Chapter 08 Contact With The Beast

Suzuka found the information she was looking for in the book. The monster was a Behemoth, a large, dark green humanoid with some intelligence. He wears medium or heavy armor that he either makes himself or takes from his victims. His threat level is rated as three stars, and he can be anywhere from two to four meters tall, weighing between 250-450 kg of pure muscle. The Behemoth primarily uses his brute strength as a weapon, using anything he can lift, such as rocks and fallen trees, and his main attack is charging with shields, logs, and big rocks. He is often found traveling with Orcs, Goblins, Gobliman, Gnomes, and Ogres. It is not recommended for adventurers to engage with a Behemoth alone, and at least one power user is needed to take him on. After reading his profile, Suzuka is impressed by the fact that Jacob defeated such a strong monster alone and did so easily.

"Hey, Jacob! Your box power sure is strong if you can kill such a monster so easily."

"Ha! Chumps like that are nothing to me. Dem! I'm a tree star power user not for the looks, you know! But as you can see, they can sucker punch you sometimes. They had a dam smart goblin or something to set up an ambush."

Hearing that Jacob is a tree stars power user Suzuka comes up with a question, "What do you mean by three stars?"

Derrick interrupts the conversation and responds in Jacob's place, telling her not to distract him with her chatter so he can focus on the road.

"Jacob, you just concentrate on the road! I'll keep her company for a while. So! Do you say you want to know how magic box power users are ranked? Eh!?"

Suzuka nods her head and agrees with Derrick, "Yes, I would like to know."

"Okay, I'm gonna make it as simple as possible for your little brain to understand... So, basically, the magic box is 4x4 meters big cube."

Suzuka gets surprised and lets out a shout, "WOW! That's a big cube... wish I could see one, how does it look like? We never got to see one, not even in school."

Derrick shows a little smile after hearing her say that and continues talking, "Oh! You pore bastards... you don't even have a picture in school. Okay, I was about to get to it... well, they all are different colors, art patterns, and jewels. But hey! We are going to see one right now, which we discovered a week ago. As for this one, the base itself is black, ornaments are gold in color with red jewels."

Suzuka gets excited after hearing they take her to the magic box and asks Derrick, "How does it work? And how do you rank powers in stars?"

Hearing Suzuka's interest in the magic box Derrick cheers up from being all down from what happened almost two hours ago and starts to explain to her.

"Well, when you get power, one needs to go to MIS or Hunters Guild to get a check-up. We use the magic item to measure how much power one absorbed from the magic box and based on that, we rate them in stars, from one to five. To get power from the magic box you need to stay as long as possible inside the box."

Suzuka thinks of another question, "Oh! So that's how you can get power from the box... but how long one needs to be inside the box to get 5 stars?"

Derrick takes a little lough and answers her, "Oh, little girl! Hahaha, you would need to be in there for, let's say, around 20 hours to get 5 stars if you're compatible, that is. Oh yeah! By the way, just recently some kid that goes by the name of Isaac become a box power user, and yes, before you ask, he is five stars. That little shit!"

When Suzuka was about to ask Derrick about Isaac, Alex showed a signal to stop and shouted, "Everyone, stop! Dead animals on the road! A possible enemy threat, Jacob! Please, make an area scan!"

While talking, Jacob quickly jumped off his wheeler and began scanning the area before Alex could even ask him to. After five minutes, Jacob couldn't find anyone within a 200-meter radius. While Jacob was scanning, Alex and Kane went to check on the closest reindeer. Alex counted three full-grown reindeer, and Kane inspected them to determine who might have killed them. All the bodies were lying in a zigzag pattern, leading from the road towards the forest, about ten meters apart. After making sure there were no enemies around, Jacob went to speak with Alex. Kane examined the first reindeer on the ground, lying in a pool of its own blood, to investigate the cause of death.

Kane's face turned pale after a minute while he was examining the body. Not because the body was still warm, but because he saw the wound that killed the animal. It was a huge claw mark on the reindeer's back, and the wound looked as if the spine had been broken in four places from just one hit. Kane ran to check on the next body while Alex stood on the lookout, talking with Jacob. The second reindeer's head had been almost bitten off clean and was only held on by the skin. The beast that did it had been chasing them from one side of the forest to another, leaving huge footprints on the ground. The beast caught up with them on a flat surface, killing them one after another with swift attacks. The beast must have crushed the first reindeer's spine, then bitten the throat of the other one. After figuring out what had happened to the first two reindeer, Kane ran to see the third body, but after checking it, he started to shout.

"Jacob! Keep scanning the area! The body is still hot! The Beast who killed them was eating just now and probably after he heard us coming he went into hiding!"

As soon as Jacob heard Kane say that he had hit the ground with his fist while crouching down, he used his earth power to build a dome that covered all three MPFWs and everyone who was close to him. Only Kane was outside because he was too far away. Without wasting a moment, Kane began running towards Jacob's dome for cover. As he ran, he heard a noise behind him in the forest, like someone was clawing at a tree. Jacob quickly made a hole in the dome for Kane to enter and prepared to close it as soon as Kane was inside. Everyone inside the dome started to panic a little, with Steve shouting and Suzuka and Derrick asking questions.

"Hey! What's with the dome?"

"Is a big monster attacking again?! I'm scared!"

"Hey! Jacob! We're a little bit early but I think it's the beast we are looking for!"

But Jacob calmed them down In a second, "Shut up you all! Dome is just to be safe!... Steve! Little girl! We're not getting attacked, so stay still! And yeah, Derrick! I think it was our beast!"

