First Light of a New Age

Chapter 57: Monster Hunting

The sky was gray, adorned with a few remaining stars, while the ground was shrouded in a few sunlight that pierced through the clouds. It was completely quiet, broken only by the occasional chirping of insects in the grass.

Accompanied by the sound of faint footsteps, a dozen heavily armed soldiers advanced slowly into the mountains.

It was early morning, perfect timing to enter the mountains. At this hour, most of the Magic Beasts were still asleep, making it ideal for exploration.

As such, a dozen or so soldiers led by Angelo left the village and entered the mountains at this particular time. As for the young girl in the village, Nathan was left there tending on her conditions.

“Yeah, right,” Marco laughed, drawing strange looks from the others.

“What did you say there, Marco?” Angelo asked.

“Um… nothing.”

The group decided to ignore it and continued onward.

"Hey captain, see anything?" Paulo asked Angelo, who shook his head silently.

Meanwhile, Marco noticed a few soldiers collecting something in the forest. 

"What the hell are they collecting?" he asked.

"Samples," Angelo simply replied. His eyes constantly scan left and right at the clearing where they stopped.

"Damn, we know they're samples, but for what use?" Marco grumbled, he slapped away an insect that landed on his neck.

"To study," Angelo simply replied again.

"Seriously? We're soldiers, not like those nerds from the Research Institute. We're here to hunt monsters!" Marco retorted.

“Didn't you forget the command said we should also collect any interesting objects in this world… except we should proceed with caution.”

“Once we deal with this, we'll hunt some dangerous Magic Beast,” Angelo added, “According to the Magic Radar, there are only magic beasts at Level 1 or Level 2 within a hundred-meter radius, so none of them were even a threat to us.” 

Marco gave up trying to chat with two of his friends and walked up to one of the soldiers crouching over a plant. "Hey, whatcha doing?"

The soldier turned and lifted up a small transparent container with a sample of a leaf inside. "Well, we are cataloging the plants to see if they can be eaten or used in some way." He gave the bottle a little shake before placing it carefully into his bag.

"Eh, okay." Marco straightened up, unimpressed. "So these red plants are edible?" He plucked a leaf off a small tree. Most of the leaves of the plant life in this forest are reddish in color with a hint of green.

"Well, not this," the soldier said, standing up. "Over here," he waved Marco over and kneeled down to a tiny growth with red fern-like leaves. "This here is a kind of tuber or root, in case you jug heads don't know what a tuber is."

The rest of the soldiers laughed as the soldier continued his explanation. "The guys at the lab say it tastes like a mix of carrot and potato and carries the same nutrients and vitamins as them. So they called this a 'car-rat-o'."

"Oh wow," Marco rolled his eyes while Angelo watched with interest. "So other than the tuber root 'car-rat-o'. Nothing more interesting found?"

"Hahaha, we heard they found plenty, even in our lands," The soldier proudly said. "There is a tree sap that tastes like maple syrup but when dried becomes like rubber."

"And there's these berries that the farmers found," The rest of the soldiers chipped in stories.

“Yeah, it's unbelievable how new food and vegetation has been appearing in our nation lately.”