Chapter 37: Cutting Corners?

A/N: I’ll post 1 extra chap every 10 LEGITreviews I receive until we get (probably a hundred)! xD Come on guys, help this author out~ You can be honest! As long as they’re not groundless flames, I’m fine with critiques.

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[Killed! Brindlejaw (Awakened)]

[Killed! Hissmal (Awakened)]

It took him an hour to kill another two.

Finn was drenched in sweat, his body shivering from exhaustion.

Then he saw that the carcasses he made and the chaos in this area attracted a few more monsters. He wanted to bring them in, but the monsters were too dense.

Worse, because it was taking them time to get to him, they must’ve gotten hungry too, and they started consuming their dead, splattering blood and innards all over the place, further dispersing the scent of blood.

Soon, more monsters were attracted to his area, replacing the ones he had just killed.

[-1 Defense Point]

His heart felt heavy and his grip weakened, and the kitchen knife dropped to the turf. The former momentum he had had now dissipated like a pitiful deflated balloon.

[Status]

Name: Finnick Altheus Solthar

Race: Human

Class: Innkeeper, Chef

Level: Dormant

Awakening Type: N/A

Affinity: Unknown

…

VITALS

HP: 51/100

Mana: 60/100

Stamina: 16/100

Wallet: 150 Gold

Hearth Points: 500 Points

…

Skills:

Active: [Ingredient Scan] [Dish Analysis]

Passive: [Blade Proficiency – Growth Type (Lv 1)] [Monster Instinct]

[Strong Stomach] [Improved Palate] [Fire Resistance]

Condition: Peckish, -0.5 Stamina per 1 hour. Exhausted, -2 Stamina per 1 hour]

He simply didn’t even have enough energy anymore to deal with so many.

He cursed.

“Weak… so weak…” he said with gritted teeth, looking at the dozen monsters a meter away from his face, sharp teeth wanting to bite him whole.

[-1 Defense Point]

He took a deep, deep breath. “Calm down, you damn lasagna,” he said, closing his eyes and refusing to look at the monsters in front of him.

He could hear their growls, and he could also hear the squelching of innards as they ate their dead companions while hunting for him at the same time.

He had only taken down a few monsters, yet his stamina was lowered by so many points and he could no longer hold a weapon properly.

This was really difficult. If he didn’t have the inn or any of the barriers, a single one could’ve easily killed him.

For the next few minutes, he tried to grab the knives again, but his fingers couldn’t make a proper grip. At this point, even if he managed to hold it, he’d probably lose it midway. Maybe it’d fly away the moment he waved it.

On the other hand, he was tempted to just bleed himself continuously, make them go insane. He just wanted to let them run over each other and bump into the barrier.

He was worried about his HP, which was also decreasing as time passed due to the bleeding, but he had the inn to run to, at least.

Even if it’d take a long while to actually cause lethal damage to them, that was what he wanted to do.

However, at the rate the monsters were attracted in his direction, the number of enemies would increase by folds if let be. He had no idea how long the barrier would hold by then.

He tried placing his blood into a bowl, hoping he could keep them busy even when he wasn’t bleeding himself.

Sadly, he was too idealistic. Apparently, it was the scent of running or fresh blood—of humans and intelligent creatures, in particular—that the monsters were hungry for. This was because their instinct told them there was prey.

“They must also sense the essence in the blood, too,” Pang mumbled, still chilling somewhere else. “It dissipates in the air not long after contact.”

So…blood-in-a-bowl plan did not fall through.

What else did he have? Think

He looked around, pondering what else he could use. Sadly, he had to get a bit creative because awakened monsters weren’t just sturdy, they were extremely tanky for a mere ’dormant’ like himself.

He looked at the dozen or two monsters ramming into the barrier. Most were concentrated in his area, but some had dispersed and bumping against other areas of the barrier.

The barrier followed the shape of the lot, and there were monsters on each side, though with differing densities.

.

.

Shape of the lot.

His eyes sparkled a bit at an idea.

The lot was a rectangle. Meaning, there was a corner!

The barrier was flexible, but it was solid when it had to. The flat part of the barrier could only give blunt damage and would take a long, long time to actually kill an awakened beast.

It was estimated he—the one who did the bloodletting—would die of blood loss first before he could do significant damage to a few monsters just by making them pound on the wall.

Anyway, he ran to the nearest corner of the lot and bled himself again. He even placed just a bit of feet in there too, but he chose a low angle, one that’d be difficult to bite even if they were alert enough to see it.

As expected, a few monsters rammed into him as he pulled back his toes.

BANG!

He used [Ingredient Scan] again to see the damage and saw that the reddening was a little bit more pronounced here.

He nodded. Whenever a monster stepped back, he’d push out his hand again, stimulating them.

He was feeling dizzy, though, and he was fairly sure he couldn’t do bloodletting again without resting. By then, would he still have a barrier?

But what to do?

He ran back to the inn and grabbed some of the jerky that was still smoking. According to the scan, the jerky prematurely taken out of smoking did not have the ’superior’ status, but that was alright, and it wasn’t like he took everything from the few kilograms of meat he had prepared prior.

He paused and took the jerky, throwing it out.

ROAAARRR!

They also went wild for it like the jerky from before. It was too dark to differentiate, but as long as there was an effect, that was enough for him.

Finn then dug a little hole right at the corner, burying half of the jerky in the soil within the barrier, with the slightest angle at the lowest corner of the barrier.

RROAAARR!

BANG!!

The monsters trying to get the meat would slam their heads on the sharp edge. At the same time, their size and the angle made it impossible for them to actually grab it successfully.

The monsters were extremely angry, and continued to mindlessly ram their bodies on this side of the barrier.

BANG!

BANG!

At the side, Pang rolled. At some point, he was also chewing on a jerky, one that was from the same batch as the ones being thrown.

He enjoyed eating this, and he felt it was such a pity all that meat was wasted on brainless beasts that wouldn’t really appreciate the taste.

That said, he was also impressed with how the system was being used.

“I have never seen the barrier maximized so much, la…”

After two lifetimes, he really thought he had seen everything in how the inn’s facilities could be used. Apparently not.

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