The viper crawled quickly as it went deeper and deeper, behind it Senzuki, Isaiah, fired off long-range attacks, but it was too weak to pierce the snake's scales. The viper slammed its tail onto the walls making some rocks fall which blocked their path. Rather than remove them immediately, Isaiah decided to rest for a while to calm his fast-beating heart.
"Man." Isaiah rubbed his chin as he leaned on a wall. "That thing is fast."
"It's a viper..." Senzuki replied, it was the first time Isaiah saw her tired and out of breath and it was sexy. "They are fast..."
"By the way, what's the plan?" One of the guards asked,
"Plan..." Isaiah wiped his mouth as he thought about it, "We gotta distract it, and then I'll engage in combat, then I'll tame it."
"What!" Hugo exclaimed, "That's insane!"
"I agree with Hugo." Senzuki added, "Fighting against the snake is one thing, but taming it..."
"I have a taming skill Senzuki, it'll be fine."
"Look, monsters have very different requirements to be tamed... That thing, even if you can tame it that doesn't mean it will obey you. Then there is the cost of keeping the monster to consider, I don't know what food vipers eat and how much but all the other things that come with caring for such a large monster are not cheap."
"That's fine, besides if we have the green viper wouldn't our ranks rise, and people look at us more? Opportunities come with a higher paycheck." Isaiah replied
"Still... I advise."
"Its fine, Senzuki... I can deal with it." Isaiah smiled, "Relax... You guys just follow my lead. I'll make it work somehow."
Hugo turned to Senzuki who felt unconvinced about his confidence, but alas Isaiah was not giving them time to think and in the end, both decided to follow him.
The group proceeded deeper into the cave as quickly as they could as time was not on their side, they eventually reached the mouth of another chamber which, based on the map was the shallowest part of the cave, the walls were made out of rock that looked like they rusted and a massive crystal hang ontop giving some light towards the chambers as the viper lay dormant on top of a raised platform, rail tracks surrounded it with carts ladened with mined stones. Pickaxes, torches, and swords lay about everywhere, signs of a massive battle.
The viper however was not alone, at the chamber stood two oddly placed thick trees that seemed to sway even when there was no air inside.
"Treants." Hugo cursed as he gripped his shield tighter, "Can we deal with that."
"I think treants are also good to add to my collection, don't you think." Isaiah grinned
Senzuki scowled at Isaiah as his smile shrunk,
"Right, aah... Any ideas?" Isaiah turned to the two,
"Treants are weak to fire, so if we could use your lightning..."
"Okay, I'll deal with those two, then the viper... I can do both at the same time."
"I can create a distraction which should immobilize it for some time, then we attack with all we got," Senzuki suggested.
"How about us?" One of the guards asked,
"You can stay behind and keep watching our rear. It's our job after all... Then let's go with the plan." He stretched his hands out as he pulled onto the ceiling to bury the treants. At once the treants felt his magic and turned to their side like sentries. They struck the ground with their massive arms creating a shield that blocked the rocks from above. Then out from those rocks came roots which attacked the three like tentacles.
Hugo managed to cut two which tried to grab him while Senzuki evaded them as deftly as she could. She then fired off two arrows at the treant, though they pierced through its woody skin exiting through their backs, they inflicted zero damage, however, it did turn their agro on her as more and more vines attacked. Isaiah was given space and charged up his attack, the treants noticing too late as lightning danced around his body before being expelled as streaks of blue light.
Both treants were buried in lightning, catching fire as they panicked around, hitting themselves in the confusion killing one and maiming the other. By accident, the treants struck the viper.
It coiled itself as it searched for the one who attacked it and lunged at one of the treants. Isaiah, seeing that one of his potentially tamed monsters was about to die raised pillars of rock to stop the viper. The viper turned towards him and hissed unleashing its bloodlust that threatened to choke the three who dared chase after it.
Isaiah exhaled with a low gurgling noise, he felt his body's temperature rise as he hyped himself up. He then turned to Senzuki who was sweating buckets and breathing rapidly.
