Temperance cracked his right knuckles when he tightly clenched his fist; he pulled his fist back as the humanoid aether beasts swarmed around and sprinted at him. One of the aether beasts lunged at Temperance before it was instantly socked in the face by Temperance and had its face sent straight into the floor. Another one of the aether beasts attempted to slash Merrybel with its claw finger before it got a face full of Temperance's foot.
Temperance roundhouse kicked the aether beast's head into the head of another aether beast before he sent the two aether beasts flying across the room and smashing through a brittle wall; Temperance smirked as he hopped over another aether beast before grabbing its face and slamming the back of its head into the floor; the ground shattered upon impact and the aether beast plummeted into the room below while Temperance hopped to the side to avoid also falling in the room below.
The remaining aether beast tried to attack Temperance from behind but was interrupted by being struck in the face by a pipe wrench. Kannachi repeatedly bashed the aether beast in the face followed by Temperance mule kicking the aether beast in the stomach and launching it away; it rocketed through the air before slamming its back into a laboratory desk (the kind that's just a block of concrete with gas nozzles on them) and was split in half followed by its upper half flopping onto the ground, on the other side of the desk.
"Woah, he made those aether walkers look like chumps," Merybel muttered in astonishment; Crystal joked if she knew Temperance was capable of fighting aether beasts without the need of an Aether Drive she wouldn't have made them all take the sneaky approach.
"I told you so didn't I; TemTem's super strong," Kannachi proudly proclaimed as she smugly glanced at Crystal, making Crystal unapologetically roll her eyes and half-heartedly groaned.
“Well, I’m ever so sorry for not being so receptive to the words of a biased individual,” Crystal boldly said before finishing her sentence with a pouty huff. Kannachi tried to tease Crystal but only managed to say a single word before Temperance swiftly hopped backwards to avoid a claw slash. Temperance effortlessly evaded the claw slashes before backflipping onto another laboratory desk; followed by him raising his foot high into the air and axe kicking the aether walker’s claw into the laboratory desk when the aether walker swiped at him. The aether walker repeatedly tried to pull its claw free from underneath Temperance’s foot as a sinisterly devious grin grew on Temperance’s face.
“You almost got me there you sneaky…” Temperance confidently uttered as he placed a wind mana-covered finger in front of the aether walker’s face.
“Pop tart!” Merrybel blurted out before Temperance could finish his sentence, while also telling Temperance that swearing was bad. Temperance apologized as he flicked the aether walker’s forehead and obliterated it with a mini wind blast. Temperance quietly chuckled to himself as he hopped off the laboratory desk and peacefully whistled as he walked towards the spot below the hole in the ceiling. The group stared into the hole in the ceiling, and the sisters relievedly exhaled while Temperance sighed disappointedly when no more aether walkers fell in from above.
“Guess that's that then,” Temperance disappointedly muttered as he felt Merrybel tugged on his shoulder. Temperance sighed as he reluctantly manifested his seven large kitsune tails (that are double the length of Temperance's height and has the same colour gradient as his hair); The sisters happily let go of Temperance and contently dropped onto Temperance's tails. Kannachi cheerfully wrapped Temperance's tail fur around herself and excitedly blushed as she sniffed the fur.
"Why do you always have to make things weird?" Crystal asked as she crossed her arms; however, her question fell on deaf ears as Kannachi was wholly engrossed in sniffing Temperance's tails. Crystal rolled her eye and grumbly muttered something inaudible while Merrybel lightly patted Crystal's forehead to comfort her. Temperance continued to stare up at the hole in the ceiling before sighing again when it seemed the creatures that they previously saw were gone.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"What a drag; I was hoping to fight whatever those things were," Temperance complained as he aimed his hand at the wall that led outside.
"Given the noise they were making, they were probably aether weavers or it could even the Scrawl Crawler, given the warning I saw about it at the adventurers guild in the town we stayed at a few days ago," Crystal remarked.
"A Scrawl Crawler?" Temperance and Merrybel perplexedly asked, with Temperance somehow being the more confused of the two. Temperance went to open his mouth by Crystal agitatedly huffed in frustration.
"And before you ask, unless you join the academy and become an S rank hunter you won't be allowed to fight it, not that that would stop you from trying," Crystal callously stated.
"Tsk, don't get me wrong I'm all for rules that keep people safe but do you really think I need some silly card to fight strong monsters?" Temperance asked with a rhetorical-sounding tone. Crystal unamusedly raised her crossed arms over her chest and pointed out to Temperance that he was about to blast a hole in an unstable building when he already has a clear path to get outside. Temperance's body and fingers embarrassedly flinched, and he slowly lowered his outreached arm before lightly coughing.
"Point taken," Temperance muttered as he walked into the adjacent room and over to the missing wall that led outside. Temperance glanced down at the ground and, with his superior vision, looked down at the mass of aether walkers that filled the streets.
"Well, walking out of the city-" Temperance stated before he abruptly darted his head behind himself. The sisters concernedly asked if something was wrong; Temperance shrugged and said he thought he heard something. Temperance went to turn around but was stopped by Merrybel waving her hands in front of his vision.
"No big bro, no more fighting today!" Merrybel adamantly demanded while she tried to rotate Temperance's head back towards the outside. Kannachi reluctantly agreed with Merrybel, stating if they don't hurry back they'll only get half the reward for the collection request. Temperance defeatedly sighed before looking outside.
"Three per cent should be enough to get out of the city in a single jump," Temperance muttered to himself as he seemed to calculate something. Temperance nodded his head, once he was confident with his calculations, and activated a Lightning Amp (3%) cloak as Merrybel asked if Temperance was going to do the cool long jump thing.
Temperance confidently nodded his head before he hopped out of the skyscraper and landed on a wide sparkly gold and silver magic barrier, that appeared beneath his feet. Temperance spun on the spot before stopping and flexing his legs, which caused more Lightning Amp lightning to swirl around his legs.
"Hold on tight!" Temperance said. Temperance pulled a foot back before he sprinted across the magic barrier lept off the magic barrier and catapulted himself while the three sisters desperately clung to his tails although for different reasons: Merrybel being filled with thrilling excitement, Crystal being absolutely livid that Temperance didn't give her a chance to mentally prepare herself and Kannachi was obviously just holding on tightly so she had an easier time keeping the tail fur in her face.
Back within the skyscraper, the sound of squishy munching echoed throughout the rooms littered with the corpses of the aether walkers as aether-infused blood began to pour down from the hole in the ceiling. A pair of eyes (a golden-coloured left eye and a crystal blue right eye) stared down at the bodies of the aether walkers as the short kid-sized figure, who was covered head to toe in aether-infused blood, salivated from the mouth.
"That guy's... mana seemed familiar," the aether blood-covered figure muttered with a quiet monotone girl voice. The figure pondered over something as she nibbled on a large spider leg that was made of gelatin aether. The figure paused and sniffed the jelly spider leg before their kitsune ears perked up.
"Maybe he kills those aether thingys for fun... or he-," the aether-infused blood-covered kitsune murmured with a slightly less monotone voice. The kitsune went to bite the spider leg but the gelatin leg managed to slip through the kitsune's fingers; the leg plummeted to the floor below and splatted against it. The kitsune's ears defeatedly slumped downwards as she sombrely stared at the splattered blue jelly bits that covered the floor.