Chapter 177 The Taste of Demon Hunter
A rock troll like Shanshitou, whose body is comparable to that of a small mountain...

Is its blood more effective?
For example, one drop of Rock Troll's blood is worth two, three, or even more drops of blood from an ordinary Rock Troll.

The witcher pondered.

It is natural to have such thoughts. After all, the rock has an extraordinary size. If there is nothing special about it, how could it grow so big?

But the next second, looking at the rock troll corpses of varying sizes around him, Ailin rejected this idea in his mind.

"If the blood requirement for the 'Summoning I' quest really changes due to the size of the rock trolls, and the size of the big stone and the small stone is twice as big, how can it only increase the progress of one quest?"

Of course, Ailin would not give up collecting the blood of the mountain stone. After all, this was also a task indicator.

"Sigh~"

When most of the magic power was restored, the adverse reactions of the body caused by the mist transformation also disappeared.

Ailin took a deep breath and once again controlled the magic power to flow into the "arm bone of the little fog demon".

"Bang~"

With an imperceptible sound, the demon hunter turned into a ball of light mist and floated into a pit five meters away before returning to its original form.

"Ding! Do you want to absorb the blood of the rock troll?"

Check the box without hesitation.

[Ding! Mission: Summoning I (Collect Rock Troll Blood 18/20)]

Ok?
18?

Ailin was stunned for a moment, then he called upon the Demon Hunter's Notes with his mind and confirmed the system prompts two or three times.

One drop of mountain stone blood is equivalent to the blood of eight ordinary rock trolls!

“Why is this rock so special?”

Ailin was puzzled for a moment, then suppressed his curiosity and put aside this question that had no answer for the time being.

He is now on the battlefield between humans and monsters, which is not a good place to think about problems.

But since we are still short of two drops of rock troll blood...

Ailin glanced around.

The fact that Shanshitou was injured gave him an inspiration. There were traces of blood even under Shanshitou's residence, so there was no reason why other rock trolls with weaker strength would not have any.

really.

Gaze carefully at the past as you follow your memory.

Other places where rock trolls had stayed also had blood pools or black spots.

So, Ailin devoted himself to the process of atomizing, collecting, and restoring magic power, atomizing, collecting, and restoring magic power again.

In five minutes, he collected four more drops of rock troll blood.

However, he did not hand in the Demon Hunting Notes immediately to complete the task. Instead, he deposited the drops of blood into an empty potion bottle.

Ailin still remembered that when he completed his first hunting mission, the sudden conjunction of the celestial spheres caused him a lot of trouble.

If it weren't for the Mirage Pearl, he would have almost died under the ice spear curse of the Water Ghost King.

Completing the "Summoning I" mission at this time, no matter what monster the celestial spheres send over, is meaningless to him.

Save these few drops of blood, find the right time to complete the mission, and release the celestial sphere intersection, which may have unexpected results.

Think about it this way.

Ailin suddenly discovered that his most powerful means now was not magic seals, not swordsmanship, and not even [Demon Hunting], but the celestial sphere intersection that could randomly summon powerful monsters.

"Okay, we have collected all the rock troll blood that can be collected."

Ailin glanced at the tower shield that was slowly retreating into the cave, then looked at the excited and furious rock trolls, and prepared to go back and reunite with Francesca.

Although the blood of eight rock trolls has not yet been collected.

But their territory was either too close to the battlefield or too flat, with no shelter at all.

There was no need for Ailin, who could complete the mission "Summoning I" at any time, to take the risk.

"Bang~"

Magic power surges in and mist appears.

The next time Ailin reappeared, he was already in the dark shadows of the cave.

Francesca looked at the mist in amazement as it gathered into a human shape, and couldn't help but ask:
"Ai... Ailin, this ability to transform into mist is..."

"It's a little trick used by us demon hunters. As you can see, we can turn into mist and become invisible. That's all."

That's all?

Francesca found it difficult to understand.

Ailin's many behaviors gradually broke through her inherent ideas about the demon hunter community.

An age that doesn't match his strength, knowledge to identify advanced illusions, a strange potion that can change appearance and enable night vision, and the endless tricks of the demon hunters...

Even with stealth, the Witcher has two very different ways of doing it.

Francesca is now a little confused about how many of the records of the Ain Sheedi clan are valid.

