Fervah stared down at Kyle’s unconscious form with a slightly worried look on her face. She knew that they probably would’ve died if Kyle hadn’t used what Fi had called his ‘Suppression Aura’ in that last fight but it was clear that the Skill took a lot out of the young man. She also knew that they wouldn’t be able to rely on him using that Skill again any time soon which meant that her and the others would have to step up their game if they wanted to complete this Emergency Quest.

Laurence who was sitting next to her had similar thoughts running through his head but he was also trying to figure out how Kyle could be so much more powerful than they were even though he was actually a lower Level and had only been an Adventurer for one day. He understood that Kyle had been a student at the Adventurer’s School which to be honest made him a little bit jealous but that didn’t seem to be enough to make such a large difference between them.

Carly had healed everyone but had warned the others to let Kyle wake up on his own while she meditated to regenerate the MP that she had used up. Carly agreed with the others that they had to do better and she had gotten a few Skill Increases that should help with that but she wouldn’t be any use to anyone unless she actually had mana to use.

Fi was out scouting the surrounding area. She knew that Fervah and the others were interested in learning more about Kyle’s background and the reason that he was so much more powerful than they were. However, she knew that they didn’t have time right now to talk about that. They still had a job to do and without having any real way to find the merchant they were looking for other than chasing down more monsters. Fervah had taught Fi how to spot the strange tracks that the giant spiders that they had been fighting made but that was still the best idea that they had.

Just as Fervah and Laurence were starting to get restless about the time that Kyle had been unconscious he stirred and after a couple more minutes his eyes fluttered open.

“Oh good,” he groaned as Laurence helped him sit up. “We survived.”

“Yeah it was a bit touch and go there for a while,” Laurence admitted. ‘That Skill that you used was useful, but I wouldn’t use it again any time soon if I were you.”

“I don’t plan on it,” Kyle chuckled. “But I didn’t think that I had a lot of choice.”

“No that was definitely the right thing to do,” Fervah agreed. “It was a bad situation. Some of us may have been able to escape but I don’t think that we would’ve been able to win that fight any other way.”

“We might have been able to win but the cost would’ve been pretty high,” Kyle responded distractedly as he asked Fi if she was ready to return so that they could go over what he had gained from the fight. His companion replied that she was already returning from her scouting trip but also told him that Kyle hadn’t actually gained any Skill Levels or anything in the last fight which surprised him slightly considering that he had fought a monster that was quite a lot stronger than the ones that he had fought before.

“One of us dying counts as losing the fight,” Laurence replied in an almost angry tone of voice and was about to continue when Kyle turned to him with a strange look in his eye that sent a chill down his back.

“I respectfully disagree,” Kyle replied in a slightly odd tone of voice. “So long as one of you survives then I count that as a victory. Don’t you dare tell me that making sure that someone you care about survives can be a defeat.”

Laurence’s eyes widened as he was finally able to place the look in Kyle’s eyes. This were the eyes of someone whose whole world had been destroyed but who had refused to break like most people would and had used it to grow even stronger than they had been before. He recognised it because his father sometimes got the same look in his eyes when he talked about his early life. Laurence had tried to get his father to open up about his early life, but the man had constantly refused and even now Laurence wasn’t sure what it was that had caused that look to appear in his father’s eyes but he knew that it was something terrible.

Laurence was about to reply to Kyle when Fi flew in between them.

“Okay break it you two,” the companion said. “We don’t have time for philosophical discussions right now. I found some clouds of purple mana forming in the woods ahead and you both know what that means.”

Kyle and the others all nodded in agreement. Even Laurence and the others knew that clouds of purple mana forming in the area was a sign that a Zone was beginning to form which considering how Zones were formed might mean that they were already too late to save the people that had been kidnapped.

However, they also knew that there was no way that they could save anyone, possibly not even themselves if they didn’t get moving. So, once Kyle had finished checking all of his gear which mostly meant changing his shirt and checking the minor repairs that Carly performed on his jacket while he had been unconscious so that it didn’t completely fall to pieces on him. The leather vest that he was wearing underneath was completely toast and not really worth salvaging anyway but Kyle’s jacket was a much more useful piece even without looking at its sentimental value.

“How is it?” Carly asked once they got moving once more.

“Well I’ll need to get it repaired properly later but it will do for now,” Kyle replied as he hopped over a large root. “Thanks.”

“It was no problem,” Carly told him. “At least one of us would already be dead if it wasn’t for you and that jacket is obviously really important to you as well as being an excellent piece of equipment.”

“My mother and some of her friends made it for me,” Kyle replied quietly as the others listened on. “It was the last thing that she ever gave me.”

Everyone fell silent as they continued following Fi through the forest and even when they started to spot the wispy purple clouds of mana that Fi had reported seeing they still didn’t have anything else to say to Kyle. Kyles’ story wasn’t exactly an uncommon one in the world that they lived in but from the way that he had said it, he had lost his family recently and in violent fashion. All of them knew that there had been a village nearby that had been razed to the ground by Imperial troops recently which meant that it was quite likely that Kyle was from this village.

