Chapter 76 Hunting

Duncan marched through the tunnels with a mission in his mind. He wanted to hunt and kill every cannibal that inhabited this place. He knew that he didn't have much time. He only had a week to scour this tunnel and get rid of these filths.

While a week might sound long, the reality of the matter was that it was really short if Duncan wanted to scour all the tunnels present here. The tunnels ran throughout the mountain and often branched off into different pathways. This made hunting these cannibals into extinction a difficult proposition.

Still, Duncan wasn't deterred by the difficulty of the task.

He was highly motivated to rid the world of this scum. Merely thinking about them made his stomach revolt and his blood boil. Duncan traipsed along the tunnels aimlessly making as much noise as possible to attract them to him.

Half an hour later, Duncan's efforts bore fruit. Just as he turned a corner, he came face to face with a cannibal that was heading in his direction. Duncan and the cannibal both paused for a split second before the cannibal roared at Duncan and ran in his direction.

Duncan didn't back off either. He gladly welcomed the cannibal's attack and ran forward to meet him angrily. The cannibal tried to claw Duncan's face with its nails. Duncan smoothly ducked under its attack and opened up the cannibal's stomach from side to side in one slash.

Duncan's actions didn't have a single ounce of hesitation in them. He acted like a well-oiled machine. His movements were so smooth as if he had practiced such a maneuver countless times. In reality, this was the first time he attacked in such a way.

As Duncan bypassed the cannibal and opened up its stomach, the cannibal staggered to its knees with green blood pouring out of its stomach. Despite such a heavy injury, the cannibal didn't look to be intimidated by Duncan. It roared angrily and turned to stare at Duncan.

Only to be met with Duncan's sword heading straight toward its neck. A brief moment of panic appeared in the cannibal's eyes before its head was lobbed off with a smooth cut.

Duncan glanced at the cannibal dispassionately and started walking away without paying much attention to the body. The cannibal's body fell down with a thud as green blood started pouring out once more from the severed neck.

Duncan realized that these cannibals weren't actually strong. Their strength was on the same level as his. However, they attacked in a savage manner with no thoughts on tactics or how to fight. It was as if they didn't know any martial arts. Their weapons of attack seemed to be primarily their claws and their mouth.

If this was the case, Duncan didn't see much problem in eliminating this lot and gifting them with well-deserved death. But something told him things wouldn't be this easy.

If things were like this, his master must have known that he would be able to survive without much trouble. In order for his master to tell him that his task was to survive for a week, Duncan knew that the danger level of the cave must be something that he couldn't handle.

His master didn't look like someone who exaggerated things. In fact, Duncan suspected that the truth was the opposite. So, he decided not to let his guard down during his stay in this hellhole.

*****

After his encounter with the third cannibal, Duncan met with a few more of those detestable things in the next half day. He dispatched them without much trouble. But as half a day had gone by, Duncan was beginning to get a little hungry. His anger had faded away a little and the motivation to kill them all wasn't able to sustain him for a long time.

Duncan knew that finding edible food in this cave must be something hard. If not, these cannibals wouldn't have resorted to eating others. Thus, Duncan faced the biggest problem of his stay in this cave now.

While Duncan's determination to kill these detestable things hasn't lessened, the motivation and anger that fuelled his wandering for half a day had subsided a little. He knew that he couldn't go on like this realistically.

As for the issue of food, Duncan knew that it wasn't a big problem right now. But, he also understood that it would play a decisive factor in his survival. Duncan wasn't someone who was a stranger to hunger, but there was a limit to his body. He couldn't fight in his optimal condition as days went by if he didn't find some food soon.

Now that his anger had subsided a little, Duncan was able to think rationally. He knew that roaming around these tunnels aimlessly like he was doing currently was not an ideal solution. It not only didn't let him encounter these things as much as he liked. It also sapped his energy a lot.

He needed to be smart about this and think of a solution that worked for him. He needed to think like a hunter instead of roaming around aimlessly like an idiot. His experience with the mercenaries had taught him that in order to hunt wild beasts, one needed to somehow lure them into a trap or find a place they frequented.

Like how the area around the water was a place that beasts would frequent. Even beasts needed to drink water and finding such a place would net him an ideal hunting ground. But there were also inherent risks attached to that strategy.

If someone ran into a beast that they couldn't fight, then it would be disastrous. Finding an ideal hunting ground was not as easy as finding a body of water. If the beasts that frequent that place were something that was hard to handle with their manpower, then it was of no use to the party.

Furthermore, Duncan didn't even know if these things needed water. So, such a place wasn't a sure shot either. The only option left to him was to lure them into a trap in an effective manner.

Duncan walked through the tunnels thinking of a solution to his problem and soon came upon one. If he could execute it properly, then it would both save his energy and act as the ideal hunting ground for him.

Having thought of a solution, Duncan decided to act on it. The first step in that was to find an ideal hunting ground. These narrow tunnels didn't make a good hunting ground. He needed to find a place that was wide enough for him to engage in battle freely.

So, Duncan went about in search of it.

Pretty soon, he came across a place where multiple tunnels met. It was wide and had several exit points if he needed to make a quick getaway. After all, who knew what kinds of dangers lurked in this cave?

So far he had been lucky enough to run into cannibals that were similar in strength to him. Coupled with their single mindset and savage way of fighting, he had been disposing them off comfortably. But, it didn't mean a stronger existence didn't exist in these tunnels.

If he ran into one such thing, having multiple exit points would help him a lot. It could both aid him in his escape and confuse his opponent if he wanted to follow him as well.

Having found an ideal place, Duncan set about fulfilling the next part of his strategy. He moved a little distance away from the place and started making a ruckus.

All the while he kept an eye on his surroundings waiting for one of these detestable things to show up. After creating a ruckus for about ten minutes, Duncan heard someone approaching his location hurriedly.

​ Duncan smiled a crafty smile and continued to make a ruckus. He didn't want to alert his enemy at this time. Even though these cannibals looked simple-minded and only had a single-track mind, Duncan didn't want to alert them.

Two cannibals rounded the corner and ran towards him with a hungry gleam in their eyes. Duncan smiled at them and escaped from their attack at the last moment.

Before the cannibals could react, he chopped off one of the cannibal's head and started attacking the other. This time he didn't go for a decapitating blow right off the bat.

Rather, Duncan played around with it for a bit and targeted its limbs. Duncan made sure that this one wasn't able to run away first and foremost. Once he was confident about his ability to subdue the cannibal, Duncan showed his true colors.

Within the next thirty seconds, Duncan put out a hailstorm of attacks at the cannibal and incapacitated it completely. He made sure that none of his attacks hit its vital spots and controlled his power so that it only wounded the cannibal instead of truly injuring it to death.

Once done, Duncan grabbed the cannibal by its hair to the place he had selected earlier, leaving a trail of blood. The cannibal was wailing in pain as Duncan dragged it through the rough floor of the tunnel.

Arriving at his selected location, Duncan tossed the cannibal unceremoniously in the center of the area and looked at it with a predatory smile.

Now that he had his bait, he could truly get to work.

*****

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