GILF Hunter

Chapter 241: 241 Superior Toxic Mist

Deep within a forest where no human traces could be seen.

Two mercenaries were wandering through the thick underbrush, pushing their way forward.

Rin, pushing aside tree branches that brushed against her face as she followed behind Ian, asked,

“Are you sure this is the right place this time?”

“Probably…”

Rin had already asked the same question several times, but Ian’s answer remained the same.

Rin let out a small sigh as she pushed through the pathless forest.

Ever since they arrived in the area where the Night Tail had been sighted, Rin and Ian had been roaming the mountain paths for several hours looking for traces.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to just hire someone with a hunter background temporarily?”

Rin grumbled as she walked behind Ian.

She admitted that Ian had more knowledge than a rookie mercenary should—to the point where his past was suspicious—but surely tracking monster trails was an exception.

Finding tracks in the forest was a skill for hunters.

The plan she had heard from Ian before they set out wasn’t to track the trail directly in the forest, but to pick a few high-probability candidate locations and visit them one by one.

Since then, they had hit several dead ends.

After briefly looking around a location, Ian wouldn’t even investigate the traces properly before saying it didn’t seem to be the place and immediately turning toward the next site.

…This was already the third time they were heading to a “next place.”

The two were once again walking through the forest toward a new location.

“You said you had a method, but I didn’t think it was just guessing based on luck…”

“It’s not luck; we’re rotating through places with the highest probability.”

“That’s still just guessing!”

Having gained some experience going in and out of the forest, Rin had learned it was bad to make loud noises in such places, so she lowered her voice and grumbled in a whisper.

This morning, when the guild’s messenger boy visited the inn to summon them, Rin was truly shocked.

As Ian had said, the E-rank Ian Mercenary Group had been selected for the mission.

Even when they visited the guild, went up to the second floor to hear the mission briefing, and set out immediately, Rin was incredibly nervous.

Actually going out on this mission meant a situation where they might have to fight a D-rank monster like the Night Tail.

However, far from seeing a Night Tail, they hadn’t even seen a wolf’s footprint after wandering the forest for nearly half a day. By now, Rin’s tension had completely vanished.

“It’ll definitely be here this time.”

“…”

Rin was worried about another failure, but it was true that Ian had a method.

The Night Tail was one of the boss missions that appeared randomly.

If he had to search for tracks himself, Ian would have given up, but there was no actual need to find the trail.

The locations where the Night Tail’s cave appeared were fixed to a few spots.

Since it was a low-level mission, it wouldn’t be spawned in the deepest parts of the forest, yet it required terrain where the static object ’Night Tail’s Cave’ could be generated.

In other words, the cave appeared in one of four or five candidate locations.

…Of course, like now, if luck was slightly bad.

There were cases where all the guessed spots were wrong, and you’d only find it at the fourth or fifth location.

Regardless, you were guaranteed to find it if you kept going.

“Wait a minute.”

While pushing through the forest, Ian stopped his pace as he found a spot that looked like a path wild animals frequented.

“What’s wrong?”

“Found it.”

“What?”

A startled Rin poked her head out from behind Ian.

Where Ian was pointing, a clear trace resembling a large wolf’s footprint remained.

Rin, who had dealt with wolves quite a bit by now, felt that it was different from a normal wolf’s track.

It was a footprint that clearly showed it belonged to a much larger monster.

Rin’s expression, which had been relaxed, stiffened in an instant.

“Wh-what should we do?”

“Follow it, obviously. What else?”

“What if it’s really there!”

“That’s what the mission is for.”

Seeing that traces remained, it was certain that the Night Tail’s den was at the place they were heading to now.

As Rin said, they might have to engage in combat.

Of course, Ian had come prepared with the full expectation that a fight might occur.

Having played this game countless times, he had dealt with the Night Tail until he was sick of it.

Especially in the early stages when a mercenary’s stats were low, gauging whether a first boss could be defeated with current specs was a truly vital sense.

Ian had also ruined many runs with “Boss Party Wipe” endings when he was a beginner, but thanks to that, he could now confidently say he understood it perfectly.

Ian marked the traces on the map and cautiously approached the direction of the Night Tail’s den.

Rin, following quietly behind Ian, whispered in a small voice.

“The mission said we’d get a reward just for finding traces, so can’t we just go back?”

“What kind of mercenary only finds footprints and goes home… We have to at least confirm the den.”

Of course, as Rin said, they could receive a reward if they went back now.

However, since this was a mission that provided additional pay based on achievement, completing it by only finding traces of a Night Tail would result in receiving the minimum reward.

Then, after using a coin to get an urgent mission, they would only receive pay equivalent to a normal mission.

Finding traces, finding the lair, subjugation.

Out of those, they had to at least complete the ’lair discovery’ to receive a reward befitting a D-rank mission.

Ian and Rin approached while staying hidden and following the tracks.

When the two arrived at the destination, there was indeed a cave at the exact location Ian had pointed out.