The clouds of mana grew larger and more common as they ran on through the forest in silence. As they spotted these larger clouds, they became much more alert. If the mana clouds were thicker in this area, then there was a good chance that the monster that was mostly responsible for this area beginning to become a Zone was nearby. Then Laurence stepped on something that burst into flames sending the young man sailing into a nearby tree where he slumped to the ground in a smoking heap.

“Laurence!” Fervah shouted as she and Carly rushed to his side as Kyle and Fi took up defensive positions as they scanned the surrounding area. Once they were sure that they weren’t in any more immediate danger Fi flew over to the smoking crater where Laurence had stepped just moments before. What she saw there puzzled her for all of a second before she realised what was going on.

“Nobody move!” The companion hissed. “There could be traps anywhere!”

“What did you find FI?” Kyle asked as he continued to scan the treeline for any monsters.

“Well you know that web we found a while back?” Fi asked.

“Oh,” Kyle groaned as he realised what Fi was suggesting. “So, he stepped on some sort of web that exploded?”

“Right,” Fi agreed as she glanced over at the others worriedly. Thankfully it looked like the blast had looked a lot more powerful than it actually was and while Laurence was still unconscious he didn’t actually seem to be that badly injured and Carly didn’t seem to be having any difficulty healing what injuries that he did have. “So, nobody move until I’ve had a chance to check everywhere so that none of you set off another trap accidentally.”

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The others all agreed and Fi started flying a couple of centimetres above the ground looking for any signs of traps. By the time Laurence had come around and had everything explained to him Fi was fairly sure that she had found all of the traps in their immediate area.

“Okay so what do we do now?” Fervah asked. “If there are any other trapped areas, we could end up in a worse situation than we’re in now. In fact, I’m surprised that we haven’t been attacked yet.”

“That is what I was thinking,” Kyle agreed as he looked up into the trees in case there was something waiting for them to move. “But we can’t stay here either.”

“Well I can quickly go and check further out if you want,” Fi suggested.

“No,” Kyle replied. “It’s getting too dangerous for any of us to get separated from the group. “I know that you can see most things coming with your Heat Vision Ability Fi but there are ways to avoid being spotted by things like that.”

“Kyle’s right Fi,” Fervah agreed. “If you miss a trap like that one that we found earlier you could be badly injured, and we might not be able to come and help you in time.”

“Okay but we still need to keep moving,” Fi nodded. “I think we need to clear out a couple of these traps though since you guys are a bit boxed in though. It would be a good idea for us to figure out whether we can set of a trap without standing on it too.”

The others all agreed that knowing how to set of the traps was a good idea and Fi fired a Mana Bolt at one of the traps that would’ve made it difficult for Carly and the others to move around. When the blue bolt of energy struck the slightly disturbed dirt where the trap was the ground exploded like it had when Laurence had set off the previous one showering everyone with dirt.

“Well,” Kyle remarked as he stared at the crater that the trap had created which was considerably larger than the one created by the trap that Laurence had stepped on. “That works.”

“You know what Fi?” Carly asked. “I think we should destroy the other traps as well and quickly. There’s no way that we’re not going to have company after that.”

“R-right,” Fi nodded as she stared wide-eyed at the crater. “Let’s do that.”

Fi quickly pointed out the sites of the other traps and everyone with ranged attacks fired simultaneously, setting off four more of the traps at once. This time there were a couple of different types of trap; the explosive ones that they had already seen and one that fired some sort of liquid up out of the ground that hardened within seconds.

A few seconds later they had cleared out all of the traps that Fi had spotted and were now forming up in preparation for the fight that they knew was coming. A couple of seconds later Fi cried out a warning and cast Kyle’s Mana Barrier just in time to block a stream of what seemed to be the same sort of liquid that some of the traps had created.

The others turned to look in the direction that the liquid had come from and froze in horror at the sight of the thing that had just attacked them.

The thing that had attacked them might have once been a Daggerleg Spider, but it definitely wasn’t anymore. The spider’s face was horrible to look at. It only had three eyes, but they seemed to be too big to fit on its head properly and glowed with an eerie purple light and it had several sets of fangs, most of which had broken off at some point. But even more horrifying was its body. The monster’s abdomen was grossly oversized and pulsating flesh peeked out from cracks in its dark blue carapace like it had increased in size faster than its body could actually deal with but even more horrifying than that was the fact that it was carrying something wrapped in webbing on its back and from the shape of it, it was a person. Oddly the monster’s legs looked way too small to support its weight but it was obviously agile enough to move almost silently through the treetops when it wanted to which no matter how any of them looked at it wasn’t a good sign.

“Fi, could you Identify that for us please?” Kyle whispered as he stared up at the thing in horror. “We all need to know what we’re dealing with here.”

