We left the building chasing after the coyotes, but they were nowhere to be seen. To make matters worse, we could also hear some more noise coming from below, almost as if the ants were attracted by what had happened here. Maybe this was the reason why the coyotes didn't stay in the ruins of the city. Their presence would bring about more predators. Not wanting to confirm if that really was what was happening or not, we decided to rush out. The last thing we needed was to fight the coyotes and the ants at the same time. Even if it was possible that the monsters started attacking each other, it wasn't something we could count on.
The first few minutes of our chase resulted in nothing. We couldn't find a track or anything that could lead us in the direction of the coyotes. But it didn't take long for that to change. Michael noticed a few footprints in the middle of the road near a puddle. It seemed like one of the creatures had stepped on it and continued to run, leaving the trail marks for us to follow. Without missing a beat, we turned in that direction and continued running.
We passed by a large street until the footprints, or paw prints in this case, started to fade as they turned into an alley. We rushed inside it only to be met by empty space and a narrow passage. The tracks continued down that path, causing us to chase after. I took the lead mostly by accident, with Astrid coming right behind me and Michael taking up the rear. What none of us expected was that this was exactly what the coyotes wanted.
Halfway through the alley, a noise caught my attention, and I was able to turn around just in time to see a coyote, one of the big ones, jumping towards the improvised archer.
"Michael!" I shouted, pivoting my foot while feeling something twist in a bad way, and brandished my staff. Unfortunately, the alley was too narrow for me to properly use it as a weapon. There was too much debris everywhere, stopping my movements. So instead, I did the only thing I could think of. I activated {Formless Swipe}, aiming at one of the large pieces of rubble on the ground. The concrete slab flew up towards the coyote, but even then it wasn't enough to hurt it as the creature shifted its body in the air and used the flying piece of ruins as a platform to jump away and start disappearing out of our field of view.
At the same time, the other large coyote came after Astrid, or specifically after me. It nipped at my ankles, but the Frosted Lumberjack was close enough to bring down the edge of her axe. The blow was capable of pushing the creature away and stopping it from hurting me. Just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone once more. While I wasn't able to even hurt my target, Astrid confirmed that she had indeed hit the coyote that tried to catch me, which meant that we were at least doing some damage.
Hunting these creatures would be nothing like we were expecting. They were too smart. Michael waited until we were out of the alley so we wouldn't be attacked by an ambush again and spoke up.
"I'm sorry, but are we fighting coyotes that know how to do guerrilla tactics?"
He wasn't really asking. It was more out of a confirmation he wasn't going crazy.
"It really seems that way, doesn't it?" I just chuckled. "Well, that's what the System does to monsters."
"What do you mean the System does to monsters? Are you telling me they have the System?"
I paused, staring at the man. "Yes, well, not the System but the particles. It keeps trying to help creatures evolve, if you want to call it that. Did you not talk to your System about that?"
He shook his head. "No, I didn't. I thought they were just monsters, not that we were using the same type of tool they were using to become stronger. Does that mean they can also start talking?"
I was about to say no when I remembered the Rex.
"Yes," Astrid said with a half smile.
Knowing that we were dealing with intelligent creatures made us change how we were behaving. Instead of just rushing ahead, every step had to be calculated. We couldn't afford to run into places that could be used to trap us. But at the same time, we couldn't just stop chasing after them since I had a feeling the coyotes would just stop caring about this. Something told me that they had already realized we were not worth the effort for them. After all, that initial attack seemed to be very well rehearsed and if they wanted, they could probably lure one of the frogs or an ant instead. But as long as we didn't leave their territory, they should be feeling threatened enough to continue to come after us.
It took another 10 minutes of walking around and following tracks at a distance for them to try again. This time, two of the larger coyotes appeared from a building while the rest of the pack came from underneath a structure. But we were not leaving Michael alone in the back anymore. I was taking point while Astrid took care of the rear. We made sure to always be close enough to each other that it would be easy to swap positions if anything were to happen. That time, we were able to kill a couple of the smaller coyotes while Astrid left another cut in the bigger one. But even then, we failed to finish any of the bigger ones off.
Before the third ambush happened, we noticed a different type of track heading to a specific area of the ruins that we had yet to explore. They didn't seem as deliberate as the tracks that we had been following and felt more natural and lived in, as if they were not fresh but were still far from old. Thinking that it might lead to their den, we ignored the tracks we were following and started heading that way. If we could find them in their home, it was likely they would stand and fight instead of trying to run away.
That theory proved to be more likely to be true once we started approaching their lair. The coyotes started to attack more frequently, and this time it took longer for them to try to escape. The smaller ones of the pack would bite at our ankles and try to charge at us, even if we were clearly the superior fighting force. We kept killing them two by two after every attack, but they still continued charging. The bigger ones also trying their best to do whatever they could to stop our advance.
Something was telling me that they were protecting their cubs, and while that really felt like an evil thing to do, the cubs would also have to go. I couldn't afford to just fix the problem for a few months and let them grow up and start attacking the village again. Or, even worse, make the cubs easy prey for the other predators in the area. If we were going to kill the parents, the only merciful thing to do was to also get rid of the children.
I spoke my thoughts out loud and while Astrid agreed, Michael really didn't like the idea. But then again, he didn't have a good enough argument for us not to do that. We noticed a cave just beyond the last remnants of a house in the distance and started to approach it, keeping our eyes peeled to anything that was happening behind us and everything that was getting closer.
