The quest so far was much more straightforward than Kya had feared.
When she’d been in the forest after awakening, she’d been more or less blindly stumbling towards the distant goal of a city on the horizon, while in the meantime trying to find sufficiently strong beasts to kill.
Without having any idea where she was, what was happening, or what the beasts in question were, there weren’t many alternatives readily available to her, at least not with the addition of a pressing deadline.
However, as she now had a vague idea of the area in which she needed to be, and an idea of exactly what monsters she was looking, things were much less nebulous.
She marched through the rural farming community with a sense of… disconnect. Since coming to this place, this world, every single aspect of the society to which she was accustomed had been here, and easily seen… but they were all looked at through a new lens.
The houses she passed were spread hundreds of meters apart, sometimes a mile or more would go by without much sign of human- er elvish civilization. Except of course, for the rows and rows of golden crops. She identified it as a staple food called “foxtails” that was extremely ubiquitous in this region. This, on its own, wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary. The extraordinary part came from the large green crystals placed every hundred meters or so, sending out barely visible waves of energy to the crops, encouraging them to grow. And grow they did.
Most of the stalks were well over Kya’s head, easily into the eight or nine foot range. This is why, whenever she did see a farmhouse, it was so jarring as it broke the constant backdrop of amber swaying in the breeze. However, as she came upon her destination, “jarring” didn’t quite describe it.
If the idyllically swaying stalks of vegetation had been the life side of the coin, the blacked and burned expanse now before her was unquestionably the death side to the same coin.
When talking with her in the guild hall, Arthur had led her to believe they’d managed to contain the fire and mitigate the damage to their crops. Well, either Arthur was a liar, or he was too proud to admit when catastrophe had struck.
There were, about every quarter mile, long meter wide trenches of water dug throughout the fields, dividing it into a large grid. Not one, not two, but five of these grids had been entirely consumed by flames, and now lay as a smoldering scar upon the fertile land.
She saw, well into the distance to either side, the crops briefly continued and even what she suspected to be Arthur's home, a tall and sturdy house built on a hill overlooking their fields.
She shook her head in disappointment, knowing that even if she killed all of the monsters responsible, he wouldn’t be able to recover from this for years to come. You couldn’t destroy two thirds of a farmer's fields and expect them to make a smooth recovery, no matter how frugal they had been.
But that would be a future problem, and that bridge would have to be crossed when they got to it. For now, she would absolutely flay the hell spawn that caused this. Now she just had to find them.
Equipping her necklace and gloves for the first time, she paid close attention to how she felt immediately before, and immediately after putting them on. For the latter, she felt very little. She suspected the impact would come when using her ability, as not only her gloves, but boots and cloak were all currently boosting spatial abilities. She once again mourned the loss of her staff, but she had been nurturing an idea for the broken item for some time, and would have to research it when she returned. For the former however, her saber tooth necklace had an immediate and noticeable impact.
- - - - -
- Item: Necklace of the Reaping Tiger
- Rarity: 1-Star - Rare
- Description: Braided on fur taken from the Reaping Tiger, the center piece is a fragment of its very fangs. Grants the wearer enhanced resistance to mental attacks, and gives a small passive bonus to aura strength. May only be worn by one who has slain a Reaping Tiger.
- Enchantments: Basic Mental Defense, Basic Aura Enhancement
- Requirements: Slayer of the Reaping Tiger
- - - - -
As soon as she affixed it around her neck, her aura pulsed with newfound strength. Ever since her brief crash course with Rory, she’d kept her aura to it’s minimum size just around her own body. Not only due to the sudden increase in its strength, but being alone in a field and actively on the hunt for monsters, she let it expand to its full scope, meaning at this point, she was able to sense everything for about ten feet in all directions. She took a moment to simply… adapt.
She could sense the worms and insects beneath her, appearing like small pinpricks of light to her mind. She couldn’t “see” them, of course, but her mind was still just as aware of them as if she was looking right at them. It was a marvelous sensation, and for the first time since awakening her aura, she was able to simply sit and be aware of everything around her without being overwhelmed by the deluge of people and animals and magic.
