Chương 340: Limitless Path Chapter Three Hundred Sixty-Four

They cleaned the three hundred orcs up in half an hour or so, killing them all before having Blood register the kills. They didn't need to loot anything from the corpses, so Blood dashed and darted around rather quickly, tagging all the corpses, or what was left of them, in just a minute or less. Beth called the ship down as Blood finished up and they moved on to their next destination.

"I'm instituting a rule," Beth said before they moved to the bridge.

"What?" the other two asked in sync.

"No bloody gear on the bridge. Hose yourselves down before going to the bridge," Beth said firmly.

"We have a hose?" Blood asked, even Sera giving the wolf a look.

"Yes, Blood, we have a hose in the cargo hold," Beth said with a sigh.

"Fine," the wolf grumbled, leading the way down to the hold so they could hose off the blood and dirt. Sera provided them a little flame broil at the end to dry them off and, while they weren't super clean, they wouldn't be getting blood and dirt on the seats, especially if they took their armor off before sitting. It was one orc camp after another after that.

Their target number was much higher, but the fact the orcs were grouped up anywhere from fifty to a few hundred meant that it was a lot quicker to rack up big numbers as they flew from group to group. The further out they went, the more groups they encountered as well, until they were looking across a veritable sea of the beasts. Beth made the command decision that they would go above and beyond with this one and spend a little extra time clearing out the area.

It wouldn't do to let the problem fester like that, as they were slowly, but surely, approaching a tide situation with the kind of numbers they were currently looking at. After six days of fighting, flying, fighting, and recording the situation, Beth deemed it was time to head back. They had easily passed the five thousand required kills mark some time ago, and the extra they had mopped up, totaling well into the thousands, had put a small but noticeable dent in the worst areas of concentration.

This was also a situation that would only shift out of control over a longer period of time, given nothing else interfered, as the orcs weren't being produced by a dungeon or portal or special instance, but were just the type of beast that was currently naturally spawning in that mana dense area. Blood enjoyed flying the ship at any time, even if it was routine, and she happily piloted them back towards the city, though that wasn't their final destination.

Beth was rather thankful they had the airship, as their next target was beyond the northern grasslands, in an area little explored in recent times. A large survey had been done before the world was picked as a target for settlement, and people had gone back and forth over the surface of the planet in prepping it for building the first city and the first people moving there, but it had been quite some time since some places had been visited.

That, and much of the initial work hadn't been extremely thorough other than assessing and containing major threats, and now there was a high priority in getting much more and more detailed information on many places. The flight was pretty long, as Beth didn't really want to push too hard, not that she was worried about hurting the ship, but she was a bit worried about encountering something unexpected and having time to react.

That was perfectly fine with Blood, as she had more time in the hot seat, and Sera never minded one way or the other, though Beth had to be prescient about the fact that a bored Sera would often get up to no good. As was the case now, with them having flown for a few hours and Beth being pulled out of her reading by a massive, warm, slightly squishy weight settling in her lap.

She automatically, without thinking, reached out with both arms and wrapped them around her lap's new occupant, pulling Sera tight against her and settling her deeper in her lap.

"You bored?" Beth asked as Sera nuzzled against her neck.

"Mmm, just a little," Sera replied sleepily.

"But I also want to be touching you."

"I love when you touch me," Beth replied quietly, kissing against Sera's cheek as she squeezed her waist.

"I'll do it a lot more then," Sera muttered into Beth's neck.

"Please do," Beth replied softly.

"Aye, captain," Sera snarked quietly.

"Don't get started with that, we'll never hear the end of it," Beth muttered to her.

"Sorry," Sera replied very unapologetically.

"Mhmm," Beth grunted, unconvinced. Sera wiggled against her, trying to smoosh herself into Beth's body as much as she possibly could before nuzzling more firmly against her neck. Beth could both hear and feel as her breathing became deeper, almost able to time to the second when she would start snoring. She was glad the captain's chair was really big and very comfortable, as she was able to sit there with Sera sprawled overtop of her without being particularly uncomfortable.

She looked around the dragon girl to see Blood absorbed, or seemingly absorbed, in piloting the ship and not paying attention to anything else. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. She returned to her book as Sera lightly snored, light for her being just enough to barely rattle Beth's bones from the close contact and force, enjoying squeezing the dragon against her as she read.

It was a nice nap for Sera as they made their way north, taking a decent handful of hours to get beyond the grassland and to the start of a large forest. Beyond the forest, there was a series of lakes in a somewhat hilly area that was a split of numerous beasts on land and tons of terrors lurking in the waters. A great place to train or grind for levels and materials for a variety of reasons, only offset by the very high level of danger present.

They took basic scans of both areas first, Beth not waking Sera yet as they were going to still be flying for a couple hours, at least, as they scanned the terrain and the most obvious of anomalies. Beth was a bit suspicious of Sera not having a skill dedicated to sleeping, as the girl could really sleep like nobody's business, but she didn't dislike that about her, even with the grumbling snoring.

Beth didn't really pay much attention to the scanning initially, just letting Blood multitask and take care of everything. It didn't really need her attention at the moment, anyway, as one person could rather easily run the basic scanners, and Blood was more than smart and skilled enough to pilot while running the scanners in the background. Beth's reading came to an end when Blood got her attention, saying, "Hey, Beth. Scanners picked up something… uh, weird?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Beth asked, closing her book and standing, easily holding Sera while she took a couple steps forward to inspect the forward screen closely.

"There was a very high energy level that spiked a couple times, so I brought us over to investigate," Blood explained.

"When we got close, I saw this." The wolf pointed at the screen, showing a zoomed-in picture of the ground below. There was a woman sitting on a stool, that was the only way Beth could describe it, with a traditional fishing rod, or what looked like one, held in one hand. Occasionally, a random beast would attack her, either from the surrounding area or from the lake she was fishing in, and the woman would slash out with one hand, a thin and insanely precise cutting beam slicing the beast in half.

The woman bisected something that looked like a heavily armored grizzly bear that was stampeding towards her and roaring, or Beth assumed it was roaring from the gaping maw and flying spittle since she couldn't hear through the screen, before she looked up at the airship and winked.

"Uh, what should we do?" Blood asked, looking over her shoulder at Beth.

"Just hover here. I'll go down and say hi," Beth said.

"You sure?" Blood asked.

"We could just peace out."

"I mean, she's slicing level two hundred and fifty beasts apart by flicking her fingers; I don't think we could get away or stay safe if she meant to hurt us," Beth said.

"Just let me hop down there."

"I'll take us down to a hundred up," Blood said as Beth turned and set Sera on the captain's chair. That woke the dragon up, further evidence for Beth's theory the woman slept much lighter than she pretended, and she hopped up and glanced around. Seeing Beth leaving the bridge, she hurried along after her, following her through the ship and to the hold.

"Fight?" Sera asked calmly.

"Hope not," Beth replied as they stopped and waited for Blood to open the bay doors. She flicked a clip of the video to Sera, saying, "Some person out here fishing. She clearly saw us, so I thought we'd stop and say hello before continuing."

"I don't recognize her," Sera muttered.

"Should you?" Beth asked in reply, giving her a raised eyebrow.

"I know a lot of people," was Sera's only response.

"Okay, princess," Beth said, though she was only lightly teasing.

"More than you know," Sera muttered, leaning down to give Beth a quick kiss right as the hold door light flashed red and the door started opening. Beth returned the kiss, not caring about the wind, and then led the way forward, pausing at the edge of the ramp to look down. The airship generated basically no perturbations in the air or wind, as well as very little noise to the point it was barely a murmur.

The wind was only a bit blustery because they were a bit higher up in the air, but she doubted the woman below heard or felt much of anything. Well, she wouldn't if she were a 'normal' person, but someone that powerful had probably detected them when they first entered the area around the lakes, not to mention flew up to her. Beth stepped off the ramp of the cargo hold, falling through the air feet-first, landing with a heavy thump a short distance from the woman.

Sera landed behind her a moment later, somehow not making nearly as big a thump as Beth had. She glanced back over her shoulder, frowning slightly as she looked at where the tall dragon girl had barely disturbed the grass.

"I didn't think I'd find anybody else interested in a little fishing," the woman commented as Beth turned back around.

"Sorry to bother you," Beth said, giving the woman a nod.

"We were tasked with coming up here and exploring the area by the CRA and noticed you in the process." Beth showed her CRA emblem and the woman glanced at it, though Beth got the impression she did a very thorough scan even with just that glance. Just at that moment, the woman's line went taut and her rod jumped a bit, her attention snapping back around.

Beth watched as she waited a moment and then expertly set the hook (at least, Beth assumed it was expertly, as she knew very little about fishing), before starting to battle with the fish. Well, fish might be a generous guess, considering the dangerous waters the woman was casting into, but Beth supposed they would just have to see what popped up. The battle against whatever was on the line gave Beth a few moments to examine the woman.

She didn't outwardly display any signs that she was a humanified beast, but if she was that strong, her humanization could be extremely highly proficient, allowing her to appear entirely human. Beth was a bit hesitant to just Identify an unknown, extremely powerful person without their permission or having built up some rapport first, not wanting to upset them. She scanned the woman over with just her good old Mark I eyeball, though hers were more like Mark II at this point.

The lady was obviously quite tall, Beth able to tell even though the woman was seated as the top of the woman's head was around the height of Beth's nose. She had black hair with dark red streaks and undertone, making it look like her hair was smoldering with a deep fire, the hair falling beyond her waist when she was seated.

She wore a long, dark red dress, covering everything from her neck to her wrists and stretching all the way to her ankles, where Beth could see she wore a good pair of what looked like knee-boots. The woman's skin was rather pale and fair, and she had eyes that looked largely normal, apart from her irises being dark red and her pupils being a very dark purple. Even through the dress, Beth could see the lady also had quite a nice figure, quite ample curves in all the right places along with wide hips and long legs.

She didn't get any sense of danger from the woman, but she did detect a faint hint of immense power, which wasn't muted at all when the woman pulled a fish the size of a small whale with teeth the size of swords out of the lake. That must be quite impressive line she was using to be able to haul something weighing at least ten tons out without breaking.

The woman stood, proving Beth's guesses about her height being around Sera's right, and walked up to the massive beast, not flinching in the least as it flopped at her, snapping its jaw. She grabbed one of the enormous teeth with a delicate, long-fingered hand and twisted the beast onto its stomach with seemingly no effort whatsoever, proceeding to pry the jaws open and reach in for her hook.

The beast tried to snap its huge maw closed on the woman's arm, but a tiny flick of her right wrist from inside the mouth hit the creature's jaw so hard it was partially lifted off the ground with the sound of a mountain shattering from the shockwave. The woman easily removed the hook from its mouth with a slight tug before picking the whole fish beast up by the fang and tossing back into the large lake with a massive splash.

Beth watched as the surface rippled for a moment, the beast orientating itself before surfacing for an instant to do little more than glare at the woman. It then slipped back into the inky depths of the chilly water with barely a ripple, the woman watching it go before resuming her seat on the wooden bench. She turned to Beth and Sera with a big smile, Beth noting the woman certainly had fangs like Sera instead of more 'normal' teeth, before asking, "What can I do for you two little beauties?"