Tana, Esofy, Chyzu, a stranger named Tasa and I are at the entrance of the Glade, a total of twenty of us setting up the subcamp. A few defensive structures are being built, and more tents are pitched to cover the supplies. We don't actually know if it can rain in here, but the possibility isn't zero.
With the subcamp set up, we’ll take turns to enter the Glade, after deciding which of the four squads will go in which direction within and who will stay behind to manage the subcamp. We’re going to rotate that duty so that everyone gets a chance to enter the Glade and everyone gets a change to rest. The groups that went to the other dens are also each rotating one of their squads back to the main camp, but since we only have four squads in total we’re not doing that.
I scouted the area instead of helping set up, since it's important to know what we are getting ourselves into.
With Tasa as our cartographer, our first goal is to map the place out, not to just go as far as we can. Because the slow and steady method would take forever, I argued during the planning stage that we should just use our advanced sensing skills to scout ahead; that way we wouldn’t have to physically travel through the Glade to map it out. Tasa disagreed at the time, as did others who don't have an advanced sensing skill.
I vowed to learn how to draw maps, since with my boosted memory, I won't have to take the time to draw each section out before moving on. I can sweep the landscape and draw it later, and I have a head start with my previous scouting.
Entering the Glade, we find ourselves in a sparsely wooded area with walls of trees obviously acting to separate rooms. The first room is the largest, with four groups of cuddling Felins lying near, around, on and under each other. The large tiger-like monsters look rather cute... until their mouths open far too wide, like a weird hybrid of a snake and shark with several rows of long pointy teeth that fold out from a retracted position. The Felins, disturbed by our entrance, roar with an earsplitting screech and lunge forward, only for a rain of fairies to suddenly descend from the high canopy. Of course I prepared my ordinance before we entered!
We want the pelts, so I didn't use exploding fairies, but with over three hundred fairies and a half-dozen familiars, two thirds of the Felins die before reaching us. Esofy and Tana target one of the remaining ones while Chyzu and Tasa handle another, leaving the last for me. It lunges... and falls right through the intangible body created by [Summon Clone]. I giggle silently next to the fake, watching the bewildered Felin tilt its head in a terrifying display of teeth.
It tries again, but this time I have a fairy hidden in the fake and more fairies gathering above. A dozen fairies descend onto my Felin and I watch as its vitality drops below half. It angrily screeches and swipes at the fake, pawing at it with wide-eyed confusion, then sniffs it, but rears back when a fairy attacks its nose.
Yeah, I knew scent might be an issue, glad I prepared.
Everyone is wearing a ribbon of air mana, enchanted to prevent scents from escaping, one of my many basic preparations.
The dying screech of a Felin comes from Esofy's direction, while a groan comes from Chyzu's Felin.
I finish off mine and watch Tasa freeze the last one. Due to their size, we can't put them in storage, but we are right at the entrance, so the others drag the bodies back to the subcamp. I’m walking with them, but I leave a Clone behind and use it to summon the fairies I’ll use for the next room when we return.
"Save some for us, Aly," Chyzu complains, tugging the large Felin’s legs to move it back to the subcamp.
"Why isn't she helping with any physical labor?" Tasa mutters under her breath.
"I'm not seeing you scout ahead," I retort, sticking my tongue out playfully.
I purposely ignore my system messages; I'll check them once the expedition is over. Looking around as we walk through the subcamp, the first group on ‘camp duty’ is skinning the bodies that the other groups are bringing back. One group is working their way down the left-most route, another the right-most, while we take the center route.
Leaving the bodies in the pile and returning to the Glade, we enter the second room and my fairies descend to kill half of the Felins within, doing very little visible damage to the skin due to the way that beauty essence deals damage. I make sure to leave some alive so that the rest can handle them while I provide support.. and then it’s back to the camp again with the bodies, and back again into the Glade. Room after room, containing Felin groups ranging from two up to nine or ten like the first room, we travel back and forth seemingly endlessly with Tasa slowly mapping the place out, until we reach a room already cleared by another group – clearly the different routes join up.
"Why didn't we bring anything to cart the bodies back?" I complain as we backtrack for the last time before our shift as the ‘camp group’, carrying the three bodies from the room before the already-cleared one, with their precious pelts. Lightning Felins, Dark Felins, Earth Felins, all very useful as furs and skins even if all the other parts of their poisonous corpses are useless. The teeth are fragile and break easily; probably by design, judging by how their jaws are shaped.