Each small insect was a ball of life unto itself. It felt to her like she was finally able to see the stars in a night sky, dozens and dozens of little- a bird flew overhead and she took a sharp breath as it dipped in and out of her aura’s area of influence.
If the tiny insects were distant stars, the bird overhead was a raging comet, lighting up the whole night sky with its radiance. It had only been there for a moment, but Kya had that lingering feeling that comes from looking at the sun and still seeing its image burned into your eyes for several moments thereafter.
This ability gave her a near omni-directional awareness, but also wasn’t something she could immediately use and implement. She would need to practice and acclimate to its effects. If these were birds and bees, what would happen when a powerful monster wandered into her field of influence? On the other hand… What better way to acclimate to the cold than jumping right in?
A small part of Kya’s mind was telling her she could overdo it and risk injury. That part of her was part she often told to shut up, because she wanted to try something probably ill-advised.
- - -
After only twenty minutes or so of looking around the area, she found her first concrete sign of the monsters. A set of large tracks in a mangled and confused mess, before heading off towards the grassland beyond the farm's boundaries.
The entire time, she had been practicing to look not just with her eyes, but her aura as well. She would have likely missed the tracks altogether in fact, except for that they poked at her senses almost like a small beacon.
Excited to be on the right track, as these prints were unmistakably the remnants of some magic beast, she took off at a dash. It was here she began to notice the fundamental changes her body had undergone as part of becoming magical.
She felt like she was doing a light jog. The kind when you’re crossing the street and a car is coming, but you’re in work clothes and you don’t want to run because that would be unprofessional for some reason, but you also don’t want to get run over or cause some sort of incident, so you do a sort of shuffle jog. That sort of pace, that’s what Kya’s brain told her she was doing.
Except for the fact that she might have qualified for the Olympic marathon if she kept up this pace. That might have been a stretch, but Kya could tell, she was booking it. Coming up to the simple stone wall outlining the farm, she decided that rather than slow down and climb… she was just gonna jump it.
Feeling like a child in a daydream, she leapt at the four foot barrier and vaulted off it before landing and continuing on at her breakneck pace.
At this point, Kya felt a genuine fear. Could this really happen? She’d heard about it as a metaphor and exaggeration at times, but… could this really happen? She was, of course, worried about her jaw falling off as a smile threatened to split her face in two. Afterall, she’d always considered herself as someone who enjoyed running.
Laughing, with a reckless abandon she hadn’t felt in years, she eagerly looked for these hell hounds. All those times she’d cursed her situation, thinking that there had to have been some easier way to survive in this world… She’d found it, and it was so simple. It turned out that the secret was the magic inside her all along.
- - -
She felt the first monster before she saw it. It had only been six or seven minutes, and she’d already gone well over a mile from the walls of the farm. She’d been rather lost in the simple joy of her newfound endurance and agility when a blazing sun entered her aura from behind and just to the left.
Without even needing to think, she jumped right, twisted in mid air, while her venomous dagger appeared in her outstretched hand.
When she’d heard they were hellhounds, she’d been slightly off put at the notion of having to kill a pack of dogs, even if they were fiery little monsters. She’d always loved dogs and wasn’t entirely comfortable with killing them wholesale.
She was glad then, when looking at these… well, they certainly lived up to the “hell” moniker, without so much as acknowledging the “hound” part. Rather than a rottweiler with red eyes or something as she’d been imagining, this monster was black as pitch, with an almost shiny chitinous exterior. It had six powerful looking legs, matched by its six gleaming eyes, each looking to be filled with molten lava. If that all wasn’t enough, it had long white accents all over its body, giving it a skeletal appearance, going well with the two ivory horns curving forwards to razor points over its head.
- - - - -
*** NEW CREATURE IDENTIFIED ***
- Hellhound - 1 Star - Uncommon
- Hellhounds come in two varieties, bound and unbound. The bound monsters are relatively tame and can make for great companions. The unbound are vicious killing machines, designed to be as efficient at their jobs as possible, including cremating the remains when they’re done. Wanna take a stab at which one this is?
