Chapter 38: Protection
[Edited By Arthur300000 and ArchmageNaoki]
The border between the magical forest and the monster area can't be more obvious than this. The vibrant cartoony flora ended at with a curved line depicting the boundary. I believe some kind of barrier is at work here because of a tingling sensation I feel when I step over the border.
"Stay behind me, I will protect you." Laurell said to me. He looked serious, but when I looked at Uncle Zeno, he chuckled.
"Uhm, thanks... but is that really necessary?" I doubt this trap could do anything to protect me except being a small meat shield.
"Papa said, it's a man's duty to protect his woman." When did I become your woman!? I want to complain, but I noticed our guide had stopped his feet at the boundary.
"Mr. Gnome, is something wrong?" I turned around to ask him.
"Oh, there is nothing wrong ma'am. Please enjoy the hunt. I will just root myself right here. So come back anytime you want." Mr. Gnome replied. Confused, I look at Uncle Zeno.
"Denizens of the magical forest are rarely seen stepping outside the boundary. There are some rumors that they need to pay a heavy price when they do." Uncle Zeno answered in a low voice. Well, let's hope that we don't get lost. I looked left and right, and it seems to be safe, there's nothing moving around here. However, Mr. Sworn-to-protect-me has already walked too far ahead of us. His legs are apparently shaking.
"Is this his first time?" I asked Uncle Zeno, but he just winked and followed his son. I looked around a few times more to memorize the area and followed them.
The monster area of the forest is charred and barren, with only thorny shrubs dotted all over the place. It was a stark contrast to the vibrant trees that we were just surrounded by. Mr. Trap-Knight’s clothes got stuck on the thorny shrubs from time to time as we walked. Now I understand why grandma looked so worried, this trap is clumsy.
*Twang* *Drop* Luckily Uncle Zeno is a veteran. He detected the monster at the same time as me, but his archery is quite impressive. He only took a fraction of a second to nock an arrow and land it in the monster behind the bush. It was a headshot. The corpse of a skinny hairless dog-like monster with its face still grinning and salivating. It must've thought Laurell was easy prey.
"Uncle, do you know what causes this kind of environment?" I asked while Laurell was trying to make sure the corpse was dead by stabbing it a few times with his short sword.
"It's how monsters propagate. You see, the monster can grow. Each monster has a tiny chance to grow into its higher tier. When a first class monster grows, it can become either an immortal class monster or the seed." Uncle Zeno pointed around us.
"The seed absorbs magical energy from the surrounding and changes its environment. Sometimes it becomes barren like around us. There are also other kinds of environments like swamps, volcanic, or tundra, for example. Then lower monsters spring up from these environments. And if left alone, the seed can even turn into a dungeon."
"Wait, if that's the case, why does nobody remove the seed?" This place just looks like a scar of the forest, and I doubt the fairy queen or something liked having it in their backyard.
"Well, they would if they knew where it was. But usually, it's just nigh impossible to find the seed. Each corrupted area is around a thousand square kilometers in size, and the seed is not always at the center, and it's buried very deep underground. You would need a lot of resources and heavy machinery to do that." As Uncle Zeno was explaining another skinny monster approached Laurell from his behind. His short sword seems to be stuck on the first monsters lifeless body, so I killed the approaching monster with my recently modified ice spike spell.
"It's quite rare to see a human do that." Uncle Zeno mused.
"Huh? Do what?" Did I do something wrong? I look at the result. The spell works perfectly, and the ice chunk is lodged in the monster's skull.
"Casting a spell without a device. Most humans rely on it." Uncle Zeno pointed at my gun attached to my belt.
"I wanted to see how my improved spells fared against minor monsters." I cast a firebolt spell with both hands on another incoming hoglike monster, burning it to a crisp. Ok, let's not use any fire spells on edible monsters.
"Even so, most human spells are feeble without their devices. It's the first time I've seen a hand cast spell from a human this intense. Although I don't see a lot of humans." Uncle Zeno shrugged and shot another arrow at another monster.
The monster's appearance becomes more and more frequent the longer we stood around. Maybe they can smell the blood of their comrades. It's a good thing, though, because of this we don't need to wander around the area blindly and risk getting caught in an ambush or lost in the process. Although I hope something edible would come soon.
Since the plan is to let the monsters come to us, I built an ad hoc fortification. Though it's just a wall of monster corpses piled up with telekinesis spell, it's safer than nothing. I also scatter some frost rune around us when we have a free time.
"Let me help." Uncle Zeno mimics what I'm doing with flicking his wrist, and the monsters' bodies began to move.
