“You know-“ I started saying, stopping to bat aside a [Monster] with my staff.
“-there was a reason for why I was avoiding this pocket of the forest-“ I was stopped once again to fire a couple of [Bolts] to the new arrivals emerging from the ground.
If I didn’t have to fight these things off I probably would appreciate the scenery more: Aside from the normal trees I could see while going into the [Wilds], now I had seen so many varieties of vegetation that the most recent pink bush that smelt like chocolate had already lost its novelty.
“-but you were like ‘nooooo, they’re small. We can take them!’ Well, are you still of the same opinion?” I finished, spawning a new [turret] in the overhead canopy, to avoid having them pulled into the ground, as these creatures seemed to prefer doing.
Name:
Centi-hands
Affinity:
Nature; Earth
Danger:
Low
Behavior:
Territorial; Swarm; Enraged
Cat-sized, beady-eyed, elongated brown insect, with close to a hundred tiny humanoid hands, each having sharp claws and bony flexible fingers, were constantly crawling out of the ground, and [Unavoidable Detection] seemed to want to impress that the situation wouldn’t get better any time soon.
“Of course! These [Centi-hands] are great [Experience]! And what are you complaining about!? Your style makes you extremely resistant to numerous but weak attacks, so don’t act like you’re struggling”, differently from what she was saying, Sheeno was the one that looked the most in her element, and she didn’t even need to pause her speech when dashing around, further demonstrating her higher prowess.
After the first couple of minutes when she had been running after me, she had suddenly stopped, sniffed around (like, literally, with big intakes of air and all), and then sprinted for the closest [Monster], forcing me to run after her to join the fight.
That pattern repeated itself several times, but fortunately, after the first fight, Sheeno accepted to only go after the targets I knew wouldn’t be too much of a risk. That decision bothered her more than I thought, since after smelling this latest prey she wouldn’t relent in going after it, stating that she wanted ‘an actual challenge’.
A true statement about her ‘meat-headedness’.
So, here I find myself, in the thick of battle, instead of assisting from range: These [Monsters] were quick to coordinate themselves into locating all threats to their hive, and surround them, effectively bogging them down with numbers.
Thankfully my [Totems] were up to the task of defending us from their myriads of claws, and even [Manakinesis] empowered attacks were enough to cave their heads in, especially after attuning the [Mana] in my staff to [Aberrant Space Affinity: Gravity], multiplying the weight of my attacks tenfold, only after I had imparted them with enough speed, for added momentum.
Still, it felt like a chore, so I started smashing my staff on the ground as heavily as I could, giving the terrain a noticeable shake.
“Hey, that look like fun! But what are you doing?” Asked my companion, after depriving two enemies simultaneously of their heads.
“If this works, I’ll collapse the tunnels they use to travel around, effectively squishing them before they’re able to get to the surface!” I shouted back, not stopping in my endeavor.
“Wait, that sound like it will lessen the number of monsters we fight. That’s not as fun as it seemed then!” She whined, but made no move to stop me; evidently, the high numbers were becoming a chore for her too.
Not like there weren’t appreciable gains: I could feel that as soon as this fight was over, I would get to [Lvl 6].
And that’s when the [Boss] of these mobs decided to show itself: With a well-timed warning from my [Aura] I was barely fast enough to dodge to the side, when a giant version of the [Monsters] we were fighting erupted right from where I was hammering the ground.
Visibly hundreds of times the size of the others already, even though it had yet to surface completely, it made its presence known anyway.
Name:
Centi-hands’ Queen
Affinity:
Nature; Earth
Danger:
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High
Behavior:
Territorial; Leader; Enraged
With a shower of dirt, it released a grating screech, that seemed to send the lower mobs into a frenzy; and then there was the fact that its serrated mandibles, which were being now pointed my way, looked wickedly sharp.
“Mommy’s angry!” I loudly declared, trying to distance myself from the new threat, but finding it difficult to swim among the other maddened [Monsters], which ultimately forced me to slow down and mow down the path with a flurry [Mana Bolts].
“I got it!” Shouted Sheeno, hurling toward the mob, while surrounded by a cloud of cold air.
She smacked fists first against the Queen and, with an explosion of ice, quickly separated herself from it, falling in the opposite direction from where she had sent the giant insect.
“Timber!” I had the time to shout, before the [Boss] smashed back to the ground with a pained screech.
Unfortunately, it started flailing around, and in the randomness of it managed to successfully bash both of us aside, and since it was so big, it just was impossible to avoid. Fortunately, it also managed to flatten a bunch of its babies amidst the chaos, leaving alive only a few strugglers.
We didn’t ask each other if we were fine, since our [System] monitored and shared our [Status], but on my side, I could also feel that neither of our [Barriers] had yet to crack.
Between me and my [Turrets], we were about done with the adds, and only the ‘biggun’ remained.
Even that didn’t last long when Sheeno decided to make things come to an end by flash freezing its head and then smashing it to pieces with conjured ice hammers.
