Chapter 58 - No shortie could do this!

I ran north with bare feet. The cold was uncomfortable, as were the occasional jagged stones, but it wasn’t painful and it didn’t do me any harm. Whether it was my strength stat or my increased hit points, or perhaps some combination of the two, the force of my feet pounding into the semi frozen ground didn’t bother me at all.

I silently thanked Hakubin for my time hanging on the back of the wagon. That had been pain unlike anything I’d ever known and in comparison the discomfort I felt now was negligible.

Glimpse flew ahead of me, soaring over the end of the Palliat Pass and moving into the northern tundra to look for prey. The vast expanse of snowy plains stretched out endlessly in the bird’s eyes and he began sweeping north in a wide zig zag to find me targets.

An hour later I turned to the west and sped up. I was running at the best speed of my chariots but it was only a casual lope for me now. Each footfall cratered the ground slightly and launched me two or three metres along my path. Glimpse had spotted a small herd of mammoths but they were huge in comparison to the ones I’d faced before. A third or more taller at the shoulder and while I couldn’t be certain I was confident I’d found some vile-mammoths.

As the crow flies is a fitting phrase for the fastest possible route. It took me another hour and a half to close in on the herd Glimpse had spotted for me. As I drew near I slowed to catch my breath and checked my reserves.

Health points: 250/250

Mana: 64/430

The cost of building the walls would take me most of the next couple of days to recover. Ten mana per hour was a bottleneck and I hadn’t figured out any way to improve it. Health and Mana had set regeneration rates and I prayed to… I hoped that they applied to my competition as well. They’d been here longer than me and were likely stronger than I was. I’d need to find ways to get them to burn their mana down before I made a move against them. A problem for another day.

It was a herd of twelve beasts. Eight adults and four juveniles. They were much more intimidating up close than the last lot I’d faced had been. Huge, towering slabs of hair and muscle with two metre plus spears of ivory sticking out of their faces. I moved slowly closer and they ignored me as though I was beneath their notice. The occasional fist sized eye rolled in my direction but otherwise they were utterly unthreatened by me.

I had half a dozen steel spears in one of my storage rings but I wanted to try and push myself. I hadn’t faced any real threats since I levelled after the battle and finding out what I was capable of now seemed like a good idea. Besides, killing these things with spears would take longer than I wanted to spend on the job. The metal heads wouldn’t penetrate the thickly armoured skulls and crippling them then bleeding them out felt needlessly cruel when there was a more professional and efficient option available.

Once I got to about ten metres away a pair of the bigger ones - the bulls perhaps? - turned ponderously towards me. They were slower than the regular versions of their species but I had a feeling they would be much harder to put down under normal circumstances. I slipped my Shop bought knife from the silvery sheath at my waist and weighed my options. I was short on mana but I had a few trinkets and enough to try a spell that I’d wanted to experiment with for a while.

I was wearing eight iron rings, one on each of my fingers. The four on my right hand were all loaded with fireballs. Two of the four on my left were enchanted with twelve charges of Kril’s best Heal Self spells, considerably better than my own version, and the other two were storage ring’s I’d enchanted myself. I could only access them twice a day but they had the same capacity as my upgraded spell and would be very useful in the long run. The fact I could store living people in them had offered a number of interesting possibilities for the future, assuming anyone was mad enough to let me hide them in a dimensional pocket without time and no guarantee of being released if anything went wrong. I’d find someone. Jandak would probably be up for it if no one else was.

I scooped up a small rock from the ground and tossed it up and down in my right hand. The two bulls that turned to face me snorted and made quiet trumpeting sounds. I couldn’t tell if the sound came from the swaying trunks or their mouths. Either way it was clear they weren’t pleased with my presence.

With a swift flick of my wrist I sent the little rock arcing across the space between us to smack the beast on the left in the forehead. It briefly went cross eyed then trumpeted more loudly at me and stomped a foot in anger and confusion. I wasn’t where it thought I would be. As the pebble had left my hand I’d spent mana and ripped open a spatial tear. It appeared in front of me as a jagged rip in reality lined with pink and purple light. The oval was about two and half metres tall and perhaps half that in width. I dove through it and appeared in the air a foot above the mammoth's neck.

As I fell my impossibly sharp dagger flicked out and stabbed into the animal's spine just behind the thick bone of the skull. My feet hit the ground and I ricocheted like a pinball to launch myself towards his companion. The dagger carved effortlessly upwards through the second neck and I landed neatly to one side of the pair of collapsing beasts. I buried the blade in the skulls of the paralysed animals and they were dead within seconds of my attack.

The rest of the herd trumpeted in fear and started to lumber away from me. I could have cut more of them down. I probably should have from a purely utilitarian point of view. I knew I was a monster in a lot of ways. Killing these beasts bothered me about as much as immolating the frontlines of the Kopregyn army had, which is to say not very much at all.

But I’d spent a long time training my monster to fit in and frankly given my new power I was worried if I let that control slip, even for an instant, I’d spiral into madness. I’d taken two bulls from this herd so the rest could go on their way in peace and that was enough for me. My greed complained briefly but I quashed it mercilessly. There’d be other herds nearby.

Vilis Mastodon slain x2

Eighty Souls gathered.

This could work. I hastily cut the tusks free with my impossible dagger then skinned and harvested as much of the fat and meat as I could in a couple of hours. I dropped my harvest into one of my storage rings and sent my senses out to Glimpse. He’d found three more herds not too far away, one of which was big enough that they were likely the vile variants of the giant mammals.

I ran and killed and harvested the ivory and meat for the rest of the day.

Vilis Mastodon slain x4

One hundred and sixty Souls gathered.

Normalis Mastodon slain x8

One hundred and sixty Souls gathered.