"Huh? You can copy my spell with just looking at it!?" Surprised I asked him.
"If the spell isn't too complicated, most elves can learn it after seeing them for a while. Your people call it natural talent, but we called it common sense." Even Laurell is also trying to move a small bat-like monster's corpse with magic, but it looked feeble and imperfect unlike what Uncle Zeno did.
"However what I don't understand is, how can you create the ice trap that far out?" Uncle Zeno complained after he had struggled to put the Frost Rune a bit further.
"It's my natural talent." It seems he can't replicate my Rune Master Perk. But damn it! That magic reading ability is cheating. Give me back all my effort!
Frustrated, I drew my gun and started spamming spells at some incoming monsters. The device makes casting process a lot faster, so it looked like I was shooting five spells simultaneously, but in truth, I cast them consecutively. However, faster casting means Magicka also drains faster. Considering the number of monsters approaching us I had to limit myself to apprentice level spells, such as frost and ice spike.
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Around an hour later the monsters became increasingly abundant. From sporadic appearances of groups of monsters, they started coming in waves, and stronger monsters began to appear. I spotted something that looked like a muscular beast in skeletal armor, organizing those monsters to attack from afar. But it wasn't anything that couldn't be solved by a well-placed fireball. After that guy had been burned to crisp, the monsters around us degraded back to an unintelligent mob again.
Laurell is also improving a bit. From the very useless and clumsy but cute archer, now he can pick off some monsters with his short bow. Even so, his rate of hitting is around 50:50, and most of the monsters he hit are still limping toward us.
The number of monsters we killed is quite a lot. I piled them up in a two-meter height wall around in a ten-meter radius circular manner. I left one opening to serve as a choking point, allowing me to concentrate my frost runes in that area.
The thing works really well for awhile, I even reinforced the wall to be three meters height and began to elevate the ground for us so that the monsters had to climb a ditch to reach us. Not all of the corpse were used on the wall, though. I stored most of the edible monsters that are still in good condition inside my storage device to process later.
"How many arrows do you have left?" I asked Uncle Zeno while we leisurely sniped incoming monsters. I worry because I saw him refill his quiver several times already. Is he also an elf who has an inexhaustible supply of arrows?
"Thanks to your people's invention I can shoot all day without worry." He pointed at his earring storage device.
Before I can ask to try out his bow a troublesome monster appeared. It looked like a panther with too much oil on its fur. Because it's very fast and agile, the slow Skyrim spells are unable to catch up with them. Well, the AoE spells can, but Uncle and Laurell would also be caught inside its blast radius. Also, lightning spells which I don't know how to improve yet just dissipated on its skin.
I activated my brother's pre-programmed spell inside my gun.
*BANG!* I don't know whether it's a beam or a magical bullet, the head of the slick panther blowing apart on the instant I pulled the trigger. I doubt even I could dodge this spell. My brother has outdone himself again. However, the recoil from it is really strong, and I almost fell backward. I named it magical miniature railgun or MMR spell.
The new spell is quite fun to use albeit it consumes a lot of my Magicka. The energy it consumed is at the limit of the device's capability which is a third of my Magicka pool. Nevertheless, when I saw another slick-panther, I got into a prone position and pulled the trigger.
*BANG!* "Wa ha ha!"
*BANG!* "Ke ke ke...."
"Daddy, Kuro is scary...." Laurell hid behind his father again. Oops.
"I think it's a good time to retreat. Things here are getting more dangerous than normal." Uncle Zeno said after we dispatched all the slick panthers, casting a spell to collect all monster cores in the area into a big pile of multicolor pearl-like beads. We let Laurell store all of them because right now Uncle Zeno and I were too busy fending off another wave of monsters.
"Uhm, what is that?" I felt the ground vibrate a little as I focused on the black dot far away... It's an army of monsters.
"By the Goddess’ arse! It's a stampede! Let's go!" Uncle Zeno swore. I quickly sent a fireball to the choking point to delay the incoming beast and yelled for everyone to climb out the back wall. After I had laid more traps at the choke point, I followed them up.
The situation from the top of the 3-meter wall looked worst than I thought. The wall made us feel a false sense of security and let those small time monsters surround us. Some are already trying to climb the wall, and some are trying to dig under it. Normally they wouldn't be a problem but a horde of monsters the size of a freaking army? That made things MUCH more complicated. If we waste our precious time on them right now, we might get caught in a horrible situation. I can use dragon shouts, but let's keep that as a last resort. I don't trust this father and son to keep my secret yet.
