Laying there, right against the tree trunk was the dead corpse of a human being. The body looked so disfigured that it took Arthur a few seconds to actually figure out what corpse was that.
The limbs were detached and laid everywhere around the body. Large chunks of the abdomen and the entire head were nowhere to be seen. All the organs spilled out and laid around the body like a twisted decoration.
The smell was so foul even though the weather was very cold, indicating how truly mauled this body was.
Arthur sucked in a deep breath as he tried to keep his calm while inspecting the body from afar. His face darkened due to the morbid sight but he didn’t let himself panic.
‘That’s not… a normal death.’ He mused. ‘Something had probably mauled this guy beyond recognition. Is it the Yetis I’ve heard about?’
Looking up, Arthur felt even more unease wash over his mind. The situation wasn’t good at all. The fact he found a dead corpse means this forest wasn’t empty and something was lurking in the darkness.
After contemplating for a few seconds, Arthur decided to approach the corpse to inspect it. His steps were quiet and slow, feeling even more tense than ever before.
‘This is no joke… This body has been truly destroyed. These monsters must’ve really been hungry.’ Closing his nose so as not to smell the blood and guts, he crouched next to it. That was when Arthur noticed several new details.
To begin with, the corpse had several large claw marks all over its body. The marks dug deep into the flesh, reaching the bone and they were most likely deadly even if the target somehow didn’t get decapitated.
‘To get marks this size, the claws are at least… Half my size.’ Arthur frowned as he looked at his own body. This simple detail gave him a good idea of how giant these monsters are. For their claws to be almost half his entire body meant that they were at least several times his height if not more.
The second detail, however, completely erased the first detail as if it wasn’t already bad enough. Squinting his eyes, Arthur focused on the man’s right leg, or the lack of it to be precise. The shape of the injury that caused his leg was unique, to say the least.
‘His right thigh has been carved out in the shape of a crescent moon…’ He mused.
The shape could’ve not been a bite mark or a claw mark, it was simply too perfect to be that, which meant one of two things.
“Either these monsters learned primary school geometry… Or there is something more to them than just pure brutality.” Muttering silently Arthur stood up and dusted his clothes.
His eyes moved to the snow around him and he quickly caught a third detail. Since the snow was still fresh and the corpse was also fresh, there were traces of blood going from the corpse in a certain direction.
‘Could it be?’ Arthur squinted his eyes before he started walking after the trail. He was certain these blood marks were left behind by the monsters.
Slowly, Arthur pulled his sword out and followed the trails while keeping an eye on his surroundings. He knew with how fresh the corpse was, the monsters should’ve not gone that far away. They could still be around, as that howl he had heard earlier was in the area.
He walked, where the blood went, left and right, clearly indicating that the monster wasn’t simply running randomly and rather was chasing something.
‘Perhaps another person from the squad? or the entire squad as a whole?’
Arthur could see several large footsteps here and there, but due to the constant movement of the snow even in these woods, most of these footsteps weren’t clear enough and almost distorted.
It almost looked as if some kind of brutal battle had occurred here and the result of it was these distorted steps and erratic movements.
‘The squad must’ve come across these Yetis around this area and that caused the death of that man.’ Arthur muttered as he continued walking. He was slowly piecing together what happened to the group and it didn’t seem like it was good at all.
After all, if the monsters can maul a human being to that degree than the horror these people have faced is truly on a different level.
As he was contemplating the events, Arthur heard another howl piercing through the atmosphere and reverberating across the entire area. This time, it was much closer than before.
Arthur took a fighting stance, ready to engage the monster. However, nothing approached him yet. Their distance was still not close enough.
‘Damn it, they keep coming and going.’ Arthur clenched his teeth as he continued moving, following the blood trail religiously. It eventually led him to a completely different area of the forest.
As he got closer, eventually, he started hearing more noises around him, and these were far clearer than before. A good distance away, Arthur’s ears caught a rather, wet, disgusting sound mixed with inhumane growls.
‘… It’s close.’ Taking a hiding spot behind a tree, Arthur slowly peeked at the spot where the noise came from.
There, a few dozen meters away from him, he saw a silhouette, bent over with its back facing him as it seemingly ravaged a dead corpse. The creature had a bright white fur covering its entire body and it was a little taller than him.
The sounds it was making as it tore pieces of flesh were disgusting, to say the least. However, Arthur ignored that and simply focused on the monster itself.
‘That’s Yeti!’
As Arthur imagined, the monster looked a little close to the mythical Yeti he knew about from other fictional media. However, for better or worse, this one felt far more disturbing than any other depiction of that creature he had seen before.
To begin with, its arms are horrifyingly long and with sharp, long claws that seem to merge with their fingers rather than be their own body part. Its feet gripped into the ground as if they were trying to root themselves in it.
Its head was large and the back of it had a lot of fur. As it arched its head up to pull the meat out, he saw glimpses of its features and he wished he didn’t. The monster looked like a mix between an ape, a python, and a cat.
The eyes were wide and slit, the mouth was large like that of a gorilla, and its tongue was dangling from its mouth, with sharp spikes covering all of it.
‘Nice design, developer team. I was in dire need of more nightmare fuel.’ Arthur exhaled. Looking around him, Arthur realized that the monster was truly alone and there was nothing near it.
So, he decided to kill it. Channeling his mana, Arthur focused on the target’s back. ‘I’m sorry for doing this but you’re not going to survive.’
*Swish*
Then, without hesitation, Arthur lunged out of his hiding spot, closing the distance between him and the monster in a split second. Elemental Oblivion had already activated Iceborn mode as the sword’s ice aura expanded everywhere. The creature noticed that something was approaching it so it lifted its head.
But, before it can even react, Arthur’s sword was already making its move and with a swift slash, Arthur decapitated the monster’s head as if it were a piece of butter. It was so easy that Arthur could swear he didn’t feel any resistance at all.
‘Holy!!’
Stopping in his tracks, Arthur watched as the monster’s head rolled to the ground and a fountain of blood splurted out of its neck. Then, the body fell to the ground.
[Ding!]
[You have killed level 30 Infant Yeti!]
[+3 Stamina, +4 Health, +2 Mind]
[Ding!]
[You have leveled up!]
[+2 Bonus Points.]
“Nice.” Arthur nodded his head when he read the notifications. One kill had given him extra stats and a new level. However, that smile quickly vanished as he noticed a rather eerie detail.
“Wait… Infant?” Arthur muttered. “This thing is an Infant Yeti?? And it’s level 30?!”
Looking at the dead monster, Arthur was horrified at its sheer size. For being an infant, it was still bigger than him.
“If this thing is this high leveled… Then how strong are the adults?” Arthur muttered. That idea was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
‘Let’s hope… Let’s just hope… I’m wrong.’ He shook his head as he turned to check on the corpse, only to suddenly have another moment of epiphany.
“Hold on, if it’s an Infant… Where is its mother?” Discover stories at My Virtual Library Empire
*RAAAAAAAAWR*
A loud, ear-deafening scream shook the entire forest and almost made Arthur lose balance. Looking up with wide eyes, he felt the earth shake beneath his feet as some huge figure charged toward him from the woods.
“You… have got to be kidding me…”
A//N: Don’t forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3