Chapter 90

"Fortunately, there are bloodstains we can use to track the giant bird's trail; otherwise, it would be very troublesome to find it after it flies away. Next time, we must remember to bring dye balls... meow." While identifying the bloodstains, Wenlong muttered to himself.

"Dye balls? What are those?" Catherine, standing beside him, asked curiously upon hearing Wenlong's muttering.

"Don't you know about dye balls? Well, it makes sense... Since the monsters we hunted before didn't have the ability to fly or other ways to escape that were hard for us to track, we never needed to use such things. However, as we encounter monsters with increasingly stronger movement and hiding abilities in future hunts, the use of dye balls will become more common... meow."

"So, dye balls are used to track prey?" Catherine guessed uncertainly.

"Exactly, that's right. Dye balls are a type of dye that is extremely difficult to remove and has a strong odor. Once this dye is sprayed on a monster, it can't be removed in a short time, and the color is very bright, making it easy to spot even in the bushes. The strong smell also allows humans, who don't have particularly keen senses of smell, to easily find the prey by following the scent. It's a great tool for tracking fleeing prey."

"I see, we should definitely prepare dye balls next time..." Catherine nodded.

"Right, we do need to prepare dye balls... On the way back, we should also remember to pick some dye fruits and sticky grass. With these two ingredients, we can make dye balls... Oh, right, we should also collect a wild mountain bee hive and transfer the bees to a beehive so we can produce honey in our estate... meow."

Thinking about all the tasks he needed to do since he had just started developing his estate, Wenlong felt a headache coming on.

"Everything is difficult at the beginning..." Wenlong consoled himself, "But I should also teach this woman how to identify plants. It's not right for me to do everything myself..."

...

Wenlong and Catherine continued their search, following the bloodstains and quickly found the giant bird's resting place.

It was a large cave with an opening at the top, allowing sunlight to shine in and provide basic lighting. The giant bird, which had lost a leg and an ear, was lying on a patch of dry grass in the corner of the cave, undoubtedly its nest.

The resting giant bird seemed to notice its enemy had returned. It stared intently at Catherine, who had injured it, and struggled to stand up.

Catherine showed no intention of avoiding the confrontation. She drew her greatsword and walked step by step toward the giant bird. She had noticed that there were too many bloodstains on the ground, and with so much blood loss, the giant bird was likely unable to fly away.

"Is she planning to break through head-on by drawing her greatsword so early, rather than waiting to attack when she's closer?" Wenlong thought.

"Roar..." The giant bird let out a loud screech, finally managing to stand on its remaining leg. It raised its head and spat a fireball at Catherine!

After losing a leg, the giant bird could hardly perform skills like "tail whip" or "charge," and even using a peck was difficult to maintain balance. In this situation, spitting fireballs became its only means of attack.

Catherine, who had gained some experience, knew this. However, strangely, she didn't dodge the fireball by rolling or take a defensive stance behind her greatsword. Instead, she swung her greatsword directly at the fireball!

"Bang!" The fireball collided with the greatsword, producing a loud explosion.

The scene was like a baseball player hitting a ball. The greatsword was like Catherine's bat, and the fireball was the ball, which was hit away by Catherine's greatsword.

"Even more composed than before... After seeing the giant bird spit fireballs just twice, she has become familiar with their trajectory, allowing her to easily intercept them..." Although Wenlong had suspected this from the beginning, he was still somewhat surprised by Catherine's actions.

In reality, due to the giant bird's mouth structure, the speed of the fireballs it spat was much slower than those of a powerful male fire dragon, and their trajectory was a slow parabola. In this situation, hitting the fireball with the broad blade of a greatsword wasn't too difficult.

What surprised Wenlong was that no player in the game had ever managed to do this. It wasn't due to a lack of reaction speed but because the game didn't have such a setting. In the game, even if you hit the incoming fireball with a greatsword, the result would be the hunter being engulfed in flames, not hitting the fireball away like a baseball.

"Reality indeed has more possibilities than the game... meow."

Just as Wenlong was marveling, Catherine raised her greatsword again.

"It's over..."

The greatsword swung down, and the giant bird fell to the ground with a thud... no struggle, the bird was killed with one blow, collapsing like a beheaded turkey.

"Mr. Cat... I won! I'm a two-star hunter now!" Although Catherine had been very calm when delivering the final blow to the giant bird, she immediately showed her innocent side after the hunt.

"Yes, you won. This time, you defeated the opponent entirely on your own, which is commendable. But you've just become a two-star hunter, and the path of a hunter is long. Don't be arrogant or complacent, understand? Meow!"

"I know, Mr. Cat. I will work even harder and never let you down!"

As she said this, Catherine ran over to Wenlong. At first, Wenlong thought she would hug him again, but this time, it was different.

This time, the somewhat overjoyed Catherine put her hands under Wenlong's armpits and lifted him high, saying, "It's all thanks to your guidance, Mr. Cat..."

"Alright, let go of me!" Wenlong kicked Catherine in the face and jumped down.

"Ouch... I thought you would like it, Mr. Cat."

"I'm not a child, I don't have time to play 'lifting high'... We still need to process the giant bird's materials, so get to work, meow!"