"Wait here. I'll clean them up." I said and jumped down. I did my best to draw as much of their attention to me as possible, then I collected my last portion of Magicka and prepared to cast the firestorm, a master-level destruction spell. With my recent improvement, its range and destructive power have increased several folds. However, its consumption is more than any magic device can sustain, so I have to cast it with my hands.
Because I'm casting with both of my hands, I had no way to keep the monsters off of me and had to constantly dodge left and right. Just a few seconds of this and I felt I couldn't keep dodging anymore.
I launch the spell under me.
*BOOM* A huge fiery explosion erupted from the ground and spread out around me. Even with a lot of safety adjustments to the spell my vision still turned blurry from the intense heat and smoke. The pebbles kicked up by the force of explosion fell like a shower of rain. Minor monsters around me were turned to ashes while the big one's corpse was mangled with some yellow liquid erupting from its charred surface. The stench of burned corpses irritated my nose and eyes immensely.
Sneezing a few times, I looked around with teary eyes and saw Uncle Zeno trying to pull Laurell down from the makeshift wall. His pants seem to be stuck on an antelope-like monster's horn. After a few yanks, Laurell came down, butt naked. The host of monsters that we tried to get away from was already closer than I thought. There is no time to lollygag anymore.
"Leave the pants and run!" I yell.
We ran as fast as possible while I shot down some of the faster monsters with what little remaining Magicka I had left. Luckily I don't need to be careful with fire spells anymore because I can't collect their corpses anyways. Uncle Zeno is running quite fast even with him princess carrying Laurell, I didn't have to slow down to meet his speed.
When I saw the border, I yelled to notify our guide of the big group of monsters following us. However, he just leisurely sipped his tea on a newly appeared marble table.
600 meters away. The lazy gnome just takes out three other tea cups. I yell like crazy, but he's still ignoring me.
300 meters away. He pours down amber liquid from the kettle into each cup. The steam that was spiraling out from the liquid indicated that the tea was still hot. I gave up the yelling and resume shooting at our pursuers.
20 meters away. Five slick panthers are just about ten meters away from me. I send two last fireballs their way, but only one of them was caught in the blast. My Magicka is all gone, and it would take a few seconds for me to cast more. However, our guide just nonchalantly turned to us and asked. "How many sugars cubes do you like... sir?" He seems to be more surprised about the thing that is protruding from between Laurell's legs than the small army of monsters behind us.
It almost turned into all out melee fight before I crossed the threshold. Though when I felt the tingling sensations of the boundary, the monsters just turned back like they suddenly forgot about us.
"Two cubes and caramel biscuits, please." I answered to the gnome sarcastically. I almost turned back and shot at the back of those monsters, but I recalled the first rule of the magical forest guide book. ‘Don't fight in the forest.’
"Y-yes... ma'am?" Mr. Gnome just recovered from the shock. And why does he look at me with a doubt in his eyes?
"The area is undergoing the transformation. Why didn't you tell us before we entered, gnome?" Uncle Zeno complain.
"We are terribly sorry, sir. But it's beyond our ability to predict when the seed will form its dungeon core. I will inform other guides that the hunting ground is too dangerous at the moment." The gnome bowed and degrowth into the ground.
Yes, “degrowth”. I also couldn't believe my eyes. The gnome just progressively transformed back into a tree then the tree started getting smaller and smaller until it turned into a seedling. Finally, its leaf disappeared into the soil. I looked at Uncle Zeno for an explanation, but Laurell interrupted me.
"Papa, I need pants." Laurell pulled his dad shirt and asked shyly. He also tried to hide from me.
"Uh, sorry son. All your clothes are with mommy." Uncle Zeno apologized.
"B-but..." The boy seems like he's going to cry. While his eyes moistened, his cheeks puffed up like a pufferfish. How his face still looks that cute, I have no idea.
"Uhm, if you don't mind, you can use this." I offered my old skirt to him. It's the one with black and white horizontal stripes. It's short and could be flipped up to expose what's under if you're not careful, but it's better than nothing.
"No! I don't want to wear girl clothes! I want pants, pants!" The boy began bawling. Uncle Zeno looked at me apologetically while passing by pixies and fairies looking at me like I was bullying the boy.
Of all things I don't like, children's loud crying is in the top three. Wasn't he trying to be a gentleman when we were entering the monster area? Maybe I should scold him a bit.
"Laurell, be a gentleman and wear the skirt." I firmly told him.
"... sniff." He took the skirt from me and meekly put it on. Today, I think I learned a new skill.