Moonlit Hunt

"Linsey, be careful."

Red Moon reminded Linsey.

Before her voice had finished echoing through the churchyard,

Linsey had already set down Finn's corpse and climbed back over the church wall.

At this moment, a raging fury burned in Linsey's heart. He did not want to waste even a second.

—External interference!—Someone had deliberately reanimated Teacher Finn's body while he was keeping vigil over him!

His eyes were as dark and still as a cold pool, with flames on the verge of eruption lurking within.

Linsey crossed through the town beneath the night sky, his footsteps striking the roads with hurried, muffled thuds.

He arrived at Finn's cabin at nearly his fastest speed.

But this time, Linsey did not enter the house.

He did not even step into the yard. Instead, he stood before Finn's residence and swept his sharp gaze over the surroundings.

The town was usually exceptionally quiet at night.

But because of Linsey's earlier struggle to subdue the living corpse, lights were still on in several nearby homes.

Seeing this, Linsey forced himself to calm down and analyze the situation.

"Ordinary townspeople can't influence source material, so they could never reanimate a corpse. The only person nearby who can use source material should be Dan..."

"No, it absolutely can't be her!"

Linsey immediately dismissed this absurd suspicion.

The Female Hunter had no reason to act tonight and reanimate Finn's body.

Then the cause of tonight's incident...

"Could only have come from outside."

Several possibilities formed in Linsey's mind as he quickly circled around to the back of Finn's cabin.

Looking into the distance, the Farmland beneath the night sky was pitch-black.

There might have been nocturnal animals moving through the fields, but concealed by the low-hanging darkness, there was nothing to see except faint rustling sounds.

So Linsey activated Trace Tracking.

The results were unexpectedly smooth.

The instant the skill activated, he found something at the edge of the cabin.

Near Finn's cabin, several strings of blue footprints ran along the wall. Following their direction, the blue trail disappeared into the Farmland and extended all the way to a distant forest.

"..."

"Found you."

Linsey's gaze turned icy as he stepped forward to inspect them closely.

The tracks on the ground had a unique shape. Each footprint had five toe marks: four smaller toe pads surrounding a larger central pad, with a clear claw mark at the tip of each toe.

Its overall shape

resembled an enlarged cat paw print, only longer, wider, and flatter.

With that single glance,

Linsey's Habit Survey skill was activated as well.

Feeling his source material being consumed, he immediately checked Hunting Notes and identified the beast that had left the tracks—an Ice Badger.

"..."

Linsey frowned deeply and said nothing.

The moment he identified the culprit, countless things came to mind.

First was the frozen living corpse that had nearly taken his life three years ago.

Thinking back carefully on the details of that day, that thing had suddenly reanimated only after the Ice Badgers appeared.

Now, three years later,

his teacher Finn's corpse had likewise been reanimated by these magical beasts.

"..."

"Who would believe there wasn't some connection here?"

Linsey's gaze hardened, and he pursued the footprints into the forest at top speed.

At the same time, he took out his bow and arrows from his Personal Baggage, ensuring he could attack the moment he spotted an enemy.

Along the way, Linsey kept reviewing the Ice Badger entry in Hunting Notes.

Then he noticed another issue—Kill Achievement: 4/10.

Three years had passed! During those three years, Linsey had hunted with Dan too many times to count. One thing was certain: he had encountered quite a few other types of magical beasts in the Hidden Borderlands during those hunts.

For example, Black Horn Snow Deer, Frozen Wind Sparrows, and Rot Leaf Rabbits.

He had killed at least three to five of each.

But Ice Badgers were different.

Apart from the four Linsey had initially killed, three full years had passed, and he had not killed a single additional one! Or, more precisely,

over those entire three years, Linsey had not seen even one Ice Badger! He had originally assumed this was because, after Linsey and Ju were attacked back then, Dan had killed the Ice Badger leader and then swept through the area in what seemed like an act of venting her anger.

But combined with what had happened today,

the disappearance of the Ice Badgers over the past three years likely concealed secrets unknown to anyone.

"A conspiracy spanning three years..."

Thinking of all this, Linsey unconsciously quickened his pace.

It seemed that tonight was not just about whoever had reanimated his teacher's corpse.

Even the grievances from when he had first arrived in the Hidden Borderlands and suffered repeated attacks could be settled today!...

Linsey raced through the dark forest like a cheetah chasing its prey.

This was a contest of endurance and fate.

The Ice Badger kill count had yet to meet the requirements for the killer level.

