Chapter 129: The Dog After the Hunt
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 129: The Dog After the Hunt
“D-Did you really intend to attempt it like this?”
“I did.”
I stared at the man, his expression a mixture of shock and bewilderment. His initial anxiety after being dragged here had been brief. The moment I told him I needed advice on hunting the beast of the East, he nodded and began spouting all sorts of things at me. He must have been quite anxious during the time he was left alone, as he participated in the meeting with immense passion. In truth, I was using all my willpower to resist the urge to smash his head in.
“Ah… I think you would have been wiped out. I don’t have a vast amount of experience, but I have been on various raids. I may not look the part, but I was once a member of a beast-hunting strategic support team.”
“Welcome news.”
“In particular, conquering the beast of the East was something I always wanted to achieve someday. I just never thought I’d be helping indirectly like this.”
He was certainly a cunning and intelligent bastard, so I could believe he’d been part of something like a strategic support team. As I watched him, lost in thought, he nodded again and began to speak.
“First off, the composition seems fine, but… to be honest, it’s at a level suitable for hunting a mid-sized beast. It’s not a problem with the command, but… it seems you don’t quite grasp the concept…”
Son of a bitch.
The way he poked at my sore spots like this naturally made my desire to smash his head in grow even stronger. On the outside, I was giving him a look that said ‘Amazing’ or ‘Incredible,’ which probably made him cling to the topic more enthusiastically, but some of the words he used were seriously grating on my nerves.
“It’s impossible to hunt the beast of the East with such a conventional method. Do you happen to know just how large it is?”
“I have a rough idea.”
“A rough idea isn’t good enough. It’s no exaggeration to say that hunting a large beast is a battle of numbers. The distance you maintain between your ranged attackers and the beast is crucial. You must constantly maintain that distance, but you must never let it get too wide. To keep the melee warriors alive, the priests must always maintain this delicate distance.”
“The beast’s angle is also important. There are stories of skilled raid teams succeeding even while exposed within its range.”
It seemed I really had learned raiding from a book. This was far more professional than I’d imagined. It felt like I was studying. They calculated various data points—the beast’s size, precise distances, attack range and angles, and so on—and ran constant simulations. I truly never imagined that large clans or guilds would expend this much mental energy on hunting a large beast.
When I nodded, he seemed to gain momentum and ran his mouth even more enthusiastically. He really is an incredible bastard, I thought.
“The command isn’t bad. But predetermined actions are more important. Every action must be drilled. The protocol for when the melee warriors are attacked, the protocol for when the main force takes a hit, the protocol for when aggro shifts, and so on. In most guilds, every member participating in a raid has these protocols memorized. When the melee warriors close the distance, the main force maintains maximum range. When the melee warriors pull back, the main force closes in. It’s simple.”
He started pouring out various other strategies as well. I nodded, and Jung Hayeon, whom I had summoned separately, was continuously translating his words into the Green Skin language for Ragia and Hakajin.
“You must never take hunting a large beast lightly. Hunting a large beast is a science.”
I hated to admit it, but he was right. The way humans hunted was certainly advanced. The strategy guides I’d read until now must have been all flash and no substance. They had plausible descriptions and explanations, but nothing like this was ever written in them.
What guild would want to expose its own know-how? But even so, as someone who had diligently read those strategy guides, I was overcome with an inexplicable sense of betrayal. There were even guilds that sold those guides, which only made the feeling of betrayal grow stronger. Lee Wanyong’s explanation continued after that. From reorganizing the escape routes to the training itself, he tackled everything with a passion, as if he was desperate to be acknowledged this time. The bastard was incredible.
It was enough to make me wonder if I should recognize him as a founding contributor if we managed to build a settlement at the eastern edge. And so the night passed.
Training resumed the next morning. I didn’t participate this time, instead watching from a distance with Lee Wanyong and Hakajin as the Green Skins faced off against the roots. It didn’t look bad. The precise numbers based on data were certainly helping us. Of course, the roots and the beast of the East were slightly different, but Lee Wanyong’s point that it would be easier to read the beast’s movements precisely because it was a beast was credible enough.
In other words, Jung Hayeon’s roots had no tells. In contrast, the beast of the East did have tells. When it does a tail swipe, it turns its body. After turning its waist, it plants its pivot foot to anchor itself and then swings its body precisely to strike us.
Predicting the exact distance starts from the moment it turns its body. They calculate the distance from its pivot foot to its tail and evade with precision. Of course, to prepare for any unexpected situations, the Ogre warriors also moved with the main force.
It was the same when it fired its breath. It pulls its body back and then takes a deep breath. If you see its chest swell, it’s definitely the breath pattern. As long as it doesn’t turn its head, the breath attack, which always shoots in a straight line, is actually easier to evade than the horizontal tail swipe.
“They seem much better.”