Fi gulped and nodded slowly in agreement before bringing up a screen that they could all see.

Name

N/A

HP

???

Level

21

Monster Type

Pure Blood

This previously unknown monster seems to be a mutated form of Daggerleg Spellweaver. As such it can be expected that it is likely a powerful spellcaster for its Level. Other abilities are unknown at this point, but data suggests that it can create web-based magical traps.

Possible names based off of discovered abilities: Daggerleg Abomination or Daggerleg Trapweaver.

“That’s really not good,” Kyle muttered as he, Fi and Carly immediately started casting their enchantments and buffs as a small swarm of Daggerleg and several Bladelegs Spiders appeared followed by smaller numbers of a different type of spider that resembled smaller versions of the giant mutant that was somehow suspending itself in the branches above them.

Kyle immediately labelled the new type of monster as some sort of magic user and decided to prioritise taking them out before anything else. He knew that if they didn’t take these things out as fast as possible then there was no way that they would survive this fight and that was without even mentioning the massive mutant that was looking down on them from above.

“Laurence, you stay back and protect the others,” Kyle said quickly as he picked his first target. “I’m going to take out those ones at the back.”

“Um, okay,” Laurence agreed just in time for Kyle to activate his Leap Skill and sail over the heads of the front line of monstrous spiders.

“Well this isn’t going to be fun,” the swordsman sighed as he stared down the swarm of spiders crawling towards them.

“Well at least he remembered to enchant your blade before he left,” Fervah chuckled in amusement as she started firing arrows into the crowd of monsters that was bearing down on them causing Laurence to glance down at his blade.

“That’s true,” he chuckled as he took up a position in front of the girls. “Hey, Carly, are you going to use your new spell?”

“Yeah,” the healer replied. “I was just waiting for them to get closer.”

As soon as she finished speaking a ring of ice rose up around them cutting some of the faster spiders off from the main force. This spell was the rather aptly named Ice Wall and Carly had decided to learn it after the last fight since it was almost impossible to climb, even for something like a spider which are good at climbing. Carly had picked this spell to help round out her party’s arsenal and give them more options and she was pleased that it was already showing its usefulness. Yes, the spiders would be able to get around it easily by climbing trees and then simply jumping inside but it should slow them down while they took care of the spiders stuck in the ring of ice that she had created. She was also fairly sure that some of the spiders would decide that Kyle was the easier target. It should also mean that they were protected from ranged attacks from the spiders that Kyle had decided to go after as Carly had also identified them as some sort of caster.

They were all worried about the giant spider in the treetops but other than that first attack it hadn’t actually done anything so they decided that they had to focus on the spiders that were actually attacking them right now and then worry about the big one.

Kyle glanced behind him when Fi told him about the wall of ice that had just popped up behind him but still managed to fly completely over the heads of the spiders that had been behind the first wave and start sprinting towards the ones at the back which started firing what seemed to be Mana Bolts at him. Fi had explained that these spiders were the Daggerleg Spellweavers that the notification that she had brought up earlier had mentioned and were between Levels 7 and 9.

Thankfully the Spellweavers weren’t particularly good shots which might have been because of how malformed they were, and Kyle only had to dodge a couple of the eight projectiles that had been firing them before he and Fi returned fire. Unlike the inaccurate and comparatively much weaker barrage from the Spellweavers their spells tore into the line of monsters with a vengeance, spraying the surrounding area with slightly luminous blue ichor as the projectiles ripped chunks of flesh from their bodies.

While the carapace of these spiders wasn’t as bad condition as their massive brother it was more than compromised enough that even the weakest spell could penetrate it fairly easily and before Kyle and Fi were even that close to the monsters they had already killed two of them. The next barrage that the spiders fired at them was a combination of Mana Bolts and globules of liquid that looked like what the as yet unnamed mutant had fired at them earlier but once again most of the attacks didn’t even come anywhere near Kyle and what did was instantly reflected back at them with the twin Counter Shields that appeared in front of both Fi and Kyle. Now that they were closer dodging what few attacks that did come near them was a lot more difficult so they both came to the conclusion that using a defensive spell was a better option and Counter Shield was by far their best defensive spell.

When the spells that struck their shields and bounced back at the Spellweavers, they ripped into the monsters that had launched them dealing quite a lot of damage. Not enough to kill any of them but more than enough to rip chunks of flesh off their bodies. Seeing that one of the spiders had lost a legs Kyle decided to focus his next attack on it and his chains flickered out with enough power to send the spider that they struck stumbling to the ground before it was finished off by the spiked chain.

And as the battle raged on below it the giant mutant watched on with amusement if monsters could be said to feel amusement. If Kyle or the others knew that the monstrosity in the treetops above them was as intelligent as it was then they would’ve started running the moment that they saw it. As is was they continued to fight the monster’s weaker cousins without even realising that the monsters that they were fighting were being controlled.