Chương 83: 81. Forest Ecosystem

"There you two are!" Norah runs our way as soon as Penelope and I enter the guild hall, giving us a friendly wave.

"Everyone else is with the boss already! It looks like our mission this time is going to be real big."

"Of course it's big," Penelope scoffs.

"Every mission is going to be big with a third of the guild dead."

"The singing lady told me we're going after that talking Hiverock monster we let get away last time," I say.

"I sure hope if that's true, we aren't going alone. We don't really have the firepower to put that thing down."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about firepower this time," Norah answers with a grin, leading us into the room where everyone else is standing. I assume she means that the three super powerful souls inside are going to be part of our team. I'm definitely a fan of that; any of them feel like they could match that creepy monster on their own. I recognize them, though I'm not exactly sure from where. One soul like a dark whirlpool, another a glow of pure heat, and the last one feels like some sort of bladed pastry.

A sword cake. I like that one, that one's my favorite.

"Welcome Penelope, Vita!" the branch leader says, opening his arms to us in greeting.

"This is Alan, Mateo, and Netta. Your teams are going to be joining each other for this mission."

"We've met," Penelope dismisses.

"We were all in here to decide distribution on the last mission, remember? Please make sure you're getting enough sleep, Khoren."

"Who's Khoren?" I ask. Everyone in the room turns to stare at me.

"That would be me," the branch leader says. Oh. That makes sense.

"Orville, how is your team still alive?" the whirlpool-soul person says. Netta, I'm guessing, since I think Alan and Mateo are boy's names.

"She's much more competent in the forest than she is in a conversation, master," Orville answers, diligently coming to my defense.

"Vita, what's your sensory range up to?"

"About seven hundred and fifty yards," I answer immediately.

"Wait, wait, wait," the heat-souled man says.

"Before the last mission I explicitly remember you saying four hundred and fifty."

"Yeah, that's right," I agree, staring at him blankly.

"I improved. I'm hoping to get up to eight hundred this trip."

"Vita recently got reprimanded for spending a few days in the forest alone," Norah adds, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

"She's a genius hunter. Don't worry about the vacant expression."

"Vacant expression?" I ask.

"Wait a minute, I got reprimanded?"

"You receive less pay the days you're in-city but don't report in," the branch leader... er, Khoren, I guess, answers.

"New policy."

"Do I at least get a cut from that pentapede hide I brought back?" He sighs.

"Yes. You do. But anyway, regarding your actual mission: it's clear that our traditional team compositions are no longer effective against the current threat. So we are switching to a new strategy where we combine multiple complementary teams into larger forces that take on fewer missions. It's not ideal, but we need to focus on success rates even with the dire number of missions coming in at once. I won't lie to you, we have been getting crushed out there.

Templar squads are coming back barely intact, and the King is considering placing us in a state of war and mobilizing the army. Your mission is fairly simple: find and slay the monster that killed Second Lord and Second Lady Taftan in New Talsi... as well as every damn vrothizo between here and there." Everyone except Penelope and I nod in affirmation. I glance in her direction, quickly realizing that she doesn't want to vocally admit that she also has no idea what that word is.

"What's a vroh-thee-zoh?" I ask.

"It's the name of the evolving creatures from Hiverock," the branch leader answers.

"Apparently one of the off-island traders recognized them, and they had very bad news for us. Not only do these monsters grow fast, but they breed fast too. The larger they are, the more eggs the females can lay. So we're dealing with a potentially exponential threat here. It is imperative that you seek out and slay as many of them as possible." We all nod. I'm not sure how to feel about this revelation. On one hand, more food for me. On the other, well...

I just wish the food wasn't so frighteningly competent at biting back. These vrothizo are capable of damaging souls, which really puts me on the back foot against them compared to every other kind of monster. As dangerous as they are, however, my plan doesn't really change. I'm going to outgrow them. I won't let them stand in my way.

"Shall we head out, then?" mister sword-cake-soul asks.

"Or does anyone have something they need to take care of before we leave? If you have any loved ones, it may be a good idea to visit them, just in case."

"I'm good," Orville grunts, glancing up at Netta.

"My mom's on the way, if that's all right," Norah says.

"We live on one of the farms outside the walls, I think it's the same direction."

"I should definitely go say goodbye!" Bently insists.

"I'll be right back, I promise!"

"In that case, I should go apologize to my girlfriend," fire-soul-guy sighs.

"I won't be long either." They run off, the rest of us exiting the room somewhat more slowly after them.

"What about you, Vita?" Norah asks.

