The queen hornet thrusts her stingers towards Ray who parries both of the attacks with his blade, on impact Ray could see the blade slightly chip the stinger and at that moment, he knew his blade would slice through the queen.
Ray had been holding back, he had not activated his flame aura or his partial transformation. He was doing this to test himself, he needed to improve not only his powers but his own innate abilities and in these next 6 months, he was planning to have a full transformation, new forms, abilities and skills, to become the strongest with the power to defeat the demons running amuck on this world.
Ray puts his blade to his side, manipulating the length of his blade, making it longer and longer. He was going to end this in one fell swoop. The hornet queen roared in Rays face one last time as Ray slashed horizontally across the hornet's body, splitting it in 2.
“Guess my semi-perfect flames were too hot for you. If I hadn’t stepped up the heat, this battle would have taken a lot longer.”, Ray said respectfully.
The 2 halves of the hornet queens body fell to the bottom of the nest with a mighty thud. Ray looked to Lilly and saw her sitting watching him.
“You finished them up quickly.”, Ray said flying over to her.
“Yeah well, they were small fry, you on the other hand. What happened to your flames.”.
“Oh, the queens exoskeleton was quite tough that my regular flames couldn’t slice through.”.
Ray looked down at the man a sword. This was one of the strongest blades in the game, but was that not the case in this world? Or was the queen's exoskeleton that tough or maybe even simpler, that his regular flames didn’t quite stand to par against the full force of mana. Now that he thought back. Tia was also able to block him with the defensive stance, was mana more potent than his regular flames? There were so many questions and no answers. Yet it didn’t matter, if his regular flames weren’t doing it anymore, he would simply have to go beyond them.
“Alright. Let's get to harvesting.”, Lilly says pumped up.
And so, the pair get down to the bottom of the nest and carefully separate all the stingers from the hornets' bodies, including the queens 2, in excluding the queens' stingers they had collected 87.
“That's 870 nuggets. Meaning we made 17 ingots and 20 nuggets in total.”, Ray said doing the quick maths in his head.
“When we add on the reward from the lizards, we’ll have 19 ingots and 20 nuggets.”.
“That's way more than enough for lunch. Also, we haven’t factored in what the queens' stingers may get us.”. Ray said smiling.
“Alright, let's go hunt us some lizard tails.”.
And so, the pair exit the hornets' nest, and return to the busy jungle in search for their next targets, giant lizards.
“So, what do you think they need lizards' tails for?”, Lilly asks.
“Hmmm, probably for some kind of menu item? Though it is strange that they only want the tails.”.
And so, the two carried on walking and talking until the came across a small swamp, where a number of lizards were caught lurking. The 2 look at each other and nod, Lilly climbs a nearby tree and perches on one of the trees, bow and arrow drawn. She looked over the lizards and the signalled to Ray with her fingers, informing him that there were 11 lizards in the swamp.
Ray reached into his bag and pulled out the strange totem, he was getting the hang of the partial transformation however still needed aid from the strange totem. He closed his eyes, and his body began to transform into his half wolf form.
“Time to test these moves out on a real target.”, Ray thinks to himself.
He crouches down on all fours in the tall grass like a beast stalking its prey. Lilly draws her bow, lightning crackling and shoots it into the swamp, water being a natural conductor for lightning and electricity, the current spread through the swamp causing the lizards to go into a panicked frenzy and rush out of the swamp. With Ray on the ground and Lilly in the sky, the lizards had no excuse.
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As a lizard runs at him Ray steps forwards and struck using the first ever move, he had learnt, “Beast palm.”, the closed palm slammed into the lizards' face, squashing its nose, blood splattering, sending him flying. As this was going on, Lilly lined up a shot, a lizard in her sights and fired, striking through her targets head, blasting a chunk out of its head. Thats 2 down already.
The next lizard charged at Ray, fangs exposed, releasing throaty hiss at Ray to intimidate him. However, Ray was not phased. He got low, sweeping the lizards front legs, breaking them on impact and resulting them utterly useless. As his leg passed through to the other sized, he immediately lifter his leg up and lashed it out backwards into the lizard's jaw. Breaking it and sending the lizard flying into and through a nearby tree. Causing it to fall and crashing into another tree where it stayed propped up.
“Beasts sweep kick.”.
Ray sees another lizard trying to escape, Lilly’s attention on the other lizards, she was doing amazing, she had taken out most of them already whilst Ray had only gotten to kill 2. Ray runs after the lizard on all fours, for some reason in this form it came naturally and was way faster than on 2 legs. He leaps up in the air, his hand straight like a blade, claws sharp and pierces through the back of the lizard and out the other side.
Ray pulls his hand out of the lizard and looks at Lilly who had fired her last arrow, killing the last lizard.
“You’ve sure been working hard today.”, Ray said as he retransformed and walked over to Lilly.
“Well obviously, I came to impress.”, she replied with a wink.
“You really did. Now, let's get these tails off and get out of here.”.
And so, Ray and Lilly cut the tails off of the Lizards using their blades, pack them into the heaven-sent bags and head back to the city. As they walk, Ray thinks to himself about the young adventurer he had seen earlier at the guild and wondered if he was still alive.
Deep in the jungle, a young man is running from his life from a swarm of giant spiders, his arm was broken, and he was running out of breath. He was terrified. He was about to die with no one to help him. When suddenly, spikes of blood erupted out of the ground at the base of the spiders. Killing them in an instant.
The young boy looks around him in confusion and spots a strange figure standing in the trees. The figure jumps down and lands before the boy.
“Are you an adventurer?”, Alex asks the boy.
“Y-yes, THANK YOU!!”. The boy says profusely.
“No problem, this jungle really is quite dangerous when you're not that strong. But can I ask you a favour?”.
“Y-yes?”.
“There's a vibrantly red-haired man currently staying at the castle, can you relay a message to him for me?”.
“S-sure... what is it.”.
“Tell him, tell him that his friend Alex has discovered a new dungeon recently just manifested. However, there is something... odd about it.”.
The young man nods. “I’ll make sure that your message gets relayed.”.
“That is a total of 970 nuggets, we will split the pay between you as 485 nuggets each, meaning you both will be rewarded 9 ingots and 35 nuggets each. And a bonus of 1 whole ingot per queen stinger.”, the receptionist says with a smile.
“Thank you.”, Ray and Lilly say as they walk away.
After a long yet fun day of adventuring, the 2 eat and drink their weight in food, resulting in the pair almost blowing their entire budget, they head home for the day.
As they reach the door of the castle, once again, they both pause outside of the door.
“Today was really fun.”, Lilly says with a beaming smile.
“It was, we should definitely make a habit out of it.”, Ray agrees.
They stand before each other slightly awkwardly, both blushing and then as if like magnets they both come together in a tight embrace. They stand there like that for a few minutes before the 2 separated at last. Bot of their face's red as tomatoes.
“W-well then, goodnight.”, Lilly says as she opens the door and enters first. Leaving Ray standing there. Alone and flushed.
Just then the door creaks open and Ray sees Leo’s face, smirking a goofy look. He imitates Ray and Lilly, pretending to hold someone close and then runs off laughing.
“WHEN DID YOU GET BACK YOU LITTLE SHIT.”, Ray yells as he runs after Leo. A smile on both of their faces.