Three off-road vehicles sped across the grassland.
Only through close contact could one truly grasp how lush the vegetation was here.
The grass was almost uniformly over a meter tall—no wonder they said that when the wind blows and the grass bends, goats and cattle disappear into it.
There were no real roads on the grassland. Wherever the off-road vehicles passed became a path, as the tires crushed the tall grass, leaving a distinct trail.
After two hours, an incongruous sight appeared before Martin, who was sitting in the lead vehicle.
A patch of the grassland had been deliberately flattened, and tire tracks were visible everywhere.
Several elephants lay dead on the ground. Their faces had been pulled back, exposing bloody mouths, and their tusks had been hacked off at the root.
Martin's vehicle came to a stop. Satan got out with him, along with a young guide who began inspecting the corpses.
The other two vehicles split off in different directions to scout the area.
Martin walked up to one of the elephant carcasses, his expression calm.
He wasn't moved by death.
What concerned him was that the poachers had disrupted the ecological balance of the area, which would ultimately reduce his own profits.
Moreover, slaughtering such massive animals just for two tusks was pure waste.
Twenty-eight square meters of elephant hide and the meat—all of it could be used!
Elephants reproduce slowly as it is, and yet this kind of wasteful butchering...
Martin shook his head.
As a businessman who held exclusive rights to "game hunting quotas" across West Africa, he wasn't going to scold the poachers from a moral high ground. However, every animal they poached was money out of his pocket. That, he could not tolerate.
And as a lover of aesthetics, he couldn't tolerate their crude and graceless way of dealing with the corpses, either.
At that moment, the youth who had been examining the carcasses approached. He wasn't a soldier, but a tour guide.
On the grassland, without a local guide, it was easy to get lost for a lifetime.
Sure, the cars had GPS, but a human guide was still more convenient.
The young man said, "Six elephants in total—three males and three females. All of their tusks were taken. One of the female elephants was even pregnant. Those damned poachers sliced her belly open and ripped the calf out for amusement."
The young man was seething with anger.
He had previously worked for a regulated hunting company. He came from a native tribal background, and his people worshipped the Elephant God, which made him deeply averse to the sight of elephants being poached. He despised poachers.
The arrival of regulated hunting companies had significantly reduced poaching on this grassland. Although these companies also hunted animals, they maintained population control—balancing death with renewal—much like his ancestral tribe had once done.
"What should we do with the corpses?" Satan asked.
The youth pointed around. "The hyenas are already coming."
Then he pointed to the sky. "Vultures too—they're circling."
Finally, he said, "Nature will take care of the remains."
"Fine then," Satan said, "let's find those poachers and take care of them."
Just then, a voice crackled over the radio at Satan's waist. "Chief, we've discovered a trap. Looks like the poachers herded the elephants into it, then slaughtered them all at once for their tusks. We also found vehicle tracks. Andy is following them now."
Martin frowned and snatched the radio. "Which direction do the tracks head?"
"West."
"Tell them to come back. It's a trap—now!"
"Understood!"
After ending the transmission, Satan asked curiously, "BOSS, what did you notice?"
Martin replied, "The vehicle tracks were... too clean."
Just as he was about to explain further, he noticed the local guide hesitating to speak, clearly having realized something too.
Martin said, "Let the kid explain it to you."
With that, he walked off to a nearby spot, turned his back to them, and resumed the magical incantation he'd been interrupted from earlier.
His fingers twisted and flexed as if boneless, forming hand seals. Waves of mana radiated out...
Behind him, the youth began to explain, "The grass on the savanna is very resilient—it's tough and elastic. Look, sir, this is where we drove in."
Satan turned to look and finally noticed something: the path the vehicle had crushed through on the way in had somehow already sprung back. The tall grass was standing again, completely covering the tire tracks.
"Fuck..." Satan muttered under his breath, then asked curiously, "So how do you track prey in your tribe? How do you follow a trail?"
"By scent, by water sources, and the marks left on the grass."
"Marks on the grass?"
"Yes, sir. Even though the grass stands back up, it still shows signs of being pressed. Look at this leaf, and this blade of grass..."
Satan crouched and examined the spot the youth pointed to. Then he looked out at the vast expanse of grassland and couldn't help but be impressed—
These tribal hunters could find clues in this sea of grass? It was truly... remarkable.
As if reading Satan's thoughts, the youth added, "Actually, it's not easy. If we didn't already know this is where the vehicle drove in, I wouldn't have noticed these details either.
"In reality, even the most experienced hunters in our tribe don't always succeed. Most hunts end with nothing."
"I see," Satan nodded. That sounded more realistic.
Just then, the radio crackled again.
"Chief, Andy was ambushed. Luckily, BOSS warned us in time, so they didn't walk fully into the trap. Only one man took a shot to the shoulder. The rest are safe and pulling back."
"So this was a premeditated revenge by the poachers!" Satan sneered, a cold glint in his eye. "I'll inform HQ to dispatch a reconnaissance plane. With the light fading, the poachers' camp won't be far from their ambush site."
At that moment, Martin suddenly pointed toward a direction in the distance.
"There."