16 Ch. 14- Hunting in the Marsh

After my first official colosseum match, I celebrated at home with Mira and then took the next day off to relax and enjoy our new apartment. Mira and I played cards for most of the day after having "lost" the monopoly box, such a shame it'll never be found. How will I possibly go on without it ;) ?

Anyways, we enjoyed ourselves and lazed around, only to get out of the house to go eat dinner at a nice steak restaurant. Their special was a thorny deer steak covered in au jus with a side of mashed potatoes, totally worth every credit spent, and it was nice to treat Mira after all the things she's done for me over the years.

Now, I'm heading over to the gate, but I'm deviating from my usual plan. Instead, I'm heading over to the marsh South of the gate, which has stronger monsters that get as tough as tier 4. Although they are rare to encounter, there are a few residing at the very center in close but distinct territories.

I haven't yet encountered anyone in these hunting areas, because they are usually pretty massive and I go out of my way to avoid strangers when entering a zone. I don't plan to change this, but I need to be especially careful, as those that enter the marsh are as strong or stronger than me.

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As Jareth, Brutus, and I plod our way South we notice the ground underneath us becoming wet until mud begins to appear and squelches underneath our feet unpleasantly. The stench isn't terribly appealing either, as the stench of stagnant water and decaying plants is overwhelming, luckily that means monsters will have a harder time tracking us.

The trees appear to be mostly mangroves with roots above ground like some sort of wooden octopus, and moss hangs everywhere from the branches and on the trunks. Some of the moss even glows occasionally, which was nice to look at until I realized that bugs attracted to the light were melted by some form of acid as soon as they touched the unassuming vegetation.

Clearly this was a far more dangerous area meant for experienced summoners, and I only hoped that we were prepared enough for any dangers that might cross our path.

The first monsters we come across were a pack of 6 filament dragonflies, they looked like tiny shards of metal flying around in the air with light glinting off of them any time they were exposed to the sun.

Their entire body was had a hard exterior of metal and their wings were razor-sharp, and when groups of them would attack something their prey would end up looking like they were caught in a giant blender.

3 of them coordinate an attack against Jareth and zoom around him as he attempts to swat at them, 2 go for Brutus but one gets bitten at the start leaving him to deal with just 1. All that was required of him to finish off his foe was just waiting around for the remaining dragonfly to approach before lazily swiping his claws and ripping the head away from the rest of the body.

1 of the dragonflies veered towards me, but I first dodged it with my minor teleporting ability and then cut it down with my sword, which I had taken out at the start of the encounter. It was split in two with a lucky strike on its second time circling around me.

Eventually, the metallic pests were taken care of after a few minor cuts on Jareth's body, one gash on Brutus's face from biting the first dragonfly, and surprisingly no wounds on myself despite being the weakest of the group. After sweeping the mangled bodies into my storage we continue walking along our muddy path.

Storing away the 6 small bodies, our party continued on with relative ease only being occasionally set upon by the odd monster, by the time we had reached the 3rd tier area my summons and I had successfully managed to kill 16 monsters of average tier 2 strength.

The only remarkable monster being a vile purple-colored poison toad. It had nearly managed to successfully poison Brutus by attempting to body slam him and smear his poisonous secretions all over him to be absorbed through his body, which would eventually kill my precious canine companion if not treated.

Luckily, Brutus was smart enough to shadow travel away at the last second and dodge the lethal touch of the toad, he stayed away and allowed Jareth to confront the monster as he still had no means to attack something without some part his body.

After that near run-in with a poison monster, we became extra careful about not touching any unknown monster, I informed them that the general rule is bright colors on a monster indicates poison, they use the coloring to ward off predators who would mistakenly try to make a meal out of them.

The 3rd tier area of this swamp was infamous for having vicious redcap gnomes living about the area typically around groves of trees, where they would hide to ambush their prey. This tactic was especially effective due to their small stature and the thick roots of the mangrove trees they would hide behind.

Those gnomes are infamous for being crazed creatures that desired blood more than anything else, and more often than not would charge headfirst towards an enemy in a blitz style attack just to make them bleed.

Their body had evolved in such a way to give as many weapons to draw blood as possible, they had long hypodermic claws that were surprisingly sturdy and piranha-like teeth coated with an anticoagulant for tearing into prey and making them continuously bleed until the wound was washed out or they died, whichever came first.

Luckily for us, they were especially susceptible to iron as a result of their fae-like origins and Jareth was able to easily handle them with his iron mace. Whenever he would swing his weapon at one, they would burn as if acid was poured on them as they went flying from the blow, needless to say, most never managed to get up for another attack.

Also present were dryads that would control trees to try and drag their prey to a watery death, these monsters were especially avoided as they were dangerous to even groups and their control of the terrain gives them a distinct advantage that allows them to wipe out entire summoner groups if they are careless.

Not to be forgotten, is the top predator within the swampy environment, the bristled boa. They were giant constricting snakes that in addition to being able to crush you, they had small spines all along their body that acted similar to a cat's tongue and could be used to grind you to pieces if you are caught by one. It was a brutal way to go from what I had heard, I made sure to warn my summons and keep a proper distance from the moving sandpaper at all costs.

Eventually, I got around to replacing Brutus with Emett so that the weaker summon could use the environment to its' advantage.

I had Emett remain in the back and shoot out globs of mud to catch prey or bullets of rock from his shell to injure and distract opponents. By the end of our massacre, they had managed to slay a total of 20 monsters with 8 of those being nasty little redcaps, and a further two being bristled boas that were luckily taken on individually.

Emett seemed to be growing through these battles, at least skill-wise, and in the later battles, he began taking an active role rather than remaining as support. It was so adorable to see that little rocky body of his try so hard, and even sweeter was Brutus who acted as a big brother and tried to allow Emett to get as much experience as he could within controlled conditions.

Unfortunately, Emett was a tier 2 monster at best, so against these tier 3 monsters, the most he could do is hamper or distract them unless he made a lucky shot, of which he only managed twice by hitting the eyes of some redcaps.

Night came soon after and I decided that we had earned enough, and so our group set out north immediately in the hopes of making it back to the gate before dark. I had decided speed was of the essence as we really had stayed out for most of the day, so I unsummoned Emett and got onto Brutus's back.

By the time I got back and had gone through the gate into civilization, I was just in time for dinner. Unfortunately for my stomach, I first needed to go sell off my haul. With 16 tier 2 cores (four filament dragonfly cores were kept for Jareth) and 18 tier 3 cores (2 bristled boa cores being kept for Emet) the total ending up being 590 credits for the cores.

After selling the bodies at the summoner association I ended up making 1,950 credits there. In total my daily earnings came out to a total of 2,540 credits, making my account blow up to a staggering 9,147.

When all of my finances were finally taken care of I used Brutus to quickly get to my new apartment and see Mira. After a quick hug of joy at seeing me return alive, she began to gag at the smell clinging to me from the nasty smelling marsh.

It seems I had gone nose blind to the smell and had forgotten how difficult at first it was to smell. To remedy that I went to take a shower and changed into some new non-smelly clothes, I was amazed to see the amount of mud come off of my body in the shower, there was mud in places I didn't even know mud could get to.

Once clean, I went to catch up with Mira in the living room and talk about our days. She began to talk about the newest potion she was working on and that her hope was that it would act as a general detoxifier for most common poisons.

What she needed the most was poisonous monsters to synthesize an antidote, and her face when I told her about the most recent area I had begun hunting that was full of poisonous monsters was priceless, it was as if she had just won the lottery.