Chapter 25 - Freak of Nature Spirit
This had to be the weirdest fucking tree he had ever seen. The trunk looked like it was made from bark, the same as any tree, only in the centre, there was a giant eye surrounded by dozens of smaller ones. They looked around and blinked independently of each other as if each had a mind of their own. Just when he thought that trees couldn’t get any worse, this thing shows up.
As he approached the scene, he saw both Mayry and Nina doing their best to defend against the giant tree’s attacks. The tree flailed its countless branches around like whips. His two friends were covered in cuts and scrapes, but they looked to be mostly okay.
He got closer and saw the look of relief on their faces when they caught sight of him. Appearing next to them he grabbed ahold of them and teleported them away, just far enough that the creature would have trouble getting to them quickly.
“Thanks”, Mayry wheezed, “That thing is bloody strong.” She looked over at Nina, who was catching her breath, “Really? This is what you chose for your first contract? This!?”
Defensively, Nina snapped back, “I didn’t know it would turn out to be a tree from the depths of hell!”
He tuned their arguing out. He was excited; this seemed like it was going to be a really good fight, and it was against the thing he hated. This overgrown weed was about to be demolished by him and his friends. He would savour every moment. Before he turned back to their argument, ready to come up with a plan, he used his Identify skill on the monster, eager to learn the name of what would soon become his latest kill.
Monster - Shizen - Level 72
Shizen or Nature Shapeshifters are rare monsters with the power to disguise themselves from anything found in nature. They are thought to be powerful nature spirits and, much like Mimics, often lay dormant for extended periods of time until some poor unfortunate creature ventures too close and becomes their prey. These creatures have no need for food, and so kill their victims either for fun or for sport.
Wait… did that mean? “It isn’t even really a tree.” He muttered.
The girls stopped bickering; Nina asked, “Huh?”
He turned and looked at her with a great sadness in his eyes. “It isn’t even really a tree.” He repeated, this time mostly just speaking to himself. “The power to shapeshift into almost anything… and it chose a tree?”
“Mason, we really have no clue what you’re going on about. Its a shapeshifter?” Mayry asked him, worry creeping into her voice.
“Yeah… We need to kill it. Nothing that stupid should be allowed to live.”
“Well, yes, that was kind of the idea. Do you have any sort of plan on how we kill it, or have you not gotten that far yet.”
Rolling his eyes, he replied, “Mayry, love, you know I don’t do plans. I hit things really hard and hope for the best.”
***
Despite his insistence that he didn’t need a plan, they had managed to come up with one that he hoped would be pan out and have them kill the freak of nature spirit.
When they had stayed out of sight for more than a few minutes, the creature settled in and became almost completely indistinguishable from any of the other trees in the forest. The only telltale sign was the slight discolouration and the way that its branches did not seem to sway or move at all in the breeze.
Once they confirmed that the shapeshifting tree would go dormant if left alone for long enough, their plan boiled down to several stages of trial and error.
First up, he took out his Bow of the Dreadwood Tree. He wasn’t entirely sure the bow’s effects would work against the nature spirit. The thought of the depression effect working was a long shot, but he had hopes that it could be particularly susceptible to the possible necrosis effect.
The three of them crept as close as they dared, and he used his Mana Manipulation ability to put up as strong a shield as he could manage. He was getting better at using the ability but it still took a massive amount of concentration. While he was busy holding the shield, Nina got into position, and Mayry drew the bow. Nina’s job was to distract the tree monster if the attempt failed. She was already partially ramped up due to a quick fight with Mason.
Mayry let loose several arrows in a row. The first three hit their target, but the creature didn’t as much a flinch; the arrows bounced off without any apparent effect. The fourth and fifth arrows hit and immediately the bark around where the arrows hit turned black and started showing signs of decay. The creature writhed in pain. A thin line appeared and split open to reveal the monster’s gaping mouth. It took in a deep breath and let out a huge roar. Sharpened wood chips flew out and pelted against the shield, almost breaking through.
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Mayry cocked and pulled back another arrow ready to send it flying, just before she let it go, every single one of the tree monsters’ eyes locked on her, It let out another roar and threw itself towards them.
He panicked. His shield was pretty terrible. It had barely lasted against the wood chips. There was no way in hell he would be able to keep it up when the monster’s full weight was moments away from slamming into it.
If he timed it perfectly, he might be able to drop the shield, grab Mayry and teleport them both away.
An enormous form slammed into the tree just as it was about to hit, knocking it off course. Nina, her ability fully empowering her had come to their rescue. Her size didn’t compare when put up against the tree, but it was enough to give him the time he needed. Dropping the shield, he grabbed hold of Mayry and teleported them to a safe distance. He was about to go back and get Nina when he saw her shoot into the sky. She landed next to him moments later with a wince. Her transformation had changed her physique too much for her to talk, but he could tell she was hurting.