He patted her shoulder, prompting her to flinch,
"Ready?"
"Oh... Yeah." She nodded,
He then turned to Hugo. "You?"
Hugo had fought many battles before, but most were against humans, there were times he faced off against monsters but none of them was this big, and none of them he fought with only two allies.
But he knew Isaiah, and he reluctantly trusted his abilities.
"Yeah."
"Good, go."
Senzuki fired her arrow which flew directly into its nose, before exploding after a delay. This produced a loud ringing sound while also blinding the viper causing it to trash around in confusion. Hugo got closer and threw bags of odor he had created. Though the blind and defeated snake was still able to 'see', the bags of odor played their role by messing up with its senses coupled with Isaiah's expert handling of the wind which meant that most of the smell got straight to its nose. Blind, deaf, and without smell the monster crashed itself onto the walls.
Isaiah then used raised pillars of the earth at the viper as it tried to escape while Senzuki launched arrow after arrow at its perceived weak spots. However, the attacks did minimal damage and only served to confuse the snake even more. This was part of the plan, which both Senzuki and Hugo reluctantly agreed to. They wanted the creature dead whereas Isaiah wanted to tame it.
Isaiah continued his assault, while warry of his magic. He kept his power at a lower end and continued to chip away at the monster's health.
The viper, by accident, slammed its body into the weaker part of the walls causing the ceiling to break and rocks to fall, some of which nearly hit Isaiah. This freed the snake's olfactory senses from the smell and allowed it to sense them, it struck hard chasing after Hugo who desperately dodged left and right. Just as it was about to catch Hugo in its mouth, balls of lightning crashed into its face.
Isaiah stood with his body raging with blue sparks.
"Im'a tame you..." He grinned, "Stop resisting!"
Isaiah crashed both hands together allowing the lightning to charge even more before releasing its energy in the form of an electric beam. The viper could not dodge the attack but shrugged it off, its green eyes glowed as its head was covered in a plastic-like sheet of dark green then it reared its head and threw itself onto Isaiah.
Isaiah raised the ground he was on, dodging the attack. But the snake smashed its head destroying the pillar, making him fall and he would have been buried in the rubble had he not caught onto one of the rocks and had it float, thereby giving him flight.
"Phew..." He sighed while taking deep breaths, he felt his hands go white from fear. "Almost almost."
The viper shook its head and then turned to Senzuki. Her whole body began to shake when she was subjected to its dark shadow, but she willed herself to dash away as the snake slammed its tail over her previous location and at the same time lunged its head over where she was running. Senzuki managed to stop herself, sacrificing the sole of her boots in the process, just in time as the snake's head landed where she should have been. She softly crashed into its head and as the snake rose up she was carried along.
She screamed in panic but quickly composed herself. She climbed the snake's head and then began stabbing its eye from above.
The snake hissed and wiggled aggressively to try and throw her off.
"Senzuki!" Isaiah called out as a rock floated near her. "There!"
Senzuki leapt towards the rock leaving her arrow embedded into its eyes. Isaiah then stretched his hand and had the arrow vibrate rapidly, slowly burying itself in its eye. The snake hissed loudly, agonizing over its eye while randomly slamming its tail over the walls in an effort to stop Isaiah. This did nothing as Isaiah was too far, however, he noticed how rapidly his mana was decreasing and so had to lower him and Senzuki while still maintaining the magic.
The snake now senses their presence and despite being blind, opened its mouth and let venom pool over underneath its fangs, then like a catapult, lobbed them towards Isaiah's direction. Isaiah changed his control over to the venom and threw them back into the snake. The snake, however, was immune to its own venom. Worse still, its venom healed itself.
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The injuries he inflicted were gone, even the wound over its eyes spat out the now crushed arrow that Senzuki had planted as the snake raised its head and towered over Isaiah.
"Putangina," Isaiah exclaimed as he saw all his work gone to waste. "Eto naman tayo." (Motherfucker. Here we go again.)
