NOVEL NEXT Chapter 25
Anton, his father Anders, and his sister Anna went inside the forest after they made sure that the cart and the horses were not visible from the road and were hidden under a tree. They also made sure that the campfire was out to prevent any accidents.
While Anton’s family was walking, Anders was teaching his children how to hunt. He was teaching them how to walk, how to figure out the wind direction so they would be downwind from the prey, how to avoid poisonous plants, and more. Of course, the siblings would not be able to learn all of that immediately since it would take a long time for a hunter to master his craft but the things he was teaching his children were important because not only it would be helpful in hunting, but it would also be applicable on many things like running in the forest to avoid monsters or predators.
Anton and his family were lucky. The first prey they encountered was a nye of pheasants. Honestly, he needed to use his search engine for a bit to know what to call a group of pheasants. The nye had four pheasants and Anton was surprised that when they were in range, he was able to hold all four birds with his Telekinesis.
He stood up and approached the pheasants which surprised his father and Anna.
“Father don’t worry. The pheasants would not be able to run away. I’m currently holding them using a spell.”
“I didn’t expect you to be able to do that,” Anders told his son.
“My meditations increased my power and the fact that the pheasants were smaller compared to other prey helped me hold on to them using my spell.”
Anders immediately killed the birds and put them inside a sack then Anton kept them in his private stash.
While they were walking, Anton suddenly thought of a possible loophole.
“Father, can we stop for a couple of minutes? I need to check on something.”
Anton entered the game virtually. He thought of taking an item from the real world like a box and then putting an item from the game inside that box. Maybe he could take items from the game to the real world but when he tried it, he received a message that he wouldn’t be able to take items from the real world to the game stored in his inventory or private stash and those items could only be retrieved once the user was back in the real world. He was a bit sad that his Diablo II game was really not allowing him to take items from the game but then again, he should be thankful already for all the advantages that his transmigration gift was giving him.
“We can continue Father. I just confirmed something and I’m done now.”
After around thirty minutes of walking, they stumbled on a huge elk. Anton asked his father if they could use the animal as food and his father assured him that its meat was delicious. Anton cast Ice Bolt one after another aiming for the elk’s head. The elk died when its head was hit by three Ice Bolts. The animal didn’t even manage to run far before it died.
“You’re becoming more powerful son. Anna and I didn’t even have to do anything and we will be able to collect a huge amount of prey.”
“Thank you, father. Please put the elk inside a sack so I can store it.”
Anders began butchering the elk so it would fit inside a sack and when he was done Anton stored it in his private stash.
They walked forward again and this time they heard the animals before they saw it. It was a female wild boar trying to protect its two children from a bear.
Anton cast Telekinesis on the two piglets to hold them and he cast multiple Ice Bolt on the mother to kill it. After it was hit by two Ice Bolt, the female wild boar died. He cast Ice Blast onto the bear to freeze it which it did.
“Father, I think I made a mistake. We can’t attack the bear while it's frozen by my spell or it will shatter and we will not be able to use it. Let's just go ahead and retrieve the boars.”
“Can we use the piglets?” Anna asked.
“Yes, they’re delicious,” Anders answered.
The siblings were then surprised at how fast their father killed the piglets and maybe the reason was, that he was not giving his children the chance to ask him to stay his hands so they could raise the piglets as pets. He then stored the female boar and the two piglets in a large sack and asked his son to store the pigs.
“What should we do with this frozen bear?” Anna asked.
“We can wait until it's all thawed out,” Anton answered.
Anders studied the frozen bear corpse.
“No, it would take several hours. Let's just destroy it.” Anders then hit the bear with his sword and even though they could tell that the hit was not that hard, the frozen bear shattered into tens of pieces.
Anton and his family continued forward to hunt more animals. They didn’t encounter anything after thirty minutes of walking. They did encounter something unexpected. They came across a couple of undead monsters feeding on a boar’s corpse.
“Ghouls again?” Anton asked.
Without asking for permission, he cast Glacial Spike onto the ghouls and since the monsters were busy eating the boar, they didn’t expect the spell and they were hit. Both monsters immediately froze but Anton and his family could see that they were still alive. He then cast Chain Lightning to the frozen ghouls and that killed the two monsters. They didn’t shatter though. When they died, they thawed out and remained as corpses. He guessed that the freezing effect of Ice Blast was more potent than Glacial Spike or maybe something more was in effect.
“Burn it Anton lest they come back,” his father commanded so he cast Inferno at the ghoul’s corpses until only ashes remained.
“Why is it always undead? Are there no other monsters like goblins or orcs or giant spiders?” Anton muttered.
“The forest does have those monsters but since the Undead Coalition is on the move, expect more of the undead instead of other monsters. I hope we don’t encounter powerful undead like a vampire or a lich though because we can’t know for sure if you’re powerful enough to defeat one,” Anders told his son.
“Should we continue?” Anna asked his father.
“No. If there’s undead here, there could be more. We have enough. We’re not staying here. Let’s move on.”
Anton’s family went back to the campground. After more than an hour of walking they arrived where their cart and horses were and they prepared it for their journey and without further ado, they moved on.
