The Birth of Fantasy

Chapter 55

I woke up many hours later and checked on the air hole outside our side tunnel. I could make out the bright blue sky above us with no sign or noises from the Fyrbees. I shook Luin awake, and we headed up to the surface with a couple of my tunnels. Making sure the bees weren't anywhere in the distance we began heading to the west.

It took almost the entire morning to skirt the massive forest to our left before we crested a large hill and stopped to take in the stunning view. As far as I could see, Plains spread out in all directions in front of us. I created a Viewing Screen and scanned the distance slowly. I could make out a few herds of what I believed were the Mongacuda in the distance along a winding river that cut through the plains from the north to the south.

The solo males were scattered throughout the fields and seemed to have their territories, as no two males were anywhere near one another. I picked the closest one out, and we began heading toward its location.

Vosk didn't lie about them being easy to take down. What he forgot to mention was the damn size of the creatures. They were easily five meters tall with their massive antlers. The creature was almost comically slow. It had a head that closely resembled a moose with jaws like a sleek, predatory fish. The antlers were easily three meters wide and a meter tall at some points. Each antler was in the shape of a winding branch coming off its head, and there were five such antlers on this creature. If the beast swung them around, it would impale and kill almost anything.

The Mongacuda's body was fat like a rodent or a beaver and had long muscular legs to hold its bulk up. Its tail was long and about a meter wide, almost like an actual beaver. I was curious what it had been used for. Two of my Ice Lances took it down as it slowly charged us.

I was a bit upset when it fell dead. It turned into blue sand and only dropped an Azure Core. No leather or antlers. Was there a way to turn it off? I pulled up my Full Status and focused on the '+' next to the Auto Loot Trait.

[ Auto Loot ]

Allows the user to automatically harvest carried items, cores, and crafting ingredients used by the user's vocational skills. Has a slight chance to drop armor, weapons, and accessories.

Off / { On }

So the Trait would work for what I wanted it to do. The catch is I would need to learn the skills first. I was glad to see I could turn the Trait off but wasn't looking forward to harvesting everything manually. Maybe I'll harvest four or five of them. That would give me more leather than I could use in a year to make bags.

I mentally turned off the Trait, and we began to head towards the next Mongacuda in the distance.

When the next bull died, it didn't shatter into the glowing sand. It just lay, its glassy eyes staring at me where it fell over. I shuddered a bit but I got to work. It took me almost an hour to remove the horns, hide, and the organs finishing up by butchering the meat. I discarded all of the organs, not wanting them, and left the bones as well.

I found the Rank D Azure Core near the heart during the process. I cleaned it up and stored it with the rest. We spent the rest of the evening finding, killing, and harvesting each male Mongacuda we came across. I was amazed at how easily the massive hides and antlers went into the backpack every time.

After the sixth kill, the sun in the sky started to head towards the horizon. I debated with myself if we should head back or stay another day. I knew I wasn't anywhere close to my goal. Sure, I had enough hide to make plenty of bags. But, I had nowhere near enough extras to sell to buy my outfitting tools or the forty-five gold I needed to buy the pass into the library.