Inside the carriage, everyone listened to Frederick’s lesson about the monsters in the surrounding area.
“Most common monsters that you will find here are also the ones that you will find anywhere. Examples are the goblins and gnolls. From Mondi to the merchant city of Ruandelle, the monsters are mostly the same. There are some unique monsters but those are rare. Now normally in these locations, the only humanoid monsters who would form a group are goblins, gnolls, and kobolds. But since a lot of monsters migrated from where they were living to this place due to the armies of the Undead Coalition, the monsters formed armies that were bringing headaches to the rulers of Leminthor and Ruandelle,” Frederick stated.
“What I would discuss are the uncommon monsters since most common monsters are easily defeated by just hitting them until they’re dead. I will not discuss monsters that you only need to hit with enough damage to die. I would only discuss in detail monsters you can only defeat with strategy. The monster we will discuss first is the troll. The trolls have high regeneration that’s almost magical and only with the help of fire or acid you can truly defeat one. I was informed by an adventurer that they saw one regenerating a cut-off limb,” Frederick continued.
The second monster that the mage discussed was called a Water Devourer.
“It’s twice as ugly as a goblin with slimy skin and extra long hands and fingers with webbed feet. They are five times as strong as a goblin so don’t underestimate them. They wait underwater for their victim be it animals or humans but thankfully they usually stay in murky waters. I was once part of an adventurer group who traveled in the forest near Ruandelle, when we woke up, one of our companions was gone and we saw traces of him being dragged from his sleeping mat to the water. Our leader was a powerful warrior so he immediately jumped into the murky river and soon he found our companion dead being eaten by a water devourer. That meant that the water devourer was intelligent enough to make sure that our companion would not be able to make a noise while being dragged to the water.”
Anton saw that the girls were huddled together as if listening to a ghost story while Colin was calm and he remembered that the man was an adventurer before.
“The water devourer is especially vulnerable outside of the water so if you want to defeat one, it would be best to lure or drag them out of the water.”
Frederick then drank some water to wet his throat and continued talking about the unique monsters. Anton saw that the mage was enjoying scaring the girls.
“The next monster is particularly scary. It looked like an undead woman that lived in the forest but it's actually not undead. It’s nocturnal, meaning it’s only active at night. Once night arrived, it would find a hidden location and separate its upper body from its lower body. The monster will then grow a large bat wings from its back and then fly. It had extraordinary strength, long arms, and sharp claws but its most unique feature was its very long tongue. Its favorite food is an unborn child and will lurk on the roof of a pregnant village woman. It will then use its tongue to slide into the pregnant woman’s navel and devour the unborn child. The tongue has some sort of secretion that will numb the woman’s navel so she wouldn’t feel that her baby was being devoured. Its weakness was salt and ash. It would become vulnerable if someone threw ash or salt on the monster's body and if you happen to find the lower body and put salt or ash into it, it would kill the Ruzvakia without fail.”
Anton was somewhat familiar with that monster since he had this classmate when he was younger who was telling him stories from their native country and the details were exactly the same as what Frederick was saying. He then saw that his sister and her maids were truly becoming terrified.
“You don’t have to listen, go into that corner, and talk with each other or read a book. What Frederick is saying may cause you to have nightmares tonight.”
Anna and the twins resolutely stood up and went to the corner of the carriage so they didn’t have to listen to the mage anymore causing Frederick to laugh.
“Actually, I don’t have to tell you these things anymore. I have a book here that you can borrow Sir Anton. It had a list of monsters common and uncommon,” Frederick then handed a book to Anton.
When Anna and the girls saw the book, they stared at the mage with daggers in their eyes but Frederick just kept on laughing.
Anton kept reading the book while everyone prepared to sleep and soon the caravan was quiet. To not disturb the others, he stopped reading the book and turned off the lamp then since wasn’t sleepy yet, Anton maximized his Diablo II game and continued leveling up. He decided to head directly to the tomb where Duriel was so he could kill the boss monster and end Act II since once he started Act III, he would have the option of increasing the difficulty and the quantity of the drop rate using the console command of “Player X”.
It took him a couple of hours before he completed the tomb where Duriel was located and killed Duriel the boss of Act II. He was so glad that he was able to utilize Teleport to avoid Duriel and save his mercenary expertly. Once Duriel died, Anton saw that there was no notable drop so he exited out of the virtual option, parked his character in the Rogue Encampment, minimized the game, and slept.
The next day, Coin woke up Anton and saw that he was the only one remaining inside the carriage so he went outside together with his assistant and joined his family for breakfast. After breakfast, Frederick began teaching Anton and Anna again while the carriage was moving but soon they were interrupted by an urgent knock then the carriage stopped.
When Colin opened the door, Anton saw that it was Devon.
“There’s an army of monsters in the forest heading toward us!” Devon said.
Anna’s two maids screamed when they heard that there was an army of monsters coming then Anna told them to be quiet. Anton saw that Anna was looking at him and was glad to see that his sister was fully confident that he could handle any monster that would attack them.
Anton joined his father and the bodyguards who were being commanded by Lucas but he could see that everyone was terrified. When he saw the monsters, he knew that they had the right to be afraid. There were hundreds of goblins, kobolds, and gnolls. He could see that there were tens of giants and trolls and there were some flying monsters as well. That huge number of monsters meant that anyone it encountered would be decimated in an instant. He could see that the people were almost beginning to run but with the threat of monsters in the surrounding forest and Lucas reminding everyone to trust the wizard, all of them stayed.