Standing on the edge of the tree line, the three of them looked down into the sprawling river valley below.
The terrain dropped off sharply, forming a sheer, ten-metre cliff that acted as a natural border. Below them lay the Red Maple Valley, its expansive floor carpeted in smooth, water-worn cobblestones. Several smaller streams meandered through the rocky terrain before converging into a central river that was easily six or seven metres wide.
"I heard Uncle Doug from the Dog-Eared Tribe say that if you wait in this valley long enough, you can often spot magical creatures that have slipped down from the misty mountains," Jerry whispered.
Sherry's ears perked up instantly. "Magical beasts fetch a very high price!"
Ted couldn't help but shake his head in amusement. Along their entire journey, whenever they had a spare moment, Sherry would immediately drop to the ground to forage for rare herbs and roots. The rat-eared girl was utterly relentless; she refused to let a single money-making opportunity slip through her fingers.
"Does it strike either of you as unusually quiet down there?" Ted asked, narrowing his eyes at the tree line below.
Sherry paused her foraging and frowned. "Now that you mention it... during midsummer, this valley shouldn't be this dead. We've been watching the riverbank for a while now, and not a single animal has come down to drink."
Sensing a potential threat, Ted established a mental link with Anzu and sent the raven soaring higher into the sky to scout the area. With its elevated vantage point, the bird had a panoramic view of the entire valley.
'I knew it,' Anzu's smug voice echoed in Ted's mind. 'This party would completely fall apart without me!'
A few minutes later, the raven sent an urgent ping through their connection. Ted immediately synchronized his vision with his familiar, and the sight that greeted him made his blood run cold.
Moving through the brush below was a pack of humanoid creatures. They stood roughly 1.67 metres tall with heavily hunched postures, possessing thick, spotted fur and the grotesque heads of vicious jackals.
Gnolls.
In the eyes of the various international Ministries of Magic, highly organized, inherently malevolent humanoid races—such as Gnolls, Murlocs, and Kobolds—were targets of extreme scrutiny. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures kept exhaustive records on their movements. Whenever a gathering point or nesting lair was discovered, a heavily armed team of Ministry Hit Wizards was immediately dispatched to purge them.
Because these creatures were driven by aggressive, bloodthirsty instincts, they inevitably resorted to organised slaughter and territorial expansion if left unchecked. Ted recalled a conversation with Arthur Weasley, who had mentioned that the British Ministry of Magic maintained a specialized "Clearer" task force composed of their most elite Strikers, dedicated solely to eradicating these extraterrestrial, highly dangerous humanoid threats.
And according to Ministry archives, Gnolls were among the absolute worst.
Eight years ago, a massive pack of Gnolls had spontaneously emerged in Northern Ireland. A horde of forty to fifty beasts had descended upon a remote Muggle town in the dead of night, slaughtering over a hundred people. The victims hadn't just been killed; they had been devoured on the spot. As a result, Ministry law explicitly dictated a kill-on-sight mandate for the species.
Right now, the pack in the valley was ambushing a herd of deer.
The herd had clearly been driven out of the deeper mountains. Their leader, a magnificent white stag with black spots and a majestic rack of antlers, was fighting desperately.
Through Anzu's eyes, Ted watched as the ambush unfolded. Over twenty deer had been driven into a fatal choke point, trapped between the rushing river and the sheer cliff wall. Seven or eight heavily muscled Gnolls, wielding crude, rust-covered machetes, howled in bloodthirsty excitement as they charged the terrified herd.
The white stag was remarkably powerful. Its antlers glowed with a fierce, emerald-green magical light as it held off four Gnolls simultaneously like a seasoned warrior. However, the sheer numbers were overwhelming; three other Gnolls had already broken through the defensive line and were mercilessly hacking into the defenseless herd.
"Anzu, intervene!" Ted commanded, immediately severing the visual link. He turned to his friends. "Follow me, quickly! We have hostiles ahead!"
Since Ted and Jerry were wizards, they possessed several magical methods for rapid, localized traversal. Covering the treacherous terrain at breakneck speed, the trio arrived at the riverbank in under five minutes.
By the time they arrived, Anzu had already landed on a large boulder by the water, casually preening his dark feathers. The eight Gnolls were scattered across the cobblestones. They weren't dead, but they were utterly incapacitated—eyes rolled back, pupils blown wide, and tongues lolling out in deep, vegetative comas.
Anzu had effortlessly neutralized the entire hunting party.
The raven was not to be underestimated. Based on Ted's System, Anzu was currently classified as a Level 10 Magical Beast, possessing incredibly potent innate abilities. Frying the rudimentary brains of a few unsuspecting Gnolls with a targeted psychic illusion was child's play for him.
The great white stag stood defensively in front of its battered herd, watching the three humans with intense wariness.
