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

— Kat —

The group was making their way through the jungle away from the roads. Apparently, everything Kat had scene so far was considered ‘low priority’. More accurately, they were the expected monsters for the area and something that people around here just knew how to handle. The civilians knew what, when, and how to run while the adventurers, even at Rank 1 knew how to take down most of things she’d seen so far.

It was the ones she hadn’t seen that were the real issue. Nixilei had brought up a good number of them over breakfast but even that still wasn’t the problem. The real issue with moving off the beaten path? It was the stuff you didn’t know about. The stuff that you had no idea how to handle. If you found a monster without an obvious weakness and didn’t know how to kill it? You simply died. Perhaps fled if you were lucky.

It was a sobering thought that was further reinforced once they left. Standard formation was to have Green out in front, roaming a bit away from the group as a scout. Gareth next in line and the front of the group proper, with Nixilei in the middle and Kress in the back. This theoretically protected Nixilei the best so that she could heal everyone else up at the end of the fight.

That was not how things were currently going. Instead they were in a tightly bunched group with Gareth in front, Green off the left, Kress in the back, and Kat in the middle. Lily was taking up the right with Nixilei. Sort of. For the moment she was sitting on Kat’s shoulder and watching right, with her shadows ready to act at least.

The idea of this formation was that if anyone noticed something they could call out and allow Kat to deal with it. Her Rank 4 strength meant that anything they found could be taken out by her… probably. There were no reports of a Rank 4 monster or a Rank 5. A few rank 3’s of course… but the problem was that Rank 4 monsters were smart. If one was around there wouldn’t be any reports. Simply corpses. And how would you tell one missing person from another?

At least monsters of that Rank were vanishingly rare. They tended to be the sort of stuff legends were made of… and Kat was at that level. It hadn’t even been that long and it was just… strange to think about. That she was already equal to a monster that could take on entire cities at a time if there was nobody of a similar level around to stop them… and often times even if there was.

It put things into perspective. Both how powerful she was and how much trust the rest of the group was placing in her. This was very much a stupid thing to be doing and plenty of adventurers died travelling through unfamiliar woods without a guide. At the very least Kat was confident she could hold anything off to give time for everyone to escape… assuming they weren’t Rank 5. Still, Kat didn’t exactly want to test any of that.

So she was keeping her eyes peeled as they ran through the rain. Kat’s main source of concern was the ‘Treekeeper’. It was a giant squid-like monster that kept a couple of the local trees on its head as camouflage and pretended that its tentacles were just roots. They’d strike at any prey that wandered in range… though the issue was that ‘in range’ was a lot further then the roots would imply. Their tentacles were able to stretch drastically, and even then they kept a large amount of them under the ground.

The main tells for them were slightly glowing eyes. They’d have one on each side of the tree and its what they used for hunting, alongside someone stepping on the ‘branches’ of course. Should you be unlucky enough to avoid the first strike they could rise up along the ground and use the suction cups and tentacles to move at explosive speeds quickly catching up. Apparently the local adventurers regularly culled them. They were one of the few things that didn’t produce useful parts. Or well, useful enough parts that they were worth the risk.

Which was annoying because the blasted things just wouldn’t die. A female could use one… ‘fertilisation session’ to prepare several eggs that would then be planted underneath different trees and incubate there for potentially years at a time. They were also really careful when planting the eggs, barely disturbing the dirt and putting it back afterwards. Unless you were willing to uproot all the trees in the forest there was no surefire way to get them.

The second deadliest monster was another flying one. Not one of the weird long-necked things Kat had scene before but the monsters that hunt them instead. Kat was expecting it to be another bird, but nope. Instead it was a monster that looked more like a plane then a living being. It was wild hearing an explanation of what they looked like.

Allegedly, they were green furred beasts with stationary outstretched wings that contained air-filled bladders to keep the thing aloft. The central body was long and thin with a wide open mouth that sucked in air and expelled it in large quantities from the back to manoeuvre. The only reason Kat was willing to believe it was a real monster was because Nixilei was willing to go into detail about what happens when something gets caught on the teeth it has lining its front.

For now at least, there was no sign of either of these things. Mostly just more of the Blur birds in the trees and the group was making sure to keep a healthy distance from those and keeping an eye out for any sign they weren’t just trees. The group had kicked away a few of the turtle badger things and Kat had nearly felt the need to step in with one of the Blur birds earlier in the day… but for now they were fine.

Well, they were safe from the monsters. They’d just realised why there was no road through here. They’d come face to face with a sheer drop. It was jumpable by the entire group sure… but there was a cluster of trees all pressed right up against the edge of the small hill and jumping straight down in the rain didn’t seem like a great idea. “Shall I just go first?”

“You’re going to get shredded by the birds,” stated Green.

“I could send some demonic fire down first? I don’t know if I want to clear out too many trees but in this instance it should be fine,” said Kat.

Green glanced over to Nixilei. “It should be fine if Kat limits herself to a small section of this clump below us. Perhaps the nearest three to five?”

Kat shrugged, “Alright then,” releasing a careful stream of fire embers rained down upon the trees and at the barest touch of Kat’s flames they began to freeze. She was glad for the practice she’d managed to get in. Her flames were quite powerful now and even just a little bit was enough for the trees to freeze over.

Once they’d completely frozen Lily paper boulder down at them, smashing them to bits and leaving the area… somewhat clear to jump. Kat leapt first landing firmly on the ground and cracking some of the ice below her feet. Kat quickly got to brushing it away and clearing a landing area. Mostly by using a branch from the nearby trees.

Lily glared when Kat tanked a few hits from the Blur birds to get the branch, but Kat felt she needed to have an understanding of how much damage the things did… and it was a surprising amount. They could slice right through her skin and muscles but note bone. Their beaks broke upon that, causing them to ‘die’ and reform back at the tree.

Once the landing zone was clear the group jumped as one. Kress nearly slipped over as his feet touched the ground but a bit of an assist from Lily’s shadows kept him upright. Soon they were back on the move once again, though a bit slower now. The forest was denser here, leaving fewer gaps between the trees to walk making it so that trigger the Blur birds was much more likely. Now that Kat knew they could potentially get through Gareth’s armour she was treating them a lot more seriously.

“Will we be breaking for lunch at all?” asked Kat. “I don’t need the food obviously… but the area has already been cleared here so… we could stop if you need,”

“Best to keep going,” said Gareth firmly. “I’m not necessarily against taking a break but the risk of bringing out food or being caught unawares is too high. We can deal with missing lunch, we’ll just need to have a big dinner once we have the time,”

“Not even a snack?” asked Kress.

“If you want to eat something you can finish in no more than three bites, I won’t stop you,” acquiesced Gareth. “Just be ready to eat on the move, we’ll likely still be cutting things tight and the rain hasn’t letup,”