"Fortunately, these demon hunters did not join the King of Kaedwen. Otherwise, with so many different means, the Ain Sheedi clan would be in real trouble."

Thinking of this, Francesca's brows relaxed slightly.

She looked at Aelin, who was standing there and seemed to be distracted, and an idea suddenly came to her mind.

"Perhaps, I can win over these demon hunters for the free elves?"

……

Aelin didn't know at this time.

When he had not yet figured out how to win over the elves as allies, the future Elf Queen already had the idea of ​​winning over the demon hunters.

He calmly emerged from the weakness caused by the atomization.

After taking a look at the tower shield that was almost completely evacuated, he stood up and walked towards the direction of the illusion.

"Let's go, Francesca. We have investigated the situation of both sides. Let's go back and look for our target."

"What did you find out?" Francesca asked curiously.

"The Kaedweni army suffered heavy losses, and many rock trolls also died..."

Isn't it possible to understand this just by looking at it?

Francesca thought that this was too casual.

Ailin led the way back along the original route and continued:
"And... in the near future, these king's soldiers will definitely suffer another great loss."

Francesca was stunned for a moment.

She turned her head and glanced at the rock troll, who was clearly at a disadvantage despite making a lot of noise, and asked curiously:
"How did you come to this conclusion?"

Ailin looked back at Francesca, smiled mysteriously, and said:
"It's just a trick of the demon hunter. It's not worth mentioning."

Another little trick of the demon hunter?
Francesca's body suddenly froze.

But she knew she couldn't get anything out of asking, so she simply followed Ailin and changed the topic to something that interested her.

"Alin, you said you were a demon hunter from the Wolf School?"

Ailin was stunned for a moment, not knowing what Francesca wanted to say, so he took out the wolf emblem hidden in his leather armor and nodded:

"Yes, I am a witcher of the School of the Wolf, from Kaer Morhen in the north of the Blue Mountains."

"If I remember correctly, among the six schools of demon hunters, the tenet of the Wolf School is to strictly adhere to neutrality..."

Francesca paused, as if considering her words:

"But now you..."

"But why would I accept the commission from the elves, a force that is clearly hostile to the human kingdom of Kaedwen?"

Ailin paused for a few seconds, then continued walking forward without looking back.

"Hmm~"

Francesca nodded, and a nasal sound cautiously emerged from the black mask.

next moment.

Silence fell.

"Da~da~da~"

The elf's footsteps echoed in the dark and lightless passage.

At this moment, Francesca suddenly discovered that when the witcher walked, there was not even a sound of footsteps.

And he was walking normally, without slowing down at all.

Only the sound of one person's footsteps echoed in the passage.

while walking.

In a trance, she felt as if she was walking alone in the dark.

A sense of inexplicable fear arose spontaneously.

"When did the sound of Ailin's footsteps begin to disappear?" "Three days ago, wasn't there still sound when he walked?"

She wanted to step forward and pat the witcher on the shoulder, but she was afraid that when the witcher turned around, she would see the twisted and hideous face of a demon.

"I wouldn't have asked this question if I had known."

Francesca suddenly regretted asking that question.

At this time.

"Wolf……"

"Tread~step~"

The sound of hurried footsteps interrupted Ailin.

He turned his head and looked at Francesca who took two steps back. He shook his head in surprise and continued:
"The Wolf School still hopes to maintain neutrality, but someone is forcing us to join a war we don't want to join..."

"So we can only resist..."

Francesca, with a red face and a black mask, took two quick steps to catch up with Ailin.

"after all……"

After pausing for a second, Ailin stopped and turned to stare into Francesca's blue eyes, which seemed to be evasive for some reason.

"When you want to kill someone, you can't expect that person not to fight back desperately..."

After careful consideration, Ailin did not choose to hide it.

Even though the elves have been in decline for a long time, they now have a population of at least hundreds of thousands.

Due to the excellent physical fitness of the elves and the learning advantages of the immortal species, there are at least 10,000 combat-capable soldiers among the 100,000 people.

In comparison, the Wolf School only has forty or fifty people.

Moreover, the crisis of Kaer Morhen's destruction is not far away, and they need to release their goodwill for alliance and cooperation first.

but.

