I took a nice long walk to clear my head, and examine the new placement area for all the corpses. It's just like the rest of the forest, full of trees, vegetation, and not much else. Well not much else aside from the corpses I have piling up. After that I check the razor blooms, not much going on with them. While I was there I tested how sharp the petals were, and the answer was very sharp. Just a light press was enough to cut my hand open, but a quick healing spell later and the damage was fixed. Note to self, use those to carve people up next time.
After that it was checking on the blast plant, which sadly only has one pod left over. Maybe I’ll look into making grenades of sorts when I get the chance. The throwers could probably use them, and it would be way more effective than just stapping a bomb to the little fuckers. It’s also going to be a lot more work as something like that is going to need precession to make.
Actually that makes me wonder, can I regrow the pods on the blast plant? A quick check tells me no, I can grow the rest of the plant, but getting the bulbs to grow is still beyond my capabilities. That reminds me, I need to find a way to get the plants I grow to keep their shapes, having to fix the roof because it keeps trying to return to normal is getting annoying. Maybe when I hit level fifty?
After clearing my head I went back to my pod and started growing out new sets of twiglings. First I got my numbers equalized, now having eleven of each twigling type. While I was at it I had the throwers go and scavenge all the surviving spears from the battle ground, something I stupidly forgot to do when I had them take the corpses. After that I kept working on making more melee twiglings. It became apparent in the last battle that the melee twiglings get chewed up a lot faster on account of the fact they are in the middle of the fighting, despite them being tougher than the throwers. Still not a big surprise, I’m throwing level thirteens and fourteens against level thirties and up.
I’m undisturbed until late the next afternoon, by that point I have sixteen melees and eleven throwers again. So what the hell is bothering me this time?
Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 23)
Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 25)
Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 20)
Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 19)
Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 22)
Oh, just some furry exp presenting itself to me. You know what, I think I’ll handle this myself. I start the draining procedure and cast shield on myself and the twiglings. meanwhile one of them goes to get me one of the sword swords from storage that the warriors left. By the time I’m out and dressed the twigling has the sword and is waiting with it for me outside my house, along with the rest of the war band. Sword, check, armor, check, warband of murder happy twiglings, check, wanton bloodlust, check. It's killing time!
The wolves have come from further in the valley, at least I assume it's further in because it's the direction opposite of where that expedition came from. It looks like the wind is blowing up the valley, which is probably what got their attention. The smell of corpses is strong, not even a light breeze is enough to disperse the smell from around my pod. So I have no doubt animals and monsters can smell it from the other end of wherever this valley leads to. That's fine, just more fodder for the slaughter.
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Me and the twiglings make our way towards the wolves, I had the throwers leave their spears at home this time. They won’t do much against so few targets and the wolves will probably move erratically too to hit reliably anyway. Meanwhile the wolves are also heading straight for us. Well, probably straight to the pile of corpses around my pod, it's just me and the twiglings are in their way. Totally not a shame they are going to be joining those corpses soon.
It doesn't take long for us and the wolves to clash. The first one burst out of the bushes ahead of me completely oblivious to our presence for some reason. I guess the smell of rotting flesh was too tempting for it to care. It realized I was in front of it just a bit too late to stop my sword from slicing down its neck. It tumbled past me and was immediately assailed by twiglings and torn apart.
Defeated: Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 23)
+66 EXP
The rest immediately stopped but not far enough away to avoid a pounce from me and the twiglings. I don’t even need to give an order, when I jump in the twiglings see enemies and just follow. Two of the wolves up a fight while the other two turn and run. The first wolf to attack jumps on and pins a thrower twigling, only to find its teeth useless as they merely scrape against the translucent barrier. It realizes too late its foley as it's buried under a literal horde of twiglings trying and succeeding at ripping it apart.
Defeated: Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 22)
+13 EXP
Oi, little shits, leave the corpse intact enough for a corpse flower to grow! While I’m looking over mentally yelling at the twiglings to stop tearing apart the corpse, the second wolf jumps at me and latches onto my right arm. I’m barely bothered as it tries to shake its head back and forth in an attempt to tear my arm apart, only for the damage to be absorbed by the shield. I reach over and swap the sword to my left hand, then take a poor excuse of a swing at the wolf, which only draws a shallow cut along its shoulder as it lets go and jumps back. I swap the sword back to my right hand just in time to impale the wolf between its ribs as it jumps up on me going for my throat. It quickly panics and thrashes about in an attempt to get off of me. All it does is manage to slice itself wide open on my blade, which I held firm the entire time.
Defeated: Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 20)
+60 EXP
How much shield do I have left after that pathetic attempt at a mauling?
Shield(219): 12:32
Weak Body Reinforcement: 4319: 50
Weak Body Enhancement: 4319: 59
Plenty more shield, now, with those two out of the way I turn my attention to the runners. They are trying to escape, as if I would allow it. A quick application of stabby branches and both wolves are pinned to the ground. One dies outright, the other is left frantically kicking and squirming as it tries to free itself. I just simply walk over and slit its throat.
Defeated: Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 19)
+58 EXP
Defeated: Grey Mountain Wolf (Level: 25)
+70 EXP
With the final wolf dead I clean my sword off on the fur of the one I just killed. Then I order the twiglings to take the corpses back to the new pile. I stand by and admire my handy work as the twiglings march away with my new food sources. It’s not much, but it’s the first thing I’ve done with my own hands in a while and I’m pleased with how it went. Granted I clearly need to work on my fighting skills some more, being more powerful than my enemies will only get me so far. Well, time for me to go back and start making more twiglings…. Again. While it's boring I can't exactly argue against its effectiveness.
I’m about halfway to my pod when something else enters my domain from the same direction the wolves came from. It’s another pack of wolves, oh boy more exp for me! I turn back around and recall all of the twiglings currently not carrying corpses back to my side, time for some more hunting.