- - - - -
You know what? As a matter of fact, she did want to take a stab at it.
Trying her new ability for the first time, she concentrated and pulled the monster. But what she wasn’t prepared for was the incredible ease with which she’d done it. She had been used to a certain amount of resistance, like the creature she pushed or pulled was fighting against her. Whether it was due to now being her own ability, the several effects boosting her abilities, her newfound strength, or some combination of the three, when she pulled on the hellhound, it absolutely flew.
Again, letting out a joyous laugh, Kya canceled her pull, then side stepped and slashed at the monster while it sailed by on its own momentum.
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The beast let out a snarl as it landed, a long gash steaming on its right flank, sizzling drops of crimson hitting the ground below.
What she hadn’t been ready for, though she realized she definitely should have been, was the monster opening its maw and launching a torrent of flames directly at her.
Not knowing what else to do, she ducked and covered herself in her cloak purely out of instinct. This proved to be the right choice, as when the flames touched her cloak, she felt a slight warmth but nothing more. It was then she remembered the cloak would nullify or weaken most spells that hit it. This was perfect, too perfect, it was truly like she’d switched over to easy mode.
As soon as the beast closed its maw, cutting off the rippling tide of orange and red, it tilted its head slightly in confusion. Standing before it was an entirely unharmed Kya, barely contained mirth bubbling out.
Launching forward, she planted a kick across its face, careful to avoid the horns, and while it was stunned, delivered a powerful upward strike, impaling its jaw and giving a nice little third horn through its snout.
- - - - -
- You have defeated Hellhound - 1-Star - Uncommon.
- Progress on Hellhounds on the Farm updated:
- Kill all hellhounds around the farm, 1/??
- - - - -
Along with the notification, she got an interesting sensation. It felt like she’d suddenly inhaled a deep breath, it wasn’t much, and only lasted for a moment, but it was definitely noticeable. Taking a look at her ability screen, she both confirmed her suspicions, as well as made an annoying observation.
- - - - -
Character Screen
* Name: Kya Ophelia
* Race: Human/Founder
* Race Benefits: Loot the Corpse, Identify, Translation
* Class: Space - 1-Star - 17%
* Class Abilities: Push and pull - 52%
* Class Benefits: Aura, Inventory
- - - - -
Firstly, her abilities percentage had directly gone up. She checked her inventory as the monster dissolved into shadow, leaving behind the normal spark of light, and confirmed that there wasn’t a new monster token. It seemed she’d only gotten them as a placeholder due to having nowhere for the experience to go.
Her second observation was that her ability had only gone up by one percent. One percent! She could think of a couple possible explanations for this, ranging from her having a class now diminishing the experience gained from a fight. Afterall, that had been relatively easy as far as fights went. Or perhaps since she’d only used her ability once, it didn’t result in a large windfall of experience. Maybe the rate of experience had just slowed as she passed some threshold, like after fifty percent in her ability, it became more and more difficult to advance.
Whatever the case may be, she would definitely have to fight a lot more than she did in the forest if she expected to gain a second star before the next monster wave.
Her last real take away from the fight was the quest update she’d gotten. Before in the forest, it had told her she needed to kill ten 1-Star monsters, and then ten more powerful ones. Now, however, it was simply to kill all the hellhounds. She assumed the quest would complete when she killed them all, she just wouldn’t be getting any spoilers as to how many “all” would be.
However, the monsters themselves seemed more than willing to help her find out. They were a pack, after all. And she assumed the sounds of their fight had drawn the attention of the others, when she felt and saw several more hellhounds pelting towards her from all directions.
Readjusting her grip on her dagger, she began running towards the closest one, excitement and adrenaline pounding through her veins.
She found that this was where her aura ability truly shone and could tell it would easily become a core component of not just her fighting style, but her everyday life.