In fact, Ailin was very skeptical about how much say the future Elf Queen, current runaway princess, and young Francesca had in the Elf clan.

So this is just an attempt and a gesture of goodwill.

His current main target is still the red-haired elf - the elven sage Ada Emin.

She had promised.

If Arryn could find a human couple and send them out of Kaedwen.

Ailin will get what he wants most.

Although what the Riddler Ada said was very vague, Ailin guessed that such a thing was probably the support of the elves.

"When you want to kill someone, you can't expect that person not to resist..."

Francesca chewed on the witcher's words, her eyes becoming brighter and brighter, and her gaze towards Aelin became more and more friendly.

He could naturally understand the implied meaning of the sentence.

only……

"How stupid is the King of Kaedwen to push the Wolf School to the opposite side?"

Francesca sneered in her heart, raised her head to look at the witcher's back, and was about to say a few words to recruit her own tribe.

At this time.

Ailin suddenly slowed down.

Colorful white light shines from the end of the passage ahead.

Fantasy - We have arrived at the Fruit Garden.

……

"...Humans...escape...Trolls...victory..."

The tower shield disappeared into the cave entrance, and silly cheers echoed throughout the cave.

Although rock trolls are intelligent, their intelligence is basically at the level of five or six-year-old human children.

They don't understand what a war of attrition means, or what it means to retreat in order to advance.

All they knew was that they had once again driven away the evil, bug-like, disgusting humans.

"... trolls... victory... eating meat..."

Some of them started dancing right at the battlefield at the entrance of the cave, and some even curled up into a ball and rolled around on the ground.

Of course not all trolls are like this.

"... wu... small stones... wu... small iron pot... wu... small gemstones... wu... no meat..."

The whimpering of a troll silenced the cheering trolls.

Several rock trolls can no longer eat meat, which makes all the rock trolls who like to eat meat feel extremely sad.

This scene has been repeated many times in these three days.

For simple people, happiness and sadness are both short-lived.

The same is true for simple rock trolls.

But this time the rock trolls' happiness will be shorter-lived, because...

“…No more meat…”

The low sound of rocks rang out.

The food prepared before hibernation was eaten up a day ago due to the continuous and fierce fighting after waking up.

What he ate for the past two days were all Shanshitou's own rations. However, the meat had to be shared among so many rock trolls that even if he was frugal, it would not be enough to sustain a few meals.

The rock trolls were awakened too early and the food did not arrive as expected.

"...No more meat...Troll...Victory...No more meat..." The other rock trolls were all disappointed.

"Boom~"

Shanshitou sat down.

The food was distributed to the little troll, and Shanshitou had not eaten for a day.

The continuous fierce fighting made him tired, and now he even had difficulty supporting his own weight.

After sitting on the ground, Shanshitou's mind went blank.

But vaguely.

Rotten, sour, fishy...

He seemed to smell food, the most delicious kind.

The other rock trolls were very anxious when they saw Rock suddenly sit down.

"... no more meat... the rocks... have fallen..."

"...Victory...No more meat...The rocks...fallen..."

"... oooo... small stones... oooo... small iron pot... oooo... small gems... oooo... mountain stones... oooo... mountain stones..."

The cave room suddenly became noisy.

until……

"... no meat... eat meat... humans... enemies... eat meat..."

Suddenly, some rock troll roared.

The rock trolls at the scene couldn't help but look down at the ground when they heard the roar.

"...No more meat...fire...dead humans...No more meat..."

Yes, most of the human corpses on the ground were burned to charcoal and powder.

The cave became noisy again until the rocks stood up unsteadily.

"Boom~Boom~Boom~"

Huge but weak footsteps, accompanied by the shaking of the ground.

Under the gaze of the rock trolls' small eyes as big as green beans, the moment Rock Stone walked in front of the rock troll's corpse, its huge body suddenly stopped.

He bent down and suddenly grabbed a handful of black and green pieces of meat.

The movement of the rocks created a gust of wind that blew the stench of rotting flesh into the noses of every rock troll.

"Gulu~"

The sound of swallowing saliva was heard almost at the same time.

But what surprised the troll was that after picking up the rotten meat, Rock did not put it directly into his mouth.

"Sigh~"

It moved closer to the rotten meat and took a sharp breath.

“…This is the smell of a demon hunter!”

(End of this chapter)