10 Learning at a slow pace (1/2)
I squinted my eyes hard as I tried to get a better look at the flipped over truck in the distance.
There were two heavily wounded Abnormals roaming aimlessly near the truck. They were probably the driver and conductor.
It was already dawn so I didn't get too close to the truck in case they noticed my presence by mistake.
'It should have went off the road at a fast speed, flipped over a few times before coming to a stop at that place.' I made a guess as I tried to imagine the scene of the accident in my mind.
I look right and left and made sure that there were no other vehicles in the near vicinity. Although the trees somewhat impended my view, they were rather sparse and I could easily get a full view of the situation after moving around for a bit.
'This seems like a good target.' I thought to myself and went back to the place where Rahul was preparing breakfast.
We had been both been walking the entire night and although we took regular breaks in between, we were still exhausted after six hours of walking.
Thus, Rahul set up a temporary camp and told me to scout any potential prey that we could attack while he prepared breakfast.
'If there's really an opportunity, then I'm sure Rahul won't miss it.' I thought and reported everything to him after getting back in the camp.
Although I called it a camp, it was nothing more than a small area hidden between rocks where two small hastily made tents and a fire could be seen.
Thankfully there weren't any large animals in the forest otherwise we wouldn't dare to make food out in the open like this.
The breakfast was served after a while, but it was nothing to be excited about since it was just some canned food with some vitamin supplements.
After we finished eating we rested for a few hours before we started moving toward our next target.
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”What are they doing?” I asked in confusion as I looked at the two heavy wounded Abnormals acting creepily.
Creepily in the sense that they were imitating human actions. Just that they were not doing a very good job of it.
One of them was cleaning the windshield of the truck. Nothing wrong with cleaning the windshield but it's just that, he was doing it with a stone instead of a cloth. It seemed like he didn't realized his mistake and continued doing that action repeatedly.
Judging with how the whole windshield had turned white after being scratched repeatedly with the stone, it seemed like he had been doing it for the past few hours.
The second one was sat with a slipper in one hand attached to his ear while making constant gurgling sounds.
It seemed like he was imitating the action of talking in a cell phone.
”Don't be surprised by their actions.” Rahul said. ”This is something very commonly seen in newly turned Abnormals.”
”Why is that?” I asked. ”Shouldn't they be searching for food instead of doing these meaningless actions.”
”You're right. But the thing is that they're not very smart. At this point their intelligence cannot even be compared to that of a beast. So when they're not fighting, they resort to doing these subconscious actions that they used to do as humans.”
”Since those subconscious actions are already deeply ingrained in their mind, they don't need to think about anything to perform these actions.” He said.
”Does that mean that all the Abnormals start acting like this when they're not fighting.” I asked.
”Yeah. Just about all the low tiers Abnormals act in such a way.” He said ”But that's none of our concern. Right now, what we need to know is how many more Abnormals are left inside the truck.”
”These kinds of long distance trucks usually have enough space for up to 7 people so that they can drive and rest in shifts.” He said ”If there are 5 Abnormals in that truck, then we will have to resort to trickier methods.”
”But don't worry about those two out there. They are already in the bag.” He smiled.
”What? If we go and attack them right now, without knowing about the number of Abnormals in the truck then won't it be a bit dangerous?” I asked is concern.
”Don't worry. Have you forgotten what I just said.” He smiled. ”They're stupider than an animal. If you use a few tricks then it's not hard to fool them.” He said and picked up a rock from the ground.
”Now watch this.” He threw a rock near the two Abnormals. As soon as the rock hit the ground, they stopped what they're doing and went on to check the source of the sound.
”See easy Peasy Japanessey” After saying that he threw a few more rocks and lured the two Abnormals away from the truck.
”Now get your weapon ready. You'll kill one of them while I'll the other one. They're already heavily wounded so they should not pose much problem.” He said and picked up the axe as we both sneaked up from behind the Abnormals.
This time, we didn't make any noise as we creeped up on them. They were still searching for the source of the sound and didn't notice anything wrong until the last moment. But by then, it was already too late.
I swung the large Axe with all my might but unlike when I had tried to the hit that woman, this time, I had far better perception and thus, didn't miss my strike.
CHUCK!!!
It's head flew up in the sky following which, his partner suffered the same fate under Rahul's axe.
I pocketed a red crystal after which we went on to check on the truck.
Using similar methods, we took out four more Abnormals and at the end of it all, I received three crystals. Two red and One green.
Once again, I exchanged all of them to Yellow ones and consumed them without any delay.
I checked my stats once again.
User name:- Ashok Singh Rana
Stats:-
Strength - 0.9
Agility - 0.9
Endurance - 1.0
Perception - 1.8 (1.5)
Mana - 0.0
Skills:-
None
Equipments:-
None
Wealth:-
None
After eating three more yellow crystals, I felt that my reaction speed had increased significantly. The things happening around me seemed to have become even slower and although it freaked me out a bit at first, I got used to it soon enough.
At the same time, I realized that my hearing and eyesight had also improved considerably.
At this point, if I had to fight a Abnormal one-on-one then I was confident that I had more than 80% chance of defeating it.
'This… is really amazing.' I thought to myself. 'Only eating a few crystals made me so much stronger. If I eat more of these then how strong could I get.' I gulped in anticipation.
Being powerful was an addicting thing. Once you get a taste of it, you'll want it more and more.
After eating these few crystals, I realized that although earlier I was only attacking them because Rahul asked me to do so, from now on, I would be fighting the Abnormals on my own initiation.
'I want to become strong.' A strong fired burned in my heart and made me feel restless.
It was not a very good feeling. But I liked it.
—————
After this incident, we walked for half a day more but didn't found any more of such easy opportunities.