Kane arrived at the hole in the dome but paused to take a quick look behind him. Seeing that nothing was chasing him and no one was in sight, he let out a sigh of relief. Kane then walked into Jacob's dome. Steve, who had jumped down from his wheeler, started walking towards Jacob. As soon as Kane was inside, Jacob closed the hole, leaving them in complete darkness. At that moment, they heard a noise like something had fallen to the ground right in front of the hole that Jacob had just closed. 

Steve walked up to Kane and said to Jacob, "Hey, Jacob! What's with the noise outside just now? And dam, it's dark in here, can't you make some holes for light to come in?"

Jacob answered him in a silent voice, "Shut up, Steve, I need to concentrate while I scan the area."

Kane followed after Jacob, "Dem it Steve, there might be a monster outside. Keep it down."

Steve without showing any fear told them, "I didn't think I live the day to see our monster-tracking veteran, shaking from fear, in his boots, hahaha! Oh! What's the matter, Jacob? Scared of some wolf that killed some Santa's reindeer?"

Jacob got serious and told Steve, "I told you, Steve! Shut up or do you want me to stick a rock pole up your butt?"

But Steve has some other plans and he started to share them with Jacob, "Okay, okay, calm down, here's a plan! Since your scan doesn't pick up anyone moving outside, I suggest you open a hole or a small window in the wall here and I look around what's going on there, sounds like a plan, eh?"

Jacob thinks for a second and asks Steve, "Are you sure about that? I'm telling you, it's dangerous."

And that's all it needed for Steve to get his brave talk going on, "Oh yes, I'm sure... you see, unlike you lot! I'm thee, who they call, "Steve The Goblin Slayer" and I'm sure as hell I'll be fine."

Feeling fatigued by Steve's idle talk, Jacob decided to open a small hole in the wall, large enough for a grown man's head. He had been scanning the area for nearly five minutes and detected no movement. They all agreed that it was time to investigate what was happening outside.

"Okay! You win Steve... get ready, I'm opening a small hole so you could make a quick peek outside. But only for a minute, you got that, Goblin Slayer?"

Steve can barely see anything in the dark, he puts his hand against the wall, and tells Jacob, "Dam! It's dark in here, can barely see where the walls are! But I'm in position and ready to go! Yeah, hit me, baby! Come on!"

After receiving Steve's signal, Jacob opened a small hole in the wall where Steve was standing. Sunlight poured in through the hole, temporarily blinding Steve who had been in the dark for so long. At that moment, Steve covered his eyes with his hand, trying to block the incoming light so he could see outside and adjust his eyes to the light. Suddenly, a large, muscular arm with clawed fingers covered in black fur reached in through the hole and grasped Steve by the head. Steve couldn't even utter a word before the beast pulled him outside through the small hole, crushing his bones in the process, and leaving his body as a bloody bag of crushed meat and bones.

The beast pulled Steve out quickly, so Jacob wasn't able to trap his arm while closing the hole. Instead, he trapped one of Steve's legs. After closing the hole, Jacob scanned the ground to see the beast's actions outside. Everyone else stood in shock, speechless at what had just happened. Jacob sensed the beast slowly walking towards the forest while dragging something behind him. From the slide trail, it appeared to be Steve's body. After a few minutes, the beast went out of Jacob's scanning range, heading in a straight line deep into the forest. 

Renold ran to Jacob and began to shout at him, "What the hell, Jacob! You said, easy gig! Three men are dead! Well, not that I care about the last guy but still, what the hell!"

Jacob made a window with bars on the dome's roof and answered Renold, "Only a fool goes on an adventure without considering his death, even if it's an easy gig! You all know the risk of going outside this far! So don't give me this shit!"

Renold sits on MPFW's front wheel and asks Jacob, "Jacob! Tell me! Do you really think we can do this? I know! It's big money, but can we really do this? You know dead people can't spend even the greatest fortunes."

Jacob took a second to answer but he come clean on this one, "Renold! Alex! Kane! My man! I can do it! Steve got killed because he was an idiot, I tried to tell him it was dangerous but he didn't listen. Behemoth with his shit Goblin friends had been waiting there in ambush for a long time. We just let our guard down and didn't see that coming. We still can do it, just don't make mistakes and we will be fine. I can trap that beast easily."

Renold stands up, looks at the sky, checks the sun's position, and says, "Okay! So, what now! We still got four hours till the sun starts to go down and then about 2 hours till it gets too dark to do anything. Jacob, have you got a good idea for a plan?"

Alex joins the conversation and says, "For a beast like that, I think we should lure him on a flat surface so we could get a good visual. Taking him on inside the thick forest would be just suicidal. If we move now, we could track the beast easily. But if we wait, it may come back and kill us all."

Kane starts talking right after Alex did, "Yeah! I don't think the beast will be stupid enough to come back here soon enough. Even beasts have enough brains to know that returning here might be a trap so we will have to track it down if we want to capture it today."

Jacob sits down on the ground while thinking about a plan, Alex comes up with the idea and tells them, "Let's use a different strategy. We three will act as bait while Jacob stays close by and scans the area. When the beast appears, Jacob will use earth magic to trap its legs and prevent it from running away. Once the beast is trapped, we can then cage it with rock walls or something similar."

After hearing out his plan, Jacob looks at them and says, "Well! Sounds like a plan... Simple and easy plan... but are you all up for it? I mean, if I screw up, you're all dead."

Renold and Kane told Jacob, "Well! If Kane says he's in then I'm in too."

"Oh! I'm in Renold! After all, not much of a choice we have after coming this far."

That's all Jacob needed to hear from his men.