So even though Linsey could find fresh tracks left on the ground in complete darkness,

as time passed, those blue marks gradually faded.

Keeping the skill active continuously, Linsey could also feel his Life Source Material steadily draining away.

Trace Tracking was an immensely powerful active skill.

But the price for it was the consumption of source material, and for Linsey, exhausting his Life Source Material was equivalent to facing the threat of death.

But he did not dare stop.

At least not before he completely exhausted the source material in his body, not before he found tonight's culprit.

He absolutely would not stop! At this moment, Linsey saw nothing but the blue footprints stretching ahead of him.

He crossed hills, skirted trees, burst through thickets, and passed through every difficult stretch of terrain in the most time-efficient way possible.

He had only one goal: to reach his target as quickly as possible.

Before his source material ran out!

For the first quarter of an hour, Linsey found nothing.

The marks on the ground seemed to extend forward without purpose.

But he remained completely unmoved, calm as still water, maintaining his fastest pace as he tracked them.

Rustle, rustle, rustle—

Finally, after half an hour,

Linsey, whose hearing was sharper than an ordinary person's, noticed a faint sound coming from ahead. It seemed like claws scraping against wood! "..."

He immediately slowed his steps.

After tracking them this far, Linsey's Habit Survey had added several new details beneath the Ice Badger entry in Hunting Notes.

For example—nocturnal, sharp vision, somewhat poor sense of smell.

Using the surrounding trees and darkness as cover, Linsey avoided the dead branches and fallen leaves on the ground and slowly approached as silently as possible.

Before long, he saw where the blue footprints ended.

—Ice Badgers.

—There were three Ice Badgers there!

They were huddled together, their brown-black fur rolling over the ground as they gnawed at several pinecones they had just knocked from a tree.

"..."

Linsey held his breath, his right hand already touching the fletching of an arrow.

Thinking of how these were the "culprits" behind his teacher's corpse being reanimated, fury surged in his chest.

But he held it back.

Linsey clenched his fist so tightly that the fletching of one arrow was pressed flat against its shaft.

Killing these three Ice Badgers would only bring momentary satisfaction.

The true target he needed to find was not the three Ice Badgers before him, but the mastermind controlling them! As long as he was not discovered and kept tracking them,

sooner or later, he could...

"Aw!"

Suddenly, the three Ice Badgers stopped gnawing at the pinecones.

One of them even turned around and poked its head toward Linsey, as if checking something! "You brought this on yourself!"

Linsey's eyes sharpened instantly.

He did not hesitate at all, immediately nocking an arrow.

A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.

Since he had already been discovered, these three Ice Badgers could not possibly lead him to the truth behind the scenes. In that case, there was no reason to remain silent.

Even if they were corpses, he had to leave these Ice Badgers behind first!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

In an instant, Linsey activated the trait of Quick Shot.

Three arrows flew out almost end to end, streaking toward the three Ice Badgers like lightning in a straight line.

Two muffled thunks rang out.

The two slow-reacting Ice Badgers had already been struck and immediately writhed on the ground in agony.

Only the last one escaped. Since it had already been facing Linsey, and the arrow aimed at it was the one whose fletching Linsey had nearly crushed,

it leaped aside the instant the arrow flew at it, dodging the deadly cold flash. Then the Ice Badger threw its head back, about to release an Ice Cone in retaliation.

But Linsey was faster!

Before the Ice Badger could finish casting, a black shadow engulfed it.

The Ice Badger that had narrowly escaped had only just landed when Linsey himself charged out of the woods.

At an unimaginable speed, he knocked the Ice Badger to the ground with a knee strike.

Before the magical beast could even cry out in pain,

he drew a small knife from his Personal Baggage and plunged it into the Ice Badger's neck, ending its life.

"Whew—"

Linsey let out a breath, but his fists remained clenched and his face was still clouded with worry.

Forced by the fact that they had discovered him,

he had chosen to kill the three Ice Badgers. That also meant he had failed to uncover the true culprit behind them.

He had clearly followed the records in Hunting Notes, deliberately staying outside the Ice Badgers' field of vision and making no sound.

How had these dim-witted magical beasts discovered him

while their backs were turned...

"Hm?"

Suddenly, Linsey froze.

Because after killing the three Ice Badgers that had reanimated Finn's corpse,

he discovered that a new message had appeared on his Game Player panel.

Task Completed

Third Module Unlocked

Source Material Successfully Inserted

Simulation Management Module Logged In

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