You have reached [Lvl 6]
You have reached [Lvl 7]
Through your actions, and [Level Ups], you have been awarded multiple [Status Points]:
+1 [Dexterity], +4 [Acuity], +8 [Insight] and [Serendepity], +10 [Energy], and +20 [Will]
Not too many points due to personal achievements, but the fight was overall short; even those skirmishes we had in the forest up to now had only netted me +2 [Strength], mostly from the exercise I was getting from running on the uneven terrain.
“Now that’s a workout!” Exclaimed an elated giantess, swiping the sweat that had somehow formed on her unnaturally cold forehead with one of her arms.
“I still think that we would have been better off going after one of the other targets that I had scouted. This was an unnecessary risk” I finally stated, once I was sure that there were no more [Monsters] in the vicinity.
“Oh, come off it! We both know that you can punch well over what your [Level] would suggest, even though you had less than a month with magic or the [System]. This was the perfect adversary to instill some confidence in your capabilities”, she countered.
“I don’t need confidence. That only breeds bravado and stupidity. It’s you that should learn to listen better to the future designated [Scout] of the [Party]!” I argued, with my face upturned and to the side, in mock superiority.
“Again!? C’mon, I don’t want to argue anymore! Let’s just be off to one of your targets”, she relented, punching me in the shoulder gently as she went by, signaling that she was joking too.
While still not proper friends, I and Sheeno definitely were developing a healthier relationship with one another, based primarily on respect and acceptance. Two factors that looked like we both had been starved of in this world.
* * *
Merglobth was anxious, and why shouldn’t they be? The daughter of an old acquaintance of theirs must already be exploring the [Wilds] as of now, probably facing [Monsters] a cut above those she should be reasonably fighting.
But Dulcet was there to fill in her holes, while she did the same for him...
Merglobth didn’t like how that sounded even in their head, and quickly dismissed that thought.
What they stopped on was the idea of Dulcet himself.
Could he be trusted? Was he reliable? And could he keep up with the exuberant [Banished Princess]?
The response was a resounding ‘maybe’, on all fronts; at least for now.
Really, the little [Human]’s future looked bright, and he seemed to have enough drive to keep going for a long while. Even his personality had mellowed out a lot more than what he had been led to believe by the good old Merga.
Unfortunately, his personality was still a mismatch with miss Fyratta’s, and whenever left alone for long enough they would usually end up butting heads on the smallest of things. That was natural though, since no team started by being in perfect harmony, and the fact that two interested parties could hash it out between themselves relatively easily on their own, only made them hope for the best.
Really, Merglobth had little to worry about.
Except that the [Tracker] on the [Map] wasn’t working.
The useless piece of trash was meant to report their location and [Status] every half a second to the linked [Artifact] they owned as their [Handler], but since the [Party] stepped out of their perception they hadn’t been able to follow them anymore.
That could be a problem later on, when the [Tracking] would be used as proof of the veracity of what they reported, but it could be always circumvented with enough paperwork.
Almost anything could, actually.
What wrinkled their tentacles was that they hadn’t been warned on how difficult their new charges would be, with the inclusion of mister Dulcet, so they were now scrambling to look for the correct form to hire a [Scout] that would follow their initial [Quests], without being seen, and report on the ongoings, nullifying the interference on their traceability… mostly.
Honestly, it would have been easier if miss Fyratta would have been the one navigating the group and holding the [Map], but mister Dulcet wanted the added responsibility as their future designated [Scout], and who were they to tell him no? They were their [Handler], and not saying no was an oversight caused by not knowing that the young man could not be traced.
Well, it was too late now, and they could only hope that their charges would be smart about their actions.
But if Sheno was even half the woman her mother had been, there shouldn’t be any problems.
* * *
Now, that was a problem.
I had located the entrance to an unmarked [Dungeon], a mostly unassuming hole in the ground if it wasn’t for the concentration of [Aether] coming from it; and now Sheeno wanted to go into it.
“That’s not our mission, we’re just glorified [Cartographers].”
“Oh, C’mon. I know that you want to go in there too! We just need to explore the first floor to then report what type of [Dungeon] it is, and that’s perfectly within our assigned tasks”, she rebuked.
She was right, and yet “it’s still better off left for later, we can’t know if the entrance will be locked once we step inside”.
“Where’s your sense of adventure!? Weren’t you the one that would obsessively talk about [Dungeons] during our flight here? Where’s that passion now!?” She said, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“I wouldn’t say ‘obsessively’ per se, but-“, before I could continue my weak defense I was interrupted.
“Darwin?”
“Yeah?”
“Only the first floor and then we’re out”
“You sure?” I asked, slightly hopeful.
I wasn’t used to being the voice of reason, and my reticence was quickly crumbling.
“Yes!” An exasperated Sheeno exclaimed.
“…Ok, fine. Let’s go!” And I wasted no time in proceeding to be the first one to go through the dark hole in the ground.
You’re now entering [the Knight’s Mansion Dungeon]
Before Sheeno could follow me inside I made a [Totem] for protection, and then scanned the place to-
“OH MY GOD! IT’S BAROQUE!!!” I squealed giddily at the sight of the articulated architecture I found myself surrounded in.