While she focused on the hellhound directly in front of her, two more tried to jump on her from either side. It had been several years since she’d taken combatives with the military, but she still remembered how to move her body. The increased strength and agility from becoming magical made it all the easier.
Sensing the two monsters pounce, she swiftly dodged back, maintaining eye contact on her one target. Sending out two quick pushes to the two who had pounced, she then simultaneously pulled on her designated monster while propelling her dagger forward.
Unfortunately, her dagger had spun through the air, and the blunt pommel hit the beast first. It still likely hurt like crazy and the blade did continue spinning until it left a shallow gash in the hounds side, but it turned what should have been a killing blow into a glancing one.
“I need better throwing weapons” she thought as the three monsters all landed, two splayed in the grass some two dozen meters away, and one now slightly bleeding much closer. Everything that had just happened had occurred over the span of less than thirty seconds, and she was more than ever delighted with the sheer improvements she was able to feel from simply getting to her class. If 1-Star felt this good, she couldn’t wait for more.
Of course, she wasn’t an unstoppable army unto herself. This was important for her to keep in mind, and it felt almost like the universe was trying to humble her over the rest of the fight. As she stood proudly, feeling powerful and mighty among the pack of hellish creatures, she was forced to acknowledge that fact.
The two she’d sent flying quickly recovered and after snarling, blasted her with flames simultaneously. At the same moment, the one behind her lunged forward to bite at her exposed left arm, and the several other dogs around her also began to surge forward, yapping and snarling.
She quickly went from reveling in her new power to reveling in theirs. Yes, she could sense and feel the monsters all around her, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was able to defend against them all, not at the same time.
She simply turned her back to the flames, her hood up over her head completely shielding her from the heat. From there, she tried to repel two that were coming at her from either side, while launching a kick at the one with a slash across its hide. This is where her plan met with an unfortunate turn. The two she’d sent flying collided into another two, making all four go tumbling. That was great. Less great was the one she’d attempted to kick, catching her leg in its mouth.
Her boots, of course, were a divine artifact sent from the gods themselves (or so Kya believed), and were able to withstand the bite of a common monster. What couldn't withstand the bite was her exposed leg when another of the hounds pounced and snapped its jaws down on her flesh.
Biting back a curse, she punched the beast square on the snout, shooting it away the moment it let go. She stomped the foot being held by the dog forcefully into the ground, breaking it free quite literally. As the monster let go with a howl, she saw its lower jaw bone was hanging loosely at an odd angle. She was about to summon her dagger from where it had fallen to finish it off, but another hound jumped on her back, and tried to bite down on her neck.
If not for the cloak's hood, she had no doubt the bite would have killed her, severing her spine. As it was, all she could feel from the bite was a gentle pressure. The bad news was that a sudden eighty pounds on her back threw her wildly off balance, and she toppled to the ground.
This must have been the signal for dinner time, because every hellhound in the area surged forwards.
Thoroughly and completely done with the experience after she felt powerful bites on her arms and legs, she shouted incoherently and sent out an all-encompassing wave of force. Not directed at anything in particular, but just wanting every beast to be forced away.
The nature of her ability, however, was to push things directly away from her center of mass. This meant that rather than being forced sideways, the hounds were shot into the air, each one at various angles. The one onto which she’d fallen, however, was compressed into the ground, and after only a moment, resembled nothing so much as roadkill.
- - - - -
- You have defeated Hellho-
- - - - -
She waved away the notification, not having the time right now. She summoned back her dagger with a quick pull as she stood, plucking it out of the air with a dexterous grab, and then scanned the hounds. Before a single thought had entered her mind, she saw one that had been launched almost directly into the air begin falling to the ground. Pulling on it as hard as she could, she turned a plummeting animal into an aerial bombardment as it shook the earth with its landing.
Once again waving away the notification, she let out a barking laugh of her own. She was bloodied and bruised but damn it if she wasn’t having a fucking blast fighting these demons.
The one with the broken jaw was staggering away while the other five relatively healthy ones had returned to her and formed a rough semicircular to shield their comrade as he fled.
