Chapter 216: Geisenlarg Infestation.

Chapter 216: Geisenlarg Infestation.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 18]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 4] gained

Skrreeeee! The sight of their companions head exploding into tiny bits right in front of them naturally angered the three giant bugs in the back. Clicking my tongue, I used the Job skill [Instant Heat Ignition] from [Infernal Hellblade] to instantly heat up my tail without needing to grind it on something.

I readied to kill the remaining bugs, but paused when I noticed something moving behind them.

A bloody nest, there is a bloody nest under here! Falakash! I heard the elven word for shit from behind me, spoken with some serious anger. In the next moment, I felt mana concentrating behind me and noticed an arrow moving behind the bugs before five green air arrows appeared around it.

In the next second, the remaining bugs lost their heads, too. As their green blood gushed out their bodies, the wooden arrow shot over us, returning to its owner. Turning around, I saw a certain familiar blond-haired elven woman with a wooden bird on her shoulder. When she caught the arrow, she gave it back to her treant, who swallowed it whole, but what actually piqued my interest was the two green magic circles, one floating on her bow and the other on her bird respectively.

Custom spell, right? Delayed and continuous cast to keep it working like that, multi-cast to cast more. Not only is she a trained mage, but shes also stealthy enough to sneak up to me without Saori or her garms noticing her.

Stalker of Phantoms. Haitiri. This woman is scary And shes looking at us with a pretty angry expression.

D-Did you follow us, uhm, Maam? I meekly asked as an ice breaker.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

I entered the cave to check on you after I heard that loud cry from the depths, she stated before walking up close to us, not softening her sharp eyes. Just for your information, these are geisenlarg soldiers. They primarily inhabit the eastern parts of Altrust, where the beastman alliance is situated, not here in Artorias. Like ants and bees, they build colonies around a single geisenlarg queen and, due to how large these soldiers are, the nest could be massive.

Muraina then inhaled deeply and continued her explanation, her tirade slipping into a full blown rant, Queen geisenlargs always breed soldier drones first due to how competitive their natural habitat is, as they can serve as both competent fighters, since they are born at D rank, and workers until it's safe enough to breed the smaller, but more numerous, worker drones. The fact that a colony is being built under our feet is from the monster spawning you five caused with your fight with that wyvern! Normally, nature balances everything out, especially in naturally-made monster-infested areas. Remember this, clean the areas out if you use spells! We are cleaning this cave after we are done, alright? Ahhhhargh, rant finished! I was so worried you five got hurt, haaaa.

After taking multiple breaths, Muraina calmed down and dispelled her two magic circles. Letting out a deep sigh, she scratched her hair while we looked at her, astonished.

Im issuing another urgent quest for you, Aurora. C rank. If those were worker drones, I would probably have to issue a B rank just because of how large a colony would have become at that point. I cant risk a king being born.

Why is that? I asked her, noticing she was back to her normal demeanor. She understood how to switch from one mood to the next, although I was sure she was a hot-head.

Kings are the main ways geisenlarg colonies expand. They are the powerhouses that colonies spawn to beat down rival colonies. Depending on how much the queen is fed, the king can be born as an A rank, an absolute boon for them and a disaster for everyone else. Luckily, they cannot live for longer than a week due to a quirk of how they are born. She then pointed at the hole. I wont force you, but will you help me? With compensation, of course. We are professionals.

We are already here, so we might as well clean up this mess, right? I turned around to the others. Nobody objected.

She nodded with a smile. Good. Saori, keep a lookout for any sounds or smells approaching from the holes. Everybody, take a small rest and freshen up. Well venture out once you are fit to continue.

Ellaine does need a rest to recover her Stamina. Gotta play [The Will to Fight and Survive]. But we have a small problem.

As I was thinking of an issue, Ellaine walked over to Muraina and asked her about it herself. Muraina, uhm, d-did you see? Her left arm was bare again, the [Claw] she had on dispelled.

We were worried she might have seen Ellaine using demonic powers. If this were some dark fantasy anime, we probably would have said something like If she saw something, we might have to kill her but that was not only cringey but also probably dumb. I hadnt checked her profile yet, but she most likely was pretty powerful.

Like I said, you can trust me. I wont divulge anything. Even then, I have no idea what it was I saw you use, Ellaine, so I cant do much with that information until I ask you personally or use [Identify]. Thankfully, Muraina respected our privacy. She assured Ellaine and then went over to Saori.

I took out the [Room] runes and placed them on the ground, opening the subspace for Tasianna to grab some drinks and snacks for us. Our mobile base truly was the best. After I handed Elaine some fulinoe tea and white bread sandwiches, I went over to Grimnir to give him his portion.

Oh, thanks for the meal, lass. The dwarf took the tankard of mead and plate of sandwiches with gratitude before lowering the beard guard of his new helmet, revealing a round hole for him to eat and drink with.

Huh, and here I thought it was only added to protect your still-growing beard. You made sure to add a way to eat stuff with your helmet on, nice~

Hmph, he grumbled at my comment. Never talk ill of a dwarfs beard, right? Normal dwarven helmets dont have these things; we usually dont need to, since we use a special mixture to harden the tips of our beard into rockhair, as a gesture of respect to Crustacia. A tazs beard is resistant to fire to a certain extent, like the rest of our bodies, but it cant withstand stuff like your scale-dust, aye? I had to think of something to protect my face if I was going to keep fighting alongside you, lass.

Innovation through necessity, would be an apt way to describe the addition of this beard guard. While Grimnir chugged down his mead, I pulled out one of the leftover hamburgers our party had made yesterday for dinner and sat down next to him to eat it.

