My Last Hunt

Treasures and Snatchers: Level Three (part 20)

Qiao kept the red stone hidden under his clothes. He don't need it to spot these chasers because they were wearing their shining tokens and it emitted light in the darkness. 

On the other hand, the team leader was nervous now as two level four peak chasers ran toward him wielding their weapons. From their momentum, they seemed to have put all their strength in this attack. 

Qiao held his level four weapon and remained hidden. He can show his heroism somewhere else, but to appear now in front of them would be counted as foolishness. The team leader also got ready, increasing his vigilance to escape in case the voice was also another trap for him. 

The two chasers, attacked at the same time. The team leader kicked one of them aside and faced the second. He had kicked the other one in Qiao's direction do that he would not be surrounded from all sides, if the voice decided to betray him. It was also to test the sincerity behind that voice, so he sent the other chaser from where he estimated he heard the voice so that the hidden man could take care of the second chaser. 

Qiao was ready for this moment. He could not injure a human wearing rugged fleeces with his present weapon as it was specially designed for monster hunt not for human hunting. Instead he used it as a blunt weapon and struck on the neck of the chaser, who immediately fell unconscious.

The second chaser noticed the anomaly. He could see that his fourth companion had fell unconscious suddenly and he could only see that because he was wearing an illumination pearl. These kinds of methods were not known in this world, to directly make someone unconscious suddenly. Qiao was only a level three while his weapon was level four. 

He used his weapon with force and punched on the neck resulting in the man falling unconscious, which made the second one threatened. He hurriedly moved back and swayed his weapon, 

"What did you do? Is someone else helping you?" he asked team leader. 

Team leader heard the thudding voice. It meant as soon as he had kicked aside the chaser, the man behind the voice had attacked, but what kind of attack it was he could not understand. He himself was puzzled. 

The other two who were at some distance immediately surrounded him and swayed their weapons. They were worried now as this team leader had made many friends in the Guild with his decent behaviour. It was possible that he might have extra help or had let someone follow him for this specific mission. 

Few team leaders take this kind of steps to secure themselves in case their team betrayed at the last moment. 

"I don't know but it will be better if you leave without further ado." The team leader warned them. 

"Don't act smart, if you want us to leave then handover the treasure which you hunted previous month, we know you did not give it to the Guild nor sold it to auction house." One of them started to attract the attention of the monster to force the team leader. 

Team leader heard that and got shocked. He has paid them their fair share for that specific hunt and they did not object at that time. "

Were you not happy with your share back then? Then why ask for it today?" he asked. 

"Cut off the nonsense, if you want us to leave then hand it over." 

They were alert and keeping eyes around while they extorted for the treasure. 

"What if I don't?" He got angry now because he had already paid them their share. 

"Then we are leaving and you hunt alone." They knew very well how these half witty monsters of high levels act when triggered. They wouldn't chase after a faraway target but go after the nearest one.

The team leader felt that even if he had someone behind him, both of them cannot hunt a monster of level five unless there were two to three chasers. The whole forest seemed to running now, the men left but they triggered the monster toward specific.

They attracted the monster towards the leader and then left in a hurry. The monster could easily see the one left behind from the illumination pearl. The team leader was left alone to face it. Qiao did not like this this turn of those chasers, they were really sharp minds. 

The shining eyes of the monster were fixated on the team leader alone, it was a huge monster with low level on intelligence.

"I cannot hunt it alone." He spoke to warn the man behind the voice, he somehow has some hope about the man that he might perhaps bhelp in this situation. Qiao was already speechless, he only wanted to save his small team and turned out that this team leader was retreating toward the cave to avoid the monster. 

Team leader did not hear anything in return because Qiao ran to tell both his men to leave the cave. The monster would run over the muddy cave and injure his men. He was running madly faster to run away before the monster arrived. Team leader has no clue where the man had disappeared again, he was only trying to safe himself from the monster. Now he was in the middle of the mess created by his own team that he seemed baffled.

Qiao don't need to move his neck to measure the distance between them as both the monster and the team leader were about to reach on their heads now. 

"Linwin, Quipu...quick get out of the cave" he shouted with all his strength when he thought that he could alarm his men with his voice alone. He knew they would immediately follow his orders and they did the same, but as they saw the monster on their heads they equally felt speechless.