43 Ch. 30, Pt. 1- Pride Comes Before the Fall

It was similar to how summoner parents would help capture summons for their children when they were still too weak for strong summons. Most people disregarded having low-level tiers for additional strength and ability bonuses. After all, nobody is going to turn down a tier 5 dragon summon regardless of their comparative strength.

I highly doubt I would be able to catch any useful ones, but I would be on the lookout for any. If I was really lucky, I would come across monster eggs which could pass through the gate barrier.

They were exceedingly rare and hard to find, the mother monsters would fiercely protect their babies and even give their lives for them. Usually strong monsters were the ones capable of protecting their eggs and raising them to hatch, the weaker monsters would have their eggs turned into a meal for another monster.

Not only would eggs have the advantage of being static and able to breach the gate barrier, but they were more prone to mutations as a result of multiple genes being transferred to an offspring, and so variants were much more likely.

That's not to say that all born monsters had an advantage due to mutation, they followed the laws of genetic variation like us humans. The mutations could turn from an extra finger to even multiple heads. Not all were useful, but they have the opportunity to gain something beneficial at an early stage of their development.

One of the downsides aside from negative mutations was that the summoner would have no idea how the summon would turn out until it hatched. They were also much slower to develop since they grew at a natural rate rather than the quick rate of created monsters turned summons.

This would normally be a downside for most summoners who desired quick power, but the potential of born monsters were often great than the fast-growing created summons. This only applied to the later stages of summoners where the potential of a monster mattered more than their inherent current strength.

Most people didn't have the foresight to bother about a level of strength they might not ever reach. They only desired to survive at the current moment and gave up long-term benefits for short term gain.

This wasn't necessarily a bad choice as many had survived only because they added more summons to their team to shore up some immediate weaknesses. It's hard to worry about the future if you can't even survive the present.

I was planning on searching for valuable items or plants or fighting off strong but valuable monsters. I feel like we have enough strength to warrant going deeper, and since we had managed to fight off various tier 4 monsters and summons already we would be perfectly alright unless something freakish occurred.

....

The marsh was as humid and muddy as normal, and the trek was only made bearable by the fact we were using Hemlock and Jotun to traverse the biome quickly. We didn't bother stopping to fight, and quickly breached through to the center of the Marsh.

It was darker and vibrant with all sorts of moss, bushes, and cypress trees dotted throughout. Were it not such a dangerous area, I would have loved to stop and admire the scenery for a bit. Unfortunately, it was rather dangerous, and both Alexis and I brought out an additional summon to help fight.

Obviously I brought out Jareth and had him on standby to intercept any monsters. Musashi was Alexis's bladed mantis summon, and was rather strong for a tier 3 summon, he would act as back up in case of multiple monsters.

I wouldn't be relying on his strength, instead, Hemlock would serve as a great protector and deterrent for any dangerous monsters that arrived. With the poison drake alongside a nearly impervious Ogre, we would be perfectly safe within this area.

Getting closer to the center allowed us to come across increasingly dangerous monsters like dryads, spriggans, and treants, or nagas and hellhounds. These were the most notable or dangerous of monsters, that we came across, but by no means represented all of the dangers present in the marsh.

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Some were in different areas more suited to their development, others were more sparse or decided to attack a smaller group of humans and summons. Those that attacked us were dumb enough to attack a group like ours in fewer numbers, and others were overconfident in their strength.

None of our mini-battles were enough to warrant further caution and only served to bolster my confidence in the group. It seemed like nothing that got close to us managed to get even close to doing some real damage, and so I decided to continue on and get further into the more inaccessible areas.

I was hungry for more monsters to sell and treasures to find. The deity didn't leave us humans without any means to get stronger, and in some cases, natural treasures or hidden items could be found in more dangerous parts of the biomes.

These items attracted stronger monsters to protect the item in a usually mutually beneficial relationship, and as a result, the more dangerous areas were exactly where the treasures were. I was determined to at least find one by the end of the day.

I didn't want to say I was getting greedy, but getting so close to emptying my accounts had set me off on a frantic hunt to earn some more. I felt like I was suffocating when the thought that I might become poor again resurfaces in my brain.

....

"Tommy, do you really think we need to go any further in? It just takes one strong monster to wipe us out, and we're a lot more fragile than our summons." (Alexis)

"We'll be fine Alexis, we already have our strongest summons out and with Brutus's sharp nose, he can detect any monsters near us in case of ambush. It's only a tier 4 area, so why worry too much when we have two of our own. The only thing I'd be worried about is a group of tier 4 monsters, but they rarely ever do that." (Thomas)

"Ok, but I have a bad feeling about this. Everything's started to get quiet and it's making me unnerved." (Alexis)

"Shh. I think I found something." I said as quietly as I could to Alexis who was right next to me. The clearing we had just passed contained a small spring and a cave in the back that looked like it was made by some monster.

The size of the claw marks and how large the cave was made me a bit weary. However, I didn't see or sense any monster and neither did Brutus, so I figured it would be fine to enter and take a little look around.

By the time we finished scoping out the place, we would still have plenty of time to leave before the monster came back if it was still alive.

"C'mon let's go look and see if we can find anything valuable in the cave, Brutus hasn't sensed a monster around and I doubt it's going to come any time soon." (Thomas)

Alexis reluctantly agreed to go with me, and since she seemed so hesitant to enter I had Brutus shadow travel and sneak around ahead of time for any hidden dangers. She seemed a bit more relaxed after taking so many precautions and Brutus reporting back that there were no traps or monsters around right now.