My large Udomr Pearl could be enchanted to hold at least five bodies; too bad I left it at home. I can, however, make a large dark crystal. Very well, let's make the dark crystal and enchant it afterwards to make a storage device. Not now though, I resist the urge to jump into a new project on the spot.
"How are you doing on levels?" I ask Tana, who is hauling a Felin body bigger than he is; he must have put a lot of points into his strength stat.
"G-Gained twenty levels already," he shyly replies. It's actually kind of cute how he blushes from eye contact.
Although he is a lower level, we are in a party, so the experience gains even out for him. He’s probably not the only one making gains, if the pile of bodies back at the subcamp is anything to judge by; they’re becoming a small hill.
It’s our turn to switch with the ‘camp group’: the second rotation, so we’re the third group of the four to have a chance to rest and heal. Not that we really need healing, between Tana and I. It occurs to me that spell crystals for healing would have been a smart idea; something to think about for the next expedition.
"I'll take stock of our supplies," I say, instantly jumping on the least physical job. The others will have to skin the ever-growing mound of dead Felins and burn the remains; hopefully the fire neutralises the poisons in the corpses rather than making it airborne or something. There must be around a hundred now waiting to be processed; a lot, but given how many people will want them, it's actually a small amount. Still, why waste so much time bringing back the bodies? Some of these are of extremely low quality, damage from weapons or spells making them completely unusable.
I get that half the reason why there's an expedition at all is for resources, but we'd get far stronger if we just ignored that. Then we could find higher-level dens and get better resources; stupid politics! I know this was okayed by the elders, but did they really have to bring their politics into it?!
I take my time to look over our supplies. Many healing bandages are being used up; the other groups aren't as careful as they should be. Yep, definitely need healing spell crystals next time. I also have my second mind and disconnected sphere of perception from [Sense Mana] and [Sense Soul] scouting the subcamp’s vicinity in case any monsters are attracted to the bodies.
They are. I can see souls and mana signatures for a large pack of… they look like wolves from my past life’s memories, only with long spines on their backs, so… Spine Wolves?
This is bad, isn't it? I can see more stalking closer through the trees on the other side of the subcamp from the Glade entrance, the pack growing in numbers; more than ten are surrounding us now and they’re still coming.
"We're surrounded by monsters; get ready for a fight!" I call out, sound mana emanating from me with the use of [Acting]’s latest breakthrough. I start summoning and powering up my fairies; stupid that I didn't set up a perimeter of them already. I have my familiars out, but I really should have prepared better for this situation.
Before I can finish preparing, the wolves attack, growling and snarling as they emerge from the underbrush, but that’s just the distraction group. Tana and Tasa are so focused on them that they don’t notice more are running silently in behind us. They can't fool Esofy, Chyzu or I, however. Exploding fairies detonate before they make it past the defensive structures, but most of the wolves don't die, only whimpering in pain.
Spine Wolf (Major) Fang Charger (Adept)
"Major and Adept!" I shout. I don't yet have the ability to see levels, but I can see both tiers. The normal [Analyze] skill would show the race tier and class level but not the class tier.
"Level eighty to one hundred twenty!" Esofy informs us.
I see with [Sense Mana] that most of them have some sort of resistance skill – that I can’t quite work out the specifics of – and they have a much higher amount of vitality than their levels would imply. A few start to drag some Felin bodies away as the rest attack us, utilizing hit and run tactics to limit their casualties.
I use [Echoes of Reality] to create illusions of reinforcements charging out of the dungeon. The pack redirects some of their forces to deal with the fakes, which gives the rest of my group enough breathing room to cull the wolves’ numbers a bit. However, it also indicates a worrying level of either intelligence or control on the part of the monsters.
The wolves charge the illusory reinforcements only to bite down on air, their mouths hitting nothing. Although I can’t really read their expressions, I’d like to imagine that they show visible confusion, then anger as they realize they've been bamboozled.
Smart ones, are we? Too late for you.
Exploding fairies descend onto them, exploding with deadly bursts of mana. The Spine Wolves' fur is shredded, but it only reveals an undercoat that I think is the source of their resistance skill, leaving many unharmed and only a few dead.
