Chapter 67 Sunrise To Sunset [2]

Landing beside Rex and deactivating his ability, Lloyd spoke-

"They are foxes. They probably just want to steal our shit, and they aren't that strong either. There are only three of them, and since foxes don't work in packs, their attacks won't be coordinated in any way, shape, or form." Lloyd explained.

"You shouldn't have gone without asking me first. That could have been dangerous." Hime spoke with a hint of anger in her voice.

"It's fine. I'm confident in my abilities of going unnoticed by a few foxes." Lloyd shrugged.

"That is not the problem here. I am responsible for everyone here, so you cannot go and do things as you please, is that understood?" Hime asked, yet this time, she sounded truly angry.

"Yes. Sorry." Lloyd replied.

"Veronica. Can you kill them all within a three second gap?" Hime asked.

"Yeah. Just say the word, and they'll be dead." Veronica shrugged.

The group continued to walk for a few more minutes, and just as Veronica began to get agitated, Hime muttered the words she had been waiting for.

"Now..."

*Snap*

As the snap of Veronica's fingers echoed throughout the forest, Lloyd's eyes widened in shock as he watched one of the fox's head enlarge before exploding into a thousand pieces, splattering blood and gore to everyone around it before the rest of its body dropped to the ground completely limp.

"Now, run!" Hime shouted, and without a second thought, they all began running at speeds that Lloyd could barely keep up with.

A few minutes passed before they all finally stopped running, and before anyone could say anything, Felix asked the question on most of their minds.

"Why did we run?"

"Because of the blood, dumbass." Veronica sneered

"Then why did you kill them in such a spectacular fashion?" Lloyd questioned with a tilt of his head.

"Because that's what Hime wanted. We are going to observe for a bit to see where the most monsters are coming from, and then we will go in that direction until sunset." Veronica explained.

After that, everything happened as Hime planned. Monsters began to run towards the smell of blood while the group did nothing but watch from the top of the trees.

However, instead of watching like everyone else, Lloyd's interest in the monsters peaked, causing him to open his camera search app and take snapshots of the monsters.

"I think these monsters are completely unique to this dungeon. There have only been sights of the rabbits and foxes before, and that was simply an evolutionary thing that occurred in most autumn-like environments." Lloyd muttered to himself.

Everyone around him could not help but think of the irony of the situation, as he was the only person to feel weirded out when Tina started muttering, yet he was doing the same thing and didn't even know it.

Looking down, Lloyd took note of the owl-like white-feathered creature that flew right under them with an eerie silence that made it terrifying in its own right.

That, combined with its looks, made it look like something straight out of nightmares.

The owl had two branches seemingly coming out of its head and pointing upwards, a bit like the antlers of a moose.

"It can conceal its presence despite being so big. But it doesn't make sense for it to have white feathers." Lloyd muttered while jotting down notes around the image of the owl.

This carried on for a while before Hime and Roderick found the best direction to go in since it was also the estimated direction with the most monsters.

Hours passed again, and before they knew it, the sunset was almost upon them.

"We have about two to three hours before the sun fully sets, so let's walk for another hour before trying to find a clearing where we can set our tents down." Hime ordered, but before they could start walking again, a faint rustle entered their ears.

'It's not the owl since it wouldn't make that much noise, and it most likely isn't a fox either since they tend to stay away from us rather than come closer.

The only reason those three even tried attacking us in the first place was due to their excruciating hunger. Hell, I could see it in their eyes. It was almost terrifying.' Lloyd thought while getting into a fighting stance and taking his katana out of his dimensional storage.

However, when Lloyd saw what had come from behind the tree, he could not help but freeze for a moment.

'What the hell is that?!' Lloyd inwardly screamed while Tina didn't waste another second, instantly creating a fireball and shooting it at the creature.

Yet, when the fireball closed in on the creature, its eyes glowed orange for a moment before it seemed to dissipate instantly, turning into nothing but embers before entering the creature's mouth.

However, just when everyone was about to attack the creature simultaneously, they felt like something was different.

"We're surrounded!" Roderick shouted while Hime told everyone to stand towards the center of the encirclement while keeping an eye on any incoming monsters.

The creature was both beautiful and horrendous in its own way. It had the head and ears of a wolf, yet it had enormous antlers coming out of the top of its head, yet they were slightly different from the ones the owl had.

Instead of going straight up, they slowly bent back to the point where it would be impossible for a grown human to comfortably ride it.

They had a wooden texture to them, followed by several spikes that slowly got larger and large as they ran up the antler.

The same could be said about the back of their necks, as they seemed to have extremely sharp wooden branches sticking out of their mane while getting smaller and smaller as they moved down their spinal cord.

While its face was that of a wolf, the rest of its body was a mixture between a horse and deer, followed by a long tail with brown feathers sticking out it, as if it was a giant fan capable of slapping to death anything that got close to it.

While the feathers were brown and orange, the rest of its fur deviated between the color white and a green mixed with grey.

Of course, only Lloyd and Veronica could fully see the creature while Hime struggled to see all of it, but a single glance was enough to tell all three of them that the creature was dangerous.