The sun had finished rising over the camp, and Marlon rubbed his eyes tired from lack of sleep.

It had to be said that the excitement of a surprise wolf attack and an additional near-death experience to his record of achievement was enough to keep anyone awake.

The young man looked with pride at his camp transformed into a gigantic hedgehog, preventing any surprise attack without him seeing or hearing something. But wolves were still very difficult creatures to hunt, from what he had seen of them.

Already, they seemed to move only in groups, and attack only at night. The hunter, even with the knowledge that his profession brought him, did not see himself doing night hunting of wolves, even with his runes. He could easily be attacked from behind and he would not always be as lucky as he had been that night, despite his injuries.

But there was a way to kill more without taking huge risks.

Traps, many more traps.

"Good idea, but you'll run out of material, kid."

Marlon had thought the matter through and finally changed his mind about not returning to civilization just yet. There would be a craftsman on the outskirts of Delia who would have what he needed to implement his hunting plan. No need to go back to the center of the capital, where the streets would be crowded, and he might even be able to negotiate the prices.

He told Luna to stay here and watch the camp while he went back and forth, and he took only his pack, which he emptied a little to leave room for his next purchases, and his sword, which he put on his belt.

Without further thought, he set off at a run towards the outskirts of Delia. The wind whistled in his ears, chilly but invigorating after the night he had just spent. The scenery was as sublime as ever, the gigantic mountains on his right slowly passing by while the trees of Cronande were almost a blur because of his speed.

After twenty minutes of running, chaining runic spells [Sprint], he finally reached the first human buildings and he slowed down his pace slowly avoiding the carts and other carioles that appeared on the paved road in their endless cycle of transporting goods.

The smells of iron, food, and other scents of human activity reached Marlon's nostrils and he couldn't help but feel a nagging hunger as his stomach rumbled loudly, showing his appetite.

He passed the first buildings in the suburb, which seemed to be only residential areas, and continued until he found a place where the activity was even more intense.

He could see the walls of Delia looming, a mile or two away, but he stopped as he came upon what appeared to be a busy business street.

On one side of the street lined different stalls selling food, all with a large surface area where chairs and tables were set up for people to sit and eat their purchases. He even saw a young person passing between the different tables to clean up as customers left with a nod.

She appeared to be of Nessos origin, strong feline features visible from where the young man was standing.

Across the street were various stores, from blacksmiths to cloth merchants. Marlon liked the fact that they all seemed to gather here, which saved him a lot of searching.

But everyone has their own priorities.

He first went to one of the food vendors, attracted by the smell of spicy grilled food, and when he spoke to the vendor, saliva was almost dripping from the corner of his lips. This made his interlocutor laugh a lot.

Ordering two different dishes, he went to sit down as soon as his food was ready and started devouring like an ogre the plates in front of him.

The first plate was a stew of Poune, a species of poultry very close to the Earth chickens, and the seasoning was just perfect, sublimating each piece of meat and each piece of vegetable present in the plate.

The second was an assortment of skewers, fish, and red meat, containing very different spices, very fragrant and almost sweet, the young man swallowed them in less time than it had taken to prepare them.

The full belly, Marlon rose and thanked the lady who cleaned his table, this last one blushing and slightly bowing to the young man.

He didn't linger and headed for the stores in front of him.

What he needed first was a shovel, rope, and a saw.

He found the saw and shovel in the blacksmith's store, which also happened to be woodworking, but Marlon stuck to his needs, resisting the urge to buy other tools that might be useful but would drain his savings just as surely.

He then bought more than twenty meters of rope from the fabric seller, thin and strong, everything he wanted.

After his purchases, he had two silver coins left, having spent one Amecareth of silver and sixty of copper to equip himself.

He hung the saw and shovel securely on his pack and stowed the rope inside, before setting off again in the direction of the Cronande forest.

He also thought that his appearance was shaggy after noticing the various looks he was getting from passersby and cariole drivers passing by on the avenue.

