"Brother Gu Jia, we have the other half of the monster," said a woman, holding up a pair of boots.

"Very good. The young masters will be happy once we hand over the core of the monster that dared to parade inside Brother Lei Mao's armor," said Gu Jia.

He grabbed the pair of leather boots passed to him by one of the humans along with the chest piece and gauntlets that he had just skewered. "That's weird..." he mumbled, staring at the various pieces of armor in his hand, eyebrows furrowed as if he was pondering a question—as said many times Alwin wasn't a mind reader.

After several moments he began shaking the items violently, as if the small rattling noises that they produced would somehow yield the answers he was looking for. The humans shared a look with each other, a quick glance, wondering what their 'esteemed' brother Gu Jia was doing with the remnants of Lei Mao's armor.

"What are you doing, brother Gu Jia?" one of the humans finally spoke up.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm searching for the monster core. Monster cores don't just disappear. If we don't bring evidence that we've eliminated the monsters that dared to defile the young masters, we might be the ones to disappear."

The humans began murmuring amongst themselves, many of them discussing the possibility of failure and the consequences of such an outcome. Some of the more pragmatic individuals began discussing the type of monster that had inhabited Lei Mao's armor. Monster species such as Scrap Shellers, Rust Snake, Scavenger Golem, and Armor Spirit were tossed around in the conversation. Gu Jia's patience was wearing thin as none of them could come to an agreement about what monster they had spent the last hour chasing after.

"Silence!" he shouted, causing the humans to cease their incessant jabbering and Alwin to flinch, nearly exposing himself to them.

He addressed the group, "Where is the new guy? The monster researcher that the young masters recently... coerced into their service? Where is she?"

The humans swiveled their heads around, looking for their new monster researcher who would enlighten them about their predicament. Whispers of confusion and unease spread through the group as they searched. But, no matter how much they looked around or even whispered to each other, they couldn't find the aforementioned person.

"Oh for goodness sake. Monster researcher, hello? I forgot your name, but your senior is calling out to you," he said, snapping his fingers.

Silence.

"Last chance, monster researcher. If not when the young masters catch wind of this, you'll sorely regret it."

The forest fell into another round of silence, thick and heavy as if even the trees were holding their breath. The only sounds breaking the stillness were the occasional coughs and throat clearings from the humans, awkward attempts to dispel the tension hanging in the air.

"Brother Gu Jia," one of the humans called out.

"What?" he snapped.

"I don't think the monster researcher is here."

"And you know this how?"

"Well, brother, um, for some reason about half of our forces are... missing."

Gu Jia looked at the remainder of his brothers and sisters with a dumbfounded expression plastered across his face. He shook his head as if saying 'This can't be right'. Multiple headcounts were conducted, yet the results were always the same. Just to be sure, he even used his fingers to keep count. Ten were the number of fingers humans had and that was all that he needed to conduct the head count. The numbers didn't lie. Only half of them remained.

Uchronia snickered beside Alwin, her plan had worked, they were too distracted chasing after the armor for the sake of their young masters—in actuality, it was for their own sakes of not being punished—that they hadn't noticed their numbers dwindling. Alwin shook his head. Sure, he was grateful for her plan and her expert kidnapping abilities, but that meant she'd slowly start transitioning back into her old ways of being a cruel dictator ordering Alwin and Gus around.

The incident during the trial had softened her up and she had been progressing, albeit at a pace slower than molasses, but at least it was something. This development might undo all of the progress she had made.

"How am I going to explain this to the young masters? Shit." He punched a tree causing the birds that were perched atop its branches to flee the scene in fright.

"Brothers, the monster that disrespected the young masters couldn't have gone far. Fan out and search the area. If you find any monster, kill it. Worst comes to worst, we kill a monster and present its core to the young masters. I doubt they'd be able to tell the difference, and if they do, I, Gu Jia, shall take responsibility."

This was it. This was the moment that the trio had been preparing for. They had simultaneously whittled down their numbers to a more manageable size while empowering themselves—it was just Gus. The odds had been stacked against them, but they had somehow managed to even it out. Though they weren't on even footing, not even close—there were ten humans but only three of them, and most of the humans had armor and weapons crafted out of the remains of monsters giving them a substantial boost in their capabilities—it was better than the insurmountable chasm they faced in the beginning.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Even throughout the scene where Gu Jia was looking for the monster core, then for the monster researcher, then for the remainder of his forces, they had still been preparing. Uchronia had the genius idea of giving Gus one more task: to eat their lunches. It was supposed to be his reward for after they'd dealt with them, but giving it to him now was the best scenario. Extra motivation as she put it, and by golly did it work. She even managed to get the Furball to chomp silently instead of the usual munching and smacking that accompanied his mealtimes. All in preparation for getting their trump card in tip-top shape. Alwin still wanted to be the one with the Devour skill, but he knew that this obsession would probably blow over soon enough when he got distracted by the next shiny thing that entered his mind.

Gus wasn't the only one who improved. Alwin had also been working on his new skill: the art of multitasking. While he daydreamed about what he would do with the Devour skill, he had been following Uchronia's orders: delivering his Spirit Blasts to the hungry humans. He was even practicing the skill right now.