He put his hand on her and pushed his mana into her; he squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced as he absorbed her damage onto himself. Once it had passed, he opened his eyes to see Nina back in her human form, looking at him with concern. “Thanks for the heal. Are you alright?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” He yawned, apparently also having absorbed the fatigue that Nina always got after using her ability. “Okay, so what did we learn?”
“The bow’s necrotic effect hurts it a bit, but mostly just pisses it off,“ Mayry answered.
“Even as far into the transformation, as I was, I’m not even close to its match.” Nina offered, “I don’t think I was at my limit, though I’ve never managed to push my ability any further than that.”
Nodding, he added, “This isn’t looking great, but there are a few more things we can try.”
“Couldn’t we just… you know, just leave it be and leave the contract to someone else? The reward for this really wasn’t much, definitely not worth all this.” Nina asked, not sounding scared, more considering whether this was worth the effort.
Mayry approached and put an arm on her shoulder, “We could just leave, tell the association that we couldn’t manage it, but if we don’t do everything in our power to put it down, then the next time it kills somebody, their blood would be on our hands.” She told Nina softly, adding, And besides, Its corpse alone is probably worth a fortune.”
The talk of what the body could be worth perked the younger girl right up. She shot to her feet and, looking at him, asked, “Okay, what’s next?”
***
Back in their positions, it was time for the next round of tests. Nina was circling in the air above, ready to intercede if things went badly. He had split himself into three clones. One was ready to cast shields where they were needed. The other was invisible, closer to the tree with the Clop Wand in hand, ready to spray the tree with the acid, and the original Mason had taken Mayry’s place and was holding the bow, ready to let loose a volley of arrows as soon as the signal was given.
Mayry was a little too close to the action for his liking, but she had insisted she would be fine. She was crouched out of sight, just out of range of the tree. She had her hell fire summoned in each of her hands and was ready to shoot streams of it into as many of the monster’s eyes as she could, hopefully blinding the creature and making it easier to kill. When he had arrived, he had seen how ineffective the hell fire had been, but he hoped that it would at least serve as a distraction and the monster would be confused by multiple attacks coming at it from different directions all at once.
He shouted, “Now!” and all hell broke loose.
***
It turned out that in their haste to come up with a plan, they had failed to consider three things.
The Arrows hit first, and the tree reacted the same way as before. Its eyes and mouth shot open, and it let out a roar, spewing out its wood chip attack. At the same time Mayry’s fire hit and as he had hoped, the hell fire making direct contact with its eyes seemed to cause it a great deal of pain.
The first thing they had failed to consider was that the wood chips were made from, well… wood and so, of course, set alight very easily. This meant that the clone in charge of shields had to throw up multiple shields in order to stop the barrage of hellfire-covered wood from killing everyone and burning down the forest.
Meanwhile, the clone that had been ready with the acid wand shouted, “Clop clop!” sending the mist-like acid towards the monster. The second variable that they had failed to consider was similar to the first, albeit much less obvious…. Turns out that Unicorn jizz acid was highly flammable. Who would have thought!?
The acid moved through the air and made contact with the tree. It flailed about in pain as the acid started to slowly melt through its bark and eat away at whatever was underneath, but the moment the slow-moving acid made contact with the hellfire, the original Mason immediately regained the memories of the clone. The force from the explosion had knocked him back so hard that it had snapped his neck in less than a second.
Even from his relatively safe distance away, the original Mason staggered back from the shockwave. Once he recovered, he frantically searched for Mayry. She was supposed to cover the tree in fire and then move back to a safe distance. Had she moved? Where was she?!
After several frantic minutes of searching, he found her on the ground, far from where she should have been. He checked her pulse and felt a strong beat. She’d would be okay but was quite injured. He healed her as much as his rapidly decreasing mana would allow. She opened her eyes, hurt but in no danger.
The first word out of her mouth was, “Wow.” She sat up and pointed over his shoulder. He’d been so busy looking for Mayry that the Shizen had completely slipped his mind. He turned to look now and saw what had caught her attention; it had reverted to its dormant state, but where it had been brown before, it was scorched black and seeped red blood like sap. Patches of its bark had melted away to reveal that the shapeshifter had an exoskeleton-like inner shell. The big eye in the centre, along with most of the smaller eyes, had shrivelled been burned away. If the sight of the creature before had been scary, what was left was a true natural horror.
He hadn’t received a notification signalling its death, so it was apparently still somehow clinging to life. He focused on it, and its HP bar appeared above its head. He was shocked and annoyed to see that even after the beating it had taken, the bar was still slightly over a third full.