Senzuki grabbed Isaiah as the snake released a thick, viscous, stream of poison coming from its mouth. Like a dragon, its venom unleashed heat enough to melt down the iron while leaving behind a corrosive and rusty trail. The venom also released a powerful stench that nearly made Isaiah barf, Senzuki managed to bring Isaiah over to the entrance, joining the others hiding far away.
The snake's breath did not reach their location but covered the cavern with a thick venomous goo. That said, when Isaiah recovered from the nauseating feeling he was able to roll the goo up like a carpet. He knew better than to hit the snake again so he threw it away, his hands then erupted into blue sparks as he struck the snake with thousands of volts.
The snake hissed as its body tensed up, Isaiah stopped his attack since he thought the snake was going to die. The snake then fell to the ground, its body stiff as a rock, Isaiah, in a panic, threw the venom over to the snake allowing it to recover.
"Isaiah!" Senzuki gasped, "Not again."
"Look... I want to tame!" Senzuki dragged him across the room as the snake unleashed the same venomous breath but this time he was ready.
He created a wall, which Senzuki crashed into, to cover them from the breath as the snake concentrated onto the small dome. Then without it noticing the crystals from above broke off from the ceiling and struck it in the head, with the snake's attack stopped Isaiah rolled the venom away carving up a massive chunk of the wall to stash the venom, covering it up with the rock and using the leftovers as missiles which he launched over at the viper.
The reptile was able to dodge some but could not cope with the amount of missiles thrown at it.
"Chaaaaak!"
The viper was buried in smoke as Isaiah kept the tempo of the attack. However, his fear of killing it eventually won as he stopped. He whispered a prayer, hoping that the snake was still alive, thankfully it was still alive. But barely,
Its eyes flared with rage as it focused on Isaiah, realizing that he was the one who attacked him. Isaiah made a grin, as he pointed at the snake, then just as it was about to lunge ahead, Isaiah pointed down.
Gravity pulled the snake to the ground.
It could not escape as the pressure got stronger and stronger until it could no longer move.
"Surrender!" Isaiah screamed as the snake tried to stand up but couldn't "Surrender!"
For some reason, gravity did not make his head ache like usual. Though it didn't matter to him, he was to pre-occupied trying to tame the beast.
Eventually, the snake stopped. It closed its eyes and the bloodlust got weaker and weaker before eventually disappearing.
"It stopped." Senzuki sighed as she turned to Isaiah, "It's over..."
Isaiah nodded, keeping the pressure as he approached the viper, then when he was about 20 meters away the menu popped up.
[Monster (Forest Viper) can be tamed, attempt?]
"Waaah, ahahahaha... Yes!"
[Taming...]
The blue bubble appeared as Isaiah waited with glittering eyes, and then...
*Beep
[Forest Viper accepts servitude.]
[Taming successful]
[Taming Talent activated]
"Oohoo... Hooo!" Isaiah started hyperventilating as his eyes saw the status bubble right above the Viper's head. He quickly disabled the gravity as he read the next bubble to appear, doubling his excitement.
[Forest Viper - Tamed Beast]
"Brooo, bruh... Bro bro!! Ahahahahah!"
"Isaiah-san!?"
In his excitement, he didn't even see Senzuki, who was about to check him out. She flinched when he suddenly leaped up and laughed.
"Are-are you alright?"
"Aah, Senzuki-san... I... The sn-the cobra, no, snake, ah, v-vipeee..." The wide grin on his mouth and the excitement he was showing was making it difficult for him to form coherent sentences,
When she realised everything was fine she chuckled, "Viper."
"Right, viper." Isaiah punched the air in an expression of joy as Senzuki dodged with minimal effort. She could feel his excitement soaring and understood why, taming a beast is an impressive feat but taming a powerful beast as strong as this viper, well that would be a whole new level.
"Steady there..."
"I tamed a viper... I tamed a viper!!!"