This time, there wasn't an ambush, not in the strict sense of the word, at least. The coyotes came out of pretty much everywhere, trying to surround us, all snarling with angry expressions. Some of them seemed to be battered and others were both older and younger than the ones we were fighting so far. My best bet was that they were the full group of coyotes that lived here, not just the ones that were strong enough to go off fighting or hunting. They were all snarling and barking at us as we slowly approached. It was pretty obvious that they were protecting that cave for whatever reason.
We all stopped for a moment just letting the coyotes kept trying to threaten us, and I took the opportunity to say, "Okay, we rush them and kill as many as we can. Should we start with the small ones or the big ones?"
"Big," Astrid replied,
Michael just said, "I don't think we have a better option."
"Okay then, when I count to two."
"Why two?" Michael asked.
"Because they seem smart enough to understand what we are saying, or at least loosely understand our tone. So I'm going to speak very calmly the countdown and when it's time, when I say two we charge, even if my voice won't seem like it's what we are supposed to be doing."
"I think you're being a bit paranoid," Michael replied.
"Maybe, but I really don't want to take that chance. I'd rather be paranoid and alive than trusting and dead."
The man sighed. "Fair enough."
The three of us got in a fighting stance which made the coyotes be a bit on edge, and I slowly said, "One... two."
We jumped to attack the coyotes in front of us. Michael continued to rain arrows at the weaker ones, clearing a path for me and Astrid to attack the Wiley Coyotes with our most powerful skills. To me that was {Formless Lunge}, taking advantage of the Ice Devil ability to cover my weapon in tiny specks of ice before slamming on the coyote with a heavy weight behind my blow. While Astrid was using {Emerging Glacier}. It wasn't just a good skill to be used to allow us to cook meals during the evening, but also something that could do a lot of damage should it hit properly.
Unfortunately, the movement of the skill, more specifically the speed at which the ice rose, was not as fast as my own movement. While I was able to hit my mark, Astrid wasn't. Her Wiley Coyote dodged from the attack, but the Frosted Lumberjack was already moving to deliver another blow. This time, a shattering frost aimed at her own glacier, with the coyote standing behind it. While I took advantage of the momentary delay caused by the impact of my skill and aimed a {Formless Swipe} at the monster's head.
The coyote was able to evade a fatal blow, but my staff still crashed on its shoulder, making it pop out of its socket. The coyote snarled and jumped back, limping from one leg as three more of the smaller coyotes jumped in my direction in almost perfect sync. Michael was looking behind us, firing arrow after arrow at about a dozen different coyotes that were quickly approaching him, meaning that I couldn't count on his help in this situation.
I tumbled forward, trying to do anything to avoid the bites or at least make them bite my [Pelt of frost], the cloak on my back. That way the Ice Devil's fur could protect me, but it wasn't enough. One of them was able to reach my arm close to where I was holding my staff. The bite hurt and I could feel that there was something else in it, almost like a small tingling sensation trying to rush into my body. Could those coyotes have some sort of poison ability or something different?
Pushing the thoughts away, I focused once more on the larger coyote, trying to ignore the smaller ones since dealing with them would make me open to attacks by the big one. Just as I was expecting, the Wiley Coyote I was confronting jumped towards me the moment that I was exposed. Following that, I jumped to the left changing the shape of my staff using {Compression} with the tip of it being stretched to form an edge, a spike that slammed directly on the creature's left eye as I swung my staff like a baseball bat. The Wiley Coyote cried and toppled to the side, dead due to the impromptu lobotomy.
Astrid, who had just finished the shattering frost attack, slamming her axe on the wall of ice she created and showering the second Wiley Coyote in countless sharp shards of ice, rushed the monster, tackling it to the ground and slamming her Frosted Axe on its neck, decapitating the beast in a single {Frost Chop}.
The moment the second of the Wiley Coyotes perished, the rest of the creatures froze, allowing us to start to pick them off one by one. But before we were finished, some of them regained their ability to move and ran away, not in the organized fashion that they were running before, but now they felt like wild animals trying to escape danger. There was not a single moment when those normal sized coyotes were looking back or had some sort of anger in their eyes. It was just fleeing, nothing more.
We killed the ones we could, although a few did manage to escape. While I did want to chase after them, I was more interested in whatever they were protecting inside the cave. Inside there, we didn't find any coyote cubs, but we did find a pregnant one. That was also Tier 1 and saturated. It also had the same name as the other two monsters we were fighting, Wiley Coyote. But she seemed to be sleeping and clearly struggling to breathe.
Michael took a step back, saying he refused to participate in this. He wasn't going to kill a pregnant animal. But Astrid and I were of a different mindset. We understood that if this coyote were to give birth, eventually the village would be in trouble. Not just that, but there was a decent chance that the coyotes birthed by this one would be stronger due to the increased presence of System particles in the mother's body, and likely the father since this was also too big to be a mate of any of the smaller coyotes.
Still, I wasn't exactly happy about this. Killing a pregnant coyote wasn't something I wanted to do, just something I had to do. I killed the mother while Astrid opened her stomach and confirmed that the babies were not yet fully developed. They couldn't survive without being in the coyote's womb, and now that she was dead, they wouldn't be a problem in the future. Not even the System would be able to solve that kind of issue.
With a heavy heart, we left the cave and started to gather the corpses of the coyotes we killed. After all, this was enough meat for a couple of days in the village, and they seemed to need all the help they could get. And while we worked, everybody would have a chance to check their gains through the System. After all, I was now at level 19.