These Familiars Are Strange

"What is it?" I asked in a soft voice.

The Echo Bat leaned in and used one of its wings to cover its other hand. Once hidden, that other hand pointed in a direction behind us.

I didn't look, but I gave a silent order to the Fanged Wolves to see if they could find anything while pretending to move forward.

But in the end, they weren't able to find a single thing.

Even with their refined senses, they weren't able to find a single trace of the thing that was stalking us.

It seemed that whatever it was that was following us was quite skilled at hiding themselves.

"Is there really no way of getting them to show themselves?" I couldn't help saying to myself in a frustrated voice.

I had already laid the trap, but it didn't seem like they were planning to bite it at all. It seemed that whatever was stalking us was quite cautious that it didn't want to make a move unless it was certain that it would be able to win.

This was the kind of enemy that was the hardest to deal with since it was hard to bring them out of hiding.

It didn't seem like we would be able to lure them out with the way that things were going…

That was when I made a decision.

This was the kind of enemy that wouldn't come out unless they were certain of their chances of victory, so I would give them that. If they were patient, then I would make it seem like they had won.

After all, those that thought that they won would always let their guards down at the last second.

That was the opening that I was looking for.

"Find some traps." I said to the Fanged Wolves.

It seemed like there was a bit of hesitation from the Fanged Wolves when they heard this, but they still followed my orders in the end. It wasn't strange that they were hesitant since it didn't seem like a sane thing to do.

But this was my determination.

Since this was the territory of the Elite Monster, it wasn't as if it was completely empty.

Unlike the Kong Gorilla that gathered other monsters together to live as a group, this Elite Monster was one that lived alone.

So there wasn't much in this territory, but there were still some things that it set up to keep itself safe.

Such as traps for those that made their way into its territory.

This was a cunning type of monster, so it was only natural that there would be traps.

Once the Fanged Wolves found the trap, I got off the Fanged Wolf that I was sitting on and walked towards the trap.

This didn't seem suspicious at all because the trap was actually in the middle of a clearing. This was the perfect place for a rest, so those that didn't know about it would approach it thinking that it was safe.

It was an apple tree that was right in the middle of this clearing that seemed oh so inviting.

After walking over, I could already see what the trap that had been prepared was.

There were snakes that were hiding among the branches of the apple tree that would attack whoever approached the moment that they reached out for the apples. The apples were enticing since they were special apples that were filled with mana, which made them taste even better than normal apples.

At the same time, since they were filled with mana, they were elixirs that could make one stronger.

So I reached up for an apple without any hesitation.

As soon as I did, the snakes that were hiding in the branches suddenly came out of hiding and snapped their open jaws at me. They bit right into my arm and seemed to poison me before fleeing back into the tree.

After being bitten by the snake, I stumbled a bit and placed one hand on the tree to lean against it to stabilize myself.

The snake was a poisonous snake, so this was the natural reaction that came from being bitten.

But I pushed through it and waved my hand at the Fanged Wolves to come over. I stumbled over to the Fanged Wolves and tried to get on their backs so they could carry me away.

In the middle of this, there was something else that suddenly appeared.

It was another snake, but this was a snake that was much bigger than the other snakes that had appeared from the branches of the tree earlier. This was a large python that seemed to blend in with the leaves around it, but it was visible now because it opened its mouth to sink its teeth into me.

Only right before it was able to snap its jaws together to bite into me, the large python suddenly trembled and froze for a second.

That second was all that I needed.

I stopped pretending that I was dizzy and slashed out at the python with the dagger in my hand.

The python wasn't able to pull away since it had been temporarily frozen, but it was still able to shift itself a bit so it didn't get cut too deeply by the dagger. It still bled a bit from being sliced in the underbelly.

This python immediately pulled away, but it was already too late.

The damage had already been done.

After the python realized that it had failed, it started moving back to the leaves as if it wanted to blend back into the leaves of the apple tree. It was just that it wasn't able to do so as it was attacked from two different directions.

One was the Fanged Wolves who were now able to locate the python based on the scent from the blood flowing from the wound that I inflicted on it.

The other was from the snakes that had been hiding in the tree previously that had bitten me.

They came out of hiding and wrapped around the python to prevent it from running away.