"Then congratulations... You did well." She clapped her hands as the rest clapped too. "But first you have to breathe, you are turning blue.."
"Wha?"
Senzuki chuckled as she slowly calmed him down, "Breath in, breath out."
"Oh, okay... Fuuu..." He started to take deep breaths to calm himself down as the others started to circle around the creature.
"My god..." The guard gasped, "You tamed it? Really?"
"Yes..." Isaiah replied after calming himself,
Then the viper rose up from its slumber. It shook its head to wipe off the dust before facing its master. The guards reflexively reach out for their weapons but Isaiah lowers them,
"It's fine..."
They all looked at him,
"It might still be wild, it might not obey you."
"It's fine, more importantly..." Though he knew he now had total control over the beast the others did not hold the same confidence, that said he decided it was best to figure out what the reptile's stats were. But, he was concerned that just like others, even a tamed beast would produce no status page, so he was relieved to see that not only it did it have a status page, but its stats were far beyond what he had expected it.
=======================
Green Viper
Level 72
HP 1,526/1,526 MP 320/320
STR: 763
INT: 160
AGI: 82
Talents (Passive)
[Iron Skin I]
[Corrosive Sweat II]
[Titanic I]
Skills (Active)
[Poison]
=======================
"M.. Mmmm..." Isaiah was too excited to say anything as he simply let out random noises.
It was night and day, the viper's stats were on a whole different dimension when compared to his. With a strength stat of 700 and agility nearing 100 the reptile was a beast, fit to be a boss monster of a dungeon.
'This is my first tamed beast-monster... My first pal.'
"Isaiah-san, are you alright now?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Good."
"Man... I've only met a few tamers in my lifetime and they usually have smaller animals, many prefer to tame packs of wolves or dogs." The taller guard commented, "Who are you?"
"Just your bronze-ranking adventurer."
"Good in magic, tamed a viper... What would I do to have powers like yours."
"Hehehe." He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, somehow being complimented like this made him feel guilty.
"However, we must still keep watch. Some monsters might rebel if the owner does not show proper respect or care for them. And creatures like this require enormous funding to feed and maintain."
"As for keeping an eye, I got that covered. For the money, I'm sure that with this guy around we can earn more in the quest. I mean, this should be an instant promotion for all of us right?"
Senzuki shrugged, "Perhaps.
"More importantly, wanna touch the snake?"
"Ah." Senzuki hesitated and seeing this moment of weakness Isaiah grabbed her hand,
"Come on, don't be afraid, he won't bite."
"Oh no, I... I'd..."
"Here see, it's fine..." Isaiah let go of her hand and placed his on its nose, seeing the gentle face of the snake being caressed by its master Senzuki relaxed and thought that maybe it was fine to touch this reptile.
Her hesitation however leads to Hugo being the first to touch the reptile, "It's kinda weird, I've culled a fair amount of snakes before, though none of them as big as this... But touching this one is somewhat special."
Senzuki let her hands run down the snake as she felt its hard scale, the same scales that blocked her armor-piercing arrows. To think that someone of his strength and skill wants to join their troupe, really made her wonder. She glanced at Isaiah and found him stealing glances at her,
'Isaiah-san.' She chuckled, however underneath her laughter was the growing suspicion born on the day she called her cute at the tent.
'Why?' She had always wondered, 'Why does he like me?'
She had at first thought of it as his playful banter but over time she started to realize just how serious he was in establishing a romantic relationship with her. This has alarmed her as to why would a man, whose last name suggests he comes from the northern lands which are currently engaged in a bitter feud with many beast folk, be interested in her, a beast folk?
'Could it be him?' She remembered her past, and the suffering she went through in her hometown. The mere thought that her father, or that man, sent Isaiah scared her,
However, there was a chance that Isaiah was innocent of her suspicions and that he was truly just a normal person who found someone he could love. This would be the best outcome and one that even Senzuki would prefer as she liked the idea of Isaiah falling for her, a man of his strength and caliber being her partner would be her dream after all. Especially with his rather calm and cheerful personality,
Her cheeks blushed, this was the only reason why she hadn't accepted Isaiah yet, as she was suspicious. But once those disappear then she wouldn't mind being in a relationship.