A massive wolf emerges from between the trees, growling.
"Into the Glade!" Esofy commands; we were already outmatched, and this makes it much worse.
The group flees the camp and I examine the boss.
Alpha Spine Wolf (Grand) Pack Emperor (Major)
"Level three hundred!" Chyzu says.
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My lower physical stats have me trailing at the rear, several wolves chasing me down. One nips at my heels, but what happens next has my heart skip a beat in surprise. Just as the rest of the group enters the Glade, calling for me to hurry up, the Alpha teleports between us, cutting me off from the rest of the group.
"Alysara!" Tana screams and Tasa gasps in horror as the large wolf bites down on me... then it looks up, annoyed. Bamboozled again! Seeing me unharmed, Tana looks relieved while Tasa is just confused. I suppose that probably did look a bit strange to her if she didn’t know about my Clones, but I’m perfectly safe; I never even left the main camp with my real body, I’ve just been using [Summon Clone] and [Summon Familiar] as remote spellcasting anchors and carefully avoiding anything physical that would give away my lack of substance.
Esofy and Chyzu drag the others away, already having been aware of the deception that I had planned to use to play a trick on the other two; I didn’t mean to scare them like this but there wasn’t any time to tell them what I was doing.
I stick my immaterial tongue out at the boss, my real body still seated comfortably in a tent, and send down another hundred fairies from the canopy. Explosions ring out as the wolves die or have their protective layer burned off; I then drop down yet another hundred to finish off the survivors, leaving the Alpha howling in anger at its lost pack for a few seconds before it darts off in pursuit of the others. Around me, the camp is a mess, and supplies have been blown in every direction; I couldn’t start properly exploding things while the others were here.
With my Clone, now invisible, and my second sphere of perception, I follow the Alpha through the Glade while it chases the group, harassing it with fairies and Familiars until I finally just make everyone invisible with a spell. As the group sneaks away, I split my sphere of perception off to follow them while leaving my invisible Clone with the Alpha, which is casting about in search of them.
The Alpha, once again howling in anger at having lost its prey and unaware of my Clone following it, runs into some Felins. Luckily, dungeon monsters don’t seem to be friendly towards each other, and the Felins attack the Alpha the same as they do us. They also die quite quickly, much like they do against us, even with me sending a consistent stream of fairies to damage the Alpha.
The invisibility on my Clone fades and the Alpha growls at me, the look in its eyes promising a long, torturous death. I laugh in its face and send a fairy at one of its eyes, causing it to wince back in pain. Despite all my attacks and the fight against the Felins its vitality is still at ninety percent and I am constantly battling its quick regeneration, so the laugh is mostly for show, the result of [Acting] pushing me into the role of a brave warrior type of character to help me remain calm in the heat of battle.
I need a more powerful attack. I can try to channel a spell worth thousands of mana, but would that help, or would it just be wasting mana?
I watch through my sphere of perception as the rest of my group runs into another five, Esofy telling them what’s happening while Tana heals anyone who needs it. Chyzu is saying something to Tasa and Tana, probably taking the relative calm as an opportunity to properly explain that I am back in the main camp and completely safe.
Returning my attention to the Alpha, I keep attacking while it sniffs the air, looking for a scent to follow. My precaution against that particular method of detection is paying off tremendously, although the scent-concealing ribbons were intended for use against the Felins. I target its ears, its eyes, its nose, harassing whatever I think might be sensitive while it looks at my intangible Clone with ever-growing fury.
Meanwhile, the group – of ten now – meets up with another, leaving only one more left to find. The Alpha continues to search...and soon perks up, focusing in one direction. As it runs off, my Clone following behind it, I can only assume it’s somehow caught a scent trail.
I have taken out twenty percent of its vitality now, no longer using the mana-inefficient exploding fairies. I continue to summon and empower my fairies as fast as I can, but the Alpha just ignores me. Canceling the spell that is transmitting sounds to me through my Clone's link would help me conserve mana, but being able to hear if someone calls for me – whenever the Alpha reaches the end of the trail it’s following – is too important.
It doesn’t take long for exactly that to happen; one of the members of the group containing Uloru and Kadona – the gravity Bond hammer-wielder I defeated in the tournament and her master, who lost to Esofy – has lost her scent-concealing ribbon. The group at first gathers in a formation but, after [Analyzing] the Alpha and realizing how strong it is, they turn and flee. It’s too late though, the Alpha teleports in front of them, a burst of space essence spreading out from its destination.