As he delivered his internal monologue, he had been listening to Uchronia and following her instructions to the letter, all while watching the scene between the humans unfold. It was a four-for-one special, or however you wanted to count it. As a beginner on the path of multitasking, Alwin's skills were lacking. He was already stretched thin and didn't have enough mental capacity to include math. That was probably why the scene that had played out between the humans earlier felt lacking—boring even.

The plan was still the same, roughly the same, but it was same enough in Alwin's eyes to be called the same. Like how '99.9' and '99.99' were same-ish enough to be the same. Alwin didn't know where he was going with this—stretched thin remember—but basically, the plan had only slightly changed.

Okay, he really had to work on his multitasking ability. That paragraph was such a waste of space and time, he only needed that last sentence to convey its meaning instead of rambling. Now to spare any more pointless thoughts, he was going to describe who was going to do what.

First up, was Gus. The star of the show. Using his array of new abilities he was going to be the monster in charge of offense. He'd run in and start wreaking havoc on the humans, using any and all skills especially that Devour ability to render them useless. Oh no, Alwin could feel a rambling incoming.

If the humans wore armor made out of monster parts, and if Gus ate the armor would that mean Gus was a cannibal? But they were different species so was it not considered cannibalizing? Although Alwin felt like he had asked this question before, in what felt like XX days ago. Okay, enough getting distracted back to work!

Uchronia was going to go in and help support Gus. Meaning she was going to hop around as fast as she could applying Slows to all of the humans and then reapplying it whenever the effect ran out. Although she was gracious enough to cast Haste on him and Gus right before the fight, but once that runs out it's good luck to the both of them—that was how she put it. Alwin couldn't tell if she was being snarky or genuinely wishing them the best of luck. With Uchronia it could go either way.

The final critical piece of her plan depended entirely on Alwin. It felt good to be relied on but now wasn't the time to get distracted!

Just like how he thought about combining Copper Body and Fur Quill, Alwin was full of other genius ideas. But before Alwin delved into his genius here's how his brilliant plan had manifested itself within his mind.

Throughout their observations of that short scene with the humans earlier, Uchronia had noted that Gu Jia was the one in charge, the head honcho, the big cheese—apart from the young masters, obviously. Take him out and the humans would crumble. The only issue was that he was way over yonder while they were here, separated by a group of humans all itching to sink their terrible human teeth into any monster in sight.

Then just like a piece of toast that was ready—the light brown and perfectly crisp skin—Alwin's ingenious plan came popping out of his mind. Within the cover of the thick foliage that they had sought shelter in, Alwin lined up five pairs of Spirit Hands. Of course, that came with a weird look from Uchronia followed immediately by a light scolding. But, no! This was the plan. The hands would launch all of them at Gu Jia before the humans could react. An eco-friendly railgun. Just without the electricity and not even close to matching the speeds of an actual railgun, but that's life.

Even Uchronia could sense his genius for once. It was totally not because she was desperate and would take any decent idea that came her way. Nope, it was because Alwin was a genius.

Now to the audience that lived within Alwin's mind, he bet that there were two burning questions that were eating away at them. He could tell because he could feel a part of his brain on fire, hence the 'burning'. They were: how did he summon the Spirit Hands without shouting and thus notifying the humans, and what happened to the Spirit Hands that had 'died' by Gu Jia's hand?

The first question was simple enough to answer. He just shouted into his bag, with Uchronia pressing it against his face as hard as she could. It was her idea after all, although Alwin bet that she didn't expect it to be used in this scenario.

The answer to the second question was a bit complex, but let the genius Alwin simplify it for everyone. When the Spirit Hands were summoned the first pair that Alwin had conjured came up to him and threw a smorgasbord of vulgarities, slurs, and the occasional rude gesture. Of course, this was all done in sign language. After they had calmed down they explained that their deaths were greatly exaggerated. They still died, but when Alwin casted the spell again they simply came back to life. When he tried to argue back that he didn't see the problem and why did they try to guilt trip him over 'sending the Spirit Feet to their deaths', they responded with a menagerie of obscene gestures and ended it with a 'just because we can come back to life doesn't mean it doesn't hurt!' and an extra 'The feet are probably traumatized! They're still young!"

Fine. He had to admit it. Their logic was sound. But, the Spirit Hands were a manifestation of himself, so if their logic wasn't sound that means none of his logic would be sound— or was that some crazy strawman argument that he came up with? So, thus concludes the Q&A session. Also, if the second question was easy enough to understand, then you can thank the genius that was Alwin. Also, after they'd dealt with the humans and had finally evolved, he was going straight to the library to find a synonym for genius because it wasn't very genius of him to keep repeating the word.

Enough internal monologuing, now was the time for action. The humans were just about to fan out, and being concentrated in a group like that was just what Uchronia wanted. Okay, maybe one last monologue, a quick one to explain just one thing. During the whole internal dialogue, about five seconds had passed since Gu Jia ordered the humans to disperse and search for them.

Uchronia nodded, giving Alwin the signal. The Spirit Hands grabbed her and all Alwin had to do was issue the command to throw her.