NOVEL NEXT Chapter 45: Ambush
Ahead of Dominic were a small herd of bad-tempered, striped horses: the instantly recognisable African residents known as zebras. While he didn’t know exactly what level this group of herbivores were now, he wouldn’t take them lightly even if they’d only gained a couple of levels: pre-System, a zebra could seriously injure a lion. He suspected that the System would have only made them more dangerous.
The lead male may defend his herd, Leo warned Dominic. The former-human sent a quick thanks to his passenger and then focused on what he could see.
The ten or so zebras hadn’t yet noticed his presence, he was pretty sure. Although they were alert, they didn’t seem to be watching his area in particular. Plus, more than half of the herd’s heads were down and eating the grass at any point in time; if he’d been spotted, he suspected that all of them would have been watching for him to move.
Dominic was thankful for his ally: the darkness. Zebras no doubt had good night vision, but he doubted that it was as good as in the day. Plus, his luck was in because he was downwind of the striped horses – if he hadn’t been, they would have probably moved off before he even found them. Zebras sure knew the smell of lions.
Now, how to choose his victim? Lions usually picked off the sick, old, very young, or otherwise weak members of the herd. It was logical: they wouldn’t move as fast as healthy animals, so the hunting lion had a better chance of making a successful kill.
Dominic, however, was trying to earn Prey Points for levelling up purposes. He suspected that the easier the kill, the fewer points he’d earn. Certainly when he accidentally killed a joey while hunting kangaroos, he hadn’t earned any points for it.
The biggest zebra was likely to be the highest level, and thereby worth the greatest number of points. It would also be the most challenging to hunt and he risked wasting his time on another unsuccessful chase.
Huffing out a sigh, Dominic decided to be greedy. Yes, he might risk losing the target completely, but he’d rather set his sights too high than too low. There was no guarantee that he’d succeed with the weakest member of the herd either.
Any hunt had its chances improved by starting closer, though, so Dominic started creeping towards his target.
Trying to take inspiration from Leo’s sheer focus, Dominic tried to keep his mind on the task, not allowing it to divert onto the myriad other tangents that were presented. Like wondering what abilities a zebra might have. Or how a post-System zebra might differ from a pre-System one. Or how many Prey Points it might be worth.
Those were questions which were unhelpful to ask: if he was successful in his hunt, he’d have an answer. Yet allowing his focus to be distracted by the questions might mean that he failed and so then the question was worthless.
Creeping forward, one careful step at a time, Dominic closed the gap between himself and the biggest zebra he could identify.
As he got closer, the zebras seemed to realise that something was wrong. They shuffled a bit, their heads lifting more often to stare around themselves suspiciously.
Dominic’s progress slowed to half-speed. His muscles were tensed, ready to charge the moment the zebras got spooked.
Closer. Closer. Closer.
Freeze. The biggest zebra was staring right at him. Its nostrils widened as it tested the scents on the wind.
Dominic knew the moment when it detected something, its head shooting up and eyes going wide in alarm.
Not wasting a moment, he broke straight into a full out run, closing the distance between him and the zebra within a second. He pounced, aiming for the zebra’s throat.
Unfortunately for him, the zebra was almost as quick on the uptake as Dominic had been, and it dodged to one side, also exploding into a frantic gallop.
Dominic landed and used the momentum to push off to the side so he was following the zebra, practically on its heels – a dangerous place to be.
The zebra jinked this way and that, desperately trying to throw the lion off its trail. Dominic felt a wave of excitement hit him as he realised that with his new speed increases, he was way faster than the zebra. Only the fact that the zebra was executing sharp turns on a regular basis meant that it hadn’t yet been caught.
Of course, it may easily have more stamina than he did, even with his improvements to that stat, so he needed to end this quickly. It had been a bare few seconds since the chase started but his stamina bar was already dropping fast.
His eyes narrowing, he focused on predicting when the zebra was next going to turn and in which direction. Noticing the bunching of certain muscles, he felt pretty sure it was about to turn to the left.
Taking a chance, he turned himself a little to the left first. Leaping forwards, he activated Quick Strike. Fortunately, his gamble paid off: as the zebra twisted to the left, it was blind-sided by a leonine blur.
Hitting it straight in its neck, Dominic quickly dug his claws into the flesh, embracing it in a mocking semblance of a tender embrace. Digging his teeth into the throat, he bit down hard, holding on doggedly.
His back feet dangling, he struggled to bring them up and out of the way of the zebra’s hooves. He didn’t entirely succeed, but in the attempt, he raked his claws over the zebra’s forequarters, no doubt impeding its ability to move.
His stamina was getting low: this position was extremely tiring, especially following the full-speed charge of before. However, the zebra was tiring quicker. Already it was stumbling, its restricted airways not allowing it the oxygen it needed to keep moving.
By the time it fell to the ground, Dominic was on the verge of needing to let go himself. On the ground, though, he was able to use his body weight to keep the zebra’s head down, freeing most of his muscles from the task.
Releasing his teeth for a moment, he bit deeper into the zebra’s neck before it could start to recover. Its airway now completely blocked, it wasn’t long before a message flashed up in front of Dominic.
[You have killed Plains Zebra (Basic Beast level 2)]
[You have earned 15 PP]
Dominic let the zebra’s throat go, a bit of disappointment running through him. 15 Prey Points was better than the warthog for sure, but it wasn’t as much as he’d hoped considering how much more dangerous a zebra could be than a warthog.
Is it because of my level? he wondered. When he’d only been level 1, the level 0 kangaroos had given him 10 Prey Points each, and they had been easy kills. Now, even a level 2 zebra was only giving him a pitiful 15 Prey Points, far less than even the level 1 trodils had offered. Was it because herbivores didn’t offer as many points as carnivores in general, or because, now being Tier 2, he was suffering some sort of penalty to points offered?
There was also another problem to his strategy, Dominic decided, looking around the now-empty area. Prey animals are too nervous. It had been the same with the warthogs and gazelle. Success or failure, he didn’t have a second chance since as soon as he’d attacked, all the group members had scattered. It was no good for grinding – he spent far more time looking for the animals than it was worth. Especially not for a measly eleven or fifteen Prey Points.
He’d still need to hunt warthogs, though – he wanted Charge. Or maybe I can find something else which has that ability, something which offers more Prey Points or is easier to catch than a warthog. Almost sighing, Dominic missed the dungeon and its easily aggro’d mobs. He hadn’t had to go chasing things down there.
Looking at the zebra he’d caught, Dominic was about to Consume the body when a thought occurred.
I need to gain Prey Points, right? But my issue is that anything I attack just runs away. And that herbivores at least don’t seem to be worth many Prey Points. What if I could change that?
After all, what normally happened in the savannah? Why were cheetahs for one at a disadvantage despite their higher success rate on hunts when compared to lions? Because there were always scavengers around, ready and willing to snatch another animal’s prey.
True, Leo offered, sending over a few memories of himself as a nomadic lion, making a kill only for a group of hyenas or, once, wild dogs to swoop in and drive him off it. Outnumbered and unwilling to court death over a kill, Leo had had to slink away, hungry. But I do not understand how this is stopping you from eating: if anything, it should be making you start tearing at the flesh immediately.
Because I’m thinking that this could be an opportunity rather than a threat,
Dominic responded to his leonine passenger.
An opportunity? Leo seemed confused.
Yes. Look, we need more kills to earn Prey Points, yes? And predators seem to offer more Prey Points than herbivores, yes?
Yes, Leo responded a little cautiously, still not following his logic.
What if we could lure a group of hyenas or wild dogs with this zebra carcass, then kill them when they get here? Dominic felt the sense of realisation creep over the lion’s mind.
An ambush, he replied thoughtfully. Risky, he continued after a moment. There is a reason why I always ended up yielding my kill to the group.
I know, Dominic agreed, but the potential benefits are worth it, I think.
Perhaps, Leo responded a little dubiously. Dominic suspected that it wasn’t something the lion would have thought of doing himself, but that he’d seen enough of Dominic’s apparently hare-brained schemes to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Needless to say, Dominic was planning on setting things up so that this scheme had the best possible chance of succeeding given his current situation. That started with choosing his battleground.
Looking around the area, Dominic decided on the ‘stage’ for his ‘performance’. Remembering how effective the pile of rocks had been in his penultimate fight with the trodils, he did his best to recreate the area.
Dragging the zebra carcass over to an outcropping on the side of the slope was a bit of a difficult task – he didn’t know how much the zebra weighed, but it was a lot. He wouldn’t have been able to finish this carcass by himself if he’d eaten it normally anyway.
That said, he did take a bit of time to consume some of the zebra meat, digging into its belly. Partly it was because he figured he might as well completely assuage his hunger and thirst while he could. The other part was that the more open wounds on the zebra, the more effective it would be as a trap.
With the scene set, Dominic hid in a nearby thorn bush and cleaned the blood from his claws and around his muzzle.
And now we wait, he told his ever-present companion.
