385 Hunter Cabin, Full Moon?
Everyone sleeping inside their carriages woke up with the screams coming from outside, and the merchant, the owner of all the carriages, was the first to come out.
“What happened? Why are you screaming in the middle of the night?”
“A- A vampire! I saw my friend’s body behind a bush with fang marks on his neck, and he had been drained of blood!”
“What? Tell me what happened.”
The man explained about his friend, who went to pee, and did not return, so he went out looking for him, and that is when he found him dead behind a bush in the middle of the forest.
pAnDa (nov)e1 No one liked the idea of traveling with someone dangerous, and the moment they heard a vampire could be among them, everything was ready to look for it and kill it!
If it was just a case of a vampire feeding on one of them, they could still talk and enter an agreement, seeing how vampires were typical in the demon continent and lived in peace with everyone else.
But a corpse? Talking would not work, and the only way for everyone to have their peace of mind again was to find the vampire, and kill it, just like it did with the other member of the convoy.
Arthur also came out of his carriage, like everyone else, trying to act as normal as possible, but he knew his time with the convoy had ended. Why? People had ways of identifying vampires, even those weak merchants and mercenaries, so they would find out about Arthur sooner or later.
“I should have been more careful. Perhaps learning a technique to make the man forget and not kill the man… Well, I was hungry, and there was not enough time!” Arthur thought.
The people of the convoy first went around the area, looking for clues about who had attacked and killed that man, and that was the perfect opportunity for Arthur to run away.
Before they realized it, he was long gone, running through the forest, going toward the territory of the vampire family who took Sybille.
“Wasn’t someone else with us?” the merchant said, yet he could not remember who was the missing person.
There were so many problems inside his mind that he did not recall everyone who went to his convoy, and even if someone was gone, it did not mean the person was a vampire.
The man who carried the crates with Arthur thought, “I will help you out this time, and if we meet again, I hope you retribute.”
Despite remembering who was the missing person, he did not say it and kept looking for clues.
~~~~
When Arthur left the convoy, it was night-time, the perfect time for a vampire to go out and do the things he must. Arthur had increased speed during the night and was slightly weaker during the day.
Also, he would get tired during the day and would have to stop to sleep, so Arthur made sure to travel as fast as he could during the night to make full use of his strengths and weaknesses.
There were few beasts along the way — Arthur traveled near the road, which meant it was rare to see other beasts, but in return, Arthur saw other people from time to time, and who knows, they could be worse than the beasts.
The good part was that he was not on the road itself, and most people did not see him, and those who were stronger and noticed his presence did not mind him at all.
Why would an official mage lose his time with a mere second-circle vampire mage? So, Arthur found no problems during the night, but when morning came, he had to stop and rest.
But where? Arthur did not find any villages along the way, and he could not simply lay in the middle of the road and sleep, especially during day-time, when most of the adventurers traveled, and some of them could harm Arthur, who was not powerful.
“A village? A cave? Nothing?”
Arthur tried to look for anything, but there was nothing. If he saw a cave, he would sleep inside without complaining, but he did not find that!
Until he spotted something. A tiny house in the middle of the forest, away from everyone. For a moment, Arthur feared it belonged to a powerful mage who would kill him immediately, but after he stayed and watched the cabin from afar, he noticed it was not the case.
The cabin belonged to two hunters, a man, and a woman, who lived there instead of the craziness of the cities and were happy with the life they chose.
If Arthur showed up out of nowhere without a reason to be there, they would get suspicious of him, which was not what he wanted. So, he had two choices, either find an excuse or sleep inside the house without anyone knowing!
“It is too early in the morning, but I bet those who live there will leave the cabin soon,” Arthur thought as he remained hidden, waiting for an opportunity.
Just like he imagined, the hunters left the cabin after he had waited for one hour and a half. They had bows on their backs and went for another day of hunting for their daily meals and selling the animals’ fur.
It was the chance Arthur was waiting for, so he went toward the house and looked for a place to sleep.
He opened the front door, looking inside the house to see what it looked like. It looked tiny from the outside, but it was not! The hunter’s bedroom was on the house’s second floor; to access it, one had to climb a ladder.
Arthur did not believe he could remain asleep without anyone noticing, and the kitchen and living room were also out of the question.
“Is this what I think it is?”
There was a trapdoor in the cabin, which led to a basement! Arthur was surprised, and that cabin kept surprising him the more he explored it.
Arthur opened the trapdoor and went into the basement, where he saw many crates with animal furs, bones, and some fruits and vegetables the hunters stored there.
“They will probably come here after the hunt to store some things, so I should hop inside a crate that already has things in it!” thought Arthur.
He could not go where the food was, which meant the only option available was the crates with fur in them. Arthur looked for the one that was the most hidden and went in.
“This crate is spacious, and the furs make it soft, like an improvised bed.”
It was not a bad place to sleep, and Arthur could finally rest.
~~~~
Two hunters returned to their cabin after 5 hours of hunting! It was lunchtime!
“Don’t you think we should have some fun before preparing our food? You know, we are alone in here,” the woman said.
“I agree entirely with you, and it will also help us keep our cools tonight, as it is a full moon.”
“Correct. A good thing we live in the middle of the forest,” the huntress said, kissing the man as the two went up to their bedroom.