CHAPTER 41: NO LUCK

Nick began to move once he found that he’d finally reached the edge of their territory.

He moved cautiously through the dense foliage, keeping his senses sharp.

The humid air clung to his skin, making every movement feel just a tiny bit more taxing, but he forced himself to ignore it; there was nothing he could do about it for the time being.

The Lamboda Beasts themselves were rather elusive, since they were much more cowardly than most other beasts were. Most of the time, they ran at the sight of an Altered they judged to be stronger than themselves, unlike most other Mutant, or any rank beast for that matter, who would just run head on into a fight with bloodlust.

But Nick lucked out in this department, since he was weaker than the Lamboda Beasts, especially considering he didn’t have a single Soul Seed in his Soul Star above Awakened rank, and it wasn’t even halfway full at that.

Thankfully Nick’s risk of choosing Vexa as the information broker he’d go to paid off. Vexa’s information had been thorough. Including data like the beasts preferring sunlit clearings in the jungle of dense foliage where their waxen skin could remain soft, was not something that other brokers would have given out, or would have requested an extra premium charge to acquire.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t rich enough to purchase a map of the entire territory from her, as something like that cost over double what he paid for the information, a whopping 200,000 credits! And that was including the discount!

Nick wouldn’t pay for that even if he had the funds to do so.

He’d rather just look for such clearings himself, and hope to find a Lamboda beast there, rather than rely on a map that may or may not be accurate.

Besides, he was secretly hoping his unnatural ability to attract beasts to him would kick in!

***

Nick wiped the sweat that had accumulated on his brows, with the stifling humidity not helping one bit.

Even though he said he was going to follow his own plans since he couldn’t afford the map, he didn’t expect finding what he would consider a ’sunlit clearing’ to be so hard!

He’d been searching for hours, scouring the dense forest that stretched endlessly around him, thinking that even though he hadn’t found a sunlit clearing yet, there might still be a small chance that he’d find a Lamboda Beast resting in a smaller patch of sunlight, somewhere.

But no.

Nothing.

Not a single trace of any Lamboda Beast.

He had been walking for hours, circling clearings that weren’t exactly filled with sunlight, but weren’t entirely covered either, scanning the undergrowth, even climbing a few of the taller, thinner trees in hopes of gaining a better vantage point!

But what a fat lot of crap all that was for him.

He’d made absolutely zero progress so far, and it was starting to stress him out.

’Did I pay 90,000 credits for nothing... was her information really accurate!?’

It was only natural that he began to question the validity of Vexa’s information, but he quickly discarded those useless thoughts as he knew what he was getting himself into when accepting her terms.

He already knew the Lamboda Beasts were incredibly rare!

It’s just that seeing and believing were entirely different things...

Hence, he could only sigh at his lack of luck in finding anything and continue onwards, pushing through the boredom that had gradually seeped into him.

’Maybe they’re even deeper inwards.’

Gritting his teeth, he pressed forward, with his boots sinking slightly into the damp earth under the shade.

Nick mentally mapped out a lay of the land, not wanting to miss anything or get lost and end up forgetting the way out of the forest and back to the Sanctuary.

If that happened, then he would be in some deep shit.

Not only would he be unable to contact Luna until he somehow made his way out, but he would be hard pressed for finding any food to keep him sustained!

The Lamboda Beasts were fucking nowhere to be seen, but even if he did find one, their meat was completely inedible.

The only good thing was that there was plenty of water sources dotted around the forest, so he’d be all set for that.

All he could rely on in terms of food were the emergency rations he’d brought along just in case he found himself in a situation like the one he was worried about.

As for smaller, weaker beasts?

They were just as rare, if not rarer than the Lamboda Beasts themselves.

There was a reason why there were so few of them in this huge territory, and it wasn’t because they were easily killed or refused to mate each other or some odd reason like that!

It was simply because they had caused their own deaths through their gluttony!

They had eaten practically all that the forest had to offer in terms of weaker beasts, which caused a large population of them to die off!

Now, their territory could only sustain a maximum of ten of them at once, otherwise there would be another lack of food problem for them...

’Truly stupid creatures.’

But Nick pushed those thoughts aside, as an idea had just crossed his mind.

’What if instead of trying to find the Lamboda Beasts themselves, I try to find some of their prey?’

It wasn’t a bad idea, to say the least, and Nick seriously considered it.

While the total population of the forest had drastically dwindled thanks to the Lamboda Beasts’ greed, there were still far more weaker beasts populating it that them, making them much easier to find.

Nick had even spotted a three of them earlier on, just that he had ignored one and killed the tastier looking two... Though they’d hardly even caused a dent to his hunger, as they were only the size of a small bird, barely even amounting to a snack for him.

Neither did he absorb their beast cores, since they were only Mundane rank and would provide little to no boost to his strength — not to mention it made having to replace them later on when he maxed out his Soul Star even more cumbersome, since replacing Soul Seeds took time and effort.