Chapter 173: Chapter 171: The Secret of Tracking Horned Rabbits

A few minutes of laughter and a pair of changed undies later, Squad Four was ready to get cracking. Nothing was hindering us from being able to work together anymore. It was time to find out how difficult it would be.

Unlike me, when I first came to the Labyrinth, my squadmates had learned the basics of hunting horned rabbits. They knew how to find them, their weaknesses, and their attack patterns. Sergeant Pinescar made sure they still remembered what they learned before we went further into the floor. However, contrary to my expectations and the expectations of my squadmates, he wasn’t about to let them loose on the first beast we encountered.

“According to Deckard, you have no problem taking down rabbits on the third floor, Grey?”

No problem was a bit of an exaggeration. “Yes, I can take them down, sir.”

“Okay, good. Because I want you to show us how it’s done.” When he said us, he meant Meneur, Freyde, and Harper. Not him. Deckard? Well, he wanted to see me fight; the progress I made in Esulmor. That’s why he tagged along.

“You got a problem with that, Grey?”

Did I? No, I didn’t. Was I nervous about it? You bet. And the more I thought about it, the worse my jitters got, making me even more prone to the mistakes I feared I’d make, embarrassing myself.

“Am I allowed to go at the beast with my full strength, sir?” It was a good question, at least in my humble opinion. Not according to Sergeant Pinescar.

“What bullshit are you talking about? I want to see you take a beast down, not play with it. Use everything you’ve got.”

My ears twitched, wings fluttered, but I managed to keep a straight face. “Yes, sir.” A simple yes-no answer would do. His ear-splitting bellowing was utterly unnecessary.

Anyway, after that, we finally got going. Deckard and Pinescar refrained from using their presences and let us go first to see if Squad Four could put the theory of tracking they learned into action. For the same reason, I wasn’t the one leading the squad. Supposedly, unlike them, I had experience.

Experience my ass. When I was looking for horned rabbits, I basically wandered randomly through the grass-covered hills and meadows until I came across one. I kept my mouth shut, though. There was no reason to piss the man off. What’s more, I found it an opportunity to observe how it should be done.

But to be honest, what the Baker, Bookkeeper, and Mage were doing was no different from my approach, at least as far as I could tell. 

It was when we came up one of the hills that Freyde revealed some of his training tricks when he gestured for us to stop, following it up with a hand motion, signaling the target ahead. Although slightly different, the gestures were similar to the ones I knew from movies and TV shows. Hundreds of hours, one might say wasted, had now proved to be of at least some use.

A wave of emotion swept through Squad Four. Nervousness, doubt, fascination, thrill. I wasn’t saved from it either. The butterflies must have had a very wild party in my stomach. I know, stupid thought, but I couldn’t help but be a tad nervous. After all, it was my turn to show my worth.

‘Let’s do this, Korra’leigh,’ I thought, trying to work up the courage and get rid of the jitters. It didn’t work.

Drawing in a deep breath, I wiped my sweaty hands on my shorts and surrendered to the beast inside me. The Tier III form of [Beast] came to me quickly and without much hassle. No strain; no pain. The only drag were the clothes I stupidly kept on. One thing was the discomfort of having them over the fur that now covered my whole body. The other was the lace that served as a belt for the shorts. I regretted how tightly I had tied it this morning. As my body grew and muscles bulked up with the beastification, it was now digging uncomfortably into my sides. Luckily, the underwear was more forgiving, so the short’s lace was the only thing I was forced to loosen before I squatted down in the grass and started prowling towards the beast.

This wasn’t training; I wasn’t testing my skills, nor was I challenging myself. It was just a matter of taking down the horned rabbit peacefully grazing in the little valley below me on the grass. And while it still might have been heavy on my conscience, I was going to do just that, a quick, painless kill.

Knowing it could be a mistake, I even used [Ride of Ancestors] - a skill I had untested in my fight with horned rabbits - to achieve that. The moment I used it, I crouched down even lower, my ears perked up in focus otherwise unheard, wings pressed against my body as a T-shirt one size smaller, and Sage went still. Yet despite the strange position I found myself in, squatting on my anthro legs, helping myself with my hands, my ass and chest almost touching the ground, my movements were graceful and light.

Doing my best not to pay too much attention to the changes in my movements - that wasn’t why I was here - I approached the floor beast unnoticed. Close enough for me to be able to tell the level of the Horned rabbit without the system. According to my instincts, a level 44 beast grazing on the not-so-tasty grass, hungry for meat.

A few cautious steps forward, and I was in the system’s range.

[Horned Rabbit: lvl 44]

My [Ride of Ancestors]-driven instincts were spot on and more.

Still unnoticed by the quarter-ton beast with horns, I moved even closer, coming within range of my outer domain. With the rabbit on my senses, my breathing slowed further, and with it, my heartbeat. In fact, it died down so much that the thought of me still being poisoned crossed my mind.