The group screams and tries to change direction. I turn them invisible and cast a spell to conceal their scent, but my efforts are in vain as the Alpha quickly spins around and sweeps them all off their feet with its large tail.
It manages to pin someone down somehow, despite them being invisible, and grins sadistically. Spells and arrows fly out from the rest of the group in an attempt to stop the Alpha; I suddenly recognize Klora, the archer I fought, although the arrows she’s using now are significantly larger and heavier than the ones she had then. Their efforts are in vain, unfortunately; the Alpha bites down on the woman, killing her, then growls and turns toward Klora’s direction. There’s a moment of shocked stillness, the other four members of the group likely witnessing this kind of violent death for the first time, and then a roar of equal parts rage, sorrow and shock.
“We must fight! We cannot let this beast take any more lives!” In the moment of silence following Kadona’s roar, Esofy can be heard nearby, rallying everybody else. I realise suddenly that I’d stopped paying attention to them, although my sphere of perception had remained close.
With everybody almost together now, I dissolve the sphere of perception and focus my full attention through my Clone, onto the Alpha and the surviving four Runalymo. The moment of shock ends, the lingering stillness broken when Kadona’s massive two-handed sword cleaves down on the Alpha's neck, landing in a vulnerable spot between two vertebrae. Weapons like that were far too large and unwieldy for anyone in my old world, but now they’re perfect for this sort of thing. The wolf flinches, but isn’t really hurt until Uloru jumps and slams her hammer down onto the buster sword, forcing it halfway through the wolf's neck.
I am initially surprised when the Alpha doesn’t fall limp from having its spine severed, but after a moment the Guardian’s words from my [Mana Toxicity Tolerance] training surface, about how vitality will continue to animate the body even if it really shouldn’t be able to move.
As Kadona and Uloru fight, Klora, and the other one who I think is an ice mage judging by her internal mana, run towards Esofy’s voice.
"Again!" Kadona shouts, but the wolf throws them off, catching Uloru's leg in its jaws and shaking her. She screams in pain, but manages to slam her hammer into the eye of the monster, forcing it to drop her. Somehow, despite the group still being invisible, the wolf is doing a lot of damage to them, so I can only assume that it has some sensing skill. It's also still above half vitality, and its neck wound is slowly closing up, so this is not going well.
The fleeing mage shoots a spear of ice as she runs, piercing the Alpha's leg and pinning it to the ground. The Alpha, unfazed, rips the ice spear out and charges in the direction it came from. It catches up with them but bites only air, just barely missing its invisible target, but in the next moment another wide sweep of its tail trips the desperately fleeing pair.
Kadona picks herself up off the ground, charges forward and swings her buster sword at the already-wounded leg, aiming for a tendon. Aided by Uloru's weight manipulation, the sword cuts through fur, skin and flesh and into the bone. The Alpha stumbles but still manages to rake the downed ice mage with its claws. Turning away from Klora as she scrambles to her feet and keeps running, and leaving the woman it just crippled to scream on the ground, the now-limping but clearly enraged Alpha, lunges at Kadona with its mouth open.
I order one of my exploding fairies to fly into the Alpha’s mouth, hoping to use the blast to prevent it from biting Kadona. It's not going to make it! I realize. Panicking, I push [Fairy Rush] to try and make it go faster; a burst of mana leaves me and enters the fairy, which gains a burst of acceleration. Kadona freezes up, surprised by the Alpha’s counter-attack, but shakes off her shock and retreats when my fairy dives past her, into the throat of the monster, and detonates. A massive chunk of the Alpha's vitality disappears as it coughs and snorts, shaking its head.
Just then, the united force lead by Esofy arrives with a warcry and launches a barrage of spells and arrows towards the monster, Klora collapsing to the ground, shaking, as they run past her. Tana and another healer rush to the aid of Uloru and the crippled ice mage.
The Alpha looks around for a moment and prepares to charge the reinforcing group, only for the room to shift and distort under the effects of [Echoes of Reality], the paths of incoming spells and arrows seeming to warp and bend. The Alpha charges anyway, but ends up misjudging its direction and slamming head-first into a wall of trees.
