Chapter 276: Chapter 276 – Balsa Bones

Out of the well kept shed comes scampering a lizard. Smaller than your average dog, but larger than your average cat. The scales across most of the body are quite fine, but grow in size and roughness up across the back. On those larger scales, the lizard’s special color pattern is much easier to see. Overall, a muddy brown, but across the entire body random scales will be brightly colored.

The lizardkin smiles as the lizard buts its head against her leg. She bends down and strokes it before turning back to Jason. “This is a scamp. Specifically, a pet breed of scamps most like to call the flowering scamp. In the swamps there would be the occasional mass bloom of tiny flowers that exist on top of the mud flats, and wild scamps would gain this sort of pattern until the flowers went away. So of course when my kind took to keeping them as pets we bred them to keep those colorations year round.”

“Now, the wild scamps you will be culling might come from pets, but they reverted to being less colorful. Just take what little Ssro looks like and remove the fancy bits. Oh, and their browns will more closely match the dirt. Ssro here is one of the classic variations with scales the color of a well-kept mud bath from the swamps. If my grandpa wasn’t friends with one of the long time breeders, I wouldn’t have such a fine-looking companion!”

“Anyway, you can go play with the wild scamps over that away. And if you do see any with similar colorations to Ssro here, check if they will approach you. Pets are lost every once in a while. Oh, and if they don’t approach you, still try to catch them. Worth more alive than dead. From what I’ve seen, there should be five or so flowering scamps out there. Sure, they have the local dirt color, but if you need to ask for something like this, the pay won’t be bad. In fact, if you look over there, that should be one of them right now, sunning itself. Can’t really tell from this distance, but it looks like the green one that has been around. Definitely a wild one.”

Jason nods, “I’ll see what I can do.”

The lizardkin shrugs, “Whatever. If you succeed, good. If you fail? Just means I need to go and get some of the local wannabe adventurers to swarm the place. Now I’m going to get back to farming.”

She waves him off so Jason returns her shrug and heads off towards the large field of boulders. A bit of an odd area. Looks like fertile farmland and it isn’t like it would be hard to find someone to move the boulders for cheap. Sure, with skills and magic they need a lot less farming area, but letting such a large area go to waste, especially when it doesn’t seem to have any valuable monsters to hunt, doesn’t line up.

As he gets closer, more details become obvious. Still no clue why it is so barren but there are lizards to cull. If only they would stick around. Then again, since they get culled semi-regularly, it would make sense that they know to run when someone approaches. Still, seeing all the visible lizards suddenly scamper to hide behind and under the giant boulders is super annoying.

Jason sighs, it wasn’t a real quest, so he didn’t know how many to kill. But going by the number that were around the boulders just near him, he needed to kill a substantial number of them. Of course since it isn’t a real quest he also doesn’t feel pressured to do too much. Still, he did accept her request, so he wasn’t going to phone it in.

That does raise the question of how to catch the scamps in the first place. Calling in a swarm of new adventurers would be the most effective method of dealing with them, if only because there would be nowhere to run. Jason of course does not have this option.

Another sigh, “I guess I can try the simple approach and go from there.”

Jason glances around to take in the position of the closer scamps still sunning themselves before settling on one of the braver specimens just a few boulders away. Settling his breath, he waits for their vigilance to go down a bit.

Seconds tick by and then the scamp closes its eyes for a moment. When it opens its eyes again, Jason is gone from the position. Before the scamp can react, he appears from behind the closest boulder. Jason strikes out with open hands. While the idea of being able to knock someone out with a blow to the head is nonsense, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other options. Especially when you don’t particularly mind if they live after you’re done with them.

Jason’s nimble fingers dance over the scamp’s legs, popping the limbs out of joint. He wasn’t exactly delicate with it. With how health and healing works in NeoRealm, they probably would be fine if he left them alone, but in real life these injuries would have caused long-term issues.

From there Jason streaks off towards the next. Though now that he has a subject, they don’t need to stay alive. Restrictions lifted Jason’s speed picks up and his hands flash out one after another. Each scamp receiving what from the outside would look like a gentle tap to the back of their necks. If only it wasn’t for the sound of bones shattering, you could almost believe Jason had accomplished movie magic and knocked them out.

This would never have worked against a real monster, if only because they tend to have reinforced bones. Not specifically to protect against this kind of thing, but purely so they can keep up with their increased strength. Having muscles of steel is worthless if the bones are like balsa wood.