But even if I was, what difference would it make?

I was the predator on the prowl, and the prey, with its back turned to me, was just a few meters in front of my nose. A little closer, and I got as far as I ever had unnoticed. It was time.

The muscles in my body tensed up, instincts telling me that the use of my beast presence was unnecessary, cowardly even. I used it anyway. No outcry, no howl, no roar, silently, only the ripple in the grass that something had happened when the horned rabbit froze in fear right before I pounced.

Shifting all the weight on my legs, I flicked my tail and pushed myself up high above the beast’s back. There, as I was about to descend, I leaned my wings against the air, and with a mighty flap, I launched myself down towards the beast’s neck, elbow first.

Striking a punch was a viable option. But the absence of [Fierce Pounce] among my skills made me unsure I was gonna break the neck in one blow - and I wanted to be damn sure. That’s why I chose the elbow of my left hand as the weapon of choice.

The horned rabbit had not yet recovered from the shock of my level five hundred beast presence, and the unmistakable crunch of the spine as bone hit bone echoed through the valley between the rolling hills. It was done. I felt the beast’s muscles relax. Then it slumped to the ground with me standing on it.

A clean kill. It couldn’t have gone any better.

“Oh, my fucking...” Harper shouted, excited as fuck. She, Freyde, and Meneur ran down the hill towards me.

“It’s... strange,” Idleaf mused aloud. The spirit, unlike the others, couldn’t stay back on the hill with the rest of them during my hunt. She had to stick to the twenty-meter distance to which the runes on my body limited her. To her credit, she was quiet the whole time, as promised.

“What is?” I asked, kind of prepared that she wasn’t going to like me killing the beast.

“This one,” she pointed to the dead horned rabbit under my feet. Okay, it tickled my pride to stand there like that, but it was time to come down. “It’s not like you and me, like Esudein or his kin.”

“What do you mean?” Well, it was a beast created by the labyrinth. It wouldn’t be weird if it was different from the real thing. The question was how different. The people up on the surface used the raw materials from the beasts, ate the meat, I ate it.

Idleaf thought about it some more and then gave me a shrug. The second one today. “I don’t know. It’s just different, Korra’leigh.” Well, I can’t say I didn’t want to know what was different about the beasts in the labyrinths. I fucking did. However, I haven’t heard of anyone suffering from consuming food that came from the labyrinths. So, I focused on the obvious. Idleaf didn’t seem to have the least problem with me killing the rabbit. Actually, she didn’t mention it once.

The more I got to know her, the more I realized that the World Trees were not the peaceful balance-holding beings they were in my mind. At least this young one wasn’t.

“I’m speechless,” Harper said as she ran up to me, grabbing my shoulders. She clearly wasn’t and had a lot to say. “The way you sneaked; your attack...I had goosebumps the whole time.”

“You reminded me of a tree cat going after birds in the treetops. I often watched them...back in the Federation,” Meneur said. While in my original form, I was the smallest of the team, and the taurus towered over me by more than two heads. Now...I was just a head shy of his height. Actually, I’ve outgrown both Harper and Freyde. Not by much, but I did.

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It was a good feeling.

“Every now and then, I was losing track of you in the grass. How the fuck did you do it?” the quarter-gnome asked, his voice full of disbelief. Even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, I couldn’t answer him. All my throat was capable of right now was growling, not human speech. To remind him, I let out one such grunt, no meaning in it.

He understood immediately, and so did the ecstatic baker and taurus. “I’m pretty sure I’m not capable of what you did, Korra.”

“Why? It’s easy,” butted in Idleaf, demonstrating a prowl through the grass. I have to say that despite her strange centaur-ish physique, she did better than me. But her form was a bit of a cheat itself.

“Nobody’s going to ask you to do that, Welkes,” Sergeant Pinescar bellowed as he and Deckard strolled down the hill towards us. “What Grey showed you was a perfect demonstration, using the environment, her abilities, and above all being aware that she faced the beast alone. Nice clean, kill,” he nodded to me in approval and then looked at my mentor. “Somehow, I doubt that’s what you taught her.” 

He taught me nothing. I mean, nothing about how to fight. My training still revolved around dancing. The little I knew about fighting was from the beasts I faced and the beast instincts deep within me. It was no wonder I fought like one. 

“Do I look like someone who would sneak through the grass?” Deckard asked back, amused that anyone would think that. 

“I thought so,” remarked the master guard and didn’t press the matter further. He simply turned back to us, looking at the felled rabbit for a moment, before speaking: “You three are next. Track down another one, and show me if the training in the barracks amounted to anything.”

“So we don’t have to sneak through the grass, sir?” 

“Did you not hear me, Welkes?”

“I did, sir.”

“It didn’t seem that way. Anyway, did you learn that in the barracks?” When Freyde shook his head, he gave him a so-you-see look. “Don’t try to copy Grey and use what you know, what you’ve learned. All of you.”

