D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Sue flinched back but recovered just a quicky, ”Oh, so you don’t want my barriers? I’d happily go back home and ditch this hellhole” ignoring the locked escape hatch that would require someone of Kat or Kamiko’s strength and the ability to fly to open.

Kat sighed, ”Look, I’m just saying, I’m not sure how much I can trust you to keep those shields up on Kamiko when mild inconveniences cause such a drastic response from you”

”I don’t think that this number of swarm rats can be considered a ’mild inconvenience’ unless you decide to just decimate the whole mountain range with a Rank 5.” Snarked Sue

”Sure” said Kamiko, ”But you aren’t fighting them we are. We need to be able to trust you to do your job. Nothing more, nothing less, and we are worried you’ll see something gross and run away, or just get lazy and drop the shield” Kamiko’s voice was calmer then Kat’s at this point even though she was the one more at risk.

Kamiko was trying hard to make Sue understand. She didn’t want to sound accusing but they’d repeated themselves a few times at this point and Sue had replied yes, but never actually spoke in her defence to assure them she’d keep the protections up. Sure she’d spoke about how easy it was, but the difficulty was never the question, the will behind it was.

While this was going on, Kat was having some thoughts of her own. *You know, I think I understand now why those guys didn’t care how much I helped out in the tournament. They didn’t trust me, or, they trusted me to do my job and not a thing more. They might have honestly not expected me to do anything, and even if they did HOPE it wasn’t worth trusting me to do things. 

Sure, time kinda messed that up by randomly assigning people to the tasks in the end, which allowed me to show I was willing to help them out properly and not just be an extra member in the team. I wonder if that’s the other reason they didn’t bother looking for more people after their fifth members left so often…

Then again, as a group the four of them were very connected. Nixilei was Green’s… bodyguard? Something like that… and Kress was Gareth’s childhood friend and bodyguard, while of course, Green and Gareth were… engaged? I think? So they had a certain level of trust that was easily developed. 

And the other groups all had a shared bond as well. The elves were all transformed into matching elf forms, the God Crushers had to be related somehow. They looked so similar and all had J names. I know the two casters were twins at least. I wonder about Skye’s team. They seemed like professionals, but other than Clive who was her husband how did the others fit in? Just professionalism built up over years?

And now I have to deal with… this mess. Kamiko and I get along well. We clicked easily. It wasn’t hard to fight rats with her. We knew our positions and even though I didn’t really know how to fight, and still don’t, Kamiko knows I’ll happily take the front line and any major hits so she doesn’t have to. 

I in turn, trust Kamiko not to get too hurt from small fry. She can handle herself and while her margin of error is lower than mine because she doesn’t have regeneration, she’s MUCH better with a weapon then I am and is just better at combat as well. I think I’ve been relying on brute force more than I really thought, even in the Cultivation World. 

Still, that once again, means I can trust her. I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder and worried about her. The problem is just Sue. I don’t really like her and I don’t trust her either. She seemingly has an easy job from what she’s said, and it HAS to be true, but only for a certain definition of ’true’ and while Sue’s talked a lot… she hasn’t promised to do her job properly. 

Which, while normally somewhat bad, is much worse because I don’t really need to worry about myself. I’d have been fine if she screwed up a bit helping me. But NOO she had to have a shield spell for Kamiko. Sure it’s needed because I can’t hold back all the rats. Ignoring the massive area of frozen rats proving that statement false. but I just wish I didn’t now have to worry about Kamiko so much. 

A scratch or two might be fine, but I bet, if Sue’s ever going to get distracted or have her skill fail, it’ll be when we get to the tougher stuff. When we’re exhausted as a group, and fighting a more serious threat and I DO NOT want to deal with Nira if she has to heal Kamiko because she got injured fighting with me.* 

Sue’s posture shifted, but with the huge jacket covering her it was hard to see exactly how it was changing. Afterwards she reached up to tug lightly on her horns, realising the problem they were pointing out. ”Look, I’ve said that this isn’t exactly hard just… disgusting work…” said Sue slowly. ”I… I’ll promise to try. I don’t want to promise it’ll be perfect but I do promise not to intentionally cause the shields to drop during combat. I won’t promise not to mouth off either”

Kat frowned at this. *That’s still not exactly reassuring,* but Kamiko was much more accepting, ”That’s fine Sue. I can understand why you’d make your promise that way. I’m just glad you’re willing to commit to keeping your shield going.” And was willing to accept the statement for what it is.

*I guess if Kamiko is going to give it the ok I won’t fight that. She’s the one being protected after all, and while I don’t trust Sue or her skill, I do trust Kamiko’s. So, I’ll trust Kamiko knows what she’s doing. Depending on how the shield works, she might even be able to tell if it drops*

”So… what direction do we go and how should we go about doing that?” asked Sue

Kat was now much more aware of the fact that they were standing at the both the tallest part of the cave, and the part with the least rats because they’d been knocked away. To the left and right the tunnels were filled to the ceiling with frozen rat corpses and left no clear way to progress.

”That… that is a good question…” said Kat.

”I mean… we could just smash through?” said Kamiko wit her head tilted to the side in thought. It was an option sure but not exactly an appealing one. The risk of having more rats flood in, or needing to swim through rats was not a pleasant thought.

”Do either of you have skills to like… carve a tunnel out?” asked Sue pulling on her horns more.

Kat and Kamiko both shook their heads. ”Darn” said Sue and for once, that was all. She didn’t have any other derogatory comments to add on top. Mostly because manipulating demonic fire was one thing, manipulating the PRODUCT of demonic fire was another, and pretty much impossible for people at their Rank.

”Look… if we have to I don’t mind being the one to make a path. If more rats come… well… we can deal with that, either with more fire or by slicing them up.” Said Kat, ”That being said… I have no idea what direction would be better.”

”That really does feel like something Stone should have told us…” said Kamiko quietly, though still more than loud enough for all the demons to hear, ”…then again… it’s not like we can clear this hole place out in a day. Maybe we should put some more energy into one side to keep it frozen, and then just start going the other way?”

Sue just shrugged, ”Look, this’ll take your skills and energy. I’m just as happy to keep standing here all day so I’ll let you both deal with this.”

Kat bit her lip, pouting slightly as mulled over her friends responses, ”We got like a coin or something to flip? There’s no real way to know otherwise”

Sue patted herself down, making sure to really emphasise her curves despite them being covered by pulling the jacket as taught as she could against herself while she was ’looking’ for coins. To her surprise though, she actually did find one, and froze. Carefully reaching into the pocket she pulled out a gold coin with a lady wearing a crown on one side and a tree on the other. The metal was a dull bronze. ”Well… this works? Heads or tree I guess?” said Sue honestly shocked she found it. 

Kamiko took the left side of the room and Kat took the right. They both looked at each other for a bit before Kat gestured in Kamiko’s direction. ”Fine, person and we’ll go where I’m standing, and tree we’ll go with Kat” said Kamiko.