The next hour was spent mostly in silence with few weak suggestions to wait out or ask for the help from the imperial army. With time more and more people had some opinions and the discussion finally heated up. It was obvious that this was a fruitless endeavor and a total waste of time. Nick was already considering to quietly leave, when master Solomon called out to him.

“May I ask the ‘Southern mercenary group’ to share their point of view? You haven’t said a word since this discussion started.”

The locals were surprised by how politely this usually haughty caravan master addressed the guards who obviously belonged to him while the Qi masters from caravan were looking at them with great expectations.

Before coming over, Nick and Clayton already agreed on some hand signs and during the last month their ability to increase ‘Boss’s’ mysteriousness had reached the quality of ‘Oscar’ level performance. Thus, when Nick looked at Clayton, the latter nodded showed few motions which, in fact, didn’t mean anything.

“First of all the theories of this animal being a rank six beast is a total nonsense.” Nick opened with the bomb and smiled.

“Who the hell do you think you are!” The local Qi master who suggested this idea first shouted with a red face. A child openly insulted him in front of all the important people of the town.

“Master Solomon asked us to come over and give our opinion. If you think it is not needed, we can leave.” Nick shrugged while still smiling, “You guys have never even seen a rank six beast and have no idea what can it do. Most likely you previously haven’t encountered even a rank five.”

“And you have?” The Qi master started to laugh.

“Not only have I seen one, I have met two of them and after that I am still sitting here. The intelligence of those beasts are far above ours, but as I said – if you don’t want to hear our opinion, we can leave.” The smile on Nick’s face never left. He didn’t care much about these people and wasn’t afraid of a fight breaking out either – the only fights that were fought in this place were oral.

“You …” The Qi master jumped up with red face.

“Master Boulos, please let him speak. If you only pay attention to his young looks, you might die not even noticing how.” Caravan master Solomon interrupted, “These two people probably have bigger experience than all others here combined.”

Now it was Nick’s turn to be shocked. He never expected their reputation to be this high. Quickly recovering from the surprise, he continued.

“Unfortunately we are not hunters like the few of you present, therefore on how to deal with this beast you will have to mostly hear out their ideas. But, I can assure you, this beast is definitely still rank five. In addition, our Boss is confident that it came down with the flood not on some accident, but to store up more energy to advance a rank, possibly for this event preparing to fight another rank five. But the last one is only a wild speculation and you shouldn’t put much attention to it.”

He glanced around and continued, “From our experience we can also assure you that none of the present are able to inflict serious damage to its scales without a special weaponry and the only place to attack is its mouth or insides. Unfortunately for us, it is a snake and therefore naturally resistant to any poisons and you won’t be able to kill it with a bait that way. I would like the few present hunters share their experience on how they have dealt with rank three and four snakes during the years so we can try to figure out some tactics.”

Even if Nick didn’t give them much information, the bit of analysis he gave was quite valuable. Not everyone was willing to take him seriously, but until now this was the most reasonable piece they had heard.

“Before we proceed, may be you have some suggestions.” Governor sternly said to Nick, “It is obvious you didn’t pull words out of your finger and thought about the situation carefully.”

After receiving nod from Clayton, Nick smiled and replied, “I missed the first attack on the raft myself, but clearly saw the second one on the coast from the top of a tree. Even if this snake could eat few more horses, it should be full for some time. It will lay down to rest somewhere to digest the food, may be on the riverbed, may be in some cave in the mountains. But after that it will come back.”

There were shouts of shock and gasps for air as everyone understood the implications.

“If you don’t have a good way to kill it, evacuate the city and the caravan, in addition urgently ask for help from the imperial army. My guess is that it will be back the day after tomorrow – the horses were not ranked beasts after all and it will digest them fast. I can promise, that if we are still around when it comes back, nine tens of the people and the whole livestock is at death risk – even in this room there are only few who are able to directly outrun it, not to speak about those who are not Qi masters. Of course, I’m talking about the damage it will cause, not the amount of people or horses it will directly eat.”

It sounded a bit exaggerated, but everything he said seemed logical and many agreed with him. Still, evacuating the whole town and pulling back the caravan was a serious business and should be the last resort. In fact, Nick didn’t expect them to do so, therefore his group haven’t left themselves as well. When running from the tiger the most important part is to run faster than everyone else, of course, in this case it would be running from the monstrous snake.

The rest of the evening was spent on listening to various experiences of the local hunters and brainstorming on the possible ways how to deal with the beast. Nick and Clayton were pleasantly surprised hearing analysis and suggestions from few others – turned out there were some very smart people around here as well. These were mostly hunters who specialized in hunting rank three and four beasts for their cores and pelts.

