The Rise Of A Tribal Deadbeat - Chapter 71

When Zok had entered the dungeon, it was nighttime on Occuna. Surprisingly, when Zus came out of the dungeon, it was still nighttime. Zus, who was on cloud nine, did not give it a second thought on how the heck the area around the dungeon entrance was shining bright as day, while the area just a few steps ahead was shrouded in darkness.

He was too happy to be back in a familiar place. But more than that, he was happy that he was finally able to get a bit of revenge on Skah by ‘killing’ Zok.

‘That kid was good… but a bit too trusting.’ Zus scoffed before feeling the warm air blowing in the wilderness, ‘Looks like Skah really hated the poor kid to not even tell him to not trust strangers. Huhu, either way, everything worked out fine in the end.’

Zus was confident that he wouldn’t need anyone’s help to navigate through the wilderness and start preparing for his revenge. Little did he know, he had betrayed Zok at the worst possible moment.

The Cold lands were harsh. There was no doubt about it. But the glades were much worse than anything Zus had ever faced on his own. Most of the creatures in the Cold lands were deadlier than the beasts in the glades, but the beasts in the cold lands rarely ever banded together to attack someone.

Thus it was easier for Zus to hunt and run away. However, the beastly glade had its own rules that a newbie like him would not know. The beasts here acted differently and almost always hunted an intruder in packs.

On top of that, even though Zus had the experience of living on his own, he did not have the ability to instantly gain knowledge about the area he was in like Zok had. Thus, the Glade was enough to take care of the backstabbing bastard who was about to have the first taste of how ruthless the glade could have been.

Zus was enjoying his ‘trip’ across the glades at night, a time when even Zok hesitated to go out of the cave. It was then that Zus encountered a herd of Hrantas sleeping under the moonlit sky. For an Occunian who had never lived a single day in the Wilderness, these creatures would have appeared to be the epitome of harmlessness.

The Hrantas did look cute, but only to those who were not aware of their horrifying nature. Sadly Zus came into the latter category as even though he knew a bit about the wilderness, he had never stepped a foot there, nor had he heard about the Beastly glades or the Hrantas.

‘I can not use these creatures to ride, but I can use them for meat.’ Zus said with a twisted smile on his face as he rubbed his belly, ‘All that running has made me hungry and since they are asleep, there shouldn’t be a problem if I hunt one of them down…’

With that in mind, he slowly started walking towards the smallest Hranta he could see who also happened to be sleeping closest to him. If there was something the Cold lands had taught Zus, it was to hunt a beast from as far away as possible.

But there was one problem there. In the Cold Lands, creatures were much easy to hunt. The first reason was that the carcass that he wore to protect himself from the harsh winds, was also what covered up his smell. Thus, even if a creature got a whiff of his scent, they would think it was a beast and not a hunter.

But in the Glades, Zus was not wearing the thick fur coat to cover his smell up. However, even if he did wear the fur coat, the Hrantas would still sense an odd smell of the fur which they would have never smelled before. Once again giving up his location.

But even that smell would not have alerted the Hranta as much as his smell did. You see, Zok had been relentlessly hunting them down one after another along with Cero prior to entering the dungeon.

This made the Hranta memorise his smell and beware of him. Thus when Zus arrived there with the winds blowing, the Hranta immediately got a whiff of his smell and all of them were alerted simultaneously. All because they smelled a familiar smell to that of Zok.

“What the hell!? I did not even make any noise-”

Before Zus could even finish cursing himself out, the herd of Hrantas charged at him. Even in his wildest dreams, Zus would have never thought such cute and beautiful looking creatures would turn out to be so bloodthirsty.

He immediately rushed back as soon as the Hrantas began chasing him. But he was no match for them in terms of speed. It seemed like it was going to be only a moment of time before they stomped him to death.

However, it appeared his luck had not run out yet. At the last moment before was would have been stomped under Hrantas chaotic feet, he heard a loud and painful neighing of the beasts behind him.

Zus did not stop running away but turned around to see what was going on. To his surprise, the hrantas appeared to be running away from something. He slowly halted while desperately gasping for air. he was not used to running so hard and for so long.

“The hell… were they… running away from?” Zus mumbled to himself between breaths.

“From me, who else?”

A voice echoed in Zus’ ears and he immediately recognised the voice, after all, it had just been a couple of hours since he had last heard it. However, he did not want to believe what his ears were telling him.

It was impossible… the darts were effective on all the creatures he had ever tested it on. Moreover, he was sure he had thrown the kid down towards the beasts. There was no way in hell anyone would have made it out of there alive, and yet Zok was standing in front of him.

“Let’s play a game then, shall we?” Zok said in a voice that would make the cruellest of bastards cry for their parents.