Aureus, how’s it going?

Just finished the first one, I didn’t do the other side just where the rats would be coming from.

I don’t think this will be able to cover the whole wave, but it’ll take too long to make a second one. At best our goal should be to get them some time and reduce the numbers.

“Actually, Noel?” I paused for a second waiting for him to appear, “If you were to grab a rat corpse would you be able to transport them quickly to Jeong? Like how you brought me to him originally?”

“Yeah, should be able to. Did you want me on transportation duty?” He asked with a smile as he peered down the ladder next to us.

“Well, I feel like you’d be the best option since you’ve got clones and you can travel faster than the rest of us. I was thinking about asking a few others as well, if it gets too packed let me know and I can send a few people down to at least shove some into their inventory until we can get rid of them properly.”

“Aye aye cappin’ you can count on me!” He gave a salute with a flourish and disappeared.

I sighed as I looked out at the fast approaching enemies, this is going to suck.

We can do it Master, and some of these humans aren’t completely useless!

Yeah, it’ll be fine. It has to be. Come over here and get me I need to go talk to Rosalynn.

I could feel his presence approaching before I felt the wind on my back. He’d started to get better at landing without knocking me on my ass from the wind pressure. I smiled at him as he landed, he was maturing so quickly it was bittersweet. Before I could linger on those thoughts for long we’d already arrived and Rosalynn was looking up at me as she wiped blood from her hands.

“How goes the digging?” She asked and helped me down.

“Well Aureus did a great job, but I struggled a bit.” I replied with a chuckle.

“After this is all over, let me use your shower before you abandon us won’t ya?”

I laughed, “Not before I use it, I feel like I’ve been marinating in sweat and rat mush and everything is sticky.”

“Deal!”

“Anyways, I came over to let you know that I’m getting Noel to transport rat corpses to Jeong’s plants for disposal, but we might need more people to help with transportation or just to chuck corpses into inventories. Those pits are going to fill up pretty quick and then Jeong’s going to be buried…”

“Oh…” She hesitated for a moment, “okay, just send me a message if you need people and I’ll send them.”

“I was thinking I might make a path from down there to inside the walls so we can get out in case of emergency but it’ll take a while. If it’s finished before I need reinforcements they can just use that. Plus if we can use some noncombatants for transportation purposes it might make your job easier…” I trailed off as my eyes swept over the front line, we had a lot of people but it was shaping up to be a long battle.

Master, I can make that. The tunnel.

Maybe, but you’re pretty big so it might be easier if you expand the room Jeong is in, like make it the whole length of the pit and add entryways for transportation.

Okay, I’ll go get started on that then.

“And he’s off…” I muttered as I watched him fly towards the pit we just left.

“Well, let me show you where a good entrance would be for that walkway.” Rosalynn turned on her heel and I followed after her as we entered the gate and she led me to a mostly empty building. I groaned as I kneeled on the hard stone which elicited a chuckle from Rosalynn as she left me to my work.

For the next thirty minutes I stood in pitch blackness as I forced my way forward and carved the path into the stone. I collapsed to the ground and leaned on the wall, and glanced back at the faint light coming from the entrance. It was barely visible from the distance I’d carved. I’ve done enough to warrant a break. I rationalized as I pulled up the GGC and my chats. Surprisingly I didn’t have any new messages from my party or Rosalynn or Jeong, so I turned my attention to the GGC.

[ “Playful Cat hates Yarn” asks when this is going to end.]

[ “Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” scribbles in his notebook as he mumbles something about effective tactics. ]

[ “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” complains that you should go back soon. ]

[ “Traveling Spring Painter” agrees but mentions that the quest isn’t over yet. ]

[ “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” clicks their tongue and declares that making the quest length a week was unnecessary. ]

[ “Divine Hammer of Blessings” glares at “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” stating that a week was an appropriate length for this quest. ]

“I’m fine with it being a week, I mean a couple extra days here isn’t much compared to the rewards I’m getting. It’s really fine.” I assured them.

