.

I’ll be taking note of this for later since it will come in handy to remember these things in the future.

I can probably show this to other people if the time ever arrives for me to do so. Then again, I don’t have the intention of getting close with other humans after everything I went through.

That’s exactly why I couldn’t bring tess with me since she is another connection I’d have to people.

Wriggle. Wriggle.

"Can we stop yapping so much and go kill more?" She interrupts.

I’m getting there, sorry for thinking to myself about anything. I didn’t exactly ask for you to listen to everything all the time either...

With that I begin to make my way around since it couldn’t be the only one here.

After an hour of searching I don’t find a single thing here, no Zierel, no humans, nothing. The only one I found is dead and that is the strangest thing about the whole place.

This marks two locations down in one go, time for me to head for the next location.

From here I can make my way towards the market district but I’ll probably run into Locust Street first. Another place along the way to the district.

So I clean my sword off and begin walking towards the next location, keeping my guard up along the way.

Most of the walk is quite peaceful with no signs of zierel. Each building I pass gives me the chills as if something is watching, but nothing occurs.

Eventually I can see a sign that’s just barely light up. ’Locust Street’. Bodies are spread throughout the streets with various limbs missing from them.

Obviously nobody made it out of here alive or even survived the initial start of it all. I saw something like this the first day but my dad didn’t let us look much.

I’m 16 but I’ve seen quite a lot for my age already... Things a kid like me shouldn’t be witnessing or even doing.

I shouldn’t be killing anything... But here I am doing it anyway. The worst part is that I don’t feel bad in the slightest about it.

All of them deserve to die, every single one of them. I don’t want to see them roaming the streets ever again... No matter how long it takes to wipe them out.

"There’s the ruthless side I’ve been waiting to see again," She speaks up with excitement.

My anger towards zierel isn’t ever going to just go away, I just don’t think about it 24/7. I will make sure to kill them without hesitation every single time that I meet them.

"Even if they become someone you love?" She asks with a serious tone.

I don’t think I could ever love a Zierel. They are beings who just want to kill and nothing more. That is probably one of the dumbest things I’ve heard you ask so far.

"Doesn’t hurt to ask. I’m curious about a lot of different things," she responds calmly.

"Is that a person? Am I hallucinating?" A voice echoes.

I take my attention away from the woman and begin to look around for the source of the voice.

"Surely they have come to save me from hell itself," They continue.

The voice appears to be coming from directly ahead of me from inside of an old shop.