Chapter 23: Chapter 23 – Horrendous Smell
All six of them set off together.
'Seems like this weird thing is quite an emergency if all six of us set off together. Seems unprofitable to walk in a big group unless there's something big going on that needs all of us.'
Kyle didn't know what everyone was talking about since they used many words that he didn't know.
He only knew that there was something that was causing trouble.
The six of them ran out of the city, and Kyle had to run very quickly to keep up with them.
'Holy shit! They are so fast!' he thought as he watched Lancel jumping from branch to branch while the others just charged forward.
Nervon, the smaller and older man with the big shield, threw a glance at Kyle with annoyance.
The next moment, Kyle felt a hand grabbing him.
"Faster!" Nervon shouted as he put Kyle over his shoulder.
"Sorry," Kyle answered from Nervon's shoulder.
Kyle felt quite a bit embarrassed when he realized that he was carried like a sack of potatoes.
However, as soon as he lay on Nervon's shoulder, the speed of the group picked up drastically.
They were running almost twice as fast as before!
'What the fuck!' Kyle thought in shock as he saw the speed.
'That's like 25 miles per hour or something! Feels like I'm in a car!'
From his new vantage point, Kyle could watch the others.
Now that the speed had picked up, he could tell that the young Fennek was the one having trouble keeping up.
But in the next moment, Kyle saw something strange.
It was like the air around Fennek became hotter, and his surroundings became a bit distorted.
When that happened, his speed increased, and he managed to keep up with the senior hunters.
'Wonder what he's doing. Is this some kind of fantasy technique or something? Did he trigger one of his cooldowns?' Kyle thought.
The team ran at this speed for over 30 minutes.
Suddenly, Samson halted, and Nervon roughly threw Kyle to the side.
Samson gave orders to everyone, and the group split apart.
"Watch," Samson told Kyle.
"Understood," Kyle answered.
After a bit more walking, Kyle's eyes widened.
'What the fuck?!'
Kyle saw a bright clearing, but he could tell that this was not a natural one.
The clearing was littered with several broken trunks, which had an oddly black color.
It was obvious that this clearing used to be filled with trees, but all of the trees had been destroyed.
As Kyle took a deep breath, he started to cough.
'Holy shit! That smells horrendous!'
It was like Kyle had just breathed in a cloud of acid, and he felt like his throat and nose were burning.
As he looked around more, he realized that this wasn't just a clearing.
This was a trail of destruction!
The ground was black and broken, and Kyle could see the "clearing" stretching towards the horizon.
'How much fucking damage did this thing do?!'
'It must have destroyed thousands of these hard trees!'
Samson was investigating the ground while the others were nowhere to be seen.
He took a bit from the ground and put it into a pestle and mortar before mixing it.
Kyle watched with curiosity through his teary eyes.
This smell was horrendous.
A moment later, he turned around from the direction where the smell was stronger to protect his nose.
"What do?" Kyle asked, not looking.
"I'm searching for the Tar Golem," Samson answered, not looking away from his experiment.
'The fucking direction?! The fucking direction can't be any clearer!'
Kyle pointed in the direction where the majority of the smell came from. "There!"
Samson looked at Kyle with furrowed brows. "That's where the Tar Golem is?" he asked.
Kyle pointed in that direction with more urgency. "There! Yes, there!"
"How do you know that?" Samson asked before pointing in the other direction of the trail of destruction. "It could also be there."
"Smell! Bad smell! Smell come from there!" Kyle shouted, pointing in the direction.
"Smell?" Samson asked with furrowed brows as he sniffed the air a bit.
The faint scent of tar filled the air, but Samson couldn't even hope to discern from which direction it was coming.
Then, he remembered how Kyle had sniffed out the two young wolves yesterday.
'This might be useful,' he thought.
"Are you sure it's that direction?" Samson asked.
"Yes! Certain! Smell bad! Real bad!"
Samson looked at Kyle for a bit.
"Let's hope you're right," he said before releasing a couple of loud whistles.
The next moment, Samson grabbed Kyle and charged towards the east.
Samson had investigated the ground earlier to discern when the damage to the surroundings had occurred.
This would tell him when the Tar Golem would have been here, and after a couple of more tests, he would also know the direction.
But the test took a while.
If Kyle could just sniff out the direction of the Tar Golem, they would save precious time.
As the two of them kept charging down the trail of destruction, Kyle's eyes teared up more.
'How the fuck is this smell so bad?!' he thought before glancing at the calm Samson. 'And how is he not smelling that?!'
After running for a while, Kyle noticed the silhouettes of a couple of the other hunters joining them from the tree line.
Another wave of disgusting and acidic odor hit Kyle, and he almost gagged.
"There!" he shouted, pointing at the tree line.
Samson furrowed his brows.
The usual procedure was to follow the path of destruction to the target.
'Well, he has been right before. Might as well go all in,' Samson thought.
He whistled a couple more times before charging into the tree line.
Some of the more senior hunters watched Samson with confusion before following his commands.
"There!" Kyle shouted, pointing towards the west again.
More whistles.
Kyle gagged and coughed.
'Fucking Lord! This smell is so bad! How is it so bad?!'
Suddenly, Samson whistled a couple more times before putting Kyle down.
"Good job!" Samson said to Kyle before charging forward.
Kyle heaved and coughed a couple of times before looking at the origin of the smell.
And then, he finally saw it.
The reason why they were all here.
'What the fuck.'