ALL NOVEL 69. Nausea
Aurora’s plan was to kill as many of the tribe as possible, and the best way to do so was to slaughter as many as she could before they noticed her presence. The issue was that would be hard to do unless she masked her scent.
Gnolls were a strange hybrid race that were humanoid in shape, usually reaching 7ft in height and looked like walking hyenas. Due to their doglike legs, fur-covered frame, long arms, and head resembling a hyena, the species was often confused with werewolves. And like their wolflike counterparts, they had heightened senses of hearing and smell.
It was due to the gnoll's sense of smell that Aurora had approached from downwind, making sure not to alert them to her presence. The issue she had was that if she were to actually enter the camp her advantage of surprise would be lost quite quickly, so she needed to cover up her scent, and the method she would usually use to do that was what gave her such a sense of disgust.
Gnolls were by no means hygienic, so rubbing her clothes and exposed skin with some of their sparse pieces of apparel might have worked, but with nothing like that on her, she needed something else. Sadly, the only other option with a scent that would mask her own was their excrement.
To some, especially those from Earth who were unfamiliar with hunting enemies or prey with a strong sense of smell, this method may have seemed quite extreme and completely disgusting. But for Aurora who had already spent an excessive amount of time hunting high-level enemies with strong senses of smell, this was something not that uncommon, so she was less averse to the idea. Depending on how successful she was, it would be likely that the gnolls would notice the smell of their comrade's blood before they noticed her, which would give her much more time to kill those that were asleep.
After a lot of mental motivation, Aurora mustered the will to stand up and with the utmost caution, started to approach the camp from slightly higher up on the mountain, the direction that was her best estimate to be the furthest point downwind.
She knew she would be able to find some excrement outside of the camp, for a tribe as big as this, it would be odd not to, the only issue was locating what she was after without any source of light.
Using her past knowledge and experience with the habits of nomadic tribal creatures, she focused her search for any existing holes or around one of the few sparse trees that surrounded the area.
After a short time searching, much to Aurora’s luck and dismay, found what she was after in a small hole. The search was made slightly easier thanks to the putrid smell that her target gave off, helping her locate the source with surprising ease.
Aurora knelt down to the hole, and with much hesitation, she reached down and scoped out some of the disgusting substance, trying her hardest not to retch from the foul smell. It took Aurora a lot of time and a lot of mental fortitude before she had fully smeared her clothing, and to her utmost displeasure, face and hair.
Throughout the process she had to swallow down the bile that had risen from her stomach, the nauseous feeling reaching a crescendo when she had to deal with her face and hair. She had realised that were it not for her desperate need for XP she would have outright refused to go through this process, and the only thing that kept her hands moving was the mantra of ‘For the XP’ that she kept repeating in her mind.
While she had somewhat gotten used to the smell by the end of the self-torture, it still left her on the verge of retching. In the past, she was far more resilient to having to deal with such putrid smells, and her current situation highlighted another change she had undergone. She could not decide if it was a lack of her naturally previously built tolerance or her new body’s aversion, but either way, she was struggling far more than in the past.
Having finally prepared herself, Aurora stood up again, gritting her teeth to keep herself from gagging. She drew her sword preemptively so as not to make additional sounds when inside the camp, then slowly with careful steps made her way closer, cautiously navigating the terrain to make no noise.
She was thankful that in the time she spent preparing herself, the moon in the sky above had moved behind the peak of the mountain she was on, giving her the additional advantage of the mountain's shadow that made her a little harder to spot.
As she slowly walked towards the edge of the camp, Aurora could see that there was only one gnoll standing watch on the section of the perimeter, thankfully facing further down the mountain from where she was. Taking extra care, she closed the remaining 100 meters to the camp, taking an exceedingly long time to cover the distance with her slow and deliberate steps.
She released a breath she had been unconsciously holding, relaxing slightly as she readied herself, making sure to act quickly to make the most of her time before being spotted. She paused for a brief moment to listen to the gnolls to see if they had detected her yet, but to her relief, they seemed to be acting like usual.
The only sounds she could hear were the deep slumbering breaths with the occasional gnoll letting out soft growls in their sleep. She could also hear her heartbeat as she strained her ears, noting that it had increased with the tension of being spotted and the adrenaline of what she was about to do.
With a quick glance at the tents around her, she could see that they were quite tightly packed, reminding her of when she had been to music festivals in the past. Only that in this case instead of modern tents the temporary abodes were crudely stitched pelts held up by tree branches embedded into the ground.
This was helpful to her since the ends of the tents were open giving her easy access to the sleeping gnoll's throats. With her grip tightening on the sword in her hand, Aurora started to move around the edge of the tent where she was currently hiding and found two gnolls sleeping heads. She felt her heart leap as the closest one's nose twitched slightly, no doubt unconsciously reacting to the unpleasant smell being so close.
While the gnolls by no means smelled nice themselves, a mix of wet dog, body odour and grime, even they would be able to notice the putrid smell Aurora had applied to herself being in such close proximity.
Without hesitation, Aurora forcefully stabbed her sword into the gnoll's throat and sliced it to the side, causing the gnoll to instantly wake up and for a few seconds, spasm. In the brief moment the gnoll was moving about, she quickly shifted to the second one and repeated her actions, stabbing into its throat where she estimated its voice box was.
[Gnoll Lv 16 defeated. 0.8% xp gained. 20% skill point xp gained]
As the first gnoll finally died, she glanced down at the one she was pulling her sword from and felt a pang of remorse seeing the panic in its eyes as it tried to breathe. She could understand the panic, she had experienced it in the past, but she reaffirmed her will knowing the horrors these gnolls were going to inflict on innocent civilians. She averted her eyes as the gnoll's blood started to seep into the ground, quickly scanning the area around her to see if any of the others had noticed.
[Gnoll Lv 13 defeated. 0.3% xp gained. 12% skill point xp gained]
Noticing the low levels of the two she had just killed, Aurora immediately deduced that the higher levels of their tribe would be closer to the centre of the campsite. She decided that taking out the higher levels first would be of far more benefit, especially with her advantage of not being discovered yet, so she swiftly wiped her sword on the dead gnoll below her to remove the blood and by extension its smell, and started to sneak towards the centre of the camp.
Due to the close proximity of the tents, she only needed to move a short distance to reach the next tent, swiftly stabbing the throat of the single gnoll inside.
[Gnoll Lv 20 defeated. 1.3% xp gained. 20% skill point xp gained]
Aurora continued to sneak through the camp, choosing to kill gnolls who were alone in their tents over those who shared, fearing that the sudden movement caused by her silent attacks would wake the other up and allow them to raise the alarm. However, she found herself lucky that the closer to the centre of the camp she moved, the more often she came across lone gnolls.