Blood spills from the Alpha’s wounds and burns marr its fur as jets of flame and bolts of lightning cast from mages strike its body, but it is not done yet. It draws a deep breath and gives a long, earsplitting howl, making everybody cover their ears in pain. I have to alter the spell that’s sending sounds from my Clone back to me to reduce the volume. The howl, which must be a skill of some kind, keeps going on and on until half the group has curled up on the floor and fallen unconscious from the pain. The Alpha closes its eyes for a moment and then, to my shock, its vitality starts rapidly increasing and its wounds close while its mana plummets. At the same time, my invisibility spell on the four who originally got attacked fades, but I don’t have time or attention to spare to renew it.
"Go for the neck! Before it heals all the way!" I shout through my clone. Uloru, now fully healed by Tana, nods and follows after Kadona, who jumps up to swing her massive sword down onto the wolf’s neck again. More intelligent or more experienced than we expected, the wolf twists its neck and suddenly looks up, opening its mouth. Realizing too late that we have fallen for its trap, I send more bursts of speed to my fairies, who dive toward the gaping maw; only one gets in, not enough to blow it up before the massive jaws snap shut on Kadona’s legs, biting her in half and sending everything above her hips flying off to one side. The fairy that made it explodes while Esofy lunges forward with a longsword, stabbing deeply into its neck.
"Master!" Uloru cries, slamming her hammer on the Alpha's ear, dazing the beast.
Tana rushes forward and conjures blood-red flames on Kadona’s wound, closing it slowly. Three of my Familiars dash forward to help heal, but Kadona's vitality is dropping too fast. The other half of her had fallen out of the Alpha's mouth when the fairy exploded; one of the legs is missing, and it’s badly damaged, but reattaching it might save her life before her vitality is fully drained from trying to keep her body animated.
"Grab her leg!" I shout, my Clone looking at Uloru, who is rushing towards Kadona. A moment of clarity shines on her face and she changes course.
Screams come from the group as the Alpha, trampling some unconscious figures on the way past, charges into a cluster of mages who managed to remain standing despite the howl. It rakes two of them in one swipe of its claws and stops to pin another underfoot before biting her in two. My fairies explode near its head to try and deflect the attack, but it seems resistant to my attacks anywhere that its fur protects it, jumping away those it just injured in favour of going after another archer. The two injured by the claws scream in pain and try to crawl away; Tana and I are busy with Kadona, but the other healer is running towards them.
Uloru manages to bring the rest of Kadona together, holding her lower half in place as Tana’s flames and my meagre healing halt the ongoing loss of vitality and start knitting flesh back together. Regrowing the leg will take longer, but it’s not an immediate priority.
"You need to keep its mouth open," I say, preparing dozens of exploding fairies around my Clone.
"Got it," Uloru growls, staring down the Alpha, taking her master's buster sword in one hand and her hammer in the other. Tana touches both weapons, flames spreading over them.
"[Sticky Flames], it'll spread if it touches the monster!" Tana explains.
Uloru nods and charges forward, under the renewed effect of my invisibility spell and with an illusory copy of herself a few steps behind her. The Alpha turns to counter-attack Uloru and mis-times its bite, just as planned. Uloru stabs the sword into the inside of the mouth, right behind its upper row of teeth, only having her arm in its mouth for a moment. While the Alpha can’t close its mouth without impaling itself, my fairies fly in and detonate, blowing open a hole in the Alpha’s throat from which a shower of gore and a howl of agony burst forth. Its vitality drops considerably and then continues to drain along with the blood from the gaping hole in its throat. The buster sword is blown out and Uloru catches it, then she jumps and lands on the beast's back, cutting into the neck once again where the wound from earlier still hasn’t finished healing.
"Just" Uloru slams the hammer down on the sword. "Fucking!" Another blow drives the sword further in. "Die!" with a final swing, like hammering in a nail, the sword decapitates the alpha, and the last of its vitality burns out as its head hits the ground.
Finally letting out a breath that I didn't know I was holding, I look at everyone. No one is cheering, no shouts of glory, just a somber silence as the finality of our losses sets in.
For many, even among those still living, this will be their last battle; the shock and horror of mortal combat will prove to be too much for them. The persona that [Acting] is maintaining finally slips off my mind, its shield no longer required, and back in the main camp my real body collapses, shaking, as the full emotional weight of the battle and death hits me all at once.