After giving a warm hug, Cain scouted the area for any new monsters. He wasn’t lucky and the area seemed clear, The crimson cobra must have terrorized this whole area.
“Let’s move, this area seems clear,” Cain said as he returned to lead the girls ahead, slowly making their way toward Furberg while leveling up.
After moving for less than ten minutes, Selena caught a weird smell of being dragged by the wind. “Cain, I smell blood to the west-nya!” She stopped immediately, Cain wasn’t picking anything magical. Whatever happened it must be far away.
“Is it human blood? How far it is?” Cain asked. She wouldn’t stop him if it was just the smell of an animal.
“That’s right-nya, I would say about half an hour at our speed!” She pointed in the direction she smelled blood in.
“What do you think?” He turned toward Sofia, Alice, and Gracie and asked them. They agreed so the group rushed toward the sent.
After about half an hour, they finally reached the scene.
A horse-drawn carriage that has been smashed into small pieces, and blood stained the white snow that has just started covering it. A clear blood trail identified how the horses were killed and dragged away. No signs of people were found exempt from their blood and small lumps of frozen meat.
“The horses were taken, is it a griffon?” Sofia asked as she barely help her urge to vomit, the smell of blood was that strong.
Unlike the other girls, Cain and Selena weren’t that bothered and went to inspect the blood. Cain grabbed one of the frozen meat lumps and sliced it with his sword.
“Cain, you can’t desecrate dead people like that!” Alice called him out, “I’m not, I’m trying to guess what killed them, and what they were.” Cain said as he picked another lump of meat.
After inspecting them for a while and stopping Selena from taking a bite. “I can tell the different gender by taste-nya!” She cried trying to get the meat back. Cain remembered that she kill people by biting their necks and that she wasn’t a human, to begin with.
“Discerning their gender is not important, I don’t want to find any human meat in your mouth. Except for when we’re fighting someone then you can bite them, but don’t eat them.” Cain made sure to warn her. To his knowledge, Jaguar people were carnivores that ate all types of meat except their flesh. They could also eat plants like herbivores but they didn’t fancy it and Selena once told him that she find them weird tasting.
“They were civilians, that’s to be sure,” Cain said as he looked closely into the piece of flesh.
“How can you tell that?” Alice called him again being a bit skeptical. She might believe Selena could tell the gender by taste but what Cain said was just hard to believe.
“Look at all this intramuscular fat, whoever this person was. They never moved much and had ample food and rest. They are either a noble or a merchant, even the lazy makes walk enough for them to not be like this.” Cain said as he opened the piece of flesh for Alice to see.
Alice remembered how Selena’s thighs stopped Kayden’s blade, her muscle density must ridiculous. Cain probably meant to differentiate between adventures, knights, and normal people.
“See how frozen it is? I can only guess two things that can do this and have either the courage or foolishness to stay close to a place where two dragons fought.” Cain placed the piece of flesh down and started preparing to burn the remains so they won’t attract more predators. Monsters would just dig them out if he simply buried them, and that also took more work than just burning them with magic.
“Who could do such a thing if it wasn’t a griffon?” Sofia asked while trying to avert her eyes from Cain and Selena who were nonchalantly collecting the remains in one place.
“The fool would be a white dragon wyrmling or a young one, I doubt it will be an adult since this is a pathetic amount of damage. The courage one can be a Yeti, despite their appearance they are quite courageous.”
Cain moved away and set the meat ablaze. “They have a chilling gaze than can freeze people. Their claws also carry the same effect.” He said as he followed the blood trail, “Shall we chase it? I bet it will be a nice training dummy for Selena, they both rely on physical strength after all.”
The girls agreed, if he said it was a good idea they probably won’t bother arguing with him. Selena only felt excitement as this was a monster she never hunted before.
“But Cain, how should I deal with its cold ability-nya?” Selena asked as she wasn’t that good with magic and effects related to it.
“Don’t worry, with how high your constitution and strength are. Your body heat can be enough to resist the yeti’s freezing gaze.” Cain said with a thinking face as if he was remembering something.
“There is an exception if it was an Abominable one, in that situation I would ask you to retreat and let me handle the fight. Same thing if we found it was a white dragon.” Cain warned as he knew how reckless she can be.
After traveling for a short time they reached a cave at the side of a stone cliff, freezing winds blew through. “I see the too many footsteps, there are at least two yeti’s inside,” Cain said, being relieved it wasn’t a white dragon.
“Should we get inside?” Sofia asked and Cain wanted to hit her on the head, “Who will do that?” He said.
“I will drag them out so you can fight to your heart’s content, I don’t have advice for you besides, hit them more than they hit you.” Cain smiled as he generated a small flash of fire on the tip of his finger.
“Here you go!” [Firebolt] Cain hit the outside of the cave alarming whoever was inside. With the sound of heavy stomping, two ape-like creatures with tusks and two horns appeared from the cave. Their fur was as white as the snow and their eyes glowed faint blue as they banged their chests like gorillas.
“They’re huge!” Alice said as she observed the 20-foot-tall Yeti.
Selena didn’t want and jumped in front of the monsters’ cracking her fists. Two at one seemed fair for her, last time she struggled against Kayden and almost left Cain to die. In her eyes, she was inferior to Alice that healed Cain, and Sofia who unlocked her draconic blood.
“I’m not going to lose-GAW!” With a single leap, she flew toward one of the Yetis with a closed fist.
The monster growled as he took a step back, swinging its massive claw at her. Discerning that she would miss her attach now that the yeti backed down, she instead focused on evading his attack.
As the yeti’s palm reached her, Selena opened her hand claws and used them to latch into his wrist, swinging her body around to evade his attack. At the same momentum, she took a step on his arm(Using her feet claws to not fall) and leaped at the monster’s face again.
At that moment her instinct kicked in, she was in grave danger. Her eyes shifted downward and the other yeti was sending an uppercut toward her. Selena didn’t have enough time to evade the attack so she instead braced herself.
The punch landed on her forearms sending her flying upward, She could hear Sofia scream in the background which annoyed her.
“It was your mistake, keep an eye on both of them!” Cain yelled at her. Alice said that he should support her instead of things like that. But to Selena it was different, she hated the complicated talk, She perfected to hear his direct opening like he just did. Trying to be nice will only confuse her about what he felt.
“I understand-GAW!” She replied as she hit a large branch with her feet. Her claws got wedged in allowing her to stand upside down. Looking down at the yetis, She spread her arms and extended their claws. Cain could see her shoulder muscle swell as she prepared to jump down.
She then squatted upside down and launched herself at full force. The branch cracked with a loud noise, and the snow accumulated on the tree fell. Selena’s roar boomed in the air as she returned to the fight.
“GAWWWWWWWWW!”
She was too fast for Gracie to follow.