With a slightly worried side-eye, Janet watched yet another [Water Blade] launched from a spell circle in Aurelia’s outheld palm bounce off the locust’s carapace. This was the fourth time they had gone hunting together, so she knew that Aurelia’s power was not the issue. The locust was just that powerful.

“Why don’t you focus your spell on its joints?” she asked, her breath coming out in spurts due to all the effort she was putting in restraining the green and golden-yellow beast.

“Then it’ll just try to fly away!” Aurelia protested. “We don’t have a countermeasure for that yet.”

Janet sighed in defeat and added ten more tendrils of shadow beside the dozens she was using to keep the locust from moving. She had tried – and failed – to poison the insect’s mana by injecting pure shadow mana into its shadow. Its mana was that dense.

“I’ll hold it stationary for now,” she informed Aurelia as her eye wandered to her Status and the record of her dipping mana reserves. “Just prepare an [Earth Needle] barrage for when it unfurls its wings.”

That was the thing about locusts. Whenever they stopped feeling the ground under their legs, they immediately took flight. Aurelia had tried to explain how it happened by quoting her Beastology teacher, but all Janet got from it was that the insects possessed special sensors in their legs that inhibited flight. When contact with the rigid ground was broken...

“Do you think that will work?”

“If it fails, all that will happen is the locust will fly away,” she spoke through gritted teeth as beads of sweat rolled down her brow. “Worst case is that it attacks, and I dump all my mana into an uncontrolled [Construct Zone].”

Hearing the determination in her voice, Aurelia quickly wove together the spell circle that would release a torrent of thin, sharp constructs of compressed earth. It took her fifteen seconds.

“I really don’t want to get caught up in that madness again,” she intoned as she shifted her wind-element attacks onto the locust’s joints.

If she was not completely focused on restraining the beast, Janet would have chuckled at the comical sight of Aurelia’s terror. During a hunt for delicious pork three days back, the two of them had managed to get themselves lost in a network of diamondback hog dens.

With no discernible escape route and faced with 13 beasts that were armored to the nines, Janet had been left with no choice but to trigger [Construct Zone] underground.

“It was the only way I could think of to escape unscathed,” she pointed out with a slightly apologetic tone.

“Still don’t want to experience a repeat of it," Aurelia shook her head frantically as though that would dislodge the memory of the incident. “I could have died!”

“It wasn’t all bad; we now have entire months' worth of delicious pork," she tried to defend herself. “And we both levelled up!”

The excuse fell on deaf ears. Having spoken her piece, Aurelia fell into silence and concentrated on compressing air molecules into a glimmering arc right in front of her palm. By the time she was done, her hand was shaking with effort and her eyes were bloodshot. Still, the glowing overclocked basic spell threatening to blow up in her face was worth the effort.

With a final shout, Aurelia sent the glowing blade of air shooting forwards. A loud whistle which reminded Janet of Amurag’s bullets of water cutting through the air rang out.

“Lift it a bit higher!” That last push had misaligned the [Wind Blade]. Since it was nigh-impossible to recalibrate a spell effect once the spell circle had been executed, it fell upon Janet to align the locust’s limbs with the would-be scythe.

A few more points of mana left her core. It was beginning to feel overstretched, but she ignored that as she heaved in strain and lifted the heavy beast about half a meter off the ground, aligning the plane of its joints with the [Wind Blade] rocketing their way.

Just as the spell was about to make contact, the locust unfurled its translucent wings, breaking more than half of Janet’s shadowy tendrils in the process.

'Dang! Lifting it must have triggered its flight!’

One quick flap of wings was followed by three more. The locust wobbled for a moment, then all of Janet’s remaining constructs snapped.

The Wind Blade caught the posterior end of the locust’s abdomen and sheared it clean off, which sent greenish locust blood everywhere. The blade also scythed through the locust’s extended hind legs, which drove the beast into a tailspin.

Just then, the membrane of concentrated mana keeping the air compressed burst apart as Aurelia diverted her attention to the much needed [Earth Needle] spell. The released air exacerbated the insect’s flying troubles, allowing Janet to finally latch seven thick bands of shadow around its body. She managed to arrest its motion for the five seconds it took until Aurelia’s spell was fully charged.

“I’m ready!”

“Okay, I'm releasing the locust... now!”

The golden-specked insect that was three meters from head to bleeding posterior accelerated upwards. It seemed keen to retreat to safety, so its six-meter wingspan generated a veritable breeze as it droned away in a blind panic.

That was Aurelias cue to let loose her torrent of palm-length earth needles. They were useless against the reinforced armor of the adult insect, but the gossamer wings were another thing altogether.

Less than a second after the insect’s heart thundered hopefully with at the thought of a clear escape, it found itself careening towards the cold, hard ground of the violent jungle, its wings torn and tattered.

