Today was yet another cold winter day, the sun's light reflected greatly off the piling whiteness, the snow was forming small hills away from the cities, where no one bothered to get rid of it.
Nature was quiet, animals huddling for warmth in their burrows and caves, waiting for the season of freezing to come to an end, everything was peaceful and silent…
"You foul ape! Damned animal! You will rue this day-" the screams that disrupted the solace ended as the dark sasquatch's foot feel down upon the youth's face, sending a good portion of sludge-like brain matter crashing against a nearby tree, the hairy creature twisting his foot in the warm broth of blood and skull shards before stepping away.
'Mmh, I didn't expect for regular adventurers like them to still dare step into the forest…' thought Edrick as he looked around the destroyed camp he had attacked in broad daylight, it was the thirteenth hour of the day, and these guys seemed like they had settled down a while ago when he found them.
He had tried to figure out what could possibly lead anyone to still venture into the woods, as the risk to reward ratio was rather skewed at the moment, he had slaughtered quite a lot of people by now, including three rather powerful individuals, so Anoteros had naturally assumed that there was something incredibly valuable for weaklings like this to still be around and in such quantities at that.
Unfortunately, it seemed like Edrick was his own worst enemy, as the bounty put on the dark-furred sasquatch had reached colossal heights by now, although most of his preys had been wanderers nobody in the region knew personally, he had still slain a few locals, and their families had been stacking up the rewards for the beast's head.
Add to that the fact that the city lord was not appreciative that something was murdering the adventurers and explorers that furnished local businesses with all sorts of plants and materials every year, and the price had soared to the sort of things that could settle someone for life.
Hell, even some nobles could be interested in that amount of money.
With the proximity to the royal capital, Anoteros was starting to worry that the lord in charge of Oie would just ask some assistance from the crown and have some of their warriors sent to deal with the problem.
Though, for now, it was causing desperate groups that did not have the sort of might or intellect to do anything to rush into the woods, hoping to get lucky.
Edrick climbed back into a tree and disappeared from the area, as the screams had been rather loud and risked attracting a whole lot of other fools.
His quest to have the forest people-free for a whole week wasn't looking too great, but on the other hand, it did allow for a steady stream of people to kill and play with, that group had not had anyone that suited his tastes however, as they had all been men, none of which would look good in a dress.
But that was fine, he could practise using the Encyclopedia Of Rending on other people that way, he still made visits to Ku Xing to do some practicing, but using it on live targets like that was nice field experience.
'The more I kill however, the more I risk running into people who actually know what they are doing, as long as they can't see through my stealth as a sasquatch, it is fine, but the moment one can…' he sat down on a high branch and pondered like that famous statue.
The case of the murderous, dark sasquatch was still not that well-known, only people in Oie knew of it most probably, but if word got out, he could probably expect a nasty influx of all sorts of people that would make his fun times harder, a good massacre like just now was nice, but in such secluded woods, the mood was more to toy with his victims, or at least stalk them for a while before swooping down and brutalising them.
He might be doing quests, but this was also his hobby, he could not allow for it to be disrupted.
'Mmh… There are quite a few groups of frail idiots around, I can surely finish all the sasquatch's related quests as well as those other two today if I am a bit more aggressive…' excluding the one-week one naturally, but perhaps that if he killed many in one day, and then just stopped attacking, the money-seekers would lose interest, whilst the rest would still be wary enough to keep their distances.
It was worth a shot.
Though it was a shame that he had yet to find what it was that had made his technique stir, such things were supposed to be nice boons to a cultivation technique.
And Mountain Sasquatch Body was a rather powerful one, at least to him, as it did not quite behave like said in the manual, it genuinely made him appear as a true sasquatch, it boosted everything that they were known for, and when he remained in this form, he gained access to even greater capabilities.
His assumption was that it was a sign that he could develop the physique associated with the technique eventually.
'Aah, now that is really nice' he caught a whiff of the group he had decided to head toward and instantly realised that this one was quite the catch.
'Some people really are the sort to just rush head first into danger, huh?' it was a group of women, and they should have heard the sort of activities the sasquatch was up to with ladies, yet they had still come anyway.
One might question their true motive, but Edrick genuinely believed that they were just too stupid to assess the danger correctly.
'Now, there are seven of them…'
*As a sasquatch, ravish thirty people*
*As a sasquatch, ravish fifteen people and leave them alive to tell the tale*
*Force yourself on ten people without coercing them with your status or authority*
*Force yourself on someone in front of an audience +*
*Kill someone by having your way with them +*
'...I should restrain them and make sure to cycle through them all for the audience one, I can split them in between killing them and letting them live…'
He did some quick maths, the system hadn't bothered itself with the two last quests, just adding a plus sign next to them without precising the exact numbers, two of the quests demanded opposite outcomes unfortunately, so he couldn't increase them all at once in an equal manner.
'...Or not, killing them has the best reward, so might as well just focus in one direction'
He descended from the tree and picked up a nice rock, deciding that he would test the waters by throwing it at the head of the one that looked like the leader, and thus, should be pretty strong, for the group itself, at least.
Striking up a pose like he was a professional baseball player, no one was none the wiser to the hulking creature that wasn't even that far away, until the projectiles came flying out and the target dropped like a bag of bricks.
Hopefully the brain damage wasn't instantly lethal.