[ “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” huffs and muses that you might change your mind soon. ]

[ “Traveling Spring Painter” pinches the bridge of her nose as she tells them to just drop the topic. ]

“Why are you so against this quest? You’ve been urging me to leave for a while and didn’t even want me to take the quest at all even though it has great benefits. It’s weird.” I furrowed my brows and wondered if there was something I was missing.

The GGC was quiet for a few minutes after my question so I just closed it and got up again to continue my trek through the rock. After ten or so more minutes I could feel a pathway ahead of me a few feet from my own. I forced my shaking legs forward as I focused on connecting the two. Finally the rock beneath my fingers disappeared into the ground. In the distance in front of me I could see the warm glow of a torch, before I realized it I was running and laughing. I was finally done.

“Oh, you made it.” Jeong said without looking at me. He was sitting cross legged in the center of his sprawling flowers. Slowly they creeped out in all directions, there were only a couple open flowers, the rest were bulbs. Likely consuming rats.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yeah, are you good?” I asked as I glanced back over my shoulder at the path I’d just come from. Aureus must have created part of it to take some of the load off of me.

“Yup.” He didn’t say anything else and I walked away so I didn’t disturb him.

As I walked out into the pit I was surprised it was as empty as it was. I expected it to fill up pretty quickly, but rather only a couple feet of the pit had filled up with corpses. I grabbed a couple and walked back to the open flowers and plopped them down next to them. I grimaced as the bones crunched when being compressed into the bulb.

“Thanks, I let Noel focus on other things for a while. I was going to call him when more flowers were available.”

“No problem. I’m going to head up too. Let us know if you need anything.”

“Actually-” He hesitated for a moment, “I need some water… and the plants could use some as well. The blood helps but water would be better for them.”

“Oh… uhh… okay one second.” I hadn’t tried water manipulation yet, and I was still pretty exhausted from creating the path.

I held my breath as the water mana crashed through my body, it was weird how similar it felt to the other elements but completely different at the same time. It was heavy like earth mana but in a different way, and it rushed through me wildly like fire mana but it was much easier to direct. Overall it felt unsurprisingly like a raging river and it was moderately calming and cool, but when I focused on it too much a chill ran through my soul and it felt like my entire being might be washed away.

I opened my eyes and tried to scatter water across the plants before me, but only a few droplets separated from the orb forming above me. After a few more seconds of focusing I was able to create streams of water that left the orb and splashed onto the flowers. I grinned, but now I had a new challenge. I needed to figure out how to give Jeong water without drenching him.

“Do you,” I paused as I saw the now small orb of water start to wobble as I lost concentration, “have…”

I was handed an old plastic water bottle and thankfully filling it wasn’t much different to watering the plants so I was able to hand it back to him quickly. Now the only issue that was left was the remaining bit of water. It was too much for me to drink, and the canteen I had was already full. I didn’t want to give it to the plants because I didn’t want to overwater them. I drank a few gulps and glanced around wondering what I should do with it.

“Put it here.” Jeong suggested, and when I glanced down at my feet I noticed that a leaf in the shape of a bowl had sprouted.

“Oh, thanks.”

“No, thank you, now I will have some water for the plants when you’re away.”

“Should I… make more?” I asked as I looked down at the now full leaf bowl.

“Nah, it’s fine. Neither of us should waste mana on that right now.”

“Oh. Yeah that’s a good point…” I muttered as an awkward silence crept in. Without another word I walked off and made my way up the ladder. Once I got up there I realized why there weren’t as many rats in the pit, they’d brought almost everyone to the other side of it. They were using the pit as a protective barrier like the walls. I wondered if they thought that was my plan when I decided to create it.

I’m glad they figured out a better way to go about this because I’m no good at strategizing and shit.

Master doesn’t need to strategize. You’ve got me. And we’re way too strong to need strategy for these things. Plus those greedy humans probably did it to get more kills since if they didn’t we’d get most of them.

Right right. I smiled and gave an amused snort as I scanned the battle in front of me for Aureus. Wait, did you let them over there?

