After a few tense moments, Aida felt a predatory aura approach. Kuri remained where she was standing, facing away from her as she held the lit incense stick above her head. But unlike her bubbly demeanor before, now she stood stock still - as if she was a statue. Matching her body’s rigidity, Kuri’s mana continued to stab out in various directions.
Aida glanced around, trying to discern where the aura was coming from. It wasn’t as if it came from a single point source…there was a general direction it came from, which was from the trees, but other than that, she couldn’t even tell if there was one or more monsters. All she knew was that she was being watched, and they were waiting.
“Aida,” Kuri said, her voice ringing through the stillness that suddenly overtook the little patch of water they were at. “Stay where you are. No matter what.”
A squeak was all Aida could muster in response as the pressure bore down more heavily on her, triggering her instinct to flee.
Kuri says stay. So stay. She was dimly aware that the ground beneath her felt unstable, and that her wand was starting to slip through her fingers.
Aida wiped her palms on her pants, hyper aware of the texture of threads crossing over each other to form the pattern that arbitrarily kept them together in orderly fashion. Regripping her wand, she forced herself to extend her awareness outwards instead of inwards.
And not a moment too soon. As soon as Aida felt like she had a better grip on her wand (and nerves), she saw blurs of brown descend upon Kuri, completely obscuring the young woman from view. Before a scream could bubble out of her throat, the creatures were blown back, smoke tracing the trajectory they took.
“Don’t worry Aida! These are Jumpers - they’re fast, but they aren’t too bad,” Kuri called, keeping her position with the incense still held above her head. She twirled her wand in her fingers and cracked her neck, completely at ease. “Just practice getting a shot on them - see if you can find their weaknesses!”
“O-Okay!” Aida did her best to focus on the spiders, but they were just too fast, skittering and jumping all over the place. It was fortunate Kuri had the incense - it seemed the smoke incensed them, and kept them focused on Kuri instead of going for Aida.
Kuri herself merely dodged or knocked the spiders away with well-placed strikes or mana blasts, all the while staying in the same three-foot radius, allowing Aida time to practice using her new technique. Scolding herself for being so easily distracted and wasting Kuri’s time, Aida refocused.
She was able to get the overlays going on the spiders, but with how quickly they moved and disappeared among their brethren she was unable to examine them for any useful details.
Frustrated, Aida edged closer to Kuri and the spiders, but made sure to still stay on the rock Kuri had stationed her. “There are too many and they're moving too fast for me to get a good read on one!”
“Oh, okay! Let me get rid of a few.” Kuri casually incinerated the bulk of the swarm, leaving five fist-sized spiders. “Is this better?”
“I think so!” Aida was getting better at controlling her overlay. Keeping track of the colors of the remaining spiders was much simpler; they were all relatively healthy, since Kuri didn’t really hurt them as she continually batted them away.
Experimentally, Aida sent a blast at one spider, just to see what would happen. The spider tumbled through the air as her blast caught it in the middle of a jump, but otherwise it ignored her.
“Not quite! Since these are small, try going for a needle shot instead. Accuracy is much more important for this exercise,” Kuri called. “Try again!”
Aida poked another spider, though with the improved precision of her attack it was obvious she didn’t hit any vital points. Kuri giggled, smacking a spider away with a simple backhand.
“Don’t attack if you don’t see its weak point! This exercise is all about practicing the skill, not mindlessly taking these creatures out.”
“Sorry,” Aida said, wincing. “I’m struggling to see where the weaknesses are.”
Kuri hummed as she blasted another spider away. “Okay, I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the exoskeleton.” She giggled at her joke as she waved the incense, dispersing the smoke more.
Aida couldn’t help but chuckle. Kuri has a really cute personality.
She forced herself to narrow her focus on the spiders even more. Not exoskeleton. So maybe eyes?
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“Not the eyes! They know to protect their eyes,” Kuri said as Aida’s tiny blasts did nothing to faze the spiders.
Maybe the underbelly?
The longer Aida watched these spiders, the easier it was to pick out details of the creatures even as they moved at speed. In the beginning, she had been overwhelmed by all the movement and details and didn’t know where to look, but now she could see the spiders clearly as they zoomed around Kuri.
These spiders didn’t use any spider silk, and were intent on taking Kuri down with their fangs. Every time they leaped at her, their fangs were poised to latch onto the woman. The closer she looked, she even noticed a small sac underneath the spider’s eyes, pulsing purple. Poison, then? So the spiders probably incapacitated their prey with poison, if not outright killed them. The fact they hunted in packs probably meant they weren’t extremely toxic individually.