Ted kept his hands visible and stepped forward slowly. "We have no malicious intentions. Let me heal your wounded, and then you can continue on your way."
Although Ted hadn't leveled up his Psion class in the past year, his telepathic abilities had only grown more refined. By carefully polishing his foundational skills, powers like his innate Animal Empathy had become incredibly potent. Combined with the fact that Anzu had just saved their lives, the magical stag eventually lowered its glowing antlers and accepted Ted's approach.
Drawing a vial of Essence of Dittany from his bag, Ted carefully applied the potent, green-tinged liquid to the deep lacerations on the surviving deer, rapidly stopping the bleeding and accelerating tissue growth.
Once the herd was stable, the white stag let out a series of low, resonant barks before leading its kin away.
'It says something truly terrifying has appeared deep in the mountains,' Anzu translated through their link. 'All the wildlife is fleeing for their lives.'
However, rather than immediately rushing into the perilous mountains to hunt down this unknown terror, Ted's attention remained squarely on the comatose Gnolls.
He knelt beside one of the beasts, grimacing at the rancid stench, and pressed his hand against its furry forehead to search its memories. The smell radiating from the creature was atrocious—worse than an uncleaned kennel, a pungent mix of rotting meat and wet fur that genuinely made Ted's head throb.
Fortunately, Gnolls possessed incredibly low intelligence and rudimentary thought processes. It didn't take long to sift through the violent static of its mind to find what he needed.
'Found it!' Ted thought grimly.
He stood up and immediately cast an Aguamenti charm, thoroughly washing the filth from his hands with a stream of clear water. Then, with a cold, detached flick of his wand, he cleanly ended the lives of the comatose monsters.
————
Level 5-7 wild enemies eliminated.
3,245 experience points awarded.
————
Three loot cards materialized over the corpses:
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[Beast (White)]
[Rusty Machete (Grey)]
[Tiger Eye (Green)]
————
Ted's eyes gleamed at the massive influx of experience, but his expression quickly hardened.
Historically, there had never been Gnolls in the Red Maple Valley. So where exactly did this pack come from? If they left this mystery unsolved, Jerry and the rest of Decarmond Village wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully for months.
The straight-line distance from this valley to Decarmond was only about 20 kilometres. Due to the rugged terrain, it would take a normal human ten hours to hike the distance. But Gnolls were different. Despite their humanoid classification, they possessed the endless stamina and predatory endurance of wild beasts. At a dead sprint, a Gnoll hunting party could reach the village perimeter in just four or five hours.
That was far too close for comfort.
"We need to find out exactly where these Gnolls are coming from," Sherry said, her voice tight with anxiety. "They are infinitely more dangerous than those crazed beasts from the forest."
As a member of the village hunting party, Sherry had fought her fair share of monsters. She had slain Drowners, exterminated Kobolds, and even survived an encounter with Murlocs. She knew exactly how destructive these vicious humanoid races could be.
Suddenly, a notification chimed in Ted's mind.
————
[System Quest Triggered]
[Mysterious Gnolls (Green)]
The Red Maple Valley has been free of Gnolls for a decade, yet you have just stumbled upon a heavily armed hunting party. If you don't uncover the root cause, you won't dare close your eyes at night.
Objective: Discover the origin of the Gnoll pack and determine their numbers.
Reward: 300 experience points, Material Card: [Hogg the Gnoll (Green)].
System Note: Why did eight Gnolls die tragically on the riverbank? Why is the mysterious white stag fleeing in panic? Will the demi-human village ever sleep soundly again? Is this a distortion of human nature, or a profound moral depravity? Tune in to find out in "The Gnolls of Red Maple Valley".
————
Ted almost snorted at the System's dramatic flair.
A massive chunk of experience, highly valuable loot, and the chance to eliminate a critical threat to Decarmond Village? It would be downright irresponsible to ignore it.
From the fractured memories of the Gnoll, Ted had gleaned that they belonged to a temporary tribe. Because Gnolls couldn't actually count, the creature's memory hadn't provided an exact number. However, by calculating the spatial volume of the camp and the amount of food consumed daily from the memory fragments, Ted estimated their numbers sat somewhere between sixty and a hundred.
Because their minds were so primitive, the geographical location in the memory was blurry. Still, Ted had managed to extract a general direction.
He and Sherry both turned to look expectantly at Anzu.
The raven let out a mental string of curses regarding entirely uncompensated child labour, but obediently took to the sky once more.
About ten minutes later, Anzu sent a sharp ping. He had found it.
Perched high on an elevated slope, a sprawling cluster of crude, freshly built shacks came into Anzu's view. Patrolling the perimeter of the ramshackle camp were several heavily armed Gnolls.
'Well, would you look at that,' Ted thought, impressed despite himself. 'They actually know how to post sentries. This won't be as simple as I thought.'
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Word count: 1748
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