"Gonna go visit the kiddos?"

"Nah," I shrug.

"I'll be back to see them afterwards."

"It's best not to be overconfident," cake-soul says.

"Any of us could end up in the Mistwatcher's clutches before mission's end. You should meet him without regrets, if it comes to that." I snort incredulously, not bothering to respond.

"Vita isn't exactly what you'd call religious," Penelope tells him, chuckling lightly.

"And neither am I. We have no intentions to end up dead, and I've no one to tell anyway. We won't hold you up."

"Now Penny I expect that from," Norah says, "but you're really not religious at all, Vita?"

"I told you not to call me Penny," Penelope grumbles.

"Why would I be?" I ask.

"The church has never done anything for me."

"But how can you not believe in the Mistwatcher? You've been to the edge, right?" I scowl over Norah and the cake soul guy, both of whom seem a bit confused and disappointed in me.

"I mean, I know there is a Mistwatcher," I tell them.

"The islands certainly only exist because that thing tolerates them, and I know it gives people souls and takes them when people die and all that shit. I just don't want to worship it." Alan scowls as I call his god 'that thing,' apparently less than pleased by the description. Oops.

"Huh," Norah murmurs.

"I don't know, I just find it comforting. I'm glad that my family is in a better place now."

"I really don't want to talk about that," I grumble, unwilling to correct her. Norah's eyes go wide as she misinterprets what I meant.

"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry, Vita. I shouldn't… sorry." I sigh. Angelien. Norah thinks Angelien's soul is with the Mistwatcher, but I'll never let that become a reality.

"It's fine," I tell her.

"Let's just talk about something else." Norah looks around, awkwardly scratching her head as she seeks another topic of conversation.

"So! Orville! And… Netta, right? Is she your teacher, Orville?" He nods.

"Master Netta taught me everything I know," he confirms.

"She basically does what I do, except a thousand times better."

"I suppose that's one way to describe it," Netta grunts.

"You call her 'Master?'" Penelope asks.

"Seems a bit old-fashioned for an apprentice."

"He calls me 'Master' because I bought him," Netta answers, crossing her arms.

"He's my slave. A Siguldian. You'd best have improved yourself since last time, Orville." Orville smiles a little at that, nodding.

"You're going to be impressed, Master Netta. I promise."

"Wow, that's... a lot at once," Norah breathes.

"How come you never told us you were a slave, Orville?" He sighs.

"I mean, it's not really relevant? I hold a normal job the same as the rest of you. My birth parents were both prisoners of war so I never really got to meet them. They weren't legally allowed to have me, so... I was sold off. I hardly remember any of it. Master Netta is basically my mom." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Netta claps him on the back of the head.

"None of that," she snaps.

"No one else was going to buy a talentless foreign brat like you, that's all. You were cheap."

"Yeah, yeah," he answers, smiling to himself.

"What's a Siguldian?" I ask.

"Also, woo, slave buddies."

"Woo," Orville responds flatly, half-heartedly raising a fist in a cheer.

"Siguldia is one of the countries we fought a war with forty years ago, Vita," Penelope answers.

"We defeated them, claiming a significant amount of their former territory, and understandably we have had poor relations with them ever since. Orville has white hair, as I'm sure you've noticed, which is a trait mostly exclusive to native Siguldians and Baldonese."

"Huh," I say.

"What's a—""Baldone is the other country we fought with, Vita," Penelope sighs.

"Although they have, of course, cut off all reasonable possibility for either alliance or hostility, so they're mostly out of the picture."

"Neat," I decide. Eventually, the others return and our mission officially begins. Norah runs off to a nearby farmhouse after we exit the city, catching up with us before we hit the forest proper. Conversations start, our team notably unafraid of the shallow parts of the forest, and before I know it a few hours have passed on our journey.

"Ugh, she's just so pissed and I don't know what to do about it," Mateo complains loudly. He's been doing so the entire trip so far, though I mostly haven't been listening.

"If she's not going to figure out what it means that she's dating a hunter, the hunter shouldn't be dating her," Alan answers.

"You work too hard to be going home to someone that berates you for working too hard."

"I know, I know. But I can't just dump her! Other than this one problem, she's amazing!"

"Ah yes," Netta prods, "other than the one small problem of her personality, she's amazing in bed!"

"Netta!" Alan chides.

"What? I'm just translating for the kids here."

"M'not a kid," I affirm.

"Yeah, well, at least she's that much, Netta," Mateo snaps back, rudely ignoring me.

"Watcher's eyes, never date your co-workers..."

