Chapter Thirty Five - Transitions

Chapter Thirty Five - Transitions

There was something incredibly hypnotizing about a giant snapping turtle crossed with a tentacle monster eating a buffalo creature whole. I mean, it was absolutely horrifying to see - I hadnt even known that a buffalo could scream - but on the other hand, it was not that the kind of thing you can look away from. How, by the grace of Podis shiny stone, does a monster Evolve into that!? This thing is even more freaky than the Blood Moly!

I guess, in a lot of ways, that it isnt anything I need to worry about. I can, after all, fly now and it wasnt able to get through the gorge into my valley. However, I was starting to get the feeling that this entire world was just a patchwork of powerful monsters territories. Flying away probably wouldnt help me much.

To the east, if I ignore the titanic death turtle, was an open flat plain. Given just how open it was, I was leery about going out there. First, I did not like places that I couldnt wall and defend easily. Second, now that I had wings, I liked having places to launch myself off of. Admittedly, a lot of that was my instincts talking, but my mind agreed with that idea. It made sense to live in places where I could keep myself safe.

To the north and south of my valley, as well as some kilometers to the west before the mountains, were forested hills. That seemed much more like where I would like to live, except that I wasnt exactly sure how it would be different than my valley. Undoubtedly there were alpha monsters who had already claimed their own territory. As it was, with the Stone Lynx dead I almost had claimed the entire valley.

...I wasnt sure why that was important. These instincts were even more territorial than the Komadus ones were. I suppose I could rationalize it fairly easily. The higher my Level got, the larger an area I needed to hunt to gain experience. Presumably, most monsters in this same situation also had become larger and required more food as well.

Regardless, I couldnt see a real reason to go north or south. As for west Well, the mountains actually terrified me more than the turtle. I hadnt actually seen any monsters there, but I had a sneaking suspicion that flying monsters would get more powerful in the mountains. After all, there was less tree cover in the mountains but lots of altitude differences that allowed flying monsters to easily exploit the terrain. While that was tempting for me, as a flying monster myself, I also suspected that there would be powerhouses already living there.

Aside from the freedom my new ability to fly granted me, the only other reason for me to leave my valley was to avoid the Blood Moly. Now that I killed the Stone Lynx there was no reason that it couldnt range into the northern part of the valley. However, if that plant was killed I would be the undisputed ruler of this valley and I wouldnt have much to fear. The valley walls were far too tall and steep for anything but powerful or flying monsters to make it down to the valley floor. The only way into the valley for most would be the gorge, which was blocked by turtlezilla over there.

The Blood Moly seemed to kill mostly by strangulation, and I rather doubted it would be able to come close to choking me given the size of my neck. Plus, [Scale Armor] and [Wyvern Hide] meant it was very difficult to cut or crush me. How hard could it be to kill a plant with my talons and teeth?

Well The Lynx never managed it and it had the same advantages I did, but I did have other advantages. How much would or could my toxin and venom work on a plant piloting zombie monster corpses though? My next thought was to throw rocks at the plant monster from the air, but the same question came up: how much would that affect a plant? As for other tools, I didnt have hands to use them anymore.

I suppose I also had magic, but my magic was pretty pathetic; it was worse than it was in my previous life! I could shoot a single bolt of mana - what Shati had called a magic missile - but doing so drained my entire anemic mana pool because of how inefficient I was. I had also managed to gain the Skills General Magic and Air Magic, but that had not helped me very much at all.

Traps wouldnt work well either, not against the zombified monsters. Although maybe I could modify a trap to work? Maybe submerging the Blood Moly in a small pool of toxic water might work, although I doubt it would work quickly. If I could make a fire trap of some kind, that would be the best, but I couldnt start a fire with magic and I didnt have hands anymore.

Maybe I could combine them? Trap the plant in a trap and then bombard it with rocks and flammable things and then light a fire elsewhere and toss it in, perhaps. I could also take sand and gravel into my mouth, submerge it in my toxic spit, and then blast it into the plant with a magic powered toxic sandblast. It would be a bit disgusting, but it would allow me to spread the poison over the body of the plant, because I wouldnt have to worry about if the plants lesser circulation failing to spread the poison.

Yeah, that might actually work quite well! My current body wasnt very well suited to digging, but my Digging and Trap Making Skills would make up for the difference. I could stockpile large rocks, flint, and tinder nearby to make ready. It wouldnt actually take me very long to prepare, the hardest part would be scouting out the Blood Moly so that it didnt ambush me while I was building and the second hardest part would be luring the thing into my trap.

For all that I could fly, the valley was still decently large and the Blood Moly wasnt exactly large. Nor, for that matter, was it easy to see in the undergrowth. My Class ability, [Prey Sense], would help, but I doubt it would help all that much.Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m

[Prey Sense]

[You are able to sense where prey might be!]

[The higher your Perception, Acuity, and Magic Stats, the more accurately you are able to predict where your target could be. This ability is most effective when tracking either general prey or a particular prey monster you have just seen. The longer between when you have last seen a particular prey monster and when you use this ability, the less effective this ability will be.]

I had tested it out and it was a lot like playing hot and cold; which is to say: quite frustrating. All I really got was a vague idea what the direction of whatever prey I was tracking was in, and I didnt get much of an idea how far away that prey was. I could have a Hatchling Boreal Toad gnawing on my tail and my [Prey Sense] seemed to think it was ten or twenty meters away at least.

