[Warning: Now entering localized instance. Instance type: F rank monster lair]

I’d heard about monster lairs from the hunters when I did my training with them. They were the most common type of occurrence, and if left alone long enough, could turn into an infestation or even a dungeon. There were usually occupied by an invasive species of some sort and there was a prize at the end of the lair if it was conquered.

The lairs were rated based on monster difficulty. The most difficult dungeons were ranked SSS+, SS, S, A. They descended down from A to F, FF, and finally FFF as the weakest. Naturally this was just a general power estimate the interface assigned them based on population and combat viability. From what I’d heard it didn’t take into account the environment or skill sets of the people approaching. For example, you could find a lair ranked S that was a simple hole in the ground, easily cleared by a couple strong fire mages from the entrance. Or you could find a FF lair located in the center of an Aether desert filled with difficult obstacles designed to break ankles.

Basically, you should always take the ranking with a grain of salt and accept that it may be a little off. Generally it was pretty close though. At rank F there was a decent chance that Brook and I could clear the lair on our own, but I wasn’t sure it was worth the risk.

“Alright, now this is what I’m talking about.” I gave Brook the best exasperated side eye I could muster, mouth hanging slightly agape, “What? I’m so bored and there could be treasure or something. Pleeeeaase?”

“I’m just not sure we should risk it, Brook. You only have your two daggers and my magic isn’t really combat oriented…”

“Come on, Lukey. You never take me anywhere.” She was fake pouting again while hugging my arm to her chest and whining softly in my ear. Unrelated, but I was started overheating a bit and found it harder to think. Totally unrelated. “Besides, last time you battled you told me that you gained an extra max mana. We should do more battles to increase our stats, so you can be a more powerful wizard.”

“Alright, alright we can check it out.” It was the eyelash batting that did me in.

“Sweet, let's figure out where the entrance in!” Just like that she released my hostage arm back to me and started looking around for the lair. We didn’t have to look too hard. The lair was located in a ruins of a deteriorated cabin of some sort. All four walls were still standing, but after slowly entering, we found that the roof was missing and the interior walls had collapsed. There was what looked to be a large nest made of rotted branches and unrooted bushes.

I started to ask where the monsters were when Brook swatted my arm. She motioned at me to stay silent and pointed at the center of the vacant, overly-large, nest. There was a chest just sitting there. A literal treasure chest!.

The voice in my head told me that it was an obvious trap, but the other voice was yelling that it was free loot to be had. If we managed to claim the prize and escape without fighting, that would be all the better. Cautiously we climbed over the knee-high barrier of the edge of the nest and progressed to the center where the box was resting.

The chest was a very simple wooden box, two feet high and four feet long. Unfortunately there was no way to open it, as it was seamless. As far as I could tell the chest had been carved from a single piece of wood, with nowhere to open it or try to pry it apart.

Frustrated that I was taking so long, Brook pushed me aside to try her luck at opening it, only to find the same thing I did. We made eye contact and she tilted her head, giving me a perplexed look that almost mimicked the look Sophie gave me whenever we ate and didn’t feed her first.

I covered my mouth to try and muffle the snort of laughter that escaped at the thought and Brook squinted her eyes at me.

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At a loss for what to do next, she picked up the chest and shook it. There wasn’t a single noise from the box which confirmed to me that this was definitely a decoy and we had walked into a trap. I signaled to Brook that we should escape while we could but before we could go anywhere Sophie let out a whimper.

The sun flicked in and out a few times and I realized that monsters were above us. Naturally.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Three large mutant birds landed on the walls around us. Each of the birds probably stood about as tall as Brook, somewhere around 5’4, and had large brown talons that were currently carving furrows into the wall of the decrepit cabin. Their wings were black feathers like a raven and terminated in disgusting human-like hands with more large talons. The rest of the bird was a fleshy pink, apart from a mohawk of feathers than ran from the birds’ heads to their tails. Most disturbingly for me were the beaks and eyes.

Rather than bird eyes, these creatures had eyes that looked deceptively human with irises that were colored orange, light blue, and red. Their beaks were bone white and looked like someone had carved teeth into them to make it easier for them to rend flesh from their victims. On top of that, one of the birds had a long forked tongue hanging from inside its beak, which was open and presenting me a view of another row of canine teeth inside the bird’s mouth.

I stared at the loose tongued creature as it stared back at me. Then, although it should be impossible with a beak, the creature’s eyes lit up and it seemed to smile maliciously at me. The creature tensed, ready to take to the air, and as it moved forward to attack it slumped over and fell dead to the ground with one of Brook’s daggers buried hilt-deep into its left eye.

“Don’t just stand there, let’s kill this.” Brook withdrew her larger dagger from where she sheathed it on her side but did not whip this one through the air as it was not balanced correctly for throwing and if she missed, we’d have two enemies facing us down with only one of us armed.

The beasts screeched at us and then leapt down into the nest as we scrambled to stand back to back. By this point I had my spear in my hand and was ready to defend us. The birds circled us for a time, occasionally snapping at us to test our reaction time. In returned I jabbed back at them with my spear, hoping to pin one down at some point while Brook watched my back with her dagger.

Quickly I grew tired of waiting and whistled, calling Sophie into action. Over the past few days, whenever we’d hunt slightly faster creatures Sophie would help us catch them. Through practice and repetition, I managed to communicate when I wanted help by whistling a tune to her and she picked up on it rather quickly.

Sophie jumped up from where she’d been hiding in the nest behind the bird in front of me, the one with the orange eyes, and landed on its back. She bit at the back of its neck and pulled backwards with her four feet planted firmly on its back. In doing so, the neck of the bird was exposed for me to lash forward and impale, so I drove my spear under the creature’s chin and felled it with one strike.

The blue-eyed bird decided that this was its time to act and sprung forward to attack Brook while I was dislodging my spear from its brethren. She stumbled backwards and fell on her ass, allowing me to chuck my spear as hard as I could at the bird as it swooped down her like a bird of prey.

Now it is probably a good time to point out that my salvaged metal spear wasn’t the best ranged projectile that you could ask for. It wasn’t exactly aerodynamic or designed to be a javelin, but I was too far to do much else. The spear managed to collide with the bird’s right wing, knocking it aside with a sickening crunch. The would-be predator fell to the ground squirming and screeching at the top of its lungs.

From there, Brook made short work of it with her dagger, attacking from the side of its broken arm so it could not lash back out with its claws. Before long the disgusting creature lay dead along with the other two.

“That was way too easy,” Brook called from the other side of the cabin where she was retrieving her first dagger. Pop. With both daggers in hand she continued, “How in the world could that be a F rank? If anything that should have been a FF or just triple F. They basically just ran into our weapons and keeled over dead.”

“You really shouldn’t tempt the gods, Brook. You’re going to jinx us.”

“No, no, no. You’re the spell slinger here, Luke. I couldn’t jinx a fly.”

“You know good and well that isn’t what I was saying, it’s an idio-”

“Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw” An ear splitting screech, followed by the loudest thump yet, interrupted our little quarrel. The largest monster yet dropped a fully grown stag into the nest before landing 12 feet away from us.

“Oh, that kind of jinx.”