Nick finally realized why he couldn't buy the cheap higher rank cores in these small towns – the hunters stockpiled those and were bringing cores to sell in Ulum or Beliz themselves, thus only the cheap stuff was available.

In the end most people agreed with Nick’s guess that the snake will come back the day after tomorrow and decided to create a trap for it. Nick didn’t try to talk them out of it or offer help. The local hunters were tasked to complete the job and the town guards would assist them.

When duo came back to others, Clayton asked Nick’s real opinion.

“They will obviously fail. Trying to catch this snake as if it’s a common fish won’t work. The idea is not bad, but it can only work on a rank three, may be rank four beast. There are no ropes that are strong enough to hold it, not to speak about reeling it in.” Nick shook his head and sighed, “I really want to try something out, but it is so dangerous.”

“Let’s hear it! I want to do it as well!” YunYun happily smiled. The long rainy days were quite depressing and she was longing for some action, but seeing Nick’s expression change she added, “Don’t even think of leaving me out! I am strong and have my Katana! Even more – by being your wife I have to fight alongside of you!”

Everyone was long familiar with her character, but still the wording was kind of too ‘brave’. Nick became almost desperate, but could only blame himself for letting his tongue slip. He liked this girl and didn’t want her to get hurt, in fact, he wasn’t even certain if he should attempt to try out his own idea.

“Alright, but under one condition.” After a half an hour long quarreling he finally gave up, “We’ll do it only in case you are capable of holding yourself for at least two minutes on that cliff wall over there while holding Katana in your hand. If not, none of us will go! You have time till the sunset tomorrow.”

This was his bottom line, but it was still too dangerous. Others wanted to persuade them against it, but YunYun just snorted and proclaimed that she will go alone if they continue like this. In the end everyone had to surrender to her and give up, but while others went to sleep, YunYun trained her ability to hold on to the slippery cliff wall Nick pointed at earlier. She was not stupid and understood what he meant and knew that he had right to be worried.

The next day was spent with the caravan people reorganizing their wares and horses, and locals setting up the trap. Nick sat on a tree branch not far away from the hunters he met yesterday and watched how they tied together two horses and strapped on them few huge iron hooks which were normally used for construction works.

Those hooks were tied to especially sturdy ropes and secured at few thick trees on the riverside. Two such bates were put hundred meters apart and the town guards with long pikes were stationed in a line around hundred fifty meters away. All the local Qi masters were present as well, dressed in their best armor.

Nick shook his head and sighed. Then jumped off the branch and went back to others.

Seeing him in bad mood, Clayton asked, “How is it?”

“The naivety of these people is hopeless. Even though they are experienced and the concept itself is correct, it will never work.” Nick was a bit depressed. For some reason he hoped that locals would create a miracle, but instead they created an embarrassment, “Even if the snake takes the bite and swallows the horses, the best we can hope for is for those hooks to somehow pierce it’s heart, if not – tomorrow you will witness the hell breaking loose. Those guards you can see standing in the line proudly holding their spears … well … half of them will be dead. The ropes won’t be able to hold it one bit, heck, even if it was dead floating down the stream those ropes wouldn’t be able to hold its huge body. People don’t even try to critically think about the upcoming event! All they had to do is dig out some worm from the ground and cut a small part off it, then enlarge everything a million times to see how the events will unfold!”

He shook his head and continued, “You have to take the girls further away and, if something happens, lead them home. If … if I …” Nick wanted to instruct Clayton to take his wristbands to Aurora and pass to his childhood friend, but got angrily interrupted.

“I’ve always supported you and even admired you, but this is an extremely stupid idea!” Clayton was really furious and desperate at the same time. This young boy had become his dear companion during the last two months and going through life and death experiences only deepened their friendship.

“Sigh, I know. But because of the thing I accidentally said, she wants to take part in that hunt even if I don’t. For some reason she feels that she has to prove something … that crazy girl.” Nick was desperate as well.

After thinking over this whole thing last night, in the morning he tried to persuade YunYun to drop the idea of hunting this beast and just let the townspeople deal with it. In the worst case scenario they would retreat while the snake feeds on everyone behind them and then cross the river on their own. Even if they are slow, they would arrive in Ulum in fifteen days instead of a month that would take while staying together with the caravan. May be it would even be a better plan.

Clayton looked at his young friend with mixed feelings. This one was so intelligent, but still couldn’t figure out the obvious and to whom and why this girl wanted to prove herself.

“Alright, we will watch everything from the cliff over there. You instruct her to fall back if there is any real danger and you do so as well.”

There were not many things in this situation a man could say out loud to his friend, but they both understood what Clayton meant. Nick wasn’t tired of living, on contrary, he enjoyed it a lot and the world around him was basically a magical place, a dream come true for any adventurer. Except, of course, for their current predicament and the way how his life here started.