Once out, he had looked and realized indeed that his leather armor was in a sorry state. The left legplate was almost gone, thanks to the sharp fangs of the wolf that had attacked him, as well as his armband on the same side. The breastplate was badly damaged and the leather was beginning to tear in places, revealing the fabric of the shirt he wore underneath, in a state not far removed from that of the rest of his armor.

The other pieces were also starting to deteriorate, and Marlon seriously thought that at the end of this quest he would have to reinvest in defensive equipment, which motivated him, even more, to hunt as many creatures as possible and hit the jackpot with the Adventurers' Guild.

Forty-five minutes later, he was back at his camp and saw that nothing had moved, with Luna standing at the entrance like a guard dog watching his territory. She wagged her tail a few times when she saw her master return, but her show of affection stopped there, resenting him for leaving her here while he had a good time.

Marlon was aware that he had all day to get ready and that time was running out much faster than he would have liked, so he didn't dawdle and got to work quickly.

He ignored the fatigue that kept coming back to him and began to cut thin branches, a huge amount of branches, without going too far into the forest, wanting to avoid encountering Arbols while he was in the middle of preparing. With the pieces of wood he had cut, he prepared some kind of grids, tying the pieces together with the rope he had bought.

Then he went deeper, listening for any unusual noise, such as the creaking of woodland monsters. About a hundred meters from the camp, he marked a cross symbol on a tree and began to dig. Fortunately for him, the earth was loose and no rocks were in the way or in the way of his excavation.

An hour later, a pit a little over a meter deep was excavated, and he fitted it to the grid he had prepared, being careful to arrange it so that anyone or anything walking on it would fall into the hole.

He then set about preparing more spikes which he burned over the fire to harden them and he lined the bottom of the pit with them, placing the wooden grate over the gaping opening before covering the whole thing with a carpet of thin branches and dead leaves, camouflaging the death trap for anyone who stepped on it.

Marlon managed to set two more traps of the same ilk before encountering an Arbol Major feasting on a rodent corpse exactly like one he had hunted the day before.

He decided to attack the creature with the same technique as the day before and approached the monster slowly.

Ten minutes later, the Arbol lay dead on the forest floor, its two arm-like growths severed and numerous cuts on its body oozing a greenish liquid that the young man hurried to collect. He had hardly been out of breath from the fight and he understood that he had found the right technique to face these creatures.

It took him just as long to collect the bark of the monster and bring it back to his camp, where Luna was basking in the sun, glancing at it surreptitiously before falling back to sleep.

The sun was now at its zenith, but Marlon was far from finished with his task. He ate some of the leftover soup from the night before and quickly cleaned up in the nearby creek before getting back to work, digging two more pits, this time several hundred yards from the camp. He had taken all the equipment with him to save time, and as he finished the last one by throwing dead leaves on top, he wanted to try something else.

He did not hear any nearby creaking, reassuring himself of the monsters in the immediate area. Moving away from the traps already present, he decided to build another one, this one counterbalanced. Thanks to the knowledge infused in his mind by his hunting profession, he knew exactly how to do it, where to place the counterweight and how to place the rope in such a way that it would not be visible to the animal that would get caught in it.

The major problem was to find a suitable counterweight, as no rocks were visible in the immediate vicinity. He finally settled on a tree stump that was several years old but weighed about twice as much as he did, grumbling under the effort it took to move it.

Using the rope and thick branches, he managed to place his weight high up, balancing delicately on the branches of a tree. It took him three attempts to place it correctly and to be sure that his trap would set off effectively. Marlon then finished placing the rope, camouflaging any trace of his construction with dead leaves, hoping that a simple rabbit would not set it off, more than two hours have been necessary to finalize all this.

But Marlon was sure it would not be a waste of time, and it allowed him to diversify his practice in terms of his profession. All the knowledge already infused in him was helping him greatly, so he was looking forward to what the next levels of his various professions had in store for him.

Following his internal clock, when he finally finished setting this last trap, half of the afternoon had already passed, even if he was not one hundred percent sure of the reliability of his assertions.

He returned once again to his camp, ignoring once again Luna who had not changed her occupation since the last time, and he put down his tools as well as the rope of which he had no more use for the moment.

It was time to start hunting.

