"oh, this data is starting to come together!" xoqax happily fluttered from one end of his lab to the next. he was trying to stay positive; his research was going well. Getting new data each time the young lord used his power. but the beast, that was a problem.

Aero wasn't stupid enough to think something that big getting free wouldn't affect him. he took way too much pride in his work, and he wasn't going to change, but Aero was very cautious about the creature trying to affect him. "the best thing now is to help the young lord grow strong enough he can push back the create. now the test on healing his spirit."

*******

"thank you," Aero let out a breath, stepping away from his meditation mindset. He was feeling better, not a hundred percent, but it was better than he felt this mourning. Inna and Gailia helped him restore his own pride, but he felt a bit bad about how it affected them. but it was dangerous for his self confined to be lowered during a mission.' I'll treat them to something when we get back into town.'

But for now, they had to focus on their mission; they had entered the hunting ground less than a flower ago, and who knew when they might run into their target. Which could be anywhere, and they needed to remain alert for the creature.

"so, how hard do you think it's going to be to find this thing?" Inna asked what they stopped to stretch and try to find some tracks. the forest was covered in tracks. But nothing that pointed out their specific prey. Aero hummed as he observed the ground, trying to determine the number and direction of a small creature.

"Well, I found tracts of some of its known prey," galia thought that was an excellent place to start, and they followed it until they arrived at where the tracks stopped. "I don't remember reading these things can fly."

"no, but they can dig." Inna pointed out to a tunnel under a tree. big enough for Areo to stick his head in. if he wanted to lose said head to what lived inside it. Instead, I found a decent tree hiding spot and climbed into it. His teammates did the same so they could stay out of sight; they relaxed in their spots and watched the tunnel for some time.

silently thinks around the same thing: bait!

bait that took them four flowers to catch. It bit and scratched until they brained it a few times, "All right, that's four, enough for a few traps."

"What kind of traps should we make?" Aero decided he should contribute to this conversation. as his preferred trap was noise matter to attract his attention. so he could fight them with his bare hands. Was it more of a matter of pride to him? It was. to show people he didn't need to rely on traps, a nondirect combat.

they knew more practical traps and asked why Aero didn't know more about trap making as they put together a snare trap." the person who tried to teach me came off super condescending. I only attended the class enough to pass. If I get the chance, I'm going to hit her."

"Is there anyone in your school you don't want to hit?"

"one, maybe I don't know if she listened to me or not." he wasn't interested in checking," speaking of school, Aero was reminded of his plan to make his own hunting school, which was currently at the scroll with a list of things he wanted in the school or taught, like a deep lake for underwater training and zero gravity training.

"well, pay attention as we explain how you can take the early advantage in fights." he rolled his eyes but at least tried. It sounded very meticulous to him, but he found it simpler to hit the creatures until they stopped moving. The traps were partially reliant on physics.

aero had a bit of an understanding of fields of science. Not the biggest; he put a lot of time into his physical training. but after becoming a lord, he slowly learned more bits. Tova spoke plenty of science, pulse Xoqax, who Aero was sure wasn't using simple words, not from the helper's tone. At the same time, they seemed to be completely neutral spoken. Aero was very well practiced in picking up microtones.

He didn't like feeling intellectually inadequate. The people of Augustine looked down on his physical ability. but the much wider galaxy would pay attention to every part of a cosmic lord. his brains, his brawns, his beauty!

Not to mention, he would probably be working with all kinds of people; it wouldn't surprise him if, when his financial power improved, Xoqax asked for some subordinates. if he didn't turn Aero down, he would be his head of science.

'what positions should I give my team," they were already working hard to grow in strength. he should give them appropriate titles. but what? making them leaders of their own squads under him. That sounds like a good start, but would they want to be squad leaders? "maybe they'd want to do something else." sighing, he adjusted his spot in the trees and waited.

later, they got something; during that time, Aero practiced resource and force management. Which, for some reason, includes simulating paperwork. it was different from the occult paperwork he had to do as a hunter, and it was so much worse. so many things he had to look over.

he was glad when the first trap went off, jumping from the tree to take a closer look. "ah, wrong thing." sighing, he knocked the creature out with a heavy blow to the head before moving to free it and putting it a reasonable distance from the trap.

It set out the trap several more times; Aero had a brief thought of killing it before just tying it up and going back to waiting. Then he had to wait a while longer.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Oh, what bad luck." Inna thought, stepping around the creature. The Leochimp, its claws cracking at the ground, the rope from her trap hanging in the air. "flexing her fingers, she considered her next step; the best solution would be to draw her teammate's attention so they could outnumber it.

but years of hunting told her that she'd be in danger if she took her eyes off it. flipping one of her daggers, a slight tone started. The moment it did, the Leochimp launched, its long arms reaching for her neck. Quickly, she slashed her right dagger, throwing a limb to the side, giving her room to thrust her dagger directly at its neck.

"ahh!" Inna groaned as he chimp bit on her weapon, saving it one life and putting drool on the weapon. 'I'm glad I wipe this thing after every fight.' she swung her other dragger, forcing the Leochimp to let go. She was able to take one step back before the creatures suddenly spun.

