Ball of Nothing 403 Zero the Explorer

"You're going hunting? Are you going to the desert? It's dangerous."

Zero flashed the stablehand a reassuring grin. "We'll be fine. Truen is strong and I don't think a few monsters will be difficult at all. But what are we going to hunt?" he directed that question to the archer.

Truen mounted his sand walker and Zero got onto Grigoria quickly. Brutus helped them saddle up and gave them some advice about where to hunt.

"There is an area near Endow hill that has less aggressive monsters. Most of them are carnivorous plants or giant insects that can be taken care off easily with ranged attacks. Their monster cores sell for good money at the auction house. The other side would be too close to the desert. I wouldn't recommend going there. Not too far from here is another lawless region but it is an area not as civil as Deadman Town. They sell humans there and raise beasts. That area is known to be home to some nasty tarantula monsters. A shaman controls the area and nobody unwelcomed made it out alive."

Truen thanked Brutus for the warning and decided that they would take the path back to the foot of Endow Hill to hunt. Zero was excited and promised to find some good ingredients for Brutus as a souvenir that they could cook for dinner. Drinking cactus soup had left a very bad impression and as a doctor, he couldn't condone drinking poisonous soup even though eating grilled lizards neutralised the poison. Bob, who was almost forgotten, sneakily jumped from the roof and into the back of Zero's shirt, snuggling against his owner and made Zero squirm in surprise at the cold scaly body.

With a loud giddyup, the duo set off to hunt for monster cores. Truen took note of the time and informed Zero that he was going to participate in the Dirt Ring that afternoon so they only had about three hours to hunt and get back. 

"It's a good thing the hunting ground isn't too far from the town," Zero grinned. "How many should we hunt?"

Truen hummed. "How many do you want to hunt? I don't think there will be enough for everyone else if you take them all down. We need to be considerate too."

Zero agreed. It wasn't fair if they stole other people's kills while they were there. Besides, if Truen was going to the ring for a fight, that means they didn't need to do this for money.

"I think we can just take some time to kill a few of those monsters if they have good ingredients for potions and medicine. Else we'll leave them there for everyone else. It would also be fun to explore a little. The climate here is really different so the monsters must be unique as well," Zero reasoned.

The archer agreed with him. "We need to be back by afternoon so don't go too far. Let's speed up a little. I think I hear some commotion ahead, we must be close."

By the time they arrived, the giant ants were fighting it out with the carnivorous vines. Zero appraised them and decided that the ants weren't any good for ingredients. The vines, on the other hand, had good properties in their slime that could be used in a skin cream.

"I will go for the vines, you can take care of the ants. Be careful, the vines shouldn't be damaged. I want to collect their slime for skin cream. I think the auction house would be interested in some natural beauty products."

"Noted," Truen said and they split ways. truen jumped off the sand walker and climbed up a tree, positioning himself so that he was in a good position. From up in the branch, Truen had a good view of the battle going on beneath him. Those giant ants had basic elemental magic too. The blue ants breathed fire and the red ants had ice magic. The irony made him chuckle and he readied his tracking arrows. It wouldn't take much for him to kill them in one strike. He just needed to know when Zero wanted to jump in.

With Truen on standby, Zero was more confident. He crept closer to the monsters and prepared a sleeping spell to be used on the vines. Looking up, he saw that Truen was also in position so he gave the archer a nod.

Seeing that Zero was ready, Truen released the arrows and killed all the ants in one strike. Zero followed up swiftly and cast an area effect magic on the vines who wriggled in vain for one second before flopping onto the ground.

Zero gave his friend a thumbs-up as Truen jumped from the tree and landed gracefully. He took a look at the giant ant corpses and took out his hunting knife.

"I'll harvest the crystals, you get the slime you want and we'll move a little deeper to see what else there are."

Zero readily agreed and they remounted the sand walkers to find out what else this hunting ground had for them after they harvested what they wanted. Zero checked the minimap and pointed them in a direction that he saw activity. 

As they travelled deeper into the hunting grounds, Zero carefully observed the new species of plants. There were a few types of plants that he couldn't identify and slowed down to collect samples. Who knew if they could be used as medicine. Now that Hua Tuo was busy in the hospital, it was up to Zero to continue updating the new kind of herbs they had in the medical journal he shared with his shifu.

Truen didn't mind. In fact, he was happy that Zero was enjoying this hunting trip as a distraction. The archer was still waiting for his small elemental golems to get back to him with useful results about that mysterious opponent.

They were making good progress in quite a peaceful manner until they heard a scream from afar. Truen quickly picked out the direction and Zero gave him a glance that made the archer sigh inwardly. Of course, Zero wasn't someone capable of leaving others in a lurch. 

"Saddle up, we're checking it out but don't do anything rash and remember the rules," he warned.

Zero agreed and quickly hopped onto Grigoria. Without urging the sand walkers, the trusty steeds took off running in a full sprint towards the scream they heard earlier.

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Chapter end