I had six hundred and forty two Souls when I settled down to sleep under the stars that night. The storage spaces for my rings both had twenty four tusks, the same number of sets of hides and as much meat as I could easily butcher in them. The rest had gone in my own personal space. I needed to recover my mana before I went hunting anymore.

It was unlikely I’d be able to remain on the hunt for as long as I had hoped unless I started abandoning the tusks as well as the valuable meat and fat. It felt wasteful to me. However terrifying to the locals these mammoths might seem, to me it was like being sent to knock a toddler. It felt wrong and I was quietly disappointed at the lack of challenge.

I’d been careful to only take a couple of animals from each herd, letting the rest escape. I had only killed adults, leaving the juveniles alone. Despite these concessions my code was arguing with my greed but I phased the internal bickering out. I stretched out under the stars and watched the night sky wheel overhead until my eyes closed. Before I dropped off Glimpse flew down and nestled in at my side to get some sleep as well. The god-forged creature didn’t seem to have the same needs as regular animals but he couldn’t go indefinitely without some shut eye. Not as nice as Fay curling up against me but better than being alone, for sure.

When I opened my eyes, as pink light filled the world, my crow cawed a greeting from above where he circled and I sat up in the long grass that had hidden me during the darkness. I stretched, yawned, farted and did what every man with a decent amount of fibre in his diet does first thing in the morning. Glimpse had already found my next targets and I chewed on some dried meat I’d pulled from my storage last night before I ran to catch up to them.

For three days this routine lasted. I racked up another one thousand four hundred Souls in the process. I was over two thousand in total and when I got back our warriors would receive a considerable increase in power. I wasn’t sure if spreading the Souls wide was better than going tall. Would two level forties just steamroll a hundred level ones? Maybe but I had a feeling the natural viciousness of my adoptive people would help swing the odds in their favour.

How would I fare against twenty level tens? Physically there would be no comparison. I could rush from one to another and put them down with a single move. But while I was moving to the first one the rest would be launching attacks… I didn’t have any data one way or the other. My gut told me I was thinking along the right lines. Going wide might just be better than going tall

Mana regenerated slowly so once spells were cast it would come down to how many there were and how physically capable each one was. If I had more I’d win. Hopefully.

My storage rings were nearly full. They would be a godsend when it came time to move the tribe to war against Mortimer. We could move fast without worrying about lumbering wagons or having to carry the weight of our supplies. I still had some room left in my own space but I wouldn’t get a chance to fill it.

Glimpse had been watching them fall in on my trail behind me. I had headed north west the first day then turned north east. I’d been zig-zagging across the tundra as I hunted the different herds. Each day more of them had fallen in on my back trail. They didn’t always like to work together it seemed. Whenever they bumped into others there were two possibilities: they either joined up or had a brief skirmish and spread out to chase me separately.

They didn’t start fires on a night when they stopped to rest. Glimpse had kept an eye on them for me since he noticed my tails. I’d carefully avoided spending my own mana to let me get back to full strength for this evening.

I stripped naked and put my clothes in one of my storage rings, hoping they wouldn’t get rubbed against the raw meat and fat it was largely filled with. Then I took off towards the nearest camp of Ur-Viles.

There were four of them a few miles behind me and I crossed the distance like a ghost. As I neared them I slowed down and stopped to listen.

“You’re sure it’s just one man? No shortie could do this!” rumbled a deep voice from the darkness.

“Only one set of tracks you tusk-fucker. How many times do I have to say it?” came back a whiny voice.

“But one Gerihuskar is incapable of this! The clans are already planning a great raid next year in revenge of Latrikos. The trail led to the southern plains and next summer-”

“It’s just the one! He moves like us. His strides are long!” replied the whiner.

“Shut it, Wapisk. You’re so full of shit you might as well be a shortie!” That was voice three. Hard to tell apart from the first voice beyond that it came from a different giant.

“My brother is right. You are full of shit!” The fourth one boomed with a laugh. “Your tribe's weakness is why you lost a brother to a mortal.”

“As the mortal in question I’d like to say it had nothing to with that. He attacked me so he died. For Aresk!” I called out. I was moving as the first words left my mouth. I’d seen these things reflexes before and while I couldn’t resist spooking them I had no intention of monologuing. They looked towards where I’d been and started to rise to their feet just as I emerged from the darkness ten metres away.

Achilles heels turned out to be a thing for these monsters just like regular humans and the first one collapsed to the ground with a strangled scream as I blurred past him and cut the back of both of his ankles. I left him behind and rushed to the next closest giant. He was fully on his feet now and he moved with a predatory grace despite his size. A fist swung down towards me and I activated my Self Enhancement spell. For ten mana it was a bargain and I slipped past his attack effortlessly, running my dagger up his forearm as I passed.

I leapt forward and drove my blade into the throat of the whiny voiced one. It sank in deep and I twisted it to drive it between the vertebrae of his neck. He keeled over backwards but managed to latch onto my left leg and fling me away into the darkness. I lost a few health points as I hit the ground and rolled away.

As I tumbled through the grass I cursed silently. I’d left my blade in his throat and I had a lot more work to do tonight. I was reluctant to spend my mana this early in the mission but I didn’t really have a choice. I cast Limited Shapeshifting and my skin turned a mottled grey black and green.

“We will find you, little one!” said a giant.

“You’re two down and I’m not even sweating. You fucking cannibals are in deep shit,” I hissed as I rushed sideways silently to throw them off from my location.

“These weaklings? I’m Gatropik, First Fist of the Northern Star clan! You’re just a - urk!” I flew out of the night and slammed a foot into the talkative one's throat, using the impact to launch myself towards the bloody body with my dagger buried in his neck. I rolled across the still feebly struggling giant’s throat and retrieved my blade before spinning lightly back to my feet to finish this fight.