What was interesting was that he smelled something further down in the cave that was heavily marked with the scent of a monster similar to Jotun but at a higher evolutionary stage. I was ecstatic because dragons were notorious hoarders of wealth and it was likely that something really valuable was further inside.

The cave was lit up slightly from the sun overhead, but only at the entrance. The rest of the cave was extremely dark which made it difficult for our eyes to adjust. Luckily, Brutus and I had night vision and could see completely fine after a few moments of adjustment.

Alexis couldn't say the same, and neither could her summons, so I went back out to grab a stick large and dry enough to be a torch. I grabbed an extra t-shirt I had in storage and wrapped it around the stick to act as an accelerant, which lit up quickly after setting it on fire with a lighter.

"Here's a torch so you can see, I'll go ahead of you so the light doesn't affect my vision." I handed off the makeshift torch to Alexis and wandered on ahead. It seemed like part of the cave was naturally made as a few stalagmites and stalactites existed peppered around the area. These weren't a problem as many had been broken presumably by the monster and none were big enough to block our path.

Contrary to the outside where the marsh was quite damp and humid, the cave itself was rather dry and warm. Thinking about why that would be so, I take a quick whiff and detect a rotten egg stench indicative of sulfur. It would be fair to say that maybe there are some hot springs or volcanic activity beneath the cave.

I wonder what a monster would want with a cave that was naturally warm and dry despite living in a swamp?

My question was quickly answered when we got to the end of the large tunnel and found a rounded out circular room with a series of rocks spewing steam out from cracks within them. In the center of that formation was something I absolutely did not expect to see.

In the center was a blue-violet egg the size of a microwave if they still existed in this era. There were scale-like patterns around the shell, and even odder was the shifting of color on the egg.

It was like it couldn't decide what color it wanted to be and soon enough shifted into a red-violet color intermixed and taking over the previous cool coloring. It was different from most eggs I had heard of, where most would maybe have a special color or pattern on them, never before have I heard of an egg changing color.

"It looks like we have something special here with this strange egg, I don't imagine it would be a weak monster either. Let's quickly take it and get out of here before its' mom comes back. I really don't want to be on the bad side of a monster that can produce an egg like this." (Alexis)

I couldn't help but agree and let Alexis store the egg for now. She needs a new summon more than me right now, but Mira could also use a new summon. For now, I would just let her store it and we could figure out who should get it later.

I started to get a bad feeling about all of this and started waving my hand to tell Alexis to hurry up and store the egg so we can leave. I let out a breathe ass soon as it was safely tucked away and we started moving out with some serious speed like the devil himself was behind us.

I just now started to realize the potential danger of what we just did, I'm just really hoping it doesn't come to bite us in the ass. As soon as I finished that thought I came to regret it as I started to feel the vibration of heavy footsteps proceeding closer to the cave while we were still in it.

Alexis seems to have felt the same thing judging by the frantic expression on her face. We booked it for the opening only to see in the clearing by the spring outside was a large draconic monster with two heads.

I would call it a hydra except for the fact that it only had two heads on its' body. It was a rather slender yet tall and long monster with each head being a different color. The right head was red as a ruby, and the left was the opposite being a cool ice-blue.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what the heads could do, and suddenly the coloring on the egg made sense. I guess the most accurate name for this unique monster was a bydra, and while it was still in a usually tier 4 area, this monster seemed stronger than most.

It wasn't quite at the 5th tier, because that would require it to have nine heads like a true hydra, but that didn't make it any less imposing or lethal. I would have to classify it as a pseudo-5th tier monster, and it would be fair to say that it was the king of this section of swamp.

I didn't really like how outclassed we were right now despite our numbers, and began to feel fear as its' draconic aura began to affect summons and summoners alike. It felt like we were looking at a king and had weights on our shoulders while facing it.

It took effort but we all managed to shake off most of the effects after a few moments. Had we encountered the monster before the monster break we would be terrified sitting ducks, but now I only tried to figure out how best we could fight or escape the monster.

It wasn't even the strongest monster I had ever faced or seen, but it was definitely the strongest I had encountered while with just one other person as back up. We remained in a tense silent standoff with the monster for nearly a minute as we assessed each other.

I was using this time working on how I would get us to escape this area alive, we wouldn't be able to defeat it, and it wouldn't just let us leave after having taken its' baby. We would have to survive against an angry mother far stronger than our summons, things were not looking up for us.

I couldn't help but look over at Alexis with her wide eyes and whisper, "I'm sorry I got you in this mess, I'm going to try and keep it occupied while you escape when you can. I might need Hemlock, so leave her here to help me fight it off while you ride Musashi. Unsummon her about 30 seconds after you start leaving, that should give me plenty of time to keep it occupied."

"I'm not leaving you to die while I escape, we're in this together. I'm going to fight with you just like we've done before, but I'm going to make you pay for it when we get back for being so greedy. I'm also telling Mira on you." (Alexis)

I couldn't help the miserable expression on my face when she mentioned siccing Mira on me, but I knew I deserved it and just nodded in acceptance. Our little strategy meeting was cut short by an angry roar that preceded an angry mother bydra charging right at us while charging up both breath attacks at once.

"Oh Shit!!!" (Thomas and Alexis)