Some of them, yeah, me and Noel have been reduced to mere transportation. But Rosalynn and some of the others just jumped.

Jumped huh… I glanced down at the bottom of the pit. It wouldn’t kill me if I fell down there, plus there was a layer of squishy corpses at the bottom to cushion the fall. Ah, what the hell! I took a few steps back to get a running start, but then stopped. I played with the idea of using wind manipulation to help me make the jump for a few seconds before giving up on it and taking off.

My chest filled with the electricity of anxiety, excitement, and mana. A huge grin took over my face as I leapt over the pit, but it quickly turned into shock and then panic. I’d easily cleared the pit, and my jump sent me much higher than I expected as well as a lot further than I’d meant to. I was looking at an awkward crash landing in the middle of the rat wave. I flailed around for a second in a vain attempt to stop myself.

“Shit shit shit shit sh-” Reflexively I curled into a ball to protect my face and torso, but before I could hit the ground Aureus caught me. I opened my eyes to see that I was about ten feet from the ground and an insane number of rats. A gentle wind flowed around me and prevented my fall. Slowly it started to bring me up towards where Aureus was gliding above.

Thanks Aureus.

Pff- Ahem yes, Master… no- he paused no problem… He did his best to keep the laughter out of his voice but it took over him as he finished his sentence he went into a laughing fit. I could feel his body shaking as he struggled to get it under control.

“I didn’t know I could jump that far!” When he didn’t reply I continued as my face started to get hot, “I mean honestly being able to jump like that is pretty impressive you know! Not everyone can fly!”

That’s true, you’re very impressive Master. A small snicker was suppressed but it was almost worse that he tried to hide it.

“Oh shut up,” I rolled my eyes.

I groaned and glanced at the GGC, I knew they were going to make fun of me for that too. I sighed as I glanced through the jokes as they flooded in, they were mostly saying that I looked like a flea. Many complained that it would have been better if I landed and discussed whether the rats would fly off on impact. Another group debated on how injured I would have been if I had landed.

[ “Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” asks why you didn’t use wind manipulation. ]

[“Traveling Spring Painter” scoffs at him and says that you haven’t had a chance to try it yet. ]

[ “Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” agrees and laughs about how much you’d struggled with the other elements so far. ]

“I think I’m doing pretty good alright! I’m the highest leveled person here too.” I crossed my arms and pouted.

[ “Traveling Spring Painter” clears her throat with a smile and comments that it was indeed an impressive leap. ]

[ “Gentle Autumn Breeze” advises you to practice more and learn your limits. ]

For a couple more minutes various gods and goddesses joined in on making fun of my ‘impressive leap’ the embarrassment quickly faded as I read their comments. After a while I had to focus on not smiling or laughing along with them to maintain my image. My attention was pulled to the war taking place beneath me.

They were all struggling quite heavily, several of them had been injured heavily, healed and sent right back out to fight. And like Rosalynn mentioned last time, fighting a horde of enemies really wasn’t her strong suit. She was able to get rid of a large amount of rats with every swing, but as I watched her swing that huge hammer I wondered how long she’d be able to manage it. The others were already starting to show signs of fatigue and injury.

For a while we alternated between killing as many rats as possible to help those on the front line and helping to clear out the pit so that it didn’t get too full. I sighed as the wind from Aureus’ flight slapped my hair into my eyes.

After a couple hours Aureus said, Master, I'm worried they might not last much longer now.

Yeah they are getting pretty sluggish, but they’ve been taking breaks and Reid’s fanatics are here to help them when they get injured.

But Master she looks… he trailed off but I knew he was looking towards Rosalynn’s group.

Rosalynn looks like she’s doing just fine. She might need a bre-

No, that isn’t the one I’m talking about. Aureus interrupted and flew down closer to them.

Oh, no- I saw what he meant but everything played out before I could respond. Rosalia was struggling. It was obvious she was tired and about to pass out, but everyone in the front line was so preoccupied with their own situation; no one had noticed yet. And just as I saw it her body crumpled downwards, it disappeared under the black wave of rats. Rosalia!