Exploration
After we reached the base, we gathered materials from around the area and under my direction, started making another big hut.
Since there were three of us now plus Snow, within no time we had made two crude yet serviceable huts to live in.
“phew, it’s finally done! I’m a bit worried about the air drafts but, overall, not bad eh?”
“I agree. Good enough for a place to sleep in. Since we ended up building these much faster than I originally expected,……..let’s head to the east region right away shall we?”
“Hm? Wasn’t the plan to head there tomorrow?”
“Well, not exactly. Tomorrow the plan is to explore the East area , but today, we’resimply heading to east region of the South Area.”
He seemed to be trying to imagine the map in his head but Ralf still didn’t seem to fully comprehend unfortunately. But I left it at that and we headed towards the east region from the base.
What I want to do today is make a base in this region that will act as our centre when we go out and explore the East Area tomorrow.
Like the last two times, it’d be nice if we can find a monster nest or a cave but……….as long as it is similar to the gap between the two rocks I used as base in Peixa forest, it’ll do just fine.
I’ve explained that to Ralf and Esta as well already, so we began walking through the forest while Snow continued with his enemy detection work for us.
.
.
“Chris-san, how about that cave over there? It does look a bit narrow but, that’s quite close to being a cave no?”
“Yeah……….it’s definitely a bit too narrow. It’s not bad but let’s look around a bit more. If we don’t find anything better, we’ll make that our base.”
Esta found a decent looking cave but it wasn’t as big as I wanted and it was a bit away from the east area and I wanted a place that was a bit more closer——
And so I had to turn down Esta’s suggestion when suddenly, Ralf made a surprised noise.
“Chris, hey come and look at this! Isn’t this some kind of monster shit!?”
Pointing to the ground, Ralf shouted to me so I approached closer to see what Ralf was pointing at. There, I saw a small hole with some monster’s faeces in it.
This means………that there’s probably a monster nest around here somewhere.
“It doesn’t even smell and it was definitely done intentionally like this to avoid getting tracked. I’m surprised you still noticed it, Ralf.”
“I mean I just wanted to go toilet as well and I happened to find this behind the tree! I might be lucky today!”
“……..Hm? Wait, did you shit in this whole as well Ralf?”
I just wanted to go for a pee! And I haven’t even done it yet! And you already know that I went toilet before leaving!!”
“Good then. If it’s Snow maybe, it can track the monster all the way back to its nest.”
I didn’t know if Snow could track a monster from a monster’s faeces but it was worth trying I think.
I quickly called Snow and tried to see if it was willing to take a go at it.
“Snow, I’m looking for the monster that did this. Can you track it from its dung?”
I squatted down and matched my line of sight with Snow before making this request and it seemed like Snow instantly understood me as well, as it instantly turned its head away, looking extremely unwilling.
……….I guess it really doesn’t want to smell a monster’s dung after all huh.
Well, if it was me, I’d be against it as well so I wasn’t gonna force it to do so. Especially when it was already taking care of detecting enemies for us.
“Well, Snow doesn’t wanna do it so let’s look for traces of its feet or something instead.”
“The dung looked like it had dried up long time ago. No chance we find any tracks now! I’ll try requesting Snow as well!”
“It already refused so don’t. Or Ralf, would you enjoy taking a whiff of so much shit and tracking a monster from it?”
“……well, no.”
“Let’s split up and look for some tracks. Snow as well, if you detect a cluster of monsters, tell us instantly okay?”
“Aurf!”
I gave a pat to Snow as it replied to that with a bark, and we began looking for this monster nest.
We looked for tracks, meanwhile Snow tried to detect a big group of monsters.
We ended up running into some random monsters in the way as well, as we continued searching across the east region when—–
Suddenly, Snow looked in a specific direction and began barking.
“Did you find something?”
“Aurf!”
“Snow really is amazing huh. Good boy.”
“There were no tracks to be found, so I was about to give up finding this place today but, never bet against Snow eh! Alright, let’s go and take care of these monsters!”
“Please wait a minute. And Ralf, calm down for a second………..Chris-san, first let’s check what kind of monsters they even are. If it’s a group of strong monsters, we’ll have to come up with a better plan than just rushing straight in.”
“That’s true. First, I’ll head ahead and take a look while hiding my presence. Ralf, Esta, wait here with Snow.”
“Understood. Please take care.”
Like Esta said, there’s no harm in being precautious.
First let me scout the place since I have detection skills, and then we can think of how to hunt them all.
Also, just because we sensed a group of monster together doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be a nest either, and if the nest itself was a shoddy one, there’s no real reason for us to go through the trouble of fighting them in the first place.
I calmed myself down, and began walking in the direction of the monster alone.
[Perception Enhancement][Life Presence Sense][Mana Sense][Hearing Enhancement][Perception Range enhancement][Stealth][Silent Steps], and finally my new skill [Wild Instinct], all were activated as I slowly and cautiously made my way closer.
After walking for a while, my own skills finally detected this group of monsters as well.
There were a lot of monsters from what I could sense.
While the presences were stronger than a normal Orc, they didn’t have any single monster that was worth mentioning that possessed exceptionally high life presence.
I dropped my caution levels by one, as I headed forward while hiding between trees to check what species of monsters we were dealing with here.
Soon a base similar to the Orc settlement came into my view, and the monsters making the settlement was one I had memory of.
With a humanoid body, white fur, and long ears.
Yes, the one I saw as the first victim of the Ongneer here——the humanoid rabbits.