The other B-ranker, a man in heavy plate armor, was already present in Travis’ office when Eik arrived. He didn’t carry any weapon that Eik would have expected from such an outfit. In fact, he didn’t seem to carry a weapon at all.

Travis was tightening a pair of vambraces. “Good, there you are. Are you sure you want to come along? We might not be able to protect you.”

“I’m sure.”

“Alright. Let’s get going then. Don’t get yourselves killed.”

They made their way through the city at a pace barely slower than Eik’s top speed. He’d prepared extensively for this for the past three days and he had dozens of the strongest poison pills he could make, but if he kept chugging them one after the other to trigger Noxious Invigoration, he would run dry before they even met the damn thing.

He took a sixth clump from a side pocket in his rucksack of holding. As it turns out, it wasn’t just the main compartment that was spatially enchanted. A pocket on each side, low enough to reach without taking the rucksack off, could each hold a small load of about a fifth of the space available in the main.

“How long until we’re there?” Eik asked the tracker who also acted as the third B-ranker of the hunting party. He tried and failed to hide his labored breathing as he spoke.

“About thirty five minutes at this pace,” she said without looking back from her leading position.

“Thirty five?” he exclaimed. “And it took you four days to find it?”

Eik caught a glimpse of a frown. “It’s been moving around all over like mad. Now it seems to be waiting and gathering subordinate monsters.”

“An attack?” the armored man, Jake, asked.

“Maybe.”

“Won’t that be the third?”

“Fourth, actually.”

“What’s your estimate?” Travis asked.

“Within a day.”

“Good thing we’re getting to it now then.”

The scout scoffed. “That’s why I said it would be better if the D-ranker stayed home. He’s a hindrance.”

Travis seemed unconcerned. “That’s the deal he made with Mission Central. And I’m on the brink of A. We can’t spare anymore B-rankers.”

She grumbled but didn’t comment further. They kept running for another fifteen minutes and Eik kept chugging poison to keep his buff up. Even if the power of Instinct of Toxin allowed him to sprint like this, the sweat pouring down his forehead proved that it wasn’t sustainable.

A few months ago, he’d thought something like a D-ranker would have been able to run like this for days at a time. The B-rankers didn’t show any sign of exhaustion whatsoever, though. The scout had called him a hindrance.

“So, I see you don’t have a weapon,” Eik said to Jake.

“Yep. Don’t need one!” An angry flame shot out from the tip of his finger, bathing his grinning face in bright, jumping orange.

“Oh, cool,” Eik said, taken slightly aback. Fire. Like Olivia. “With the armor I thought you’d be—”

“Carrying a big ass sword?” Jake finished for him. “Yeah, not me. The games get it all wrong in my opinion. If anyone should wear something like this, it should be the guy with no defense. Robes make no sense.”

Eik chuckled. “Good point.”

“Thanks for setting this killing quest in motion, man. It’s about time.”

“Yeah, uuh, no problem… Actually, I’m not sure what you mean. What’s about time?”

Jake chopped the air with a grunt. “That we murder the son of a bitch and save the people in comas from the venom. That is why you’re here, right? To make sure that the extraction of the venom is done correctly?”

Eik nodded. “Yeah. But also because I hate the bastard with a passion.”

“That ain’t a bad reason either, brother,” Jake laughed heartily, his voice hardly trembling despite the running. “I’ve been trying to gather a team to kill it since a while ago, but I only recently hit B-rank and people aren’t keen on putting resources into hunting something this elusive. More trouble than it’s worth for a lot of folks.”

“I ran into the same issue before I found some leverage,” Eik said, tapping the single vial strapped to his belt. “So I take it you’ve got someone affected by the venom then?” His breathing was becoming ragged. He really should stop talking.

“Same person as you, I believe. Olivia Valkiri. Your sister, right?”

“Sort of, yeah. She’s my brother’s wife. How did you say you know her?”

“She saved me. Back before I Awoke. She led an expedition that found our group in the wilderness and brought us back to Forest. I owe her my life. I hope to repay some of it with this.”

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Eik smiled. “That certainly sounds like her. Is that why you use fire?”

“Ha! I suppose so, yeah,” Jake huffed. “My admiration for her goes deep. I guess the system took that into consideration when offering me abilities, and I didn’t hesitate. I heard the system does stuff like that from time to time.”

“Yeah, it was the same for me. By the time I Awoke I had been drink poi—”

“Let's switch to nonverbal communication,” the scout said slowed her pace to a walk. “We’re not far from where I found the nest. It’s only been a little more than an hour and a half since I was here last, but we don’t know what their numbers are like now.”

“What’s the plan?” Eik asked.

She gave him a look that said her real opinion was that he should get his ass back home. “You guys wait up here. I’ll check the nest again for new threats.” With that she vanished without a sound.

She was back in less than a minute. “The manticore is resting. There are already quite a few subordinate monsters sitting idle but more are still arriving from the deep wilderness.”

Eik gave her a questioning look. “Manticore? Like from mythology?”

“Exactly. They share some physical features, so that’s what we’re calling it.”

“Then we’d better get to it,” Travis said.

“Let’s get it on,” Eik said with a vicious smirk, Viper Fang practically singing for some blo—

“Eik, you’re staying in cover.”

