[The Primeval Apocalypse] - Chapter Twenty-Two (collaboration with u/hydrael)

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Robert Keene and Alex Raizman

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It took a minute to get to the spot where the swamp creature had stopped. My heightened senses transformed disorganized scuffs in the thin forest detritus into a map. I could smell which scuffs were new and which were old, and my sharp vision clearly outlined what marks belonged to who.

The Daeodon had left a plume of dust kicked up when it started to flee. That made it trivial to find the exact spot I wanted. The heavy stomping footfalls of the swampy creature were clear as well, and I could tell where it had knelt down to touch the ground.

There was a mark there, as if drawn in the thin dirt with a finger. A squarish shape. Perhaps a rune? Obviously, as a Marauder—and now a Beastmaster—I didn’t interact directly with magic a lot. Rebecca had been some flavor of mage, but she was more of a sorcerous artillery piece than a methodical wizard.

I didn’t touch the rune.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I’m not an idiot.

As such, I didn’t really learn anything. It told me that the swamp man was intelligent, but I’d already intuited that from its behavior. I was unclear where to go from here now.

The only real option was to track the thing down. That could be a problem, though. We needed food, and following in the wake of something scary enough to spook a Daeodon wasn’t a good way to find prey. I could try to follow parallel to the trail, using my detection radius to hunt well beyond where prey would have sensed the swamp creature, but that would have been reliant on my detection radius to keep track of the trail, which I wasn’t too confident in.

As powerful as the detection radius mechanic was, it was only really good at tracking living things. It filled in a lot of blanks for me about my surroundings, but fine details were easy to miss in the forest, where sightlines were sharply limited.

“I guess it wouldn’t be a challenge if it were easy,” I grumbled.

Even if getting more direct answers would be difficult, following the swamp person’s tracks directly was easy. Its heavy plodding steps left easy tracks, and its slow pace meant that I didn’t have to go that fast at all. It wasn’t pulling ahead as long as I was moving.

Of course, I pulled up short and stopped when I found the remains of the Daeodon.

This was not a particularly large example of the species. Only about seven feet tall at the shoulder and nine feet long from nose to tail. A bit smaller than average, actually. Its footlong snout was full of a mix of blunt molars in the back, a forest of sharp canine teeth at the front, and a couple of intermediary bicuspids in the middle. I’d seen this snout rip through thick roots, obliterate downed tree trunks, and dismantle a corpse, each of the three tasks being set to with both brutal efficiency and efficient brutality.

There wasn’t much else to say about the remains, seeing as they’d been given a similar treatment to what Daeodon were known for themselves.

The normally thick and hairy hide was shredded. Muscular, hooved legs were shattered.

Its angry yellow eyes had been torn from their sockets.

No amount of Detection skill could discern in which order the attacks had come.

Its rib cage had been ripped open in what had either been the killing blow, or posthumous desecration to allow its attacker access to the organs within—most of which were missing. Its skull was cracked open, leaving the bloody cavity there empty as well.

I cursed my sharpened senses as the stink of gore and excrement was not blunted by the adrenaline rush of battle.

Cleaned out, Noaich said, sniffing at the remains. No good meat left.

At his prompting, I took a second look. This hadn’t just been the brutal killing of a monster. This had indeed been for sustenance. There was not a bite of good flesh left on the corpse. Not just that, but there were no other drops. No piece of gear or crafting materials.

All that was left behind was an obliterated corpse, a pool of blood, and a handful of red footprints on the forest floor leading away from it.

The faint smell of mud and rotting wood left no questions: the swamp person had done this.

Whatever that thing was, it was dangerous.

But at the same time…it hadn’t just taken the meat. The Daeodon had likely dropped some scrap of hide or clump of fur or something for crafting, and maybe even a random piece of gear.

The swamp person had taken that stuff with it.

“Okay, we learned something here, I think,” I said. Despite myself, I picked my way around the splattered mess that had once been a monster, trying to get moving again quickly to get away from the smell. “But I’m afraid it’s the same thing as the last time. This thing is no mere monster. It’s smart, it has some kind of powers, and it takes materials besides just food.” I scratched my chin as I thought about it with Noaich close behind me. “The pieces should be coming together, but all I’m getting is more puzzle.”

Following the trail grew easier and easier as the morning went on. The rising sun began to light the forest, turning the faint signs of the monster’s passage into a well-lit highway.

I could have followed it with my eyes closed, anyway. My detection radius showed me how the forest responded to its passage. Small creatures were holed up deep in their burrows, or still crawling their way up trees far out of reach.

There were no larger creatures nearby.

My detection radius picked up a few creatures on the outer edge of my senses, but they were tense and wary, clearly having either sensed the passage of the swamp person, or having detected the uneasiness of other creatures who had.

Even so, I shuddered when I got close enough for the creature to be back inside my detection radius.

My ability to detect it outranged its ability to detect me, so I slowed our pace to match its plodding gait as soon as I sensed it slowly weaving between the trees. I could easily keep up, and maintaining this distance meant that I could stay out of its sight while following.

But what was my plan here?

Somehow, I thought that finding it again was going to give me enough of an answer to complete the quest and get the experience point payout. But I’d seen it like this before and not gained a full understanding, and I gained no new information this time, except the stink of Daeodon blood on it.

“So we have two options here,” I said to Noaich as we walked. “I can be smart, and we can patiently tail this thing for as long as it takes to learn something safely. Or I can be stupid and go confront it and definitely learn something really fast, but maybe get ripped open.”

Two options? Noiach was obviously confused by the way I’d framed them. Sounds like only one, if other is stupid.

“Yeah, but I’ve never been good at being smart,” I grumbled. “And I’ve always been very good at being stupid. Just figure I ought to play to my strengths, right?”

Noaich growled low in his throat. He was not a fan of that idea, and he wasn’t being shy about letting me know.

Need each other, Noaich said. Need each other alive.

I grimaced.

That was a good point.

I’d lived a lot of my time in the apocalypse riding the bleeding edge of survivorship bias. But now not only was someone else reliant on me, they were reliant on me directly. I could have given my life for Jamestown—for a moment yesterday, I’d thought I had—but I wasn’t sure what my death would mean for Noaich now. At best, he would revert back to his previous form. At worst? As a part of my class features, he might just die outright if anything happened to me.

“Alright, you’ve got me there, I guess,” I said at last. “If we’re playing the long game, though, we’ll need some supplies. Stay on the trail here and don’t move, so I can find my way back. We’ll catch back up to it once I’ve secured some food.”