"GAH!" with both arms, she blocked the strike. Her daggers keep the claws from tearing into her skin. pushing back, she dropped to her knees, under its arms, and spun into a kicking. Wrapping her ankle around its foot and whipping it out from under it.

the large fore of the Leochimp fell back as he rose to her feet. As she did, notes began to play a short melody on both daggers, causing them to glow. The air smelled like a storm was coming. Then, with a pained grunt, she slashed both of them down as the Leochimp righted itself.

The energy jumped off the blade; the energy slashes tore through the air with a thunder crack and into the creature's arms. it roared as blood spewed out from the two sudden wounds. Smoke and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Inna pushed it out, racing into close range.

The Leochimp weakly tried to defend itself, but it meant nothing as Inna danced around its attempt, her blade flashing through mulches and ligaments. Until it was just bleeding and lying on the ground, her legs wrapped around its throat, and her dagger pointed at its eyes, a clear threat.

"I'm suddenly glad she's on our side." Galia commented that she and Aero had arrived at the scene." You captured it." Galia walked over and pointed her weapon at it in case it moved. "yeah, I figure we'd have less worry about its body parts going bad on the return trip."

The way the trio discussed how they were going to prepare its body and what they would do with the parts didn't sit well with the Leochipm, so gathering what strength it possessed, it roared. A desperate noise raced throughout the forest. Only then did it fall unconscious.

"it called for backup," Aero said; that wasn't a death cry; they all knew that well enough." our information didn't say if there was more than one in the area." Galia nodded in agreement. Before, Inna commented," It's probably on use for not scouting the area better."

"Should we stay or leave?"

"There no reason to kill more than necessary," Inna stated. if they got attacked, they would defend themself, but for now, they threw the Leochimp over their shoulders and started making their way toward their camp. "if it's another Leochimp, they're probably capable of tracking our scent, right?"

"yep!" Galia said, popped the p.

"good just cheacking," Aero stated as they moved around the trees. Keeping his ears open for anything that might try and attack them, the trees were nearly genuinely silent. Rustling leaves and insects, he tried to focus on bigger noise.

"camps are in sight, I'd say more, but I'm worried about tempting the zaltess of fate." Galia stated, and Inna snorted," Oh, me too!" Aero had a thought about how he could fight the zaltess of fate. But even though he knew that it was just a bad idea, she is known as a very petty lady.

Half of her stories are based around this pettiness; Aero didn't want any of that directed at him or his people!

arriving at camp, they threw the creature in the back of a cart and rushed to clean up, not for nothing, as soon a pair of Leochimps jumped from the trees. "AAH!" tacking Inna to the ground as she smelt most of the blood." by the zaltess!" she swore before a Leochimp roared in her face.

She wasn't sure what was worse at the moment, the many razor teeth ready to tear off her face or the horrid breath. She could see bits of rotting meat between the teeth.' I have to push it off.' But her position was terrible; the Leochimp was on her center of gravity. she didn't have the strength to push both off of her.

"oh, this is going to scar!" a stone mace smashed into the face of one of them, shocking both the girl and the creature. The girl recovered quicker, sticking the creature in the face with her dagger in one of its four eyes!

It roared in pain, cut off by Inna driving her knee into its chin before Galia shoulder tackled it off her. rolling to her feet, she jumped into Aero's fights, his mace breaking apart as the Leochimp doughed and macked it away.

He couldn't make complete use of his usual agility like this. The creature turned its attention away from him when he heard the notes inna played. She pulled her right dagger back, a faint sheen of water covering both, and the right she thrust forward sent off the razor-sharp water.

The Leochimp footly jumped to evade the attack, leaving it open to the send water blade. opening a gash in the inside." with a howl, it turned its fangs and claws towards her. "don't ignore me!" putting his back and waist into it, Aero swung the mace directly at the creature's face.

The agile creature had more than plenty of time to dodge it if Inna wasn't in the fights. grabbing the whiskers on its face, she yanked it directly into the path of the mace. It landed with a crunch and gush of blood from the opening on its face. Some of it got on Inna, but she barely noticed as she quickly struck in the back of the neck.

Before rushing over to help Galia, who had been playing keep away, Between the three of them, it was a bit of overkill to take down the last one. "oh, by the Zaltess, that wasn't so bad."

"you didn't get bitten!" Galia stated as Inna wrapped her arm. They and the driver are upwind from where Areo is dismantling the creatures. There was a lot of blood from their bodies and a lot they could take; Aero had to work for more than a full flower before he was done.

'oh Zalts, why did I hit a vein? There was blood spatter on my clothing.' not that such a thing was new, just still a pain to clean. After leaving the harvested bits to be packed away, sprinkling powers over the other remains so they could decay. He rushed over to the nearest source of water to try to wash out the blood.

"ugh, it's staining. I'll have to really wash it out when I get back to the village, but at least I won't attract creatures like this." He sighed, wrung out the clothing, and slipped it back on. There was still some dirty work to be done, so there was no point in putting on clean clothing.

He arrived on time to help with loading and commented on the girls' debate about the money they could make with this. aero didn't try to get his hopes up. Honestly, he probably wouldn't be able to go into the store when they sold it.

He wasn't sure he wanted to because he could see someone saying something that got them hit. then they had to deal with law enforcement. He just hoped it was enough to recover at least some of what they'd spent over their stay.

he did not like the idea of running out of money and being stuck in this country. it's a hard no! he'd walk through the forest ocean if he had to!