He smiled widely at his words, a bit of genuineness in them.
"Go rest up, sir, you seem extremely tired," Clyde added, now understanding the reason for the dark circles under his eyes.
'Must have been hard, waking up to find your horses gone and having no clue what took them or how.'
"Hand me your bag so I can drop it inside for you. You must be tired from carrying it all day," the man insisted, grabbing the bag.
But Clyde refused, shaking his head slightly with modesty.
"No, it's fine, sir. I'll take it in when I'm done here. Besides, I have some items that will make it faster, and I intend to use them," he added.
The man let go of the bag, pulling back a bit.
"If you insist then, but be careful enough not to get hurt. If it gets dangerous, please inform me and do not continue the search," he warned.
"My name is Jonathan. In case you have to call for help by any chance, don't hesitate to."
Clyde nodded, registering his name in case of emergencies.
"Alright, sir, now go get some rest," he insisted, placing his hand on the man's shoulder to assure him.
With the man now gone, he turned around to search for any clues he could use to know what he was dealing with.
He slipped his bag properly behind him before he walked into the broken compartment with a missing fence, glancing around for any clues.
'It must have at least left behind something when it was trying to nab it.'
He bent low and picked up a stick, using it to shift the hay gathered around the floor. Between them, he noticed something white and sticky. It looked like mucus.
Like a person snotted on the floor, but it couldn't have been a human because it was big and extremely sticky.
'I haven't heard of horses releasing this amount of snot before,' he thought as he stared at it, confused.
He pushed away the hay further and noticed it was a small trail, and it disappeared down to the short fence up ahead.
"I see where it follows through now, I just have to set a trap for it and wait this night to see what happens," he murmured as he slowly rose upright.
He glanced at the walls of the building and noticed they looked easy to climb, with each block looking rough and jutting out just enough for the human hand to grab.
'Hmm, I could stay up there so I could get a better view.'
He glanced back at the white sticky mucus that lay on the floor.
'Now, how do I set a trap for a creature I don't even know about?'
He thought for a while, pacing scenarios within his mindscape, but they all wouldn't work out well if he didn't know what type of creature he was dealing with.
His only clue now was the mucus, which still couldn't tell him what type of beast it was, but it had to be something slimy or at least excreting mucus from its body.
'I guess we'll have to wait till night. Until then, I can just set up a string to alert me when it comes, in case I fall asleep.'
He dropped down his bag on clean ground, then brought out the equipment he used during his travel, one of which was a copper wire — not exactly a string, but it could serve as one.
He had packed the copper wire for mending broken straps and reinforcing his tent's frame, with also the knowledge that it could be used to reflect sunlight as an improvised signal for rescue.
'Sometimes, some certain things that seem useless can be the most useful items.'
He pulled it out completely, dropping it on the ground and packed everything back in before he zipped the bag close.
Then he rose up and glanced around, noting the areas that needed to be banded with the copper wire.
'Most animals aren't dumb enough to go through the same place they came from twice, but you could never know. It's always better to be safe than sorry.'
He walked out of the stable and went around, coming back to the same broken fence but on the other side in order to avoid stepping directly on the mucus.
He began tying the copper wire on all the places he felt a beast could go through. After he was done, he tied one end of the copper wire to the buckets of water.
'Alright, this should do it.' He sighed, rising upright and staring at his work.
Then he glanced up at the sky, staring at the orange colour of the sky when the sun set.
The only remaining action was to climb up the roof and wait until something happened.
After he had successfully climbed up the roof with his bag strapped behind him, he found a comfortable spot and relaxed close to the chimney block.
He dropped his bag beside him and pulled out one of his clothes, one sure enough to keep him warm in case it was a cold night.
With everything prepared, he set his eyes on the fence, waiting for any sudden movements.
Hours had slipped by since he first sat there. The sun's golden light had long vanished, giving way to night, its darkness draping over the land. Only the pale glow of a half-red moon spilt across the wide, open space.
His eyes started to give out and become weary, the continuous strain on them starting to show its effects.
He used the cloth he pulled out from his bag earlier to keep himself warm, but he wasn't guaranteed warmth all night.
'Maybe I should go in for the night, I'm not even sure it would even come,' he sighed.
But the idea of getting down from there and suddenly meeting the beast made him stay there a bit longer, and before he knew it, he was asleep.
The next few minutes were silent until he was woken up by the loud drop of the bucket. Luckily for him, he was sitting on a flat surface, or he would have fallen from the height.
He crawled closer to the edge of the roof and peered down and noticed movements. It was subtle, but the closer he looked, the more he noticed the creature was hopping.
He quickly crawled back to his bag and brought out the remaining flares he had packed for his trip.
"Alright, let's see what you are," he whispered as he crawled back to the edge.
He paused, waiting for the creature to move closer so it could be caught off guard and frightened enough to flee from the surrounding area.
Just before the beast could tackle the horse, he struck the flare and threw it at the incoming creature.
The light illuminated the area, and for a moment, it looked like a frog, or so he thought.
He hopped down, using the wall to safely slide down the building until he reached the ground and struck another flare.
From the earlier encounter, the creature seemed to flinch at the flame, backing up a bit.
At the light, it began to hop away quickly. He quickly followed suit, trailing behind fast enough to keep up and slow enough not to draw its attention.
He kept throwing the flare at it to keep it running, using its weakness to keep it away from noticing it was a human behind the attacks.
With each light that fell close to it, it more and more looked like a frog but with a large tail following it behind.
'What would a frog want with a horse?'
His curiosity piqued, and he wanted to by all means know the connection between the two, which meant tailing the beast back to its base.
It was probably a terrible idea, but not the worst he'd ever had. Once, he'd tailed a thief all the way home just to confirm the theft, figure out where the man's base was, and get a rough idea of where the loot might be hidden.
Somehow, he'd made it out alive. The next day, he casually tipped off the law enforcers, and the thief was caught, though he never found out exactly how they pulled it off.
He stopped tossing the fireworks immediately he entered the forest but didn't stop following the creature.
He had been following it for a while, and he was sure they had gone deep inside the forest, but he kept landmarks for easy return.
The creature pulled to a stop, and in the faint light filtering through the forest, he caught a vague glimpse of its form.
It indeed had a tail and it wasn't his eyesight playing mind games with him.
The creature's hulking, amphibious frame looked built for the slow, silent hunts of the marshlands. Its broad, muscular body was slick with mucus, patterned like wet stone.
Thick limbs ended in splayed, powerful digits, perfect for heaving its bulk through mud. A wide, wedge-shaped head sat atop that frame, its cavernous mouth easily large enough to swallow big prey in a single lunge.
Bulging, unblinking eyes jutted from the top of its skull, made for watching from just beneath the water's surface. Every movement carried the unhurried confidence of a predator that had never needed to rush.
'What the hell is that?!'