"Oh, oh~ oh, oh"
The next moment, a sound like a young deer softly calling echoed through the forest.
The instant he blew the whistle, Karl put it away and decisively raised his crossbow.
He held his breath, concentrating intently on the Drowners, whose attention had been drawn by the deer-like call from the whistle.
The Drowners all turned around, looking fiercely at the bushes behind them.
They made hoarse, low growls, seemingly communicating with each other.
Eventually, three of the Drowners lowered their heads and continued feeding, not choosing to investigate the bushes behind them.
One of the Drowners seemed a bit restless, constantly sniffing the air with its nose and slowly moving towards the bushes where he was hiding.
Seeing this, Karl's lips curled slightly, and he retreated further into the bushes.
Three meters... two meters... one meter. The Drowner got closer and closer to the bushes.
Karl remained patient and did not rashly attack; he was waiting for a killing opportunity.
Until the Drowner was within half a meter, its foul-smelling saliva dripping onto the ground, its dead fish eyes staring at the bushes.
Without a hint of hesitation, the Drowner extended its claw towards the bushes, trying to push aside the leaves to search.
At this moment, Karl's face was slightly pale, his lips tightly sealed, and his teeth clenched.
He was almost overwhelmed to the point of vomiting by the Drowner's mixed sour smell, like rotten fish.
Seeing that the time was right, Karl decisively pulled the crossbow trigger.
"Patta, swoosh!" The crossbow was instantly fired, and the bolt, aimed at the Drowner, flew out with a whirring sound.
The bolt made a barely perceptible whoosh through the air, striking its eyeball in an instant.
"Pfft!" The Drowner's eyeball, as big as a chicken egg, was undeniably shot and burst by the crossbow bolt.
The crossbow bolt passed through the eyeball and deeply embedded itself in the brain, with mucus mixed with blood rapidly flowing down from the eye socket.
But to Karl's surprise, despite such a severe injury, the Drowner did not die on the spot.
One of its claws covered its bloody and mangled eye socket, while the other claw was still flailing wildly.
It merely swayed unsteadily, showing a slight tendency to fall forward.
Seeing this from within the bushes, Karl quickly reached out, grabbed the Drowner's ankle, and forcefully dragged it into the bushes.
The Drowner was dragged into the bushes, he pulled out his dagger with his right hand, and then lowered his body.
Because the Drowner's vision was impaired with only one eye remaining, its wildly flailing claw narrowly grazed his forehead.
Karl took a half-step closer to the Drowner, pressed his knee against its chest, raised his arm, and with all his might, slashed the dagger across the Drowner's neck.
Immediately, a line of blood appeared on the Drowner's neck, and as the surrounding muscles were severed, it quickly split into a finger-width wound.
Through its wound, Karl could even see internal tissues like the Adam's apple and trachea.
"Hoo... hoo hoo..."
In an instant, the Drowner's neck was like a floodgate opening, blood gushing from the wound, with some blood flowing backward into the trachea and into its internal organs.
With half its neck severed, the Drowner could barely make a sound, let alone call for its companions.
A large amount of blood splattered onto Karl, almost dyeing his upper body clothing red.
Even after suffering continuous heavy blows, the Drowner's struggle was still strong, almost flipping Karl off.
Karl frowned, feeling vexed, but his actions did not stop.
He expressionlessly gripped the dagger with both hands and stabbed it into the Drowner's right eye socket.
The Drowner, still struggling in its death throes, suddenly stiffened, its sharp claws falling limply to the ground, completely losing its life.
At this moment, Karl's breathing was heavy, his adrenaline surging, and his pupils were still contracting rapidly.
He was not tired from physical exertion, but rather from his first battle with a dangerous monster like a Drowner, and he had not yet adapted.
Fortunately, he had hunted animals for years and was accustomed to gore and internal organs, so situations like vomiting had long been overcome.
However, in just a few seconds, Karl's breathing stabilized, and his body no longer trembled slightly.
His gaze became more resolute, and he gained a hint of coldness that was not present in ordinary people.
Karl deftly pulled the dagger from the Drowner's eye socket, shook off the flesh and blood from the dagger, and raised his hand to wipe the blood from his face.
"Oh... damn it, even Drowner blood has a foul smell."
"Drowners almost exclusively feed on rotten corpses, this smell is simply marinated!" Karl cursed under his breath.
He temporarily held his breath, enduring the nauseating stench, and squatted down to check if the Drowner was truly dead.
