Camellia’s heart pounded in her chest as she stared at the beast below her. It was absolutely enormous, rivaling the size of some of the smaller buildings back in the dungeon. Even though it was standing at the bottom of what looked to be a thirty or forty foot drop, its head was only a few feet below Camellia.
Fortunately, it also appeared to be an herbivore, judging by its shape, the fact that it was eating trees whole, and the barren patch of land left in its wake, but that really only meant that it wouldn’t be actively hunting them. It had a wicked-looking set of spikes running down its back and onto its tail, and Camellia had no doubt it would defend itself from anything that looked threatening.
Worse still was the readings she was getting from her Skills. After sizing up only a few monsters she had obtained a Skill that allowed her to see the level of an enemy, and this one was level one hundred and ten. As far as she was aware, that was over twice the maximum level of any member of the swarm, and that meant it was probably several evolutions above them in power.
Still…as awe-inspiring as the creature was, another thought dominated Camellia’s mind – the possibility of conversion, not just for that monster, but for things in general. It just changed so much that she couldn’t help but get distracted by it. Whereas before a monster like this would be one to avoid at all costs, now she was thinking about how best to trap it and convert it.
And the more they converted, the more their forces would grow, which meant they would be able to convert more things faster than they could previously. It made them immune to the standard wear and tear an army would experience, while also allowing for more varied growth than people had any chance of seeing.
She shook her head, snapping herself out of her thoughts. She was in dangerous terrain right now, and she couldn’t afford to get lost in contemplation. She turned her attention back to the beast and the trail it had left, and her jaw nearly dropped; the section of forest that had been decimated by it was growing back before her eyes, and, looking further down the trail, she could see that the regrowth had reached the point where she couldn’t even tell the beast had been through.
She wasn’t sure whether that was something the beast did or something that was a property of the plants in this area, but either way she wanted some samples. Fortunately, Rose had made them stock up on modeling wax while they were testing their abilities, so she was able to grab some of the plants and bring it back.
That was another thing modeling wax made radically different; before, if she wanted to bring back live plant samples, that would require specialized magic or having to take an annoying amount of care when it came to replanting the specimen and transporting it back. Now she just had to cocoon it and take the cocoon back with her, which was far easier.
She carefully made her way down the slope to her right, taking her time to make sure that the monster didn’t notice her. She was invisible, sure, but that didn’t mean much; it was highly possible the monster had some way of noticing invisible creatures, and even if it didn’t, it could still hear or smell her, so invisibility wasn’t a catch-all solution to stealth.
By the time she got down to the regrowing forest, another problem became apparent; several other monsters were taking the opportunity provided by the suddenly-young patch of land to eat some plants they normally wouldn’t be able to reach. None of them were insanely strong and they all appeared to be herbivores, but some of their levels reached the low thirties, and where herbivores gathered…carnivores were sure to appear, eventually.
Still, that really just meant she had to be quick in grabbing her sample, at which point she’d head back to the portal. She’d seen enough of this place for a preliminary report, and she couldn’t afford to lug around a sample and sneak around.
So, she darted towards what appeared to be a tree sapling, not more than a foot tall. She grabbed it, letting the modeling wax flow and envelop it, her invisibility dropping as she did so. The nearby monsters jumped at her sudden appearance, but she wasn’t there for more than five seconds, as she let the process finish, grabbed the cocoon, and instantly went invisible again. She grabbed the coil of rope she had brought with her and quickly lashed the cocoon to her back, then quickly began to make her way back to the portal.
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“Camellia, you’re alone?” Lia asked. “You’re not with Dahlia? Did something happen?”
“No, my Queen.” Dahlia said. “Seeing as how both our stealth and combat abilities are radically different, we decided to split up. I would be no help to her in combat, and she would only hold me back in stealth. I am unaware of her current status, but I had enough information for a preliminary report, so I decided to return.”
“What’s that in the cocoon on your back?” Rose asked curiously.
“I’m not sure.” Camellia admitted, undoing the rope tying the cocoon to her back and placing the cocoon on the ground. “It requires a bit of explanation. I obtained a Skill that allowed me to view the level of creatures I’m looking at, and I had come across a gargantuan beast of level one hundred and ten.”
Rose winced. “That’s not good news.” She muttered.
“All signs point to it being herbivorous.” Camellia said calmly. “But we would do well to avoid angering it. It was the size of some of the buildings in this dungeon, and while size is not necessarily an indicator of power, if it truly isn’t a predator, it must be strong enough to ward off the other predators in the area. It’s certainly not hiding from them.
“That being said, it was in the process of eating entire swathes of forest whole when I came across it. Yet…oddly enough, the forest was growing back before my very eyes, plants aging what looked like years within minutes. I’m unsure whether it was a property of the forest or a property of the creature, but I figured it was worth looking into and brought back a tree that was in the process of sprouting.”
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“Curious.” Rose said. “What else do you have to report?”
“Aside from the big one, all the monsters I saw had levels ranging from ten to forty. While that alone is not a super reliable indication of their power given what we now know about evolutions, I think it is likely that we would be somewhat successful in guerilla operations if necessary. It is my opinion that we should start organizing expendable strike teams to begin extracting monsters and bolstering our forces immediately.”
Lia frowned. “We’ll have to organize some sort of trial to figure out how effective non-enlightened units are in stealth situations if we want to do that.” She said. “I don’t want to reveal ourselves too much yet.”