Still, it was somewhat better than nothing and it would save me time, if nothing else. Not that time was really a worry of mine. While I wasnt entirely sure, I was fairly certain that I was not yet a year old yet. I could afford to take my time if I wanted to and I still would Level up just fine.

It was a rhetorical question, of course. Though the answer was one, namely myself.

How many people have journeyed out this far at all? Ylma, our partys mage sniffed in disdain as her eyes looked over the dark town. Given how large this town is, more than I thought, but even so I would be hard pressed to say we were in civilization.

So long as one of the people who has is an innkeeper, I dont care about the rest, Chaurl complained. It was a sentiment I agreed with wholeheartedly. I might love nature, but I do prefer to sleep in a bed at the end of the day!

The guard had recommended an inn called The Miners Rest and had given directions, so our party made their way to it in good time. I heard Chaurl muttering a prayer of thanks to his god when he saw that the common room was lit and that the innkeeper was still awake. Having to wake up - and then negotiate with - an innkeeper was never a fun chore, and it almost always fell to Chaurl. After all, people had little trouble getting mad at a warrior but tended to be a lot calmer when talking to a cleric or priest! We got two rooms, one for men and one for women, and pretty much collapsed into them as soon as we could. I was asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow.

Unfortunately, morning came all too soon. All of us were in various states of unkemptness - Ylma was particularly bedraggled, she never did well with mornings - as we gathered around the table, enjoying the meal prepared by the innkeeper.

Rauvin had that look of a born leader and although he also happened to be somewhat of an idiot when it came to non-lethal things, he was always serious when the situation was dangerous. Standing at just over six feet tall, with short blonde hair and a trimmed goatee, even having just rolled out of bed he was already being eyed by the waitress.

Aside from being the party leader, Rauvin was our vanguard and even had the Class [Vanguard]. He also had the [Heavy Infantry] and [Officer] Classes from his time in the army and had left with enough money to afford a full steel plate, which made him the perfect kind of person to lead from the front of the battle.

To his left was Chaurl, who almost seemed the precise inverse of Rauvin. Where Rauvin was tall, Chaurl was short; where Rauvin had short blonde hair, Chaurl had long black hair gathered in a ponytail; and where Rauvin wore plate, Chaurl was dressed in robes.

Chaurl was a cleric of Jakkus, the god of ambition, one of the lesser gods in the human pantheon. He provided healing when we were injured and was capable of armoring himself with blessings and wading into the fray himself when it was warranted. His primary Classes were [Acolyte] and [Brawler], although he also had the [Chef] Class from before he joined the Jakkus faith and became an adventurer.

Between the healing and the cooking, it was a running joke that we all would prefer the food.

On Rauvins right was Ylma whose fiery red hair was sometimes literally on fire because she was the partys mage and preferred to use fire magic when fighting. Originally from a nameless village in the Old Lands, she had been thought of as cursed for her hair and ostracised. Through some various events though, she ended up with a scholarship to a prominent mage academy and lived most of her life in the lap of luxury. Her pale skin and soft hands had never seen a day of work until she was sent to get practical experience with magic and became an adventurer herself.

As a [Witch] and [Fire Mage], Ylma blew away our enemies with blasts of fire. Whenever that didnt work, she would curse them and weaken them for the rest of the party. Her Strength was low, but her Magic was very high and she could melt the armor right off a bandit.

Next to her was Karlin, another one of our frontliners. He was the eldest - if you didnt count myself - of the adventurers, although he was still under thirty. His dark brown hair and beard were messy, but other than that he was rather nondescript. If it werent for his steel studded leather armor and the sword on his belt he would be easy to mistake for a homeless bum on the street. He was a quiet man who rarely cared to speak more than necessary, but competent enough at what he did.

Karlin was a [Rogue], [Swordsman], and [Skirmisher]. When Rauvin pinned our enemy down, Karlin would dart in and take advantages as they came. It was easy not to think of him as a threat compared to Rauvin in his heavy armor, but any bandit who made that mistake rarely got to make the same mistake again.

Tamlin was something of a midliner. A young man with sandy hair who wore it in the same fashion as Rauvin - out of a slight case of hero worship - despite the fact the hair on his face was too wispy for him to really pull of a beard, Tamlin also wore leather armor but carried a spear instead of a sword.

As a [Spearman], Tamlin helped to hold enemies away from the back line and was able to thrust forward whenever an opening presented itself. However, he wasnt a very high level yet so Karlin usually capitalized on those openings before Tamlin could.

And then there was me. I was very, very young for an elf, only a mere one hundred thirty one years old. I had the golden hair that was the sign of an elf descended from the Sol family line that I wore in a braid, letting the sharp point of my ears be visible to whomever looked. Other than that, I looked like an oddly tall and thin fourteen year old human girl; I was too young to have the truly sharp features of an adult elf.

Like Tamlin, my youth meant that I didnt have the best Classes. I was a [Warrior], [Hunter], [Scout], [Archer], and [Herbalist], and anyone who saw that list of Classes knew what I was going for. Of course an elf would be going towards the [Ranger] Class, it was such an incredibly common stereotype!

The explanation for that was a bit less mystical than elves just being attuned to nature though. Having grown up in the Elven Groves, I had lived among some of the best [Rangers] in the world for longer than the rest of my party had cumulatively been alive. Once you see a millennia old [Far Ranger] whose Level might be in the hundreds practice their craft, of course any child would want to be like them! Regardless, I provided scouting, tracking, and ranged attacks for my party, and I think I did it well despite my basic Classes.

I shook my head to clear it; I needed to pay attention. We had come to Evergold for work and so today was likely to be a busy one for us.