“Wai— Huh?”

“You can wait in the bushes or something,” Travis said.

“No! You said I could help!”

“Incorrect. I said you could come with us. You’re with us. And I said I’d let you come in for the end. It is not the end yet.”

Eik bit his lower lip, nostrils flaring as he tried to think of a good argument, but a fight with a B-rank monster would not be improved by his presence. “Fine,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Alright, Eik, you stay a little behind us. Stop when we stop. And stay low.”

They snuck slowly forth, the grass here tall enough to obstruct their view of surroundings on all sides, making him feel isolated. Beads of sweat ran down Eik’s temple, this time for a reason not related to exertion.

After practically crawling more than a kilometer the scout held up a fist for a stop. Occasional howls of beasts and monsters echoed from up ahead. The three B-rankers exchanged whispered words but Eik couldn’t hear what they were saying, even with his D-ranked hearing.

Travis glanced back at Eik and nodded once, an intense sphere of Lightning Judgment of Tyrannical Ruination already coming to life in his palms. Eik nodded back and the three of them disappeared, dust billowing into the air around their launch point.

Eik managed to sit still and wait for about five seconds before the jitters forced him back to his feet. A boom that must have been Travis initiating combat shook a copse of trees up ahead and Eik momentarily lost his nerve and cowered on the ground as more explosions and sounds of violence reached him. How stupid was he to be charging toward the danger that outranked him this much?

Stupid enough, apparently, because he got back and ran towards the noise. It quickly grew to a cacophony of roars of aggression and wails of suffering. Even before he could see the fight, Eik saw countless, compact balls of fire rocket ceaselessly into the sky, some of them impacting trees with a force that rocked them on their trunks and setting them ablaze.

If the manticore had truly been gathering an army to assault Forest, then those low ranking monster would surely be annihilated in the onslaught that was the combined destruction of Jake and Travis’s area of effect abilities.

The moment before he could break through the last of the vegetation obstructing his view of the battlefield, a monster the size of a horse came dashing out. It had three pairs of sturdy legs and numerous bony protrusions running down its back, one of which struck him in the ribs as it passed.

The momentum alone carried him off his feet but to his surprise he hardly felt it otherwise. He plowed through the tall grass on his back, eyes glued to the charging beast.

Long tufts of greasy fur smoked as it burned, the beast keening shrilly with no way to put out the flames. Within seconds it was gone again, disappearing into the wilderness.

The fight was still underway in full and the manticore was just as ugly as it had been when he’d seen it fighting the C-rankers during the second monster wave. Reacting to its movements was still an impossible feat but he could almost follow it with his eyes.

A permanent grimace on its face looked like toothy mockery. Eik clenched the Potion of Mighty Strength between trembling fingers as he popped another clump of poison.

Blood flowed freely from several cuts along its flanks where the scout, whose name he realized he still didn’t know, had flitted by at ridiculous speeds. Even then, the stinging tail whipped after her like a homing missile, taking her square in the chest once. Eik thought she was done for but when she stood back up she didn’t seem to have any visible stab wounds, and that stinger was massive.

As if to punish that attack, a screeching javelin of crackling lightning obliterated the manticore’s tail at the base, the rest of it falling to the ground with a thud.

A deafening howl of agony was cut short as a ball of flame struck its face with an explosion that rocked the surrounding trees. He monster leapt back as the scout came in for another blow, switching to more defensive behavior now that it was gravely injured.

Eik saw the end of the fight drawing near. Finally, he could bury Viper Fang in that disgusting piece of garbage.

An enormous foot stomped flat the grass by his right shoulder, barely making a sound despite its size. A low rumble that seemed to come from everywhere rattled all the bones in his body. Even before he looked up, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him what he would see.

The pressure was insane, as if gravity had been doubled. A tail with the now familiar stinger on the tip swept down along the grass in front of Eik’s face. Shit, it really was a second one.

Trees rustling and cracking on the opposite side of the battlefield caught Eik’s attention before a shadow flew high up into the air like something bound for space.

“Tr- Travis! Jake! There’s another one! No, two more! Watch out!” Eik screamed as the one standing over him leapt forward, air buffeting him against the ground.

The scout intercepted the manticore coming from Eik’s side, showering it in cuts while Travis and Jake shot missiles of death into the sky at the one still in the air. A trail of smoke followed it to the ground as explosion after explosion boomed.

Smoke scattered forcefully as it launched into Jake, slapping him into the ground with a paw. The scout rushed in, glowing cutters of energy emerging from her daggers as she tried to prevent another attack on Jake.

Now that the manticore had jumped into the fight, the pressure Eik had felt lifted and he could finally stand. He could barely follow the rapidness with his eyes as its stinger took the scout in the thigh.

Immediately, her leg failed her, forcing her to her knee, where another sweep of the tail sent her shooting into the trees.

Two more bolts of lightning manifested in Travis’ hands and as he threw one at each of the manticores, a fourth one touched down soundlessly in the middle of the clearing. Meanwhile, the one with the severed tail was getting back to its feet, limping closer while Travis and Jake were distracted by its kin.

Eik replaced the potion vial in his belt and pulled another from the rucksack, downing it in one. He popped another clump of poison as he activated Movement Boost and started running.