Chapter 30 Carapace

Wood was a professional.

Whether you looked at him as a guard or as an adventurer, he was unquestionably the most experienced person in the party.

Even during a short rest on the road, he would carefully arrange a full set of warning traps around the group.

Sometimes, however, being too professional came with its own problems.

Wood’s traps were meticulous.

Extremely meticulous.

Xia Nan and the others would hear an alarm, jump to their feet, tense every muscle, and prepare to fight for their lives…

Only to discover that a harmless rabbit or some other small woodland animal had triggered it.

It was exhausting.

But Xia Nan never complained.

He certainly did not start relaxing just because the alarms went off frequently.

This was not the boy who cried wolf.

A little fatigue was better than dying silently beneath a monster’s claws because everyone had grown careless.

The image of the gnome Elki’s skull bursting apart during the goblin ambush was still fresh in Xia Nan’s mind.

“Snap… jingle-jingle!”

At dusk, somewhere inside the dense bushes shrouded in thin mist, a branch suddenly broke.

A second later, metal bells rang out in rapid succession.

A trap!

Xia Nan shot to his feet.

Both hands closed around the hilt of his decapitating longsword.

His eyes locked onto the direction of the sound, but he kept enough awareness on his surroundings to make sure nothing was circling around behind him.

No carelessness.

Not even for a second.

Hai’an and Wood reacted just as quickly.

The instant the bells rang, Hai’an snatched up the longbow beside his feet.

Arrow nocked.

String drawn.

The sharp arrowhead pointed straight toward the distant patch of swaying grass.

Wood was even stranger.

One moment, Xia Nan could clearly see him.

The next, his figure seemed to darken beneath a layer of hazy shadow.

His presence dropped so sharply that Xia Nan’s eyes almost slid past him.

Larry and Doris were half a beat slower.

That was understandable.

One was overweight and had grown up as a pampered young master.

The other was thin, frail, and had already been frightened half to death several times today.

After walking through the Misty Forest for an entire day, both of them were exhausted.

At least neither one treated the alarm casually.

Even though they both knew there was a good chance another rabbit or deer had triggered the trap, they still forced themselves to their feet, weapons in hand.

Crackle.

The campfire flickered.

For a moment, the soft popping of burning firewood seemed to be the only sound left.

Night was approaching.

The mist thickened along with it, swallowing what little dusky light still filtered through the trees.

Visibility was far worse than during the day.

With the terrain this complicated, no one rushed forward to investigate.

They held their positions.

And waited.

“Tap… tap…”

Xia Nan stood with his back against a large tree.

His entire body was tense.

His dark eyes reflected the outline of the distant bushes, and his nostrils moved faintly with each controlled breath.

Something was different this time.

Earlier, whenever the traps had been triggered by timid herbivores, the animals would panic at the sound of the bells and immediately bolt.

From the camp, the party would hear a brief burst of footsteps rapidly fading into the distance.

Sometimes there would even be a sharp, frightened cry thrown in for good measure.

This time was the exact opposite.

The movement inside the grass stopped for only a heartbeat after the bells rang.

Then it started again.

Worse…

Whatever was inside seemed to have realized where the party was.

It was coming directly toward them.

Branches snapped.

Grass stalks broke.

The approaching footsteps sounded oddly sharp, almost like pointed objects striking the ground.

Mixed into it was another noise.

Something rough scraping against something rougher.

A horrible grinding sound.

The whole thing reminded Xia Nan of the background music in a horror movie, rising higher and sharper right before the “good part.”

His heart beat faster.

The bushes ahead shook.

Then, at last…

A piercing insect shriek ripped through the air, sharp enough to make his eardrums ache.

Four hideous shapes crawled out of the darkness.

Their bodies were wrapped in thick, rough carapaces patterned like rippling stone.

Four heavy clawed limbs extended from either side, their joints covered in sharp protrusions.

Compound eyes no larger than mung beans reflected the dim light.

Split mouthparts opened and closed as they shrieked.

Between pale, gleaming fangs, Xia Nan could faintly see contracting throats and ropes of viscous saliva.

But the strangest features were the featherlike antennae rising from the sides of their heads and the long tails behind them, which split at the ends into finlike shapes.

“Rust monsters!”

Wood’s low voice came from somewhere nearby.

For the first time, Xia Nan heard genuine shock in it.

“Damn it. Why are they here…”

Then Wood’s voice sharpened.

“Prepare for battle!”

The words had barely left his mouth when a wooden arrow fletched with white tail feathers tore through the air.

Hai’an had finished taking aim almost the instant the warning bells rang.

The moment Wood confirmed that combat was unavoidable, the half-elf loosed the party’s first attack.

But the darkness and drifting mist made the shot difficult.

Hai’an had deliberately aimed for one rust monster’s tiny eyes, partially protected beneath its thick carapace.

The arrow missed.

Clang!

The metal arrowhead struck the monster’s yellow-brown chitin shell.

Sparks scattered through the dusk.

The arrow scraped sideways and ricocheted away.

A dark brown scratch remained on the rough shell.

Nothing more.

Then the four rust monsters charged.

Each stood nearly five feet tall.

Their shrill cries tore through the forest as their clawed limbs hammered the ground.

Larry was closest.

And somehow…

He went first.

Maybe having Doris behind him gave him courage.

Maybe he still felt embarrassed about how badly he had panicked in front of the scorpion swarm earlier.

Whatever the reason, the wealthy young master suddenly displayed more bravery than anyone would have expected.

He raised his one-handed hammer overhead.

Then he lunged.

His tight clothes pulled around his body, exposing pale rolls of flesh, but Larry ignored everything except the monster in front of him.

The iron hammer flashed.

It crashed toward the rust monster’s short, narrow head.

“Clang… Ah!”

The impact rang sharply through the forest.

Larry’s scream followed immediately.

The iron hammer was the product of human craftsmanship, hard and heavy.

The instant it struck the yellow-brown carapace, a web of fine cracks spread across the shell.

But that was as far as the damage went.

The reaction force came next.

A violent shock raced through the hammer and into Larry’s hand.

From his fingertips to his arm, then through his shoulder and chest, the entire right side of his body went numb.

For an instant, it felt as though he had lost all sensation there.

The hammer flew from his hand and landed in the grass.

Larry staggered backward, face twisted in pain.

But two human legs were never going to outrun four clawed limbs at that distance.

“Screee!”

The rust monster’s shriek seemed to make the air itself tremble.

Its sharp mouthparts opened and closed.

Death rushed closer.

Then Doris moved.

The blonde girl who had spent the entire day hiding behind Larry suddenly gathered every ounce of strength she had and hurled another one-handed hammer.

Clang!

Whether by luck or instinct, the hammer struck the rust monster directly in its vulnerable mouthparts.

The creature jerked to a stop.

Larry did not waste the chance.

He dropped all dignity and scrambled backward on hands and knees.

Dark green saliva dripped from the monster’s damaged mouth.

A few drops splashed across the abandoned hammer.

Sizzle…

Acrid smoke immediately rose.

The same metal hammerhead that had been hard enough to crack the monster’s shell began to soften and blacken as though it had met its natural enemy.

“Careful!”

Wood’s voice came from somewhere beyond Xia Nan’s sight.

“A rust monster’s venom can corrode metal!”

“What!?”

Xia Nan had already tightened his grip on his freshly polished decapitating longsword and was preparing to charge in.

His next step abruptly faltered.