She aimed for the sack, but her mana ricocheted off the poison sacs even faster than when she targeted the underbelly.
“Smart, but not quite! Try again!” Kuri’s encouragement was starting to get a little annoying, but Aida reminded herself of the spirit of the exercise. Being able to land critical hits consistently was an invaluable skill for someone who didn’t have much mana to spare.
What else is left?
Aida hopped off her rock to get closer to the creatures, and several things happened at once.
All she was aware of was that the instant her shoe stepped onto the river bank, several somethings significantly larger than the baby spiders she and Kuri were practicing on converged on the woman, leaving Aida shocked - but nearly a second later one of the newcomers went up in flames, a spine-chilling trill keening through the air.
“Kuri!” Aida began running towards her, but Kuri’s voice made her skid to a stop.
“Stay back! Hunters are here!”
Dismayed, Aida retreated from the battle, not sure what to do. Kuri seemed to have herself handled, although she was no longer as relaxed as she was with the Jumpers. She had tossed the incense stick off to the side, away from Aida, and was looking very much like a Jumper herself as she flew around the newcomers, leaping off trees and spiders the length of the Adventurer, aided by Mana Surge.
Even though she was using the spiders as a launching pad, the weight and speed of the woman did nothing to deter the creatures. Aida saw Kuri twist in midair as she aimed her wand at a Hunter that was at the edge of the attacking pack, a lance of fire blasting out of her wand.
An eerie shiver ran down her spine, and she looked wildly around herself. She hadn’t felt anything other than the creepy sensation of being hunted in the beginning, and then, trusting Kuri’s words to just worry about honing her own technique, she had lost track of what was lurking around her as she tried to use Crit Up. But now, she realized the feeling of dread was much stronger than before.
“Watch out!”
Aida threw herself to the ground as a flaming body soared over her, shrieking until it splashed into the river. Deciding it would be smarter for her to give Kuri some more space to fight, she scrambled off the rock to the other side, giving herself some cover.
That seemed to be the worst move, as the instant her shoe dropped to the ground she was suddenly whisked away, staring down at the river as she soared through the air, the nebulous shadow of a monster rippling over the river’s surface.
I don’t think this was supposed to happen.
Aida looked up to see that she had somehow been trapped in some sticky material and was dangling from the abdomen of a massive spider.
She couldn’t help but scream. PLEASE KILL IT WITH FIRE!
The small spiders had been fine, because she thought of them as little practice golems, and they were far away from her and wholly focused on Kuri. But she was way too close to this one, and just the gleaming puke-brown abdomen itself was easily ten feet across. She saw the leg segments attached to the sternum, working in perfect unison as they moved the body along, as well as the thick brown hairs that furred the legs as the giant spider caught onto trees and then pushed off again. Her head was unceremoniously flung in various directions, a victim of gravity and momentum, making her nauseous.
She struggled in her cocoon, which she unfortunately realized was much too strong for her. The goo had stuck Aida’s wand hand to her chest, pointing at her own ear. She couldn’t use her wand.
Aida gritted her teeth, trying to send mana into the material holding her; alas, the spider’s own mana resistance was too strong, and was completely impenetrable to her mana piercing. She looked back up at the spider, feeling her breakfast come up as revulsion overtook her. The spinnerets pulsed, disgorging more of the sticky substance that slowly dripped along the thick rope she swung helplessly from.
She supposed the spider itself could be considered majestic. It was certainly symmetrical, especially in the way it moved: smooth, lithe, and elegant, deftly catching itself on surfaces and launching off in clean, efficient moves. But the way the legs rippled as it carried the massive body along made her ill.
Aida wondered if it would be easier to just pass out, so she didn’t have to keep looking at it. At least it will be a peaceful death.
Aida slammed into a tree, and stayed stuck there. The spider had detached her, and was now doing a could-be-comical tap dance with its furry legs as it rotated its body back around to survey its meal. It even had the audacity to tilt its head cutely at her as if it were a dog, clicking its fangs, observing its prey.
Her world swimming in front of her, Aida looked the thing back in its eyes. She saw her own terrified expression reflected eight ways, and that fear seemed to bring her clarity. The spider took on a green silhouette, and she noticed two things.
The first was that bigger creatures were easier to dissect. They were larger, and in addition to their raw strength being correspondingly greater, so were the cracks in their defenses.
The second thing was that the bright neon green in front of her wasn’t the only living creature interested in her.