For the next three hours, he walked up and down the forest, avoiding the traps he had set, and shot as many Arbols as possible. The technique for hunting them was established, and Marlon was pleasantly surprised to see that, unlike wolves, these monsters did not move in groups.

Had he possessed a different mastery of a weapon other than the sword, things would not have been so simple. But the fact of incapacitating them without really being in danger was a huge advantage that allowed him to kill a dozen of them in this short time.

When the sun began to disappear and the forest became darker, more threatening, he decided to return to camp with the help of the marks he had made on the trees as he advanced. The hunt had taken as much time as the harvesting of resources from the corpses of his targets, and he had to make several trips back and forth with bundles of bark tied together so as not to be encumbered and potentially in danger from a surprise attack.

He had also taken advantage of his wanderings to collect all sorts of plants, mosses, and mushrooms that could be useful for food or to make various remedies and elixirs.

He even found a rare plant when he killed the ninth Arbol, deeper in the forest than he had been before. A Blue Lusiana. It was a plant he had discovered in his book, and it was not frequently found in these forest regions. It could be used to make potions that would strengthen the body and make the skin impervious to all kinds of poisons. He would not use it for himself, as he did not have the equipment or the knowledge to prepare it, but he was sure he could sell it at a very good price.

Moreover, the herbs were relatively simple to preserve, it was just necessary to keep them dry between two pieces of paper or fabric, so he could store them in his bag between two changes of clothes, for lack of better.

Once back at the camp, he lit a substantial fire, twice as big as the day before, as he wanted optimal lighting for what was to come, as the howling of wolves began to echo in the distance as the stars became visible in the sky.

He had filled all his vials with green blood, so he began by replacing the bark impregnated with the Fire Tracker spell he had used against the wolves the day before, as well as three with the Healing spell, ready to be topped up and used in case of danger.

Then he read his book of herbs for a good two hours, perfecting his knowledge and discovering more and more plants that could be useful to him.

He then picked up his brush and decided to experiment again, this time on the defenses that surrounded his comfort zone. Taking several vials of Arbol's blood, he first tried a combination of the Protection and Spark rune on the inner row, his intention very specific as to what he wanted to accomplish.

Still, nothing happened, and after thirty minutes of unsuccessful attempts, he let out a cry of frustration and decided to do something else, disgusted that he had not found the solution to create artifacts or at least improve the materials with his runes.

The camp would serve him for a few weeks at least, so strengthening his defense was not a luxury if it would allow him to sleep a little.

Being careful not to stray too far, he dug a few more pits in front of the outer circle of spikes to surprise possible attackers, and it took him a good two hours more.

After he finished, he felt the fatigue coming back, so he took his sword, heading to the free area he had left next to the fireplace and his tent. He had firmly decided not to sleep tonight, slightly traumatized by the events of the night before.

Training himself in the handling of the sword, he plunged into the same liberating trance as the day before, expelling his demons with strokes, jabs, and violent slices with his weapon, drawing on every fiber of his body, pushing his organism to give everything as it did every time he performed his routines.

He was able to ignore the howls of the timber wolves as well as other howls that he did not identify but that was just as chilling. Even Loki remained silent, letting the young man vent his rage and frustration on his own.

By the time the sun came up, no wolves had attacked the camp, and Marlon was truly exhausted, either from lack of sleep or from his nightly training. He had heard them prowling around, but the fact that he was not in a weak position had deterred them from attacking.

That, and the wolf corpse he had impaled on a spike between his tent and the forest, as a warning to the beast's fellows.

Stinking of sweat, he went to clean himself in the stream and took the opportunity to cook some mushrooms and roots brought back from the forest the day before.

He ate and then allowed himself to rest, once again asking Luna to stand guard, in case some bolder-than-usual creature came to his camp in broad daylight.

When he woke up, the sun was at its highest in the sky, and the ambient temperature was almost warm, a few drops of sweat running down the forehead of the young man who could not help thinking that a full night's sleep would do a world of good.

But he quickly shook off these thoughts and stood up, stepping out of the tent and stretching, happy to see that nothing unusual had happened in the area while he was resting.