“With all due respect, is there a reason we’re being so cautious?” Camellia asked. “This might just be my opinion, but it feels like we’re assuming all the inhabitants of the spine are going to be intelligent and entirely focused on hunting us down. We should only have an issue if we become seen as a consistent prey source. We can easily get away with a couple of raids.”
“I…” Rose began, but trailed off, a thoughtful look crossing her face. “I admit I was thinking that way, yeah.”
“But I don’t think it’s entirely wrong.” Lia said. “We’re not worried about the random monsters. We’re worried about one or two big and intelligent monsters. Those are always what seem to dismantle any expeditions sent into the Spine.”
“But that’s a threat we will always have to consider.” Camellia pressed. “And I think I found the biggest threat in the area, and I doubt it’s actively trying to hunt things. You said that this Amelia likely put you in one of the safer positions in the Spine, right? We don’t have infinite time to deal with this; Amelia is gone, and there’s no way the countries won’t react to the disappearance of a Hero. We have to take some risks, or we’ll lose out in the long run.”
Rose sighed. “You’re right.” She said. “I was being too cautious. Let’s set those stealth trials up, and we’ll begin kidnapping monsters once we’ve figured out a good raiding team.”
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“Alright, Queenie, I have a report from – what’s going on here?” Chrys asked, skidding to a halt as she ran up to Lia.
“Oh, we’re doing some tests to see how stealthy non-enlightened members of the swarm can be.” Lia said, looking out over the makeshift arena they had set up. They had put plenty of cover in the open areas around the dorm, and over the past hour or two they had been trying all sorts of different things to gauge the swarm.
And, to Lia’s surprise, the answer was that some creatures could be surprisingly stealthy when necessary. It was mostly the scouts or creatures that already had some stealth-adjacent tendencies, but they were serviceable enough. Rose had said that it was probably baked into how monsters worked, like how Lia’s siblings had gained basic combat knowledge after their conversion; some monsters needed to be stealthy, so the system gave them that capability.
“Right, um, anyway, Dahlia got back and gave me her report.” Chrys finished. “And things are looking promising. She said she didn’t run into anything too crazy, like the big thingy Camellia saw. At base, the monsters seem to be just a bit stronger than us, so we should be able to start making significant headway after get a few of those monsters for ourselves.”
She paused, clearly working up her courage, then nodded to herself and continued. “With the new information in mind, Violet and I will be taking back to the field and leading operations ourselves. With me at the front, and the buffs I give to our scouts, we should be able to see far more success than we would otherwise.”
Rose bit her lip as she thought on that, then sighed. “Fine. I suppose that’s the right call to make. Just promise me that you’ll be extremely careful.”
“I will!” Chrys chirped. “I’m gonna go get Violet now, and head out immediately!” She scampered off without another word, leaving Rose and Lia standing there somewhat awkwardly.
“We can have her stay back if you want.” Lia said quietly. “She doesn’t have to go.”
“No, it’s fine.” Rose said. “I can’t protect her forever, nor should I. In her previous life she was always cooped up due to her station, she deserves to be freer in this one.”
“Speaking of past lives, how are your memories coming?”
“All of the important ones are back, if a little fuzzy.” Rose said. “And many of the unimportant ones are likewise back. I don’t know if my memories will ever be as sharp as ever, but at this rate…I should have them all back within three months. “
“I don’t feel like I need to ask, but…just in case, you used to be worried about growing more rebellious and discontent as your memories return, how are you feeling about that now?”
Rose blushed, turning away from Lia. “If anything, I feel less desire to “rebel” now. My memories…are not a concern any longer.”
“That’s, um, good to hear.” Lia said. There was a few moments of awkward silence, neither girl quite sure what to say.
“I…think the tests are proving promising.” Rose eventually said. “For the stealth stuff, that is. These monsters are a lot better than I had hoped.”
“I was kind of surprised too.” Lia said. “Still…do you really think sending them in now is going to be worth the risk?”
Rose sighed. “Probably. Camellia’s right – a Hero going missing isn’t just ignored, no matter what the Hero might have said beforehand. To tell you the truth, Amelia’s put us in a very awkward position, even if it’s not really her fault. If she was here, we would probably have the brute strength needed to push into the Spine without any significant problems. If she was still living her old life, then we would likewise have the time to do so as carefully as we wanted.
“But now we have neither of those luxuries. I give it a month tops before search parties are mobilized, and they’re going to pretty quickly realize that Amelia’s not in any country.” Rose paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Aside from the Spine, are there any obvious unexplored areas in this day and age?”
Lia shrugged. “We’re yet to make any significant forays across the ocean. We’re pretty sure there’s a sizeable landmass on the other side, but nothing concrete. Aside from that…no, it’s really just the Spine.”
“Great.” Rose said, grimacing. “They’re absolutely going to head to the Spine, then. I don’t know how strong a force can be mustered for the effort of finding the Hero, but…well, I’m assuming they’ll at least poke their heads into any dungeons they find, and we’re going to be incredibly obvious if they find ours. Do you have any way of figuring out a set of coordinates for our location or anything?”
Lia shook her head. “Not that I know of, but…we can probably get a rough estimate if we use the stars? I’m sure we can find some charts in the observ…” Lia trailed off.
“What?” Rose asked. “Did you remember something?”
“Um, I kinda converted the boss that was in there and never went back to see how it turned out?” Lia admitted. “So…uh, wanna go do that, and look for some star charts, while we’re there?”
“Sure.” Rose said, then turned back to the arena they had set up. “That’s enough!” She called out. “Go rest!” She turned back to Lia, smiling slightly. “Alright, let’s go.”
Lia slipped her hand into Rose’s. “It’s a date, then.”