Skill-Eater: Prison World Saga-Chapter 142: Hunt

The hunters awoke with the rising sun and ate a second helping of harvest stew for breakfast. Then the crew spent a few minutes going over the map while planning out their next move.

Once they had picked their route, they loaded the wagon and started traveling east. With any luck, they would locate their quarry by the end of the day. Then it would be time to set a trap and take the big bad out before anyone else got hurt.

Although they were in the right area, a predator that size would have claimed a huge territory. Even if they searched for days, they were unlikely to stumble across its lair by chance. Their best bet was to find a place where it had fed, and then follow the tracks back to where it took refuge during the night.

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If that didn’t work, they would have to try luring it out, but Trapper was confident that they could find the padamas sometime within the next few days. While they searched, they decided to visit the nearby farmsteads along the way, as they were likely places for the beast to attack.

Their route would also take them near the border of the Ivory Plains, where they could complete the second half of their mission—surveying the surrounding biomes to see what changes had occurred in the wake of the anomaly.

The crew advanced in a combat formation with weapons at the ready and skills primed to activate. Trapper rode beside Violet in the wagon, keeping sense life up the entire time. She had put the points she had acquired from cycling-up into Generation, to keep the skill running for as long as possible. She wouldn’t be able to place as many traps when they camped for the night, but it was better than being ambushed by the giant lizard on the road.

Despite the pervasive tension that had Edge jumping at every shifting shadow, the first few hours of their journey were peaceful. Now that they were further away from where the cancerous blightlings had infested the Painted Lands, the wildlife was abundant. The fertile soil of the Breadbasket supported a vast variety of plants and animals that he had never seen before.

Some of them were similar to creatures from his home world, but many more could never have evolved on Earth. The team passed by clusters of singing mushrooms—vermillion fungi that hummed in various tones depending on their size. The growths created a haunting melody that tugged at his heartstrings until the wagon rolled past their habitat.

There were flocks of birds that hunted by unleashing miniature bolts of lightning, toads that breathed purple flame, and countless other wonders to behold. Edge’s favorite was a type of flower known as prism poppies, which shifted through every color of the rainbow depending on the temperature and time of day. They were emerald when he first saw them, and had cycled through electric orange, brilliant blue, and pure white by the time they left his view.

They ate lunch on the march, since it wasn’t safe to stop without Trapper’s devices in place. Around noon, they made it to the closest farm. The hunters were thrilled to discover that the buildings were still intact. The harvest had been brought in, all the equipment was gone, and the fence was locked with no sign that anything had tried to break in. Since they had no reason to stop, they kept right on going, heading for the next farmstead on the map.

When the next farmhouse came into view a few hours later, they found their first signs that the padamas was in the area. Edge had thought that the site of the blightlings’ attack had been bad, but this was even worse. The perimeter fence had been torn to shreds, and the magtech mini-turret was just a twisted lump of metal.

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There was no question that the culprit was the colossal lizard. Its tracks were in plain view, along with a few scattered scales where someone had managed to deal a bit of damage during the fight. Bloody footprints were everywhere, along with the occasional shattered weapon. All of that was grim enough, but what really made his blood run cold was the farmhouse and the barn.

Both buildings had been broken into. The walls of the barn had been demolished, like a wrecking ball had gone to town on them. After devouring the beasts inside, the lizard had burrowed through the side of the homestead—clawing its way through wall by wall, until it reached the innermost chamber. The floor was covered in talon marks and bloodstains. It was clear that people had tried to take refuge inside, and the relentless predator had gotten them anyway.

What an awful way to go. Sitting there in terror as it came closer and closer, until the last wall fell, and the beast appeared before their eyes. Edge didn’t know who had lived here, but he vowed to himself that he would avenge them. He couldn’t blame a predator for following its nature, but that didn’t mean that he was going to forgive it.

“It must have some kind of melee attack skill,” Jumo said after they walked back outside and took a seat around the wagon. “I would guess tail lash, judging by the shape of the breach and the pattern of the debris.” Trapper nodded her agreement at his assessment.

“At least we know what one of its skills can do,” Riller added. “That’s one less power that can take us by surprise.”

“Two.” Sasha pointed to the ground near the turret, where a series of black spikes as thick as Edge’s wrists were embedded in the ground like spears. “We saw those jutting out from the end of the lizard’s tail when we ran into it on the plains. It must be able to fire them off as a ranged attack.”

“Shit.” Violet walked over to examine one up close. “It was already going to be a tough target. If it can conceal its presence and attack from range, it will be twice as tricky to take down. One mistake, and it will be game over before we even know what hit us.”

Before the hunters left, there was one last complication to consider. The crops had been devoured down to their roots and the grain silos had been broken into. “Scavengers could have gotten the harvest, but something big forced its way into the silos.” Trapper frowned. “Whatever it was, it was able to remove its tracks with a skill. It must have showed up after the fight for a free meal.”

“That means there are two big beasts somewhere in the region, right?” Edge asked.

Jumo nodded. “Let’s hope that the other one was just passing through and that it isn’t nearly as large. Dealing with the padamas is more than enough trouble for one mission.”

All in all, it was a bleak, depressing sight. The crew stopped long enough to fill the cart with the padamas’s tail spikes, then they left the farm behind them. They resumed their journey with a steely determination to put an end to the predatory beast before it could claim more lives.

Now that they had found signs of their quarry, the hunters began following the lizard’s trail. Edge thought that it would be easy, but the cunning reptile displayed an impressive level of caution for a creature of its size. Although he found one of its footprints from time to time, he would never have been able to follow the trail by himself.

Though its cloak of invisibility couldn’t erase tracks like conceal, the lizard used some of the same strategies that Sasha had taught him, doing its best to reduce its presence as it moved through the area. It took Riller, Sasha, and Trapper working together to keep them on a steady course. Even then, they lost the trail on three separate occasions and had to slowly circle the area until they found another sign.

There was one more farm in this corner of the Breadbasket, and it was in the direction that the lizard was heading. Edge hoped that whoever had lived there was already long gone. Either way, he knew deep in his gut that matters were coming to a head before much longer.