Pah! Grimnir slammed his empty tankard on the ground. Still tastes like pisswater. I hope the barrel Tasianna helped me make comes out better.

While I ate, I looked over to where Saori was speaking with Muraina about something. How did you do that? I did not notice you following us at all, nor did my garms. No smell, no presence, no footsteps. Your [Silence] and [Odorless] must be extremely high leveled.

Evolved skills, of course, created through the merging of lesser skills into one superior one, Muraina spoke as if it was the obvious answer.

Hmm, I should have been able to guess that. Still, I have my own evolved skills to help my detection and stealth abilities. Yours circumvented both of them. Saori was speaking about [True Wolven Instincts] and [Nights Caress] respectively. They were both still level one, so I couldnt blame Saori for not detecting Muraina.

Really? Amazing, then you must have made a lot of progress since the profile you sent to King Drangleic. Monster evolution, I presume? Saori nodded to Murainas guess. We Haireti train to become like ethereal phantoms, similar to lesser fae, when we move through our forests and woods, and I have been training for a while now. I heard Gael trained you a bit, but would you be up with some Haireti training? I can teach you this interesting custom spell.

A small green magic circle appeared on Murainas hand before she flicked it with her finger. It vibrated a bit but nothing really happened. Saori looked at it in confusion, but a few seconds later, the magic circle trembled again and some words on it lit up slightly.

One. Moving. Large. That was the information I got from this spell called [Manalocation]. How are your [Detection Sensor] and nose, Saori? What do they tell you? Muraina asked.

Hmm, multiple targets. Most of them are small, probably insects, while the others might be rodents or moles, maybe. I can hear something moving in the hole but nothing loud enough. No smell, except for dirt. Wait! A signal my skill recognizes as a threat appeared. Its moving. Do you mean that one? Saori returned her head to Muraina who flicked the magic circle again, nodding her head after it shook again.

[Manalocation] is a custom spell created by an empty vessel mage who used sounds as his spells, much like Princess Hestia over there with her songs. Its a wind-affinity spell, giving the circle its green color, but you can learn it without needing to learn the empty vessel or [Wind Magic].

Muraina explained the original spell was changed to send out mana, instead of wind or soundwaves, and acted similar to a bats echolocation. The mana would be sent out by touching the magic circle Muraina flicked it and it would return eventually, where the Divine System would give the caster scouting information.

Metamagics are amazing, right? [Fluid Cast] to repurpose the original spell into something non-wind mages can use. [Delayed Cast] to keep it in a limbo between Activation and Release, to prevent it from dispelling. Finally, [Continuous Cast] allows me to flick it as often as I wish, Muraina explained the functionality of the spell, intriguing me as I realized Id never made use of both [Delayed Cast] and [Continuous Cast] in the same custom spell.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Sanctified Blaze], and [Panzer] are single-usage spells where they cast their ability and that was it, similar to most System spells. [Halo of Consecration] and [Unheilige Engel] work on the principle of [Continuous Cast], where as long you continuously pour mana into a spells magic circle, you could cast the spell as often as you liked and even use [Fluid Cast] to change their function if you wanted to.

In spell casting, the four stages of casting were the base of all spells Invocation, Incantation, Activation, and Release. Without the meta-magics, or advanced spell casting techniques, of [Fluid Cast], [Multi-Cast], [Delayed Cast], and [Continuous Cast], you couldnt change this sequence.

Seeing Muraina use her [Manalocation] spell prompted me to ponder on some more spell ideas. Thinking of new and creative ways to cast spells was tricky to do, so when inspiration hit, it just dragged me into my own world where I could experiment with theories in my head. While I was imagining the effects of a test spell, somebody suddenly shook my shoulders hard, bringing my attention back to reality.

It was Tasianna. She told me everybody had finished resting and we would depart soon. I looked down at my plate and saw that I still had half my quadruple-patty burger left. Sighing, I put the burger back into my storage to eat later and drank enough water for the upcoming extermination.

A moment later, we all jumped down into the hole, landing safely with Tasiannas wind magic. For our formation, Grimnir and I were in the frontline. Then came Ellaine, Tasianna, and Muraina for the middle, while Saori was our rearguard. Both Muraina and Saori were responsible for scouting and ensuring we wouldnt get ambushed, which reassured the rest of us as we explored the tunnel.

Lady Hestia, please, remember not to overuse your fire. I dont exactly want to suffocate to death today, Muraina joked as we walked through this dank tunnel.

I nodded to her request, agreeing to rely more on martial arts and non-fire spells. Oh yeah, Muraina, do you want to join the party? My party bracelet has the platoon function. This function was an addition to our expensive party bracelet Farron gave us, which allowed us to invite twenty people to a single party.

However, instead of an immediate answer, Muraina made some disagreeable noises before answering, I apologize, but Im a bit of a, uhm, I dont like sharing my kills with others. Im at a level where slaying D ranks would give too little experience for me to care about, but every bit counts, right?

It could be said that she wasnt very cooperative, but I could definitely understand where she came from. Experience was important, but now I was worried that she would hog all the experience!

After walking a bit more, we encountered the soldier drone Saori and Muraina had detected before.

Mana Eyes.

Geisenlarg Soldier

Thank you for reading this chapter.

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021 12:58:10 AM Germany [Member of Zard Skwad]

Bio: Hey there, AbyssRaven here. I'm just an avid Light Novel and Fantasy story reader who randomly thought of a story and began writing about it.

I eventually found out that I've been spending a bit too much time with building, planning, and researching for the story, that I've decided to just share it with others.

Writing is mostly a hobby for me, but I would still love any kind of criticism to improve on it.

I'm also german, so please excuse anything that sounds a bit weird...I wouldn't mind you pointing it out though.

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