The bastard puffed out his chest, as if taking credit for it all. It was irritating, but I had to admit it. They were brilliantly evading the attacks without me needing to give any real commands. Or rather than evading, they weren’t getting hit in the first place.
After drawing lines to mark the distances, they continuously moved in and out across them, so there was no way the main force could be hit. In a real battle, we’d have to account for the beast’s movements, but it certainly didn’t look bad. A little more time passed, and it was Jung Hayeon who ran out of mana first.
Finally, a roar erupted from them.
“Uwoooooooh!”
“Woooooah!”
A precious victory, earned exactly eleven days after the training began. It may have been a mock battle, but there was no way they weren’t happy. They began to surround the limp roots, which had gone slack after the mana supply was cut, as if they were a real monster, and started climbing on top of them. I watched them, wishing those roots were the real beast of the East.
It felt like everyone was smiling. We hadn’t succeeded in the real raid yet, but I felt like I was starting to understand why some humans were so obsessed with raiding.
The sense of accomplishment was incredible. The feeling of everyone coming together as one to finally defeat an enemy truly stirs the heart. It seemed I wasn’t the only one thinking this, as Goff and even Black Spear were at the forefront, encouraging their clan members. I spoke quietly to Lee Wanyong.
“Good work. Tomorrow, we’ll test a different method.”
At my words, he broke into a wide grin.
“Yes. Understood.”
After sending him back with Ragia, I was about to head back toward the others with Hakajin. But Hakajin was tapping his own head with his finger, staring intently at the roots.
He kept furrowing his brow and moving his finger, lost in deep thought.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t the only one who had accepted this concept. Hakajin had also been watching the humans’ hunting method with a very intrigued expression, and it seemed he’d had some kind of realization. I thought he might be stressed, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Rather than reacting to something he couldn’t understand with doubt and rejection, he tried to accept it somehow. That was just like him.
I decided to wait for Hakajin for a bit, and we were only able to move on after he finally snapped out of it.
“Ah… my apologies.”
“It’s nothing. Let’s go.”
I started to grow quite curious about how Hakajin would incorporate concepts like numbers and angles—things so far removed from a monster’s way of thinking—into battle. I started walking slowly and opened my mouth.
“Is it interesting?”
For a moment, there was only silence. But soon, Hakajin smiled at me and spoke.
“Yes. Learning new things is always interesting.”
I felt like I might have gained a true strategist. Hakajin’s eyes were burning with intensity. Orbo, Gark and Hark, Mev and the Goblin Three Sisters, and finally Jung Hayeon and Baek Ahyeon all flocked to me to celebrate this small victory, and I smiled as I watched their happy faces.
And so, time began to pass. The training gradually grew more intense. The roots’ range grew longer, and to practice evading breath attacks, Mev’s spirits and shamans capable of offensive magic also began to fight alongside the roots.
If you were hit by an attack even once, you were out.
“Warriors, do not break formation! Warriors, hold the line!”
“Letting the ranged attackers get hurt is a warrior’s shame! Krrrrk.”
But they were adapting well. More and more, the training sessions ended with tangible results rather than absurd mistakes. The young Green Skins watched the adults train from a distance, and led by Kim Yoora, Nicole, and Orbo’s troll son, they started playing similar games.
“Woooooah!”
“Victory! Victory!”
It wasn’t a blood-spattering victory, but they too were gradually realizing the joy of training. It was a new way of fighting. Just as I’d thought, it was natural for Green Skins to enjoy it, and as everyone moved with motivation, the training began to gain even more momentum.
Around the time that defeating Jung Hayeon’s roots had become routine, the date for the expedition was set in a meeting. After purchasing potions and various other consumables, the day of the decisive battle finally arrived.
It was a dangerous undertaking, but I suspected none of them had slept a wink. Of course, it wouldn’t be because they were worried about getting hurt or dying. It was from excitement and anticipation. It was the day to confirm the results of all their training. It had been a short period, but for them, it must have felt like the day of the college entrance exams.
Thanks to that, the settlement was noisy from early in the morning. Hearing the sounds of packing and various other noises, I stepped outside for a look and saw everyone finishing their preparations for the expedition in their own ways.
Baek Ahyeon and her followers were offering prayers; Hakajin and Ragia were inspecting the supplies; Mev was looking after the mother goblins and the children; the Orcs were shouting war cries while others packed their gear.
Among them, what caught my eye was a line of them… Curiously, I started seeing Green Skins strutting around the settlement with tattoos etched on their faces and bodies, just like when Najin was alive.
Curious, I raised myself up slightly, and a familiar face came into view among those waiting in line.
She was laughing happily, her hands smeared with some unknown substance as if she were doodling. With every movement of her hand, a Blood Dagger tattoo was etched onto a Green Skin’s body. Seeing me peeking, she shouted. The little one’s voice sounded incredibly happy.
“For Blood Dagger!”
To my surprise, the one etching the tattoos was Najin’s daughter, Nicole.