It was not going anywhere. Victory was in the putrid air that stank of locust guts, but Janet was not taking any chances. Before it could catch its bearings and use its remaining legs to launch a last-ditch attack, Janet activated [Throw]. The Basic Skill delivered [Void], her dagger’s blade cladded in a gyrating layer of mana to reduce resistance during penetration, and its edge honed by [Cutting Edge].

The locust turned towards the girls, its eyes burning with naked vengeance. Before its compound eyes could take stock, its deliberation was cut short by the dagger that carried all of Janet’s remining mana.

The armor on its head was designed to resist spells and blunt impacts. It was no match for the sharpened edge. The constantly circulating layer of condensed mana on the blade itself, along with the momentum Janet had supplied the blade with her [Throw] ensured that it pierced past all resistance.

In a blink, the dagger was lodged deep inside the insect’s brain.

Ding!

Your Party has slain Adult Jungle Locust – LV 30.

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Additional Experience gained for defeating an enemy above your level.

“We just took down a peak-stage Second Circle evolved beast!” Aurelia pumped her fists into the air before she remembered her exhaustion and began to pant and cough.

“Evolved beast?”

“The golden flecks on its armor,” Aurelia explained after she’d caught her breath. “They only appear in locusts that have incorporated some precious treasure into their bodies.”

“So that’s why that bastard was so tough.”

“Did you think every locust could withstand a spell barrage for minutes on end?” Aurelia glared at her in a look she’d been using frequently of late. It was her way of wordlessly calling her an idiot. It was sad, but the metal mage had all but forgotten that Janet was an awe-inspiring, inexplicable existence after the faux pas at the boar den.

“How was I supposed to know that?” she asked, her voice coming out excessively defensive as she used a rigid shadow construct to dig out her dagger from the mush that was left of the locust’s head. “That was the third locust we saw today that had golden flecks.”

“Really? The third?”

“Oh, proud and seasoned Adventurer, please tell me that your all-seeing eyes did not miss the dozens of locusts that have been flying towards the southeast all morning.”

“Wait...” a look of dawning horror overtook Aurelia’s visage. “Are you sure? Like 100% sure?”

Before she could feel remorseful for being a sarcastic bitch, Aurelia grabbed her arm and began pulling her towards the south. “In which direction are they heading?” she asked as her eyes swept the sky for signs of a gathering swarm.

“Calm down, Aura. What's this about?”

Aurelia did not calm down, nor did she appreciate being told to do so. However, she explained in a few clipped sentences that locust beast-types gathering into a swarm, especially one containing evolved individuals, meant disaster for not just the jungle, but all its adjacent lands.

“Locusts are highly territorial, and other than during mating, they attack other members of their species on sight. Any hints of cooperation should be taken for what they are: warnings of imminent catastrophe.”

Seeing her friend so disturbed forced Janet to take the matter seriously. Between the two of them, she was the nerdy kid full of theoretical knowledge who would very likely walk into a serpent’s maw thinking it to be a warm cave due to the misting breath, while Aurelia was the more streetwise friend that kept them both out of trouble.

She straightened her half-dragging, half-stumbling gait and began pulling Aurelia towards the direction she felt an unusual agglomeration of mana. It was towards the southeast as well, which made her think that whatever it was that she was detecting had changed the locusts’ behavior.

“By the way, do you think we should have informed Sylthis and Darius before running off to Brewer-knows-where?” Aurelia’s cooler head had taken back control after her heightened emotions petered out.

“Oh, Sylthis always keeps an eye on our whereabouts,” she sniggered at the bad pun. “If we’re close to dying, they’ll rush to the rescue.”

“Close to dying?” Aurelia sounded horrified. “Not before?”

“If we go out on hunts thinking that we’re safe from any danger, there’ll be no sense of jeopardy. That feeling of safety will be like a lead weight on experience gain.”

Aurelia remained silent, but Janet could feel her eyes drilling into the back of her head. “What?”

“Sometimes you...” Aurelia picked her words carefully. “In some instances, the way you speak makes me feel like you don’t fear dying.”

Janet swallowed the instinctive response that rose to her throat. Just chirping out a nonchalant "It’s complicated" and expecting the matter to be dropped would be like releasing a mind-eating plague into a city and hoping that it will be overcome by bonds of family and ties of friendship.

Luckily, her ears picked up a deep, ominous buzzing in the air. Hundreds, if not thousands of wings were flapping continuously. “We’re here,” she announced.

We’re not done talking...”

“Aura, it’s not just 100 locusts,” she warned. “My [Mana Sight] is picking up more than a thousand different signatures.”

“But...” Aurelia clamped her mouth with her palm, fearful that the swarm would hear her and attack. “That should be impossible this early into locust season,” she whispered.

