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

Chapter 2042: Chapter 2042 Ending in the Green

--- Kat ---

Kat yawn a bit when the sun started to come up. She wasn’t exactly tired but the work had been mind numbing after a certain amount of time. They’d managed to get through all of the sticks, and even sent for a second lot. Now they had a backyard covered in arrows and... well... ”Can you even use all of these?” asked Kat.

Hedera shook her head. ”No, not at all. There is far too many arrows here for me. I’ve been separating them into three piles. The useless, the mediocre, and the great. I’ll be taking as many great ones as I can and giving away the rest. I’ll probably try to trade at least some of them for a reward of some sort, but nothing too extreme. Handing the arrows back is payment for giving me the materials in the first place. The sticks are nice but the arrowheads are what made a real difference.”

”What do you normally use?” asked Kat.

”Normally I have to try to reuse old arrow heads. Having a fresh batch is extremely nice,” explained Hedera.

”I don’t think I’ve seen you pick up too many of your arrows though?” Kat said uncertainly.

”And how would I recover any of them? The statue was too tough and broke most of the metal ends. The ice primordial can take all the arrows it wants. I’m not sticking my hand anywhere NEAR them to try and get them back. I barely used them in the trap area, and the few monsters we’ve encountered otherwise I retrieved the arrows from them when I grabbed the carcass for the most part,” explained Hedera.

”Sounds silly when you put it that way... but you make a decent point. What now?” asked Kat.

”I’m not sure. I haven’t enchanted them all yet, that’d take too much extra time and I don’t know if I even can. I’m using basic stuff that’s more of a test then anything else because I don’t have the materials to use my normal enchantments,” explained Hedera.

Kat nodded along and the pair chatted for a bit longer. Lily was asleep once again but she’d helped throughout the night. When she was awake, Lily could quickly strip the bark from the sticks with her shadows. She kept it simple, working together with Kat to shave the bark swiftly, and then once she ran out of mana and decided to nap again Kat would come back and fix any minor errors. It was faster then working by herself but did leave Hedera with nothing to do for a bit the first time around.

A few minutes later, they heard someone knocking and then opening the front door. It was a bit odd to do both, especially when they didn’t wait at all to open the door. Paying a bit more attention to the sound had Kat realise it was probably Steel. His metal armour was fairly distinctive. ”We’re out the back!” yelled Kat. Both as a way to let Steel know where they were... and to warn away anyone else if they weren’t meant to be there.

Luckily, her guess was correct and Steel soon made his way out to the backyard before standing there, stunned. ”Damn, apparently I should’ve had you guys on arrow duty. That’s like a week’s worth of work for a normal fletcher,” grumbled Steel.

”Ha, thank this one,” said Hedera while jabbing at Kat.

Kat raised an eyebrow, ”Seeing as I barely did any of the complicated work I don’t think I deserve that much credit. I just removed the bark and the nobs with Lily’s help.”

”Ha,” laughed Steel. ”That’s always the annoying part. Not that the rest is easy, but it doesn’t take as long once you know what you’re doing. Well... normally it doesn’t take as long. Your quite fast at the de-barking so perhaps in your case it’s different. You even had time to clean up a bunch of shafts that weren’t viable,” Steel gestured at the mixed pile of bent twigs and debarked but still slightly bent twigs.

Kat rubbed the back of her neck somewhat awkwardly, while Hedera nodded beside her. ”Yeah it’s been really good to have help with this. I didn’t expect things to be THIS fast, it’s why we got extra supplies halfway through. Oh and everything in that pile is yours. They’re not quite good enough for my purposes but only because I have that other pile...” Hedera gestured to the two more neatly stacked piles complete with arrows heads and sometimes enchantments. ”...for my needs. I probably can’t store them all anyway so you’ll get more of those.”

”Oh? What’s wrong with them?” asked Steel.

”Technically, they aren’t quite straight enough or had some other defect. For someone like me, a Rank 2 adventurer those little issues can be a big problem. But I’ve seen your archery battalions. They just fire a bunch of arrows into the problem. Not a bad strategy, just not what I use, and for such close engagements, relatively speaking, they should be fine. Plus, if I know anything about guards they’re always after more arrows.”

”Alright, well I was just letting you know that there’s nothing we need you two for throughout the day. Things seem to be calming down and until that big investigation you’ve got going with Ramor is done there isn’t anything you need to do. There is also some talk of dropping the investigation,” sighed Steel.

”Wait there is? Lin is allowing that?” asked Kat.

Steel made a ’so-so’ gesture. ”Not necessarily but she hinted that she’d be willing to let it go depending on how things ended up playing out. I wouldn’t call it ideal, but the worry is that now that things have calmed down, if we poked the bear too directly the tension will spike again and we might have a big fight on our hands. We’re still investigating, and all but sadly it might end up more as blackmail material because nobody died.” Steel didn’t seem entirely happy with the decision, but was willing to go along with it.

”I guess I’ll take a proper rest,” said Kat with a sigh.

--- Green --- 6:00 pm Thyme’s announcement time.

Green felt a tugging sensation in her stomach before all of a sudden she was in a forest and Thyme’s whispering voice filled her ears. ”You’re one of two contestants for todays battle. Good luck,”

Green immediately flung herself up into the nearby tree and waited. As she was looking around she noticed Timmy just sitting around where she’d arrived. ”Timmy... go hide somewhere nearby.” Green had originally been about to order Timmy to go find the enemy combatant... but Green was getting an idea. It was a little crazy but she was running low on food...

Quickly checking she had all of her stuff on her, and thanking the fact that she’d been awake at the time of the transfer, Green slapped an enchanted brooch onto her armour, pulled out a megaphone and then used her boots to leap up high into the air. ”I’ve got a deal I’d like to make. Before-” An arrow flew towards her, fast. It looked ready to impale her through the eyes when it slammed into an invisible barrier around her. ”before we fight is what I wanted to say.”

Green sighed as three more arrows slammed into the invisible shield, bouncing off without causing any damage to it at all even as she continued to fall back to the ground. ”The deal is still available, I’m not worried about a few arrows.” Her statement wasn’t entirely true but it was close enough. She’d put on that brooch for a reason, knowing that the person in question would likely try to attack her still.

*Now who is it? Definitely another archer by the looks of things. Could be that crazy dwarf but no, I think a proper archer. So... Ash and Hedera are the two I think it could be? Even if someone found an arrow those shots were all to my eyes or throat so it has to be a proper archer...* Another barrage of arrows slammed into the shield just before she reached the canopy. Her attacker was clearly trying to get some shots in where ’she’ could. These ones were going for different spots on her body, perhaps thinking the shield was specifically for her head?

Green hit the ground somewhat hard but she was used to this sort of landing and the enchantments on the boots compensated for it. Timmy was hidden somewhere and Green didn’t know what to do. *Hmm... do I jump up and go for one more announcement? I’ve got a bunch of those brooches so I can make it seem like I’ve got a much stronger shield then I truly have. I’ve got a bunch of random crap I don’t need and not enough food or orbs. Though I probably can’t get orbs off whoever this is.*

With a sigh, Green kicked herself back up into the air and started to repeat her request. This time though, there were no arrows, at least, not initially. Green wasn’t convinced the archer was ready to throw in the towel.