She turned to Isaiah and gave a rosy smile, "I shall trust you with this one." But she first has to test him, and so far, he has yet to give out any signs.
"Thank you." Isaiah gave a big smile,
"Now if you could save the merchant digesting inside." Senzuki reminded him,
"Oh right... Uhh..." Isaiah turned to the snake, "Vomit him out?"
But he wasn't sure about his orders. He knew snakes could swallow stuff whole but releasing them was something he wasn't sure about. Now he regretted having tamed the snake as it seemed that a surgery was in need, and there were no surgeons around.
"Please tell me we can keep him?"
"I'm not sure, but first tell, it, to open its mouth."
"Okay, open your mouth?"
At Isaiah's command, the viper unhinged its massive jaw, big enough to swallow Isaiah in one go. The viper's four sharp fangs were on full display and were dripping with venom. A powerful odor assaulted their nose when they got close.
"Careful now, the blood might be corrosive."
One of the guards kept glancing at Isaiah, he was so shocked at what had happened that he wasn't sure how to react. Suddenly, Isaiah looked at him.
Instantly he realized, without saying a word, what Isaiah wanted from him. He began to shake, his face felt light and sweat poured around his body.
"..."
"..."
The two stared at each other as if he had done something, he was about to collapse from the pressure when his buddy spoke to him.
"We have to save Junior."
Isaiah nodded, "Yeah..." He gestured over to the snake.
"If..." He was finally able to speak, but his courage failed him, he could not avoid angering the two "Please remove the blood around its mouth... I..."
Isaiah nodded and with a flick of his finger, the blood pooled around the left side before floating away like a bubble, splashing its contents far away from where they were. Isaiah turned to them,
"We... Junior."
The guard turned to the other,
"What?"
"Well... Crawl inside."
"Ay... Eh? But..."
The guard jerked his head in an authoritative manner, despite their ranks the man was his senior so the younger soldier sighed and after they opened his mouth, he tied a rope to his leg and began to crawl inside. The strong stench of its innards assaulted his nose, but he steeled himself to crawl into its claustrophobic tube.
The others waited in silence as the soldier pushed himself in, though Isaiah ordered the viper to open wider, the saliva made it difficult to get much of a grip. The snake began to 'choke' as its body began to vibrate, trying to hold back the pain it was feeling. Isaiah turned to the snake with worry and prayed that the man would finish his job quickly.
It took a few minutes before the man finally reached Junior.
"Found him!" He shouted and at once they pulled on the rope. Eventually, they were both dragged out of the beast. The viper vomited blood and bile, Isaiah was able to drag the two away just in time as the projectile landed their last position.
The guard was covered in saliva from top to bottom, his face was caked in reds and greens and he stank so much that Hugo gagged and the other guard vomited. That said, Junior was in far worse condition. His clothes had melted and so too did parts of his face, much of his hair was gone and in some cases, one could even see bones. Senzuki quickly applied aid and checked his condition but lacking the supplies she was only able to do little.
"He's ready to go." She told the others as they laid him down on a stretcher made from the viper's scales. "Isaiah-san..."
"Right, let's go..."
The journey climbing back up was difficult, carrying a gravely injured man up a steep incline was already an exhausting task, but coupled with their fatigue and concerns about the viper crawling behind them, worry-filled their faces. Then there was the fear of ambushes, they were wary that at any moment or at every corner the elf was waiting for them.
They moved slowly, especially when they lost their way after taking one too many turns at the winding labyrinth. But thanks to Hugo's pathfinding skills they were able to retrace their steps and slowly make their way up. Luckily for them, they did not encounter any monster nor the other troupes as they climbed up, and by the time they finally reached the entrance the sun had already fallen.