“Shh. I think we found it.”

Rin and Ian quietly peered out from the brush to check the cave.

“Do you think it’s in there?”

“We have to go inside to check.”

“Inside the cave…?”

Rin stared at the cave with a tense expression.

Hearing that they had to directly enter a wolf’s den, any E-rank mercenary would likely make the same face.

“Isn’t it too dangerous?”

“We have to bring out something like fur for the guild to recognize it. Just having a suspicious cave isn’t enough.”

To be credited with finding the lair, they had to bring back a quest item called ’Traces of the Night Tail’ from inside.

Rin, who usually followed Ian’s instructions silently, seemed to think this was too much and actively voiced her opinion.

“What if it’s inside? Let’s wait until it comes out.”

“We might have to stay up all night here. It might have gone out to hunt, so it’s probably better to go in and out now.”

“Ugh… isn’t there some way to lure it out?”

Since simply entering the cave was a disadvantageous move if a combat situation arose, Ian was thinking of a few ways to lure out the monster when it happened.

A loud rustling sound of branches came from behind the two of them.

It wasn’t a sound the two of them, who were holding their breath while hiding, would make.

“…!”

Rin and Ian quickly turned their heads to check behind them.

The eyes of a massive wolf were staring them down.

Rin quickly grabbed her sword hilt and reached for the orb holder at her waist, but Ian’s throw was faster.

A bead thrown from Ian’s hand hit the ground, and a thick smoke screen billowed up.

Immediately after, an orb Ian dropped on the ground shattered, activating a ’Movement Speed Increase’ spell that enveloped the two of them.

“Run this way!”

“Y-you said we could win!”

Rin, who didn’t want to fight for real anyway, quickly started running after Ian.

Ian and Rin escaped the overgrown beast path and reached a trail where traces of human passage remained.

“This way!”

As Ian ran with Rin, he dropped the beads he had prepared one by one whenever the howl of the chasing wolf grew closer.

Each time, thick smoke covered the rear, and the distance from the temporarily disoriented Night Tail widened slightly.

“Left at the next fork!”

“C-Captain! Are you sure you know the way? I think we’re going deeper into the forest!”

“I’m sure, so just run!”

The howl of the beast chasing the two of them grew a bit closer.

Rin, who thought they were fleeing toward the city, believed Ian had taken a wrong turn when the forest continued without end no matter how much they ran.

But she couldn’t just leave Ian and go another way.

Hoping Ian’s words about being able to win weren’t a bluff, she had no choice but to keep running behind him.

“Wait, stop.”

“What?”

Ian, who was running ahead, grabbed Rin’s arm to stop her.

Rin, who had been running non-stop, bent over and gasped for breath as exhaustion finally caught up to her.

“Huff… Huff.”

“Over here.”

“What? Over here… what is this? Is this our grave?”

“Come here quickly. Watch your step.”

In a clearing slightly off the path, Ian pulled Rin and moved to a corner.

At the end of Ian’s gaze, a red cloth tied to a tree branch was swaying.

Rin also belatedly discovered the marker and recalled the trace she seemed to have seen somewhere before from her memory.

“Wait, that marker…”

Before Rin could finish her sentence, the Night Tail that had been chasing them emerged from the brush.

Rin’s scream rang out along with the roar of the beast targeting its prey.

Even though it seemed like a meaningless action, just as Rin drew her sword to stand in front of Ian—

With the sound of branches snapping, the Night Tail disappeared from view.

“…?!”

Rin thought the opponent was so fast she had missed its movement, but the roar of the angry wolf still came from directly in front of her.

The Night Tail had fallen into a pit that appeared when the ground suddenly collapsed.

Several orbs thrown by Ian fell into the trap, and spiderwebs, slime, and smoke poured out of the shattered orbs simultaneously.

Overlapped by three different spells that decreased movement speed, the Night Tail couldn’t escape the pit and wailed in rage while clawing at the walls.

“Th-this… this is the trap we made last time!”

“I told you it would be useful if we saved it.”

“No, who saves a trap instead of money!”

Along with Rin’s shout, the beast’s scream flowed from the trap.

“It’ll get out soon if we leave it, so throw everything you have too!”

In Ian’s hand was a silver bead much more high-end than the ones he usually used.

It was a high-priced ’Superior Toxic Mist’ bead prepared for this very moment.

At Ian’s urging, Rin also took out an orb from her pocket and threw it.

The thrown bead hit the target exactly on the head, and the Night Tail glared at Rin with furious eyes, but looking up from inside a trap pit like that only made it look pitiful.

“Being able to win… didn’t mean I would be fighting directly.”

“This thing is on the stronger side even among D-ranks, so no.”

“…Next time, please tell me in a way that I won’t misunderstand.”

Rin, who had almost charged into a head-on confrontation with the Night Tail relying only on Ian’s confident face, sighed and threw a stone down toward the trap.

The Night Tail, hit squarely on the head by rocks several times, finally averted its glare and hung its head.