Survive in the parallel world, please!

224 Find the goblin, please! part “There’s no place to hide, as soon as we get near them we will be noticed instantly. How many people do you think they have?”

Luke said in a whisper as we all lied flat on the ground. I closed my eyes and focused my sense presence skill on that particular direction. I could feel too many different presences, but there was no way of telling them apart because we were still too far away. Sense presence works best in enclosed spaces, where you don’t have a visual but the enemies are close.

I couldn’t tell much about the camp but one thing I knew for sure, our numbers were sufficient to raid the place.

“There’s too many of them, I don’t know how many are enemies and how many are allies, but since their goal is to capture different people and creatures there’s no telling how strong they are.”

“Yeah, Ryu is probably right. That’s a regular sized camp, it could be as few as a dozen people and as many as fifty guarding the place, but there’s no way they’re fewer than us. As if that wasn’t enough, I don’t think an average adventurer can pull enough resources for something like that. My best guess is they have at least one or two A rank adventurers.”

Risa boasted her vast experience as an adventurer as she to lied flat on the ground, but given her womanly figure she was a bit above our level.

“So, what’s the plan leader?”

“I’m not sure, even if we went in there during the night, we would have to let time pass and that means we’ll be even hungrier and if we’re going to fight we’ll need to be in top shape. To be honest, I’m not confident in being able to win.”

I do have a few aces up my sleeve, but I can’t really count with Famine right now. Despite being an obedient pet, he’s prone to losing control after seeing food in front of himself. We could rely on Bob to make a distraction using his wand, but we don’t know how long will its charge last or even if it’s powerful enough to kill a man in a single blow.

.....

“Let’s head back to the forest, I think our priority for now will be to gather enough food to eat properly. I’ll ask the goblins to keep an eye on this camp without being noticed, so we should be able to know if they make any sudden movement.”

I really hope it’s not my hunger driving me to make an awful decision. Bardun’s life could be in danger, but there’s really nothing we can do for him.

Famine was waiting in the rim of the forest and as soon as we got close to him he started wagging his tail joyfully.

“Good boy! Looks like you have a full belly now! Hey, do you think you could find something for us to hunt? something like a trapjaw boar would be fine.”

I say as I pat Famine on his thick fur.

“Do you really believe he understands what you’re saying?”

Luke scratched his head awkwardly.

“At first I had my doubts too, especially since my first pet was Mochi. It took me a while to find out that he did, in fact, always understood what I said and simply ignored my commands. Famine is a lot different, he had always been obedient, except when there’s food in between...”

I sent a scolding glance towards the amarok who lowered his gaze and tugged his tail in between his hind legs.

“He’s so cute, don’t you guys think so?”

I looked back only to realize they’ve been keeping distance from Famine all this time.

“Listen Ryu, at first I thought he looked stupid, but now, how to put it, he looks really dangerous. I can’t believe it’s the same dog that used to follow you around all the time.”

We spent the following hours tracking down different animals south of the goblin’s camp. If the beasts are behaving in a strange way up north, we may have better chances of finding edible beasts in the south.

Finding trapjaw boars was easy enough and hunting them down wasn’t much of a challenge either. It seemed like Famine was really good at finding prey, but it wasn’t really like that. I was able to notice something that would have passed above my head if not for the many wounds on the boars Famine took us to. These were the same boars we fought before!

This meant that Famine wasn’t necessarily relying on his smell to find prey and it could actually be related to magic. He must have somehow marked them making it easy for him to return to hunt them down later.

That also explains how Famine was able to take me towards Anne when she was fighting to save Sera, despite the huge distance that separated us.

I asked Bob to keep himself from using magic too much and use it as a last resource since I couldn’t afford spending mana I wasn’t able to replenish by myself, but despite my warnings Bob would sometimes shoot fire bolts at the boars. Thanks to Famine’s ability to find prey we caught all the trapjaw boars that ran away last time and I noticed by his behavior that he was expecting to get a share of the game, but we were in desperate need for food right now and there was nothing to spare.

“Don’t be a glutton like Mochi, you already ate so many magical beast corpses, don’t you think we deserve a little food too?”

Famine let out a muffled wail as he laid flat on the ground covering his eyes with his paws.

“He’s acting like a total drama queen now!”

Luke pointed out, but the huge beast didn’t take it as a joke and growled at the young thief who took a few steps back cowering in fear.

Bringing them back was a challenge and it wasn’t until we were already near the goblin camp that they came to haul them inside.

“If only Mia had packed at least a couple weeks worth of provisions it would have made things a lot easier.”

I complained right before the entrance of the goblin camp.

“Why are you always pouting for this and that? we’re all alive and kicking, you’re starting to sound just like mister eunuch here.”

Risa joked.

“Who are you calling eunuch? I’m not the one missing body parts.”

Just like that, a new fuzz was started. I can’t believe how cruel can Luke be towards Risa. Despite not showing anything on her face, I bet she’s really scared to be crippled like that forever.

I went ahead and ignored them as I started butchering our game in front of the goblins, teaching them the proper technique again. They tried to put their hands to work and were desperate to do something, but since I was their leader none of them dared to go against my command and watched in silence.

After hanging the boars and dripping their blood I realized something. The reason why this process is necessary is so that the blood doesn’t spoil the meat, it would be nice if something similar could be done with the magical beasts. Perhaps there is a way of draining the mana out of the corpses, but I can’t try it out because the corpses the goblins had gathered had been dead for a day at least.

It would explain why magical beasts can feed on other magical beasts, but regular beasts can’t, thinking about this I set my next goal.

I’m going to hunt a magical beast.