Chapter 504: Intercepting the Prey

At dawn the next day, when Lu woke up again, he found that those wild beasts had already vanished without a trace. However, when everyone was taking water by the spring to wash up, they still discovered dense animal tracks in the mud by the spring, among which there was no lack of footprints from large animals they had never seen before.

Lu explained to everyone what had happened last night, and some of the Soldiers who had been startled finally had their doubts resolved. The Artisans, however, who had basically lost their hunting instincts, had slept very soundly because they never had to consider safety issues; they were always the ones being protected.

Lu finally proposed that everyone should camp in place this morning, and then he would take a portion of the Soldiers to go and catch those wild boars. In any case, the tracks were very clear now, and the number of wild boars was relatively large. Although the taste of the big boars was quite rank and fishy, the taste of the piglets was still not bad, and having meat was better than having none.

Everyone was naturally happy. In any case, they would not have reached their originally planned location today, and even if they had arrived, hunting would still have been necessary. Because they could only rely on people carrying things, in order to ensure combat effectiveness, they had not brought a particularly large amount of food—at most, it was a month's worth of consumption for so many of them.

If the Saltpeter Mine was real, then they would stay here for more than a month, because they would need to build a few houses and then refine a portion of the saltpeter to take back as the harvest of this mission.

Lu immediately brought his Bow and Arrow and nearly one hundred Soldiers, then followed the tracks left by the wild boars. After tracking for about two hours, when the earth was gradually warming up, they finally discovered that group of wild boars.

Now, in the excellent light, Lu took a quick count and realized that there were over twenty, nearly thirty, wild boars of all sizes—far more than he had seen in the darkness last night. But because there were simply too many piglets and they kept running around, he could not count an accurate number.

However, this did not matter; as long as they could find them, that was enough. Right now, they were still downwind of the wild boar herd, and the wild boars had not yet discovered them. To end the battle quickly, Lu decided to use their numerical advantage to surround them on three sides. It did not matter if they could catch them all in one net; they would catch as many as they could, and their Bow and Arrow range was long enough.

Once Lu gave the order, everyone quickly chose their own directions and began to advance at full speed. The wild boars also realized something was wrong at this moment, but they still had confidence in their own strength, especially those few large wild boars. Their high-curved tusks made them the little overlords of this forest, and most wild beasts really did not dare to attack them.

The piglets quickly huddled together, grunting and circling tightly around the big boars. The largest boars also entered a combat state, and the sows were not to be outdone, calling out loudly to intimidate the enemy.

Seeing that the distance was about right, Lu no longer hid his figure and quickly stood up to sprint forward, then drew his bow and aimed. The other Soldiers, who were also excellent hunters, did not need Lu to give the order; they had already begun their own attacks when the position was suitable.

The wild boars had never seen such a situation; the enemy was still far away, yet they were already injured. The boars did not want to sit and wait for death and directly began to charge wildly toward a Soldier. However, before it even reached its position, it was already shot and unable to move by the concentrated fire of the arrows. Even though its skin was astonishingly thick, it could not withstand the sharp Iron Arrowhead.

The wolf pack that had already prepared to attack in the distance had just rushed out a short distance and wanted to carry out a siege when they saw the scene before them. They were all shocked and frozen in place; they could not believe that the prey they had been chasing for so long had been taken down so easily. They did not dare to rush over rashly, even though their pack was very large.

After some Soldiers put away their bows and arrows, they saw the wolf pack not far away and were suddenly a bit excited. They actually started to make "tsst-tsst-tsst" sounds at the wolves. Seeing that the wolves did not react, they even whistled a few times.

The wolves flattened their ears, not understanding the actions of these humans, but it seemed there was no threat to them. Then they turned their gaze toward the few wild boars that had escaped. Although the number had decreased, they were even easier to capture, so dozens of wolves rushed out from the forest one after another and began to surround and kill the large and small wild boars.

The Soldier who summoned the wolves was poked in the waist by a companion, who then said as if looking at an idiot: "Did you sleep with a dog and lose your mind? That's a wolf, what are you 'tsst-tsst-tsst-ing' at?"

That Soldier also suddenly reacted. Only the dogs of Huaxia were dogs; once outside of Huaxia, they were all wolves, and there was no friendly communication to be had with them. So he smiled embarrassedly: "Oh, I was just seeing if this wolf would react if I made a few sounds. Look at our Huaxia dogs, if you make those sounds at them, don't they wag their tails?"

Lu did not pay attention to the Soldiers' bickering. It seemed they had indeed intercepted this wolf pack's prey. Although there was no direct hostility, he did not know if this wolf pack held a grudge. If they did, it would still be a trouble. He discovered that the wild beasts here were actually much more numerous than those around Huaxia City, and the species were as well.

It seemed that Wang was lucky enough when he set out in Winter, otherwise, with just that many people, if they had encountered a wolf pack and then encountered some other wild beasts, it would have been hard to say if they would be safe.

Subsequently, Lu began to lead everyone to process the prey. They had killed a total of seventeen, including six big boars, and the others were small piglets—in Wang's words, suckling pigs.

The largest boar weighed definitely over three hundred jin; it could almost be called a behemoth. Just looking at those tusks and the stiff hair, one knew this was not an easy creature to provoke. It was just unclear why the wolf pack would target this family; they must have been very confident.

The taste of these few big boars would definitely not be too good because there was already a strong rank smell right now. Lu directly began to bleed them on the spot; if the blood was drained, the taste might be slightly better. Now that the wild boars had just died, the blood could still flow, so he just needed to cut the blood vessels on their necks. The piglets were fine.

They were processing the prey here, and the wolf pack was also having a feast not far away. Lu took a rough look; it was also a wolf pack of several dozen, which could be said to be very large. No wonder they dared to target this group of wild boars, but the wolf pack was also keeping an eye on them.

Lu finally decided to take out all the internal organs and leave them for the wolf pack. They did not have time to process the internal organs, so they would just take the meat away. Although the Boar Skin was already full of holes, they still took it. After all, the Boar Skin was too thick and could completely be made into Leather Armor. Although Huaxia was not short of armor, well, the more the better. How many Soldiers in Huaxia could actually wear Iron Armor? And for those many more Militia, the Leather Armor was not enough.