Evren sat with his back to the wheel of his wagon, his arms were wrapped around his knees, and he was leaning forward with his forehead on his arms. In the last two months, he had managed to make it through the pegasi, hippogryph, nightmare and gryphon levels, and was now in the passage to the 71st level where the manticores were located. He had looted a bow, a shield, a sword and a staff made from mithril from the bosses of those levels. He had collected several bags of feathers from the different monsters on the way and right now he was resting after the fight with the gryphon lord.
He would need to head up to the Aernide Fortress soon. He was running low on food and needed to go hunting. He still had sixteen levels to go before he reached the field. He was planning to head back up to the Aernide Fortress. He wasn’t sure if he could take his wagon with him, if he couldn’t, he would have to find another wagon up there to bring the game he hunts in the forest back up to the fortress. He would also have to find a location on the first ring to set up to process the meat. He doubted that he would be able to find any fresh vegetables he could dry out, so he would be stuck with what he could get for now.
He pulled his wagon back to the door on the 70th level and put his hand on the glyph, while still holding onto the wagon. He put an image in his head of himself and the wagon going to the surface room and poured magic into the glyph. He didn’t get teleported right away, he had to put in an obscene amount of magic into the glyph before he could teleport, and once he arrived at the target location, he was mentally drained and needed to take a break before continuing.
When he was mentally ready, he headed back to the shop he had set up in previously and emptied the wagon into the shop. When he finished, he removed the boxes on the outside of the wagon, the shelves and the false floor, leaving only the basic wagon remaining. It was still before noon, so Evren headed down to the first ring to find a place that wasn’t too damaged that he could use as a base while preparing food.
He found what he assumed was previously a baker. It was in a back alley near the wall, which protected it from the siege. It had been looted, so the store and storerooms were bare of any decomposed products. There were several collapsed buildings nearby he could use as a source of fuel for the fire, and it had plenty of open space within the kitchen he could use to dry meat with.
Once he had found a spot, he headed back up to the shop to rest for the day before heading out early in the morning to hunt. Evren woke before the sun rose heading down to the bakery where he left his wagon. He had brought his bow and the mithril bow along to test its effectiveness. The draw on it was nowhere near as heavy as his other bow, but when pouring magic into the bow, it would create magical arrows.
He reached his wagon still before the sunrise. He knew the undead would be returning to ground soon, so he was not worried about coming across any on his way to the fortress. He would have to return to the fortress by night though, he wasn’t sure if undead rose in the forest, or if it was just the open field. He came down the accessway, at a decent pace and reached the bottom by the time the sun peaked over the horizon. He would park his wagon on the edge of the forest and bring what he hunted out to it. He would also stay in range of the wagon with his sensory field, so he would know if something tried to steal his catch.
His first target was a deer. He used the mithril bow, pouring magic into it as he drew the string back, a transparent glowing arrow appeared. When he released the string, the arrow flew through the air, missing the deer because he was used to the range on the other bow, the arrow falling short. The deer got spooked by the arrow hitting the ground and ran off into the woods. Evren shot a few arrows to get a feel for the range before heading off into the woods to seek out a target.
This time, when he aimed for the deer, he hit it. The arrow acted as a normal arrow, but after a couple of seconds after hitting the target, it would disappear, leaving a hole that would bleed out. Evren followed the deer until it fell, cleaned and dressed it there, and dragged it back to his wagon. During the course of the day, Evren caught a total of five deer. He headed back up the hill before the sun began to set and set up in the bakery to cut the deer meat into strips and dry them out for the night.
The following day, while he was hunting, the meat was turning into jerky in the bakery. He caught four more deer and headed back to the bakery earlier than he had the previous day. The following day, Evren stayed in town while processing the meat. He spent a good portion of his free time practicing with the mithril bow. Event though he had hunted nine deer in the last couple of days, he had missed many more because his aim was off. He had gotten accustomed to the ridiculous range on his other bow that he kept coming up short with the mithril bow. He continued to use the mithril bow though, because the arrows were free.
Evren hunted for four more days before the thought he had gathered enough meat. While the meat was still drying out, he went down to the forest during the day to look for some wild vegetables. He wasn’t that lucky but did manage to come across a few edible mushrooms. Figuring that was all the luck he was going to get, he focused solely on processing the meat and getting back to the dungeon.
When Evren finally finished processing the meat, he went back to the blacksmith shop and put everything back in his wagon. After having removed and replaced the false floor, boxes and shelves of the wagon a few times, this last time was much quicker. Evren spent a total of one week, or ten days in town to resupply. He thought he had gathered enough but didn’t go overboard as if he were to run low on supplies again, he could come back up and hunt for more.
He headed back down to the 70th floor and proceeded to the 71st floor, where he would be fighting against manticores. He had never heard of these creatures before, but from what Sergei had told him, they were nasty predators that could launch spikes at him from a distance, could fly, and were generally unpleasant to fight against as they were fast and deadly. As Evren travelled the floor, he finally found one. It was facing away from him, but he could see the body shaped like a cat, with bat like wings and a long tail with plenty of spikes on it.
Evren shot it from range with the mithril bow as many times and as fast as he could pull the string back. The manticore turned to face him and Evren saw the human like face on it. It opened its mouth to roar, revealing rows of shark like teeth within its mouth. It flicked its tail and Evren dove to the side avoiding the tail spikes. As soon as he got to his feet, he was shooting arrows. Evren wasn’t sure how many times he hit the manticore, he was trying more for volume than accuracy, but he felt that he was hitting somewhere between seventy to eighty percent of the time.
The manticore charged at him, using its wings to propel it forward. More spikes were sent Evren’s way, but he was already moving by the time the spikes got near him. He hit the wing of the manticore, and it fell to the ground, rolling to its feet and sending a couple of spikes Evren’s way. He dodged one but got hit in the hip with the other one. Evren left the spike where it was in his hip, hoping it would disappear when the manticore died. He fired off one more arrow, taking a moment to aim and hit the manticore in the face, killing it. It dissolved away, as did the spike in his hip, leaving a yellow mana gem and two fierce looking spikes with several rows of barbs. Evren frowned and said, “These things would tear my hand apart if I used them.”
Using his dagger, he found that with a little bit of work, he could shave the barbs off the shaft of the spike, leaving just the ones at the end in place. The spikes were a little longer than the heavy adamantium arrows he had but were roughly the same thickness. Evren was pleased by this information as he would be able to trim them back to the correct length later. As he hunted the manticores, he would store the spikes in the back of the wagon, opting to shave off the barbs at a later time.
