Chapter 139: Whiteclay VI
Irwin didn't wait for the other two humans to die before he rushed forward, shouting at the top of his lungs so that the Wendigo was alert of his arrival.
"Leeeeroy Jeeenkins!" He said. The meme had been recently born, so it was not cringe as of yet.
The Wendigo roared in surprise and dread and grabbed onto a nearby stalactite before breaking it off in an apparent attempt to acquire a weapon. Surprise morphed Irwin's face as the Wendigo met him head-on with a long jump and tried to use the broken stalactite as a spike.
Rolling to the side to evade the attack, Irwin soon found himself mired by the unnatural formations along the ridges of the cavern walls. His foot kept getting stuck in crevices, which aided the Wendigo in its attempt to kill him.
The monster's long limbs were proven to be a great advantage in this fight, keeping Irwin at bay with claw strikes and smacks that resonated deep in his bones. Even with Flaming Whip and its long reach, Irwin felt an unnatural pressure from the Wendigo as they crossed the entire cavern in the fight.
With his familiarity with the footholds held within the cavern, Irwin's attack and reaction speed had essentially been halved to prevent an untimely trip or face plants. Being level 5 in two different martial skills and a temporary skill that allowed him an uncanny ability to detect danger, however, made the fight easier, akin to a battle on an open plateau.
So much so that it had taken no more than a minute and a half–yes, he had counted–for Irwin to slice and burn away the Wendigo's left arm and a chunk of its lower limbs, severely limiting its movements and reducing its attacks to haymakers.
It was only a matter of time before Irwin took a risk and let the Wendigo wound his side in exchange for letting his Flaming Whip to wrap around the monster's neck which startled the cannibalizing creature before the onset of pain from the silver tips along the length of the whip tore off what had remained of the Wendigo's neck.
"Get over here!" Playfully roaring, he tightened his grip on the Flaming Whip and winded his wrists back. The spell followed his command and scraped the meat and bones off the Wendigo's neck, beheading the creature and engulfing the edges of its neck stumps.
The Flaming Whip rolled back on his arm before whipping it at the Wendigo repeatedly until all that had remained of the monster was the ash and bones of this previous form.
It wasn't until Irwin heard a chime in his ears and eyes that he was reminded that he could've just traded the corpse of the beheaded Wendigo to prevent it from regenerating or rising up again–that was on the basis that it could, in fact, rise again from such a wound.
"Fuck me." He cursed himself as he felt a wave of power wash over himself, having leveled up from the kill.
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Congratulations! You have advanced to Level 5.
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Congratulations! You are now eligible for a Class Upgrade.
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The following skills have been upgraded:
▪︎ Human Magic (Lvl 06 -> 07)
…
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He dismissed the wave of messages that had suddenly erupted into his cornea and stalked closer to the burning corpse of the Wendigo to see if the bones and ash could still be traded or, at the very least, could still activate his Supernatural Record.
The former hope had been squashed when the Trade Store had listed the bones as a non-supernatural option, but that emotion was soon squashed when two more items entered the list. Although those items were far from what he was expecting, especially inside of a Wendigo safe house.
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All tradeable items have been scanned. Please select which item to trade:
▪︎ Bones of Chermaine - Class 2 Monstrosities - Bones of Oglala Bonded Wendigo Variant: 71 11
▪︎ Skeletal Remains - Class 2 Monstrosities - Oglala Bonded Wendigo Variant: 67
▪︎ Algonquian Transliteratory Codex (Oglala Version) - (Hex) Greater Enchantment / (Bond) Full Enchantment / (Mind Wipe) Lesser Enchantment - Type Magik: 322
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Not only was there another Wendigo within this very cavern, said Wendigo and the one he had just killed were deemed as 'bonded' by his system. While he wasn't technically sure what it meant on a fundamental level, his delving into magik knew that wasn't supposed to happen.
Even if another creature could, in fact, magically parley or be in the presence of a Wendigo without it immediately going feral in hunger, the success of doing so to the point of being classified as bonded was downright atrocious.
"I don't like this," He muttered under his breath before the shouts of the previous captives earned his undivided attention.
He kept the charred bones of Chermaine in his spatial bangle and lept towards the captives, readying a Health potion for the both of them to share. While that wouldn't heal all of their wounds, it would be enough to allow them to move without his help.
'Like hell I'd carry both of them in this fucking weather.' He thought as he caught sight of the both of them in the middle of the cavern tending to each other's wounds.
The sight of his agile limbs caught them by surprise with the man nearly dropping the torch as the woman whimpered in pain. He raised his hands, showing what was inside of his palms as he inched forward.
"Here. Drink half of this each." He said, placing the potion bottle a few feet away from them. "I'm an FBI agent. Irwin Steel. I killed the monster with fire, so don't worry about it and heal yourself."
The man thanked Irwin in a stammering voice, rough and full of bloodied spit, too, while the woman downed half of the Health potion and, frankly, would have drunk all of it were it not for another reminder from Irwin.
"Thank you." Said the woman, offering platitude with a husky voice as her wounds began to miraculously heal.
'Ah, the miracle of money,' Irwin mused as he told them to stay put and let their wounds heal enough to move. While they did so, he walked towards the remains of the other Wendigo and began investigating.
Unlike the other side of the cavern, where three bloody metal poles were embedded five feet above the ground–a contraption made to store food–the side where the remains were relatively clean and devoid of any substance unrelated to the Wendigo.
There were no longer skin nor organs within the remains, merely shattered bones and clothes that bore a resemblance to a suit and tie–albeit destroyed into tatters. The tome beside the remains was placed atop a pedestal of some sort and has been clean and seemingly well-maintained, further complicating his thoughts and worries.
The spine itself was cracked–evidence of someone reading the book–and, from reading the worn, yellow pages, someone had read this tome religiously. If not for the dust along the length of the book's spine, Irwin would have thought that someone had read this very book just hours before he found the cavern.
"Maybe the survivors?" He muttered under his breath.
"No." The woman's voice nearly startled Irwin had it not been for her unsteady footsteps and murmurs of pain giving away her movements "W-we… we didn't do that. That fucking monster brought us here. H-he killed Gerard and Tania."
Irwin gave a soft smile and was about to console her when a peculiar wording irked his mind. "What do you mean by 'He'?"
"W-what?" She asked, confused.
"You said 'He', when I and most people would be using 'It' or 'They'. Of course, most people would use 'He', but when you see its saggy breasts swinging and it has a smooth skin instead of a sex organ, that title becomes false. So, why?" Irwin voiced out his confusion, inching closer towards the woman.
"I-I don't…" She shook her head, bringing her hands on top of her head with a soft sob. "We… the…"
"It's the Elder!" Shouted the man from afar. Irwin gazed at him and nodded for him to continue, which he did, "Hawk something. H-He was warning us not to trek too far because it might snow and that there was something hunting inside and-and we–Fuck–we didn't care."
Before he could begin sobbing into himself, Irwin asked a clarification, "And he said that hunter is a man or a male?"
"Yes. "Be careful… uh something about the woods being protected and be careful not to fall for his trap!"" The man recounted, barely that was, their conversation with Elder Hakwins, someone the people in the restaurant had known.
"Good to know. Can you walk or run?" He asked, transferring the items into his spatial bangle.
They nodded along before the man gazed at his dead companion. "W-what about Cyril?"
Irwin bit down the groan from his throat before sighing in resignation, "Fine. I'll carry him. Let's get the fuck out of here before I die of the smell."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone