The monsters moved quicker as they got close and Gaia finally got a sense for the monster’s size. It was almost a hundred feet long and at least ten feet tall. If they reached the wall they could likely go over it if they wanted. This was when she noticed that Flora had jumped from the wall to battle the first of the four titanous serpents. The best she could do to help them was to keep her Mana Field up and hope it counteracted any venom if they were bitten. It would also poison the monsters if given enough time. She didn’t want to throw any poisoned webs as she ran the chance of hitting the parties while they fought.
The monsters sped up as they got close to the wall until they met with Flora and another bronze rank party that had made it there. The four monsters stopped when they came into contact with the bronze ranked defenders. Flora was able to get the first strike in their fight wounding the monster, from its pained howl Gaia guessed it was a strong hit. While the bronze ranked parties were fighting two of the monsters the other two moved around the battles making for the wall. This was when she heard the sound of arrows and bullets being fired. There was also magic being chanted and skill names being yelled.
Between the sounds of the hunters yelling and chanting, the monster’s howls, and the sounds of close combat along with projectiles being fired, the camp was a cacophony of noise. It was almost enough to deafen Gaia and Shadow. While they were reeling from the roar of battle Liv was tossing trapped webs and poison shots down towards the two unoccupied monsters. Malachite was firing water shots at them while moving to stay out of the defenders’ way. Eventually this required him to get down from the wall, which when he looked around, meant hopping off the front and out of the camp. The wall had become crowded with most of the defenders moving to attack the approaching monsters, leaving only the bare minimum to watch the other areas.
Gaia didn’t realize what was happening until Malachite had already jumped and she sensed the defenders moving further away. This was when she noticed one of the monsters was directly in front of her and Malachite dashed out of the way of its strike. Thankfully, Malachite was fast enough to dodge it and he also seemed to be generally faster than the monster as it chased after him and it started lagging behind rather quickly. Gaia had Malachite circle back around but stay out of range of the monsters so she could still lessen any venom’s effects and try to weaken the monsters with her poison.
This caused them to ride a very dangerous line since they were outside of the wall and moving between multiple monsters an entire rank stronger than them during a fight. She wasn’t overly worried since Malachite was faster than the monsters and her defensive barrier was quite strong. That didn’t mean she could even withstand a single hit from the monsters but she would do what she could to help. While Gaia and her bonds hopped down and did something reckless, her party members were none the wiser, focusing on attacking the monsters.
Fergus fired arrow after arrow at the monsters while Stephanie fired bullets from her repeating musket. They were a good team with Fergus firing while Stephanie had to reload her musket and Stephanie firing while Fergus rested for a moment. They weren’t dealing much damage but thanks to the title they’d gotten from the dungeon they were dealing more damage than most others. Griff had jumped down soon after Flora since he couldn’t help much from range. He was dashing in and out of the fight with Flora striking when he could to help.
Shadow had jumped down when Gaia had and joined Griff in striking and attacking when she could. Her ability to slip between being physical and essentially a shadow allowed her to dodge attacks and attack immediately after when the monsters didn’t expect it. This gave Flora a few extra moments where the monster wasn’t solely focused on them. Flora was constantly attacking the monster dealing damage, but weren’t able to deal a decisive blow due to the monster’s hard scales. They were constantly dealing damage, but they mainly consisted of surface wounds, like scratches. The best strike they’d delivered was from Titania stabbing one of the monster’s eyes, which had occurred at the beginning of the fight.
The monsters were slowly but surely taking damage from the barrage of attacks from the wall. Since the defenders on them were stone rank they dealt a minuscule amount of damage, but damage was still damage. With at least a few dozen attackers the damage was slowly building. When one of the monsters not preoccupied by a bronze rank party was about to climb the wall, Gaia sensed someone that was much stronger than everyone else join the battle.
They attacked the offending monster causing it to fall back before they jumped down and struck it with two quick attacks. The monster stilled immediately after and the person ran for the other unoccupied monster. Gaia could sense everything moving within her Mana Field as long as it contained mana, so she could sense the fights quickly conclude, with the assistance of who she realized was the Guild Master.
After the monsters all died, there was a cheer from the wall and the parties that had fought the monsters. It was during this time that Fergus and Stephanie noticed Griff had jumped down to fight with Flora and that Gaia had disappeared. They were about to panic when they saw that she and her bonds were by Flora along with Griff. The monsters quickly dissolved and the parties grabbed any items that they had dropped before making their way to the gate.
It was at this time Gaia noticed the Guild Master sprint straight at her before grabbing something directly behind her. Gaia sensed an extremely faint bit of mana from whatever it was as the Guild Master gripped it before the mana signature disappeared after hearing a loud crack. Whatever the creature was, it had been able to completely hide its mana signature from her Mana Field and make absolutely no noise.
Whatever the creature was it was her antithesis. It was able to remove itself from her ability to perceive it whereas others would be able to see it. It reminded her that her Mana Field wasn’t omnipotent and that there were things able to trick or hide from the sense. Thankfully, the Guild Master had seen it and acted before it was able to do anything.
“You alright?” The Guild Master Delilah asked.
“A bit shocked but yes. I couldn’t sense or hear it at all like it was able to hide its mana and be completely silent.” Gaia replied.
“Yeah. These things are called Lurkers. They are able to completely conceal their mana and make no noise when moving. They’re rare, but there are many of them this deep into the forest. They’re very easy to spot visually though.” Delilah explained before realizing. “Which makes them horrible for you doesn’t it?” She asked.
“Seems like it.” Gaia replied.
“Sorry.” Delilah started.
“Nothing we can do about it.” Gaia stated.
It was only after a few moments of silence that the Guild Master spoke again. “We should probably head back inside the camp.”
“Alright.” Gaia replied as the group walked to the gate.
As soon as everyone was back inside the gate it was closed with all haste and barricaded. Gaia moved back to her position on the wall to continue the shift. There she was greeted with a few worried hugs and after a few minutes the parties went back to their watch. The rest of the time with Flora was welcome as they were able to relax their guard and focus on keeping a lookout.
When breakfast rolled around the party took the same two groups with Gaia and Fergus staying behind with Malachite and Liv. Antonio and Shadow went with Griff and Stephanie for their meal. Flora split up with John and Titania staying on the wall. Nothing happened during the time the parties were split up and breakfast ended with Flora heading off to bed.
There were a few monsters that approached the wall but they were quickly taken care of. The group for the afternoon shift ended up being the party of Jeffs who had finally decided on a name for their party as well. They were now known as the Mighty Brigade. They had the same problem Gaia’s party had, they hadn’t come up with a name and so their leader picked the first thing that came to his mind. The watch with the Mighty Brigade went by without incident and Fauna went back to the inn to rest for the day.
When they got back to the inn they all convened in the girl’s room to relax and tell stories again. The story for the day was from Stephanie and she told them about how she got her class. To start out, since she was a half dwarf she’d had the title Dwarven Dexterity and the Armored Combatant ability since she was born. Both were inherent of the dwarves. The first made her reflexes grow faster but slowed her speed while the second allowed her to have a higher defense while wearing armor.
The two effects were what dwarves were usually known for. They were dexterous when creating items and strong warriors that were able to take hits. They were also known to not use magic. She was an odd one though, she was a half dwarf that wasn’t really a dwarf nor a full-blooded human. She wasn’t able to craft as quickly as other dwarves while not being able to grow as quickly as humans. It allowed her the ability to craft faster than most humans and be able to enchant where dwarves struggled to do so.
This allowed her to create items with dwarven techniques that she could enchant. Most dwarven items were unable to be enchanted due to the techniques they used causing the materials magical capacity to be removed. This made the items exquisite and break or block magic but unable to be enhanced by magic at all. It had taken her years of creating items and forging with materials before she noticed this problem. She tried a few experiments and found that it didn’t matter what kind of material was used. Whether it had a high magic capacity or none at all to start, if it was forged using the dwarven technique, the magic capacity would disappear.
She then tried infusing magic into her tools when she worked and found that it started to allow some magic capacity to remain or even be created. It wasn’t until she was able to use the techniques she’d been taught and have the magic capacity remain the same that she got the class. The reason it was just called smith, as she guessed, was because she’d made items using all kinds of materials from swords to clocks and even some jewelry.
The story took until dinner time for her tell as she went into detail about all of the techniques and each of her creations. The group didn’t understand a lot of it but could tell how much she enjoyed crafting, forging, and handling materials. They also learned that the first item she’d made after getting her class was the “boomstick” she used the first time they’d met. It had been upgraded by then but was mostly just modified without changing its original design.
Dinner was uneventful as most of the people had met her and no one got worked up about her bonds either. In fact a few people had come up and pet Shadow and Malachite. The two had gotten pretty popular and enjoyed the attention. Luckily no one stopped them while they were heading to the wall or for food usually but most people knew Fauna was on the morning shift. Gaia let them enjoy the attention when she could as she could feel their happiness through the bond.
After dinner the party split up and did different things for a couple hours before heading to bed. The next day went by with only a few monsters approaching Fauna’s section of the wall and the party enjoyed a somewhat relaxing day. There were only three more days before they had their free days so the party discussed what they wanted to do with them.
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“I’m fine with whatever we decide but I think we should take at least one day off where we don’t explore the ruin or be on the wall.” Stephanie stated.
“I agree and think we should explore at least one day. We don’t have to every week but I think we should, so we’ll at least have a good idea of what it entails.” Fergus added.
“Same. We can always do another day on the wall if we want to as well but I say we plan for one day of rest and another for exploring. Captain also said we could just show up and sign in for an extra day on the wall, so we don’t have to decide until it’s time to show up for watch.” Fergus stated.
“That sounds alright with me. How about we do the first day as our day off. The second for exploring and the third as a flexible day. If the exploring was tiring we can use it as a recovery day, go exploring again or do another day on watch.” Gaia suggested.
“That sounds alright to me.” Stephanie replied.
“Same.” Said the guys together.
“Alright with that settled, shall we go explore the camp a bit more?” Gaia asked.
The others agreed and they all went to check out the rest of the camp. Fergus described the area to Gaia as they went. The camp was situated around the large area where they had stopped when the caravan had first arrived. Around the “square” as it was called, were the smithies and equipment shops. The shops were more like stalls while the smithies mainly consisted of a small forge and work area under a wooden roof. These took up the entire western side of the square and took up a majority of the western section of the camp. The southern section of the square had the mess hall which took up the entire side of the square with training areas behind it.
To the north was the support personnel’s work area, this mainly consisted of a large roofed structure with equipment scattered throughout. One section had large basins with soapy water for laundry and another had cloth and threads to fix clothes. There were many other sections with different equipment to account for anything the defenders and explorers would or could need. There was even a small garden area which had Gaia excited for their day off. She hoped they’d let her grow a small section of her own or at least help grow something.
Finally, the last section by the square was to the east which had the inn they were staying at and most of the residences of the camp. Most of the residences consisted of small communal buildings with large rooms where everyone slept. There was also the tavern beside the inn where all of the alcohol of the camp was sold, it also had a brewer working constantly to keep up with demand.
From the central square there were six smaller paths and two main roads. The roads went to the north and south of the square with paths on each corner and going east and west, heading towards the walls. The road to the north is the road that the caravan came in on as it was the road going all the way to Boundary. The southern road went to the ruins which were just outside the southern wall’s gate. Each of the paths helped people move about the camp without having to move between buildings to go anywhere.
The camp was larger than Gaia had initially thought as they explored it. She had guessed the camp was smaller and mainly consisted of the square, inn, tavern, southern section and part of the northern section. It was about three times as big as she initially thought. Luckily, it was organized in a way that made everything obvious.
They all walked around for a while before heading back to the inn to sleep. The next morning started early with a warning bell being rung. Then they heard a voice yell out “Monsters incoming! Around five, all mid-bronze rank!”
The party quickly got ready and rushed to the section of the wall that the warning had come from. As they approached the wall, Gaia created her Mana Field and they moved up to the top of the wall. She could sense three of the five monsters that had been relayed. They were all different kinds of monsters as opposed to the four snake-like monsters from a few days before.
One seemed to be a massive beetle with four extra appendages. Two on each side one pair was scythe-like while the other seemed to be like a hammer. Another was a bear with three pairs of arms and around twenty feet long. The last one that she could sense was a hedgehog monster. It was about three feet long and only had four long quills. She could sense the quills growing rapidly before being shot towards the wall. She didn’t know what the four other quills were for but its rapid regeneration of quills made attacking it difficult.
The beetle seemed to be the most worrying as it might be able to break or cut through the wall but the other two were problems in themselves. The hedgehog monster would be difficult to deal with as it could shoot hundreds of quills almost every second. The bear was strong but from what she could tell it only had its size and physical strength to fight with. Flora was already on the ground fighting, since Gaia could hear John’s roars and Titania’s orders.
They were fighting the beetle, keeping it from getting closer to the wall while the bear moved towards them to fight. The hedgehog ignored the fighting and continued firing its quills at the wall. This made it hard for the defenders to offer support. Stephanie quickly noticed this and stood in her full armor and fired her musket at the hedgehog. Her armor gave her much more protection than most other ranged fighters and the quills stuck into her armor without hurting her. She got a few shots off before having to crouch behind cover.
Her bullets couldn’t kill it but they could wound it. Fergus quickly jumped up and fired a shot before dropping back. After seeing the two attack, others began to do the same as after the attacks, the monsters projectiles fired slower. This allowed them to attack it more and more as the defenders launched projectiles and magic at the monster which was soon killed under the barrage of attacks. Each attack didn’t deal much damage, but a lot of little damage adds up.
With the hedgehog dead, the defenders could attack the other two monsters and help Flora out. This fight mainly had Gaia and Griff on the sideline, as they weren’t the best for ranged damage where the combatants are extremely close. Eventually, the monsters were killed and the defenders returned to their respective watch areas.
Each time there is an alarm or warning bell a pair of reserve lookouts is moved to watch each wall as the defenders deal with the threat. This allows the fighters to deal with the monsters quicker while still having a lookout to spot a new threat if they approach from a different direction. It’s a good strategy as it makes it so the walls are always manned. It also allows all of the fighting power to converge on a significant threat without having to worry about missing a new threat.
The party moved back to the inn to relax until it was time to take their watch. They didn’t go back to sleep as the fight had woken them all up. It was also almost time for them to head to the wall anyway. They soon moved to the wall and began their day on the lookout for monsters. It was a relatively normal day with a few monsters coming close and being quickly dealt with on their side. On the other sides there was at least one alarm that was rung. This caused them to run back and forth from their wall to the others to assist.
It made the day tiring, but luckily there wasn’t a need to sound an alarm on their side. Most of the monsters that appeared for them were middle or low stone rank and were dealt with by a few well placed shots by Stephanie and Fergus. The monsters that appeared on the other three sides were a mishmash of different monsters. A few they’d dealt with before like one bear and one of the serpents from the first big fight, but many were new monsters that Fauna hadn’t encountered yet.
These consisted of mutated forest beasts mainly with one humanoid monster that was similar to what she guessed a humanoid squirrel would be. It was around two feet tall and had a massive tail like a squirrel but held a small axe and knife in each hand. It had snuck up and onto the wall during a larger battle where it had proceeded to injure a few people and even killed two before it was killed.
The day ended with a quick memorial for the hunter and defender that had perished before Fauna returned to the inn. The night had a somber atmosphere after that. They all did their own things before turning in for the night. The next morning was relaxing as the party awoke and leisurely prepared for the day. They went to Captain and were assigned to a section of the wall as usual.
The day was similar to the day before but with large attacks occurring constantly throughout the day. There were at least four such attacks on their section of the wall alone. They were able to slowly deal with one monster of a two monster attack thanks to their ability to deal more damage than usual to monsters of a higher rank. The other was dealt with by Legion as Fauna whittled down theirs. The attacks were almost constant with only a few breaks between them. The day was exhausting as the defenders were constantly running from wall to wall to fight the monsters.
The worst one was during lunch time when there were only half of each squad on the wall. This one had Gaia, Fergus, Malachite and Liv on the wall while the others had gone for food. There were also only two of the Mighty Brigade on the wall the axeman and luckily the bowman. There were five monsters that approached the wall this time and the alarm was quickly raised. Two of the beetle monsters and a group of three humanoid squirrels.
Fergus and Jeoff fired their arrows at the incoming monsters as Legion arrived and jumped down to deal with the beetles. Douglas blocked one and caused it to focus on him while the rest of the party dealt with the other beetle. This left the humanoid squirrels to deal with which moved around to attack members of Legion while they were focused on the beetles. Gaia quickly made some webs while Liv did the same and they hopped down with Malachite to slow the squirrel-men down.
Liv tossed trapped webs around far enough away to not interfere with Legion’s fight, but blocked the squirrel-men from reaching their targets. Gaia wove some webs and targeted the squirrel-men’s legs when they got close and managed to bind two of them. The other rushed in to attack with its weapons, a small spear and sword this time, before Geff slammed his axe into it leaving a large gash and knocking it back into Liv’s webs. He moved to hack away at it but decided to attack the two Gaia struggled to keep bound up. She’d been able to trap their legs but not their arms as they flailed around wildly, blades swinging randomly. Geff slowly moved forward and used the longer length of his axe to slash down at them. It took him a few minutes to kill one while Gaia’s poison was taking its toll on the other. Malachite moved forward and bit down on the monster’s head as it weakly swung a small club at him before going limp.
As this happened, the last squirrel-man had made its way out of the webs Liv had made and threw its spear like a javelin at Gaia who couldn’t sense it. Geff tried to slash or block it with his axe but wasn’t fast enough as it hurtled towards Gaia. It struck her defensive barrier and barely pierced it, only embedding itself a couple inches into Gaia’s side. She pulled it out and cast her healing shot on herself.
Geff in the meantime had run up slashing it with his axe while Fergus and Jeoff finished it off with arrows. By the time it was dead Gaia was completely healed. After ensuring she was alright Geff and her moved to assist Legion the best they could. Geff attacked with a few skills while Gaia used her Vines to try and bleed it which somehow worked. Her poison was also slowly stacking as the fight continued and after around ten minutes all of the monsters had been killed. All of the fighters then returned to the wall as they saw the other members of their parties running towards them.
“Sorry. There was another alarm at almost the same time as yours, we just ran to the one that happened first. We didn’t realize it was yours that rang a bit later.” They all apologized.
“It’s all good. It turned out alright in the end.” Geff stated.
“Are you sure you’re alright by the way?” Geff asked Gaia a moment later.
“I’m fine. It didn’t really do much and I healed it already.” She replied.
“Wait. You got hurt?!” Fergus immediately asked as he moved to look her over.
“I’m fine.” Gaia reassured him.
After a few minutes of bickering Gaia and Fergus went to get their lunch. There weren’t anymore big attacks during the last hour of their shift and the party went to relax. They all split off to do their own things after they got back to the inn. Fergus went out and collected some wood before starting to carve some small figurines. Griff was in the guys room reading from one of his books that he’d bought just before coming on the commission. Stephanie was in her portable forge repairing her equipment and tinkering on her weapons. Gaia was in one of the training areas, that she’d been given permission to use, playing with her bonds and practicing some of her skills and abilities.
While she focused on practicing using her chaos pathways with her vines and controlling them better, her bonds were practicing some of their own skills. Liv was still working with her creation skill and Malachite his Telekinesis. Shadow had leveled up to around thirty-two and had gotten a skill called Shadow Dash a little bit ago that she had barely been able to use. It allowed her to jump between shadows within about thirty feet of her. To Gaia’s senses she was disappearing after a puff of mana and reappearing somewhere else. Antonio wasn’t quite high enough to get his next skill being level twenty four himself. After a few more fights he’d get a new skill too. When Gaia heard the clatter signifying dinner being ready she and her bonds made their way to the mess hall. She met the rest of her party, including a grumpy Stephanie who had been dragged out to eat. They had a nice meal consisting of some kind of beans and a sandwich with a mouthwatering piece of meat that tasted similar to fried chicken. They went back to the inn and relaxed while Stephanie went back to her forge and worked on whatever it was she dragged from. The other three talked and they soon went to bed after once again forcing Stephanie out of her forge to get some sleep.