He scanned the Drowner's lifeless eyes and its chest, which no longer rose and fell, confirming that it was indeed dead... Then, Karl proceeded to kill the remaining Drowners in the same way he attracted the first one.
After dealing with the Drowners, he eagerly went to the necklace, reaching out to pick it up.
[Discoverable energy source found. Do you wish to absorb it?]
[Upon absorption, energy will reach a critical point, and the system can be activated]
The moment the necklace was in his hand, he was stunned; the system actually gave a prompt.
"Wait?! Absorbable energy source? Is it not just ordinary jewelry!?"
Karl looked at the necklace in surprise, immediately wiping away the dust and blood from it.
Indeed, he found that there was a faint blue light flickering within the obsidian pendant.
"Ah, it's a magical artifact, that makes sense... how could an ordinary necklace have energy? I'll keep it for now."
Knowing that the necklace was a magical artifact, he did not choose to absorb the energy source, as he was unsure if the artifact would be damaged after absorbing the energy.
If everything was as he expected and he mistakenly chose to absorb the energy, the loss would be maximized.
If the necklace was not a magical artifact, its value would be at most a little over a hundred oren; absorbing the energy would only cause him temporary heartache.
But if the necklace was a magical artifact, its significance would be completely different; if sold to a sorcerer, its value would at least multiply several times.
In this era, an armor smith's annual income was about sixteen oren.
And the highest-grade house a commoner could buy, with a hall, storage room, kitchen, and more than two bedrooms, cost only one hundred thirty-six oren.
Through the system prompt, he could infer that the system was previously in standby mode, simply lacking enough energy to activate.
As long as he basked in the sun for a while longer, he could fully activate the system, and the magical artifact could also be preserved.
For a moment, Karl's mood was extremely complex, with both joy and a hint of gloom in his heart.
He carefully put away the necklace, thinking that he would find an opportunity to sell it or absorb its energy later.
Next, Karl turned his gaze to the Drowner corpses lying in pools of blood.
Immediately, his eyes lit up, his slightly gloomy mood dissipated, and the corners of his mouth quickly turned upward.
"Oh right, I almost forgot. Drowner Brain is an alchemy ingredient, and monsters have mutations inside them."
As soon as he thought of this, the sour stench from the Drowner seemed to become fragrant.
Karl took a few steps to the Drowner, squatted down, and began to attempt to dissect the Drowner with his dagger.
"Ugh, its head is quite hard; it will take some effort to crack it open."
"Oh... damn it! Is there any part of a Drowner that doesn't stink?!"
His face turned pale from the stench, and he gritted his teeth while enduring the foul odor to dissect the corpse... Not far from Karl, by the bank of a swift river, the current occasionally slapped against a small mound.
The mound was roughly constructed from a mixture of bones, branches, and dirt.
Many blue or green Drowners were wandering around.
They exuded a rotten, sour smell, and mucus and mud seeped from their pores.
Some floated on the river, only a small part of their heads visible, seemingly searching for potential prey.
One Drowner on the scene had the most unique appearance; its limbs had patterns of unknown significance.
Furthermore, its chin and gills had tentacle-like whiskers, easily over a dozen centimeters long.
The sides of its head, unlike ordinary Drowners, did not have pointed ears, but were replaced by dark green fins, and it also had them on both sides of its forearms.
Its body was more than two heads taller than an ordinary Drowner, which stood at 1.6 meters.
It did not wander around like the other Drowners, but merely stood in the center, observing its surroundings, as if patrolling its territory.
If a Witcher were present at this moment and saw the appearance of this special Drowner,
He would definitely say with great apprehension that this Drowner was a Drowning Undead, and then decisively turn and leave.
The Drowning Undead is an extremely rare and powerful species born within Drowner communities; it can command an entire group of Drowners.
The Drowning Undead was using its claws to count its companions one by one, and in a short while, it had finished counting all the Drowners present.
As a result, it found there were only seven on site, seemingly four companions short.
It scratched its fin with a claw in confusion, displaying a very human-like expression.
"Chirp... chirp chirp, ho chirp"
It let out bursts of hissing sounds, as if it were a human communicating with its companions.
After it made the hissing sounds, the Drowners, who had been wandering, gathered around it like soldiers receiving orders, awaiting its command.
The Drowning Undead pointed its claw towards the small woods on the opposite bank; there, it smelled its companions and the scent of prey.
All the Drowners simultaneously plunged into the river, swimming towards the opposite bank, and it followed close behind.
The Drowner's physiology makes them very adept at swimming; they quickly swam across the swift river and successfully reached the opposite bank.