"This way," I say, pointing towards the next closest monster I can detect. With three senior hunters on our side, the parts of the forest close to the city are no trouble whatsoever. In the interest of optimizing my power gain, I'm purposefully steering us all into monster nests. Between myself and team sword-cake-soul-guy, things haven't been difficult until very recently. As the day drags on, we get deeper into the forest and I start feeling souls that we do actually need to make sure we avoid.

As tempted as I am to go after bigger and bigger prey, my self-preservation kicks in eventually. If things get too hot to handle, I can't throw an army of disposable zombies in as a distraction. Instead I have an extremely not disposable team that mostly thinks animancy is evil.... Besides Penelope, I guess.

"I don't know what this one is," I inform the team, "but it feels big and slow. I'm not even sure if it knows we're coming, and we're getting pretty close... oh, okay, it's coming towards us now." As if on cue, miniscule crystals of frost starts to creep over bits of the forest in the direction I feel the monster. I can't say I'm too surprised; there is a distinct chilliness to the green, slowly oscillating soul, along with an inherent desire to seek out sources of heat. Like, say, us.

"I think it's some kind of thermomancy creature," I say.

"Shit," Mateo growls.

"Hot or cold?"

"Cold, but looking for heat."

"Watcher damn it, it's a frigid ozoid, isn't it? I'm putting twenty on frigid ozoid."

"No bet," Netta sighs, drawing an arrow.

"I hate those fucking things."

"You hate them?" Mateo whines.

"I'm useless against these bastards."

"Does your team have much experience against slimes?" sword-cake… I mean, Alan asks. Penelope and I both glance at each other. She smirks. Do we have much experience against slimes? Ah, what a question.

"W-well, yes, but not this kind," I answer, choking down a laugh.

"What do you recommend?"

"Well, against most we'd just have Mateo incinerate the fucking thing, but the frigid ones are thermovores. If we shoot fire at it, it's just going to get stronger."

"That's why it's so watcher-damn cold," Mateo grumbles.

"It eats heat. My talent doesn't really cover making things colder—""Since you are a pathetic excuse for a thermomancer," Netta grumbles.

"—so I can't do much against these things. Hey, shove it up your ass, Netta!"

"Can your talent kill it, Vita?" Alan asks. I shrug, putting a hungering shard into my spear with a tendril.

"Eventually? My talent can kill anything. What happens if we stab these things?"

"Nothing much, unless you do it hard enough to splash them across the horizon." I nod, stepping around a tree to bring the creature in sight. A giant, transparent pile of sludge oozes in front of me, leaving a film of ice everywhere it touches. The similarity to Penta's true form is striking and obvious, although this creature is substantially easier to see both from the frosted terrain around it and from the fact that it is about three times my size.

It creeps towards me at a glacial pace, though I suspect if I actually touch it, things will go poorly for me.

"Are these things always this slow?" I ask.

"Maybe we can just walk around it."

"We could, but it would follow us and catch up when we camp," Alan explains.

"They're slow, but they never get slower, never tire. They have limitless endurance up until the point they die, and with Mateo here it's unlikely it'll veer off to seek other prey." I sigh, getting close enough to flick my spear inside the thing. Immediately, the shaft of my weapon drops in temperature, and when I pull it out the spearhead is covered in a layer of ice. I did successfully carve out a chunk of soul, however, causing the ozoid to recoil in pain. It's still too big.

"It's a shame we don't have the time to study it," Penelope sighs.

"Ozoids are some of the only truly magical creatures out there, you know. Considering the pervasiveness of mana, it would be expected that many species develop a reliance on it, but this isn't actually the case. They are functional without magic, even if they are capable of magical feats. Certainly, they may lose out on incredibly important day-to-day functions without magic, but they won't outright die. Ozoids are among the only exceptions to this, being completely reliant on magic to even remain intact."

I glance at her, a wordless communication passing between us.

"Oh yeah?" I say.

"Hit me with that mana sight spell, would you?"

"Oh no, they're both smiling," Norah says.

"Everyone be on guard!" Bently laughs at the joke, but Orville climbs up in a tree to create some distance.... We're not that bad, are we? Penelope taps me on the hand and the thick fog of color representing magic of the world descends around my vision. Sure enough, the ozoid has mana constantly flowing through its entire body, no doubt getting consumed into the spell that allows it to soak up far more heat than basic physics would allow.

I kneel down, moving my soul into my hand to stretch my tendrils out as far as I can. Then, I start pulling mana. Arm outstretched, I sink my tendrils into the goopy creature in