“Absolutely not” She growled and pulled at the one farthest away. This was the first time she’d used her ability on one of them not directly within her aura and could immediately feel the difference. This was more like when she’d been using the staff, and she got the familiar twist in her stomach as she wrestled it back to the fight. The others saw what she was doing and attempted to intervene, three blasting out flames while the other two jumped forwards, lips curled in inaudible snarls.
Maintaining her pull on the injured hound, she dashed quickly to her left, evading the first hound and trying to get out of the way of the flames entirely. Her cloak shielded her from them, but notably her face wasn’t covered by the cloak.
The second hound altered course and leapt at her as she moved. Scoffing with delight, she slashed her dagger in a powerful backhand slash, burying the blade in its skull. She kept moving, leaving the dagger for now. It would be free in a moment after the beast dissolved into shadows, and she didn’t have the time to stop and yank it free.
The flames cut off abruptly as two of the monsters were caught off guard when the injured one finally reached them, and bowled them over as it continued inexorably towards her. The moment it touched her aura, the feeling in her stomach faded considerably, just as it commensurately picked up speed. The moment it was within arms reach, she dropped down to her knees and launched it skyward before once more yanking it down to help gravity bring about its timely demise.
The remaining four were growing more and more hesitant as the fight progressed, and now as they stood some ways away, she could almost feel their reluctance. Yet, as one, they resumed their attempted onslaught. Calling her dagger from where it lay, it collided with one of them, tearing through its abdomen and coming through the other side. It wasn’t immediately dead, but She knew it wouldn’t be back in this fight anytime soon.
Taking her dagger, and shoving it through the throat of the first one to leap at her, she took out another. Pulling the last one towards her, she launched it at the other, using the monster's body itself as a projectile. Or at least that was her plan.
As she started to pull, her vision darkened in both eyes, and the pain in her stomach returned with a vengeance.
She had long since associated this with reaching her limits as far as magic was concerned. She knew she could push herself to get a little bit more done, but that it would have painful repercussions.
Her momentary lapse as she recoiled from the pain cost her, as the monster, rather than helplessly being pulled towards her, had been given a speed boost. She felt it viscerally as it skewered her wrist with its horns, and began thrashing about, pulling her with it.
The second one wasn’t simply standing still either, as sensing its opportunity, latched onto her thigh.
She couldn’t do much more with her abilities, but she didn’t need to. Pulling out her rat fang dagger, with her left hand, she plunged it first into the skull of the one at her leg, then pulling it free with blood and viscera streaming along, she killed the final hellhound, before pulling her wrist free of its horns, and downing a health potion.
All around her, small sparks of light danced in the air, before finally disappearing with the atmosphere. The only exceptions were the two she’d just killed, who were still dissolving into shadows, and the one with the split stomach.
Its intestines spilled out across the grass, crimson blood radiating heat as it spread. Somehow, it still clung to life, taking rapid shallow breaths.
It began to whine weakly as she approached, but wasn’t able to move as it lay motionless on its side.
She looked at it for a moment, conflicted, before giving it one of her health potions. She had found that she enjoyed the contest of the fight, reveling in the struggle for life and death. But a defenseless animal? She would either heal it and then fight it again, or-
The moment the hound had drunk her potion and recovered the slightest bit of strength, it blew a small stream of flames directly into her outstretched hand.
A shadow covered Kya’s eyes as she kicked the maw of the beast, before killing it with a quick slice to the throat.
- - - - -
- You have defeated Hellhound - 1-Star - Uncommon.
- Progress on Hellhounds on the Farm updated:
- Kill all hellhounds around the farm, 8/??
- - - - -
“Bastard took my gift of healing, and then immediately used it to try and attack one more time.” She thought in annoyance. On the one hand, she respected the effort, and could easily see herself doing something similar. On the other hand… Fuck that.
On the third, vastly more interesting hand, she noticed the quest still wasn’t complete, and concentrating, felt that there was still a sensation of direction, pointing her further onwards. She wasn’t done with the hounds quite yet, it seemed.