Chapter 46 Ecological Hazards

“These aren’t that much harder to kill than jumping-spiders.” Isaac commented as he cut down another of the semi-ethereal assassin spiders. His sword was coated in compressed dark mana along the entire length of its blade due to the spiders’ resistance to physical damage. Sometimes it took more than one swing to kill the monsters. Their ethereal nature made killing them in one slice difficult, especially when Isaac was trying to keep most of their corpses intact. Phase-widows were very valuable to more than just their resident crazed wizard.

“You aren’t the one who was bitten.” Lenna commented. One of the spiders had managed to survive Isaac’s first swing and got a mouthful of Lenna’s shoulder. Her shoulder still ached. The poison had been almost completely burned away by her own healing and Isaac had kept a gentle stream of death flames flowing into her shoulder but some remnants of the hyper lethal poison still remained though they would soon be completely purged.

“I said I was sorry.” Isaac replied. “My sword went right through it. It should’ve died.”

“Yes, yes.” Lenna agreed. “Why don’t you fight the next few blindfolded?”

Isaac stopped and actually started to give it some serious thought. “I probab-”

“No.” Lenna cut him off. “It was a joke. Let’s just keep going.”

“I think I could actually pull it off though.” Isaac grumbled as he followed her down yet another tunnel. The tunnel system was utterly massive. Whenever he felt like he had seen most of it, the tunnels would just keep going. It didn’t help that the spiders would repopulate empty areas if left unchecked. “Where are they getting all the food necessary for survival?” Isaac questioned. “The ecosystem down here always feels like it’s a net negative.”

“The drow cities, surface streams that lead underground, monster territory wars.” Lenna listed off the reasons.

“Ah, drow cities bringing in more organic material from the surface. That makes sense. The rest of it I had already taken into account but I still feel like there should be a massive lack of food in the Innerworld.” Isaac commented.

“There are plenty of farms.” Lenna explained. “Mushroom farms mostly, some magical plants, livestock.”

“Livestock?” Isaac questioned. “I understand using city waste for mushroom fields, magic plants sort of make sense to me but I’m curious as to where they get their physical matter from in order to grow, but what kind of livestock?”

“Nightboars.” Lenna replied. “I think.”

“You think?” Isaac asked.

“That might not be what they’re called in Overworld Standard.” She explained.

“What are they called in Innerworld Standard?” Isaac questioned further.

“Driderfood.” Lenna replied with a straight face.

“Drider food?” Isaac questioned.

Lenna shook her head. “No. It’s one word. Driderfood.”

Isaac snorted a laugh. “You’re messing with me again.” He accused her with a chuckle.

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Lenna shook her head again. “I really wish I was.” She replied. “Let’s stick to calling them nightboars.”

Isaac chuckled again. “The other name is funnier.” Lenna just shook her head again. “What do they look like?”

“It’s a boar.” Lenna replied simply. “Little beady eyes, long snout, longer whiskers, mostly naked.”

“So a five hundred pound mole.” Isaac surmised.

“Built like a house.” Lenna added. “With hooves.”

“That’s disgusting.” Isaac replied.

“You seemed to like eating them for breakfast.” Lenna countered.

“Breakfast?” Isaac asked, his voice was almost pleading. “You don’t mean?”

“All of your bacon, ham, and sausage. Your favorite stew too I think.” Lenna mercilessly crushed Isaac’s cherished menu.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.” Isaac told her with a thousand yard stare.

“You asked.” Lenna reminded him.

—

“The Ori-Masa are on the move.” Alice told the duo when they returned to the Guild Hall to turn in their spider corpses. “We are completely cut off from Ben’s End.”

“What about the caravan that was supposed to be returning right now?” Isaac questioned her urgently. Aria and Claus were supposed to be back in Safeharbor in around seven days by that point which meant that they were supposed to be three days into their return trip.

“Stranded in Ben’s End.” Alice replied. “There are enough surplus resources that we won’t have to worry about it causing an issue for a few weeks but they will need to be dealt with.”

“An official bounty?” Isaac questioned.

Alice nodded. “Two gold for each Ori-Masa killed, one gold for each displaced monster causing issues.” She explained.

“What about the mushroomancer?” Isaac probed further. “That’s not an ordinary ugly fish.”

“We don’t have a good enough idea of what is actually going on on that front.” Alice explained. “According to Court Mage Alexander there was mushroom magic involved but we can’t be sure that it isn’t coming from the forest nearby.”

“They are fundamentally different kinds of mushrooms though.” Isaac protested. “Mushroomancer mushrooms are dark mushrooms, the mushroom kingdom mushrooms are light mushrooms.”

“I hope you know that that doesn’t make any sense to me.” Alice replied. “I don’t think that makes any sense to anyone but you for that matter. We had this problem before, remember?”

Isaac sighed in frustration. “Listen, all that matters is that I am one hundred percent sure that they are different. They fish people and the mushroom people aren’t overlapping at all right? That should make it clear enough.” He argued.

“If you can bring back the mushroomancer corpse then we can evaluate the threat level and pay you accordingly. That’s the best I can do Isaac. Everything else is way above me.” Alice explained. “Most of this is protocol and threat assessment from the duke’s cabinet.”

“Who’s all on the cabinet?” Isaac wondered.

“The Guard Captain, Guild Master, Magistrate, Court Mage, and in some cases the Garrison Commander, and Duchess.” Alice explained.

“So a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense.” Isaac summarized.

“Don’t you know all of those people?” Alice questioned.

Isaac sighed. “Yes. Which makes it worse, honestly.” He replied. “Now if I complain about the bounty it’ll be like I’m asking for a favor rather than someone just complaining about an unfair wage.”

Alice shrugged. “I’m just the guildie.” She told him.

“I know.” Isaac replied. He turned to look at Lenna. “What do you want to do?”

Lenna looked put on the spot for a moment. “We’ll finally get paid to get rid of the Ori-Masa.” She replied. “Isn’t this what you were waiting for?”

“Yeah but how much do you think we are actually going to make doing this? The price on this is awful. It’s almost like they don’t want it done.” Isaac replied.

Lenna shrugged. “Then wait until they raise the bounty.” She advised him.

“Ugh.” A familiar voice sounded from behind them. “If you complained any louder my sister would hear you.” Edward told the duo, mostly Isaac. He sighed. “Raise it to five gold per Ori-Masa or displaced monster.” He told Alice and she quickly started drawing up a new bounty.

“Thanks.” Isaac replied with a genuine smile. “What about the mushroomancer? What if there’s more than one?”

“We’ll assign them a bounty level based on half of their Identified level.” Edward explained. “So bring back part of their corpses.”

Isaac gave Edward a mildly sarcastic salute. “Understood.” He replied.

“Happy now?” Edward asked.

Isaac continued with his genuine smile. “I will be until I am covered in monster guts again.” His smile faded. “What about those flesh ball things?”

“They are classified as ecological hazards until you can figure out what is causing them.” Edward replied. “If they are created by the mushroomancer then we can talk about upping their bounty cost. If not then we’ll talk when you get back.”

Isaac shared a look with Lenna. “We’ll leave in the morning.” He told Edward and Lenna nodded her assent.

“Good. You should think about bringing rookies with you.” Edward added.

“Rookies are slow.” Isaac replied. “I don’t want this to take all week.”

Edward could only sigh. This was the price of having platinum grade adventurers living in his city. This was also the reason platinum grade teams were kept on a constant schedule. “I would lik-” Edward’s voice was cut off by the door being thrown open and a person Edward really didn’t want to see again walked in.