“Odd thing is, they seem to all be cycling around one central point.”

“Like a sphere?”

“Or a bowl, more like.”

Both transfixed in irrational fear and inundated by the quite real sense of danger, they stood there, about 300 meters from the bustling swarm, unable to take another step into the fray.

“Sylthis’ sight will penetrate through the swarms, right?”

“I mean... we’ve already come this far,” Janet tried to encourage her friend, but her legs simply refused to move. It was one thing to attack a den of 20 beasts. A swarm made up of potentially deadly, heavily armored insects, each of whom would take a full tank of mana to dispatch, was a whole different prospect.

“We can’t just stand here doing nothing, Janet.”

“I know!” she agreed. “Something just doesn’t feel right.”

“You noticed too?”

Rather than answer, Janet inspected her mental state. For some reason, the mere notion of taking another step felt impossible. Her feet were rooted to the ground, and any attempt to command them to move made her body tremble with mind-numbing terror.

Fear was natural. It was the emotion that allowed everyone, beasts included, to judge danger and live to see another day. All-encompassing fear though, was fishy. Janet had faced down Lord Amurag in his hulking Lancing Deer form. She had stood up to a cult that was hell-bent on her death, then had afterwards played a game of verbal ping-pong with a deity.

She was no stranger to fear. In fact, she had lived smothered under its cowl for many years, time enough to grow really intimate with her own sense of fright. Whatever she was feeling in that moment did not originate from her.

A quick look to the side revealed that Aurelia was shaking in her boots. Literally. Her face was pale, sweat was rolling down her temples, and her eyes looked unblinkingly into the middle distance, as though her deepest fear had materialized there.

“Are you okay?”

Her friend did not answer.

Annoyed and incensed by whatever was taking place, Janet cycled her mana. She made sure to stimulate the full effect of her shadow mana – the caustic, magic-eroding effect, and at the same time sparked up one or two specks of demonic flame so anything foreign in her system would be corroded and scorched to ash.

Immediately, status notifications lit up in front of her eyes.

You have fallen under the effect of [Nethergill toxin]

You have gained the Status effect: [Fearful]

You have gained the Status effect: [Terrified]

You have gained...

[Nethergill toxin] has been purged from your mana channels.

Ding!

You have gained experience

“Well, that’s terrifying,” she shuddered in what felt like true, organic fear.

As her eyes darted about to scour the jungle for threats, she saw it. There, concealed in a tree’s shadow, was the unassuming culprit. It was a deep purple and speckled with black spots. The shadows seemed deeper around it, but Janet knew she was looking at a dense cloud of black spores.

[Identify] returned the expected result.

[Nethergill Mushroom] - highly poisonous

The fruiting body of a Nethergill Mycelium, this mushroom releases spores into its immediate vicinity that once inhaled, inflict mental effects on the victim, depending upon the mycelium’s intent. The effects can range from euphoric ecstasy to deep terror.

Can be used to concoct potions and toxins that affect the mind.

Can be used in the creation of intelligence-boosting Elixirs.

Janet read the description four times before she realized that she was constantly skipping the line that said she’d gained the [Confused] Status effect. It looked like the mycelium could get to her even with her mana cycling like a fountain and demonic flame slowly burning through her reserves of energy.

Truly terrified to remain there a moment longer, she picked Aurelia up like a sack of fruits, slung her over her shoulder, and booked it.

As she left, a brief activation of [Shadow Authority] facilitated the deployment of a shovel-shaped shadow construct that dug out the mushroom along with some of the soul that surrounded it. Since the constructs were her mana, it only took a simple command for the mushroom to disappear into her storage, safe, secure and held in perfect stasis.

“What... what happened?” Aurelia asked when she broke out of her daze.

“Nethergill.”

“Please say you’re joking.”

“It’s all there in your System messages,” she replied, her speed not falling for an instant.

For a few minutes, the only sound Janet heard was her own controlled breath and the pounding of her boots on the soft carpet of grass. But she couldn’t be sure of what lay beneath the grass. With Nethergill about, no place but the domain she’d claimed complete control over was safe.

“This is really bad, isn’t it?” Aurelia’s words came out slurred.

“The land I claimed...” Janet thought she’d imagined it, but a certain telltale buzz of hundreds of wings seemed to be drawing closer. “We should be safe there.”

There was no need to make Aura panic. She still had not recovered fully. Piling more on her plate would be unkind. Instead, she'd get them both as close to Darius and Sylthis as she could. Hopefully, dumping all her mana into an explosion of fire and shadow would hold off the locusts until the two powerhouses came to their rescue.

“Gaia’s green tendrils, Aurelia! What do you think you’re doing?” Her friend let out a throaty groan that was accompanied by something that sounded a lot like gnashing teeth. “Are you seriously trying to claw apart my spine right now?”