“”Yes, sir.""

Squad Four took the lead again, tracking the horned rabbits. Again, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t really tell if they were actually tracking the beasts or if they were leaving it to chance like I was. 

“I’m supposed to stay away?” I asked Deckard after a moment when I had given up trying to figure out the way of rabbit tracking.

“This one fight. Pinescar wants to see what the three of them have learned in the few weeks they’ve been with Castian City Guards. They were learning some coordination as a squad, so...”

“Just the three of them, I get it.” I really did. Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling of dismay. While they grew closer in the barracks, I stayed away.

“Thinking of becoming a full-fledged city guard, Little Beast?”

I smirked slightly, baring one of my fangs. Deckard knew me well and, at times, could read me like an open book. “I don’t wanna be tied down like that, but...”

“Don’t worry,” he continued when I couldn’t find the right words. “It will come. Training is one thing, but only in a fight do you find out who you can rely on, who is your true friend.”

“Is that why you’re diving down there alone?” I knew the story about him, Rayden, Janine, Marcus, Blaine, and Rhys. That was no reason to be solo, though. He could have formed a new team or joined an existing one.

He grunted. “Partly. I joined the other seekers, but it didn’t work.”

“Why?” I asked while I adjusted my undies. During my prowl, they wedged where they shouldn’t have. Very unpleasant.

“We did not share the same drive. Most seekers do it to become famous and rich. You know me.” Sure, he was famous, rich as f... I actually had no idea how much. None of that was his focus, though. He was doing it to become strong enough to protect his friends and maybe others. We weren’t so different in that regard. Only my scope of who I wanted to protect was narrowed down to me…. actually, me and Idleaf.

I was no longer alone in this strange world.

The realization hit me so hard that the joy of it almost made me laugh. Good thing I held myself back because Squad Four just found their prey. The beast was grazing on a wide, flat meadow that opened up before us as we ascended one of the many hills.

While I watched fascinated as Freyde, Harper, and Meneur passed signals to each other, I found a spot without any rocks hidden in the grass, adjusted the undies again, and in all silence, I settled my butt on the ground. 

From the very beginning, my approach to the fight and theirs could not have been more different. Though they communicated with each other in silence, slowly approaching the beast, what they were doing was no sneaking, let alone prowling. They did not plan to approach the beast stealthily from behind and surprise it as I did. No, they were simply closing in to get within range, with Freyde, a sword wielder and front-line fighter, walking ahead, Harper half a dozen paces behind on his left and Meneur a little further behind to his right.

They didn’t get far before the horned rabbit caught wind of the trio, or should I say overheard them. If that happened to me, I’d be pissed at myself. They seemed to expect it. Then it went fast. Freyde went on guard, the beast squeak-roared, and Harper fired a bolt from her crossbow. Not sure if that was her target, but she hit its front paw.

Ignoring the bolt, the horned rabbit lowered its head, a sign that it was about to charge ahead. And it did. The beast went straight for the Bookkeeper. 

Having experience with getting hit by that charging hulk of meat, I was quite positive the collision was something Freyde wanted to avoid. And unsurprisingly, he saw it the same way. He dodged the charging rabbit at the last second and slashed it to the front leg. 

One might say he was that good, or that he was just lucky, but I knew better. It was a calculated move.

As the horned rabbit dashed past him, Meneur used his magic, the red-hot embers striking the rabbit in the area of its eye, burning it all. In my first attempts, I tried something similar. Eyes were the beast’s weak spot, after all. However, it was unfair to compare my claws and his magic, which allowed the taurus to hit a wider area, burning deep. The beast was not able to bat it away as easily as my claws.

My ears twitched at the sound of the bowstring, and I saw another bolt hit the horned rabbit’s other paw. Now I was sure. That was what Harper was aiming at. It baffled me why, though.

They quickly regrouped while the beast promptly ended its charge, turning to face them. It squeak-roared again and jumped. Every time I saw those tons of meat rise into the air like that, it fascinated me. The strength the rabbit’s hind legs must have exerted was incredible. ‘Would I be able to do that if there was a horned rabbit in my genetic mix?’ I quickly pushed the thought away. This time, it was the squad mage who had to jump aside, leaving the place of impact in a hurry. He used some magic to do it, giving himself the push he needed to keep from becoming a bloody smear in the grass. The beast didn’t take kindly to him taking its eye.

Another bolt struck its front legs, and so did the sword in Freyde’s hands, leaving another cut in them. The beast roared and swung its head to knock the quarter-gnome down. Either his calculations weren’t accurate or perhaps he stepped on one of those damn rocks, but he wasn’t fast enough. Even though he was able to put his sword in the path of the horns and brace himself, the beast sent him flying.

Seeing him rolling in the grass brought back some painful memories.

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