My Last Hunt

Level Four (4)

Newbie is Smart:

"Oh yes, you are right. Haha, I will lead you in order to let you learn how to hunt a stronger monster." The leader suddenly changed his tone and patted his shoulder. 

Qiao nodded, "I will follow you then."

They were standing on the hill and the monster was at the plain ground below them. 

"We need to make the monster lose its balance. The giant body should meet the ground first and two chasers would then simultaneously attack at the vital parts of the monster. Do you understand?" He asked Qiao, who nodded. Qiao had met a monster who bore thorn defence but it was completely different to the one in front of him currently. A small and a lower level monster had so much differences compared to higher levelled monsters and as he was not experienced, he thought to follow the team leader. 

Qiao looked carefully at the monster prowling to observe its weakness. After a while of observation, it seemed that its neck part was one of the most vital part. And it would have been better if he chose to directly face from front. Despite what he thought, he went to hung around the vines and circled around the monster safely, keeping a distance of nine feet from it. 

One of the vines he took was thrown towards the leader and second kept another one in his hand. The leader then gestured and they pulled the vines to throw the monster on ground. 

"Come here and join us to attack it." the leader shouted to the third chaser. 

He also came and the forced down upon the monster. The leader then hurried to jump and attack, but at the meantime he forgot that the tail was free of any entanglements. As soon as he landed for attack, the tail came right away at him and the leader barely made it away. Still one of the horns brushed past his thigh and he started to spout vulgarities in pain. 

After letting the chaser taste the outcome of his attack, the monster started to clear the vines binding it off from its body and also looked toward the hill where chasers were standing. It got rid of the vines and howled toward the hill. The hills were not really high up and the monsters could easily scale them just like humans. But monsters needed to move their giant body with huge force while hunters could jump with the help of agility skill. 

"Save yourself." The leader reminded and jumped backwards; his movement was so much smooth that Qiao could not help but watch it first. This was a new move in his eyes in agility skill. It was similar to a backflip, but over a great height. It was something only capable by the athletes in his world. For a big hunter who had human physical traits with normal flexibility or joints, it would feel too hard to perform it. 

While thinking about that movement, the monster almost reached before him. Before it could give him a surprise attack with its tail, Qiao slipped underneath its body. While holding his weapon upward, he exerted force, leaving an injury at the neck part. Then he rolled on the ground to avoid the giant body trampling around.

The leader saw this and gulped. He was truly out of sense now, how did he tackle this monster with a big tail. If it was only a normal tail then there were few means to hunt it, but this was a horny tail. 

"Would you mind if we switch the one commanding the hunt?" he finally asked Qiao. 

"Sure, but remember my demand." Qiao did not go too formal this time. 

He has read the story of the stag who used to feel proud of its horns because of their beauty and admiration from others, but when it was chased by a pack of hounds the same beautiful horns had brought trouble and entangled it in the bushes when it was running in the forest. 

This monster also bore horns but these were sharp like thorns. No matter if the story was based on truth or false, he still thought he could use that story for a plan by changing it a little. He needed to set up bushes for this monster to get caught in it. Or something similar.

"Alright then. You both have to attack without taking break in the middle from the front part." He gave his first instruction and both the team leader and the other chaser got a huge shock from it. 

"Was he taking them as pigeons that could be sacrificed? 

Qiao has seen the agility skill of the leader and he was sure that he won't find it too hard to follow. He then himself went to the opposite side to grab as many vines as he could and started to throw and bind it in a mess of ropes. The monster was attacking and fending off the attack of two chasers while thinking to itself that it could cut off any vines or no matter how much the amount, he would not get tanlged. 

After accumulating a mess of vines, Qiao started to bind it around the trunk of a nearby big tree. It was not a permanent solution but it could give him enough time to seriously injure it. The tail was not only covered by the mess of vines but it suddenly came to halt because of the smartly formatted trap for the tail. 

Until now both of them were only doing mock attacks and keeping safe distance to distract the monster but when the tail did not appear to fend off the leader, he actually put a force to give a real attack. 

"Leave no room in hunting it down." Qiao shouted to remind them. 

His authoritative tone pushed the ego of the leader to the end and he was fuming while attacking. 

"Do you need to remind me?" he murmured under breath. He was sweating because the mock attacks earlier were really dangerous than actual attack as they slowly sapped his strength without putting any damage on the monster. And now he was immediately ordered to attack. He could only fume about it.