Upon hearing Sami’s warning, Mia reached out to the book hovering in front of her and quickly began tearing out a few pages with a tight expression on her face. As she worked, she yelled in urgency. "Everyone, gather around me!"
In a situation where there were being attacked from any angle, staying together when the enemy arrived sounded like a better strategy.
Both Sami and Michael seemed to understand this. And so, without any hesitation, both hurried closer to her backing each other with their gazes sweeping around the brush.
Just then, Mia handed a page Sami. A look of confusion crossed his face, but after a second, he took the paper from her. He had barely grasped it, though, when to his surprise, the page transformed into a long, crystal javelin.
’Ice?’ He arched a brow as he studied the bone-chillingly cold javelin, made of ice, in his hands.
One didn’t need to tell him what to do with that, as he quickly understood its purpose on his own.
His eyes were still fixed on the cold javelin, when two White Tigers suddenly burst out from behind the trees, lunging straight toward the group with razor-sharp claws extended.
Seeing them close the distance, Mia immediately tossed the remaining three pages in her hand toward the beasts. The pages flashed with a green light, then transformed into whistling wind blades that sliced through the air like invisible, rippling razor wire. Since the tigers were hurtling forward at full speed, the lead beast could not dodge in time. The first blade bit deep into its shoulder, spraying pale yellow blood, while the second struck its neck, severing flesh and bone to nearly take off its head.
As for the second tiger, it veered to the side mid-air, dodging the primary strike so that the final blade only grazed its flank, leaving a shallow, bleeding gash along its ribs.
Just as it landed on the ground and roared as it prepared to lunge again, Sami wound his arm back and, with all the strength he could muster, hurled the javelin straight toward the beast’s head. The frozen spire whistled through the air before burying itself deep into one of the creature’s left eyes, driving straight into its skull and out the back of its head.
’Damn, bullseye!’
The creature staggered back, and its legs buckled as it thrashed wildly for a brief second before finally crashing to the ground, dead.
Just then, a screen that only Sami could see appeared in his vision.
[You have killed a Tier 1 White Tiger.]
[Rank: 7]
’Oh?’ Sami arched a questioning brow.
Meanwhile, Michael suddenly let out a battle cry as he charged at the third white tiger that had lunged from the side. When he reached the creature, he quickly rolled to avoid its sweeping claws, then, as he came up from the roll, he slashed his blade in an upward arc, sending pale yellow blood spraying into the cold air as the sword severed the beast’s foreleg.
The tiger shrieked as it staggered on three legs. Refusing to give it any room to recover, Michael gritted his teeth and kicked the creature’s side with all his strength, causing it to roll onto its back.
He then leapt with his sword raised and descended, driving the full weight of his blade down into the beast’s exposed chest.
Upon seeing something like that, Sami should have been bewildered. It was not everyday one got to see a human being kick a creature that was more than twice their weight and send it tumbling.
However, his attention was not on that scene. Instead, his eyes had widened in urgency because the last tiger had also come out from the thick brush and was almost on Michael.
"Michael!"
Without thinking, Sami reflexively raised his crossbow that was already loaded, aimed, and pulled the trigger, sending a bolt whistling straight toward the creature.
It struck the creature cleanly between its multi-eyed brow, but given its size, its massive body continued pitching forward. Fortunately, that warning from Sami alerted Michael. His eyes widened as he half turned his head, and just before the tiger could crush him under its falling weight, he quickly jumped out of the way, abandoning his sword in the chest of the monster he had just killed.
’Crap!’ He cursed mentally before crashing onto the ground. ’God, I think I need to get a shield.’
As a Berserker, he was now seeing that defensive options of that nature were becoming painfully important.
The wounded tiger crashed onto the carcass of the dead beast before tumbling to the ground.
However, it was not dead yet.
Sami could see it weakly struggle to regain its footing.
’Just die already, goddamnit! Why are you stubborn?’ He had already taken out another bolt and began cranking the lever to span the string back into place.
In less than five seconds, he locked the mechanism, loaded the bolt, then raised the crossbow and fired straight into another eye of the beast.
With that second shot, the beast dropped to the ground and its body finally stilled.
And Sami received the same notification he had gotten earlier.
However, the trio did not dare relax.
Even though the Quest had instructed them to kill five White Tigers, who was to say that there couldn’t be more in this forest?
Mia, looking slightly paler, likely from the Prana spent on her spells, turned to Sami and asked, "Are there more coming?"
Sami didn’t answer immediately, listening intently to their surroundings. After a few seconds, he straightened up and shook his head. "I can’t... hear any more of them nearby."
’I really hope that’s all of the White Tigers here. Even though they look less like tigers and more like hyenas that had an unholy fling with albino moles,’ he thought as he returned his attention to the corpses.
At this point, he was beginning to get convinced that he might not even be in his world at the moment.
Just then, Michael, who had staggered over to retrieve his sword from the fallen carcass, spat on the dead creature and muttered under his breath, "Goodness. Just what sort of cursed monstrosities are these?"
Turns out, everyone seemed to share the exact same thought.
Right as they were still catching their breath, a notification suddenly appeared in front of them.
[Congratulations on completing the Side Quest: Hunter or Prey?]
[Calculating achievements and distributing rewards...]
[Commencing reward integration: You have received White Tiger’s Brain Soup X1]
[You have received Cured White Tiger Flank Skin with Fat X1]
[You have received White Tiger’s Marrow-Stuffed Tail Joints X1]
[You have received White Tiger’s Salted Ocular Jellies X3]
[You have received White Tiger’s Spinal Fluid X3]
[You have received Fermented White Tiger Blood Wine X3]
"Bro... what is up with all this grotesque sounding stuff?"
Sami had barely finished cursing under his breath when his form suddenly began to fade into light.
[Returning the Player to their District]