He drank some water, ate the morning's leftovers, and set out again for the forest, backpack on his shoulders and sword in hand. Once again, his chimera guarded the camp but did not seem to mind the task.

Marlon had five pits to check and a counterweight trap. He remembered the exact locations of each one, and it took no more than five minutes to get to the first one.

As he approached it, the smell of blood reached his nostrils and made him instinctively tighten the guard of his sword. He was also careful to move slowly so as not to make too much noise, not wanting to attract the attention of any creature present on the scene.

But he was finally pleasantly surprised. The trap had worked.

He walked to the edge of the pit and saw a wolf impaled on the many spikes lining the bottom of the trap. It was dead, and the bottom of the trap was filled with dried blood.

The wooden grid had given way and had perfectly fulfilled its function as a decoy.

Without missing a beat, the young man pulled the corpse out of the pit and toward the camp. He moved away from it a little before setting to work, collecting all the leather he could, eager to sell the cut squares or to use them to draw runes. The only drawback was that he could only sell skin squares, because of the holes caused by the wooden spikes.

He also cut two large steaks from the carcass, wanting to taste this monster that had almost cost him his life. A sadistic smile stretched across his face as this thought crossed his mind, and he did nothing to repress it.

Once finished, he put the carcass aside and told himself that he would burn it with the others later in the day.

That the other four pits, three had been effective! And all of them had killed good-sized wolves, which took Marlon a great deal of effort to bring back and skin them, but he was deeply satisfied by what he considered a total success.

As the sun was about to set and the air was getting cooler, he decided to quickly check the last trap he had set, the one with the counterweight.

It would take him twenty minutes to get there and back, so he didn't dawdle and ran there, ignoring caution until he got within a hundred yards of his trap.

He heard nothing, but there was a strong stench in the air. A smell of blood, but also of rot, which was strange considering the type of trap set. He froze and strained his ears, no sound betraying the presence of any creature or danger.

Once he was sure that nothing dangerous was waiting for him, he moved forward and finally saw his counterweight trap.

Marlon was not the sensitive type, he could kill without batting an eyelid and even took pleasure in it, not feeling any disgust at the sight of viscera, blood, or even brains.

A body was hanging from the trap, which had served its purpose admirably.

The problem was not the trap, but what happened to the person hanging from the end of the rope.

He was a human, apparently, and the trap was just big enough to keep him from getting out, but he wasn't high enough to escape potential predators. And he had literally been eaten alive.

Only the legs remained suspended in the trap, up to the pelvis. The rest was a puzzle of flesh and organs of all kinds, completely open and lying in a pool of various bodily fluids on the floor.

Typical wolf bites were visible on the pieces of limbs still lying around the body, bits of sinew on some of them being the only thing connecting them to the rest of the body.

Feeling his stomach about to empty, Marlon looked away and took deep breaths, until his digestive organ calmed down and wouldn't give back the meal he had eaten just a few hours earlier.

He tried to put his eyes back on it, but immediately the discomfort came back, and he couldn't help but vomit at the foot of a tree, for long minutes.

The smell of putrefaction came from the guts of the corpse that had been torn apart by the creature or creatures that had attacked it.

But the worst was yet to come. At the foot of the corpse, Marlon clearly saw a form floating in the air.

A rune.

A damn rune was in the middle of the spare parts that made up a human body a few hours before.

With nothing left to vomit, Marlon reached over and quickly touched the rune before walking away from the smell and the sight so creepy that even he could hardly stand it.

Ding

You have learned the rune Absorption

Marlon's mind, like a fuse, blew, and he began to snicker.

Then he began to laugh, at first just a barely audible gasp coming out of his mouth, then the sound became more raucous, almost like an unstoppable cough.

Then the raucous laughter slowly turned into a howl, a high-pitched, hysterical howl where only madness could be heard. Such madness that she was almost not human anymore. She was something else, almost a separate entity, a dark force that all life must fear.

Marlon rolled to the ground, not stopping for a second and holding his ribs, his eyes dancing around as nothing seemed to be able to stop what had just taken over him.

Even the animals had fled before this inconceivable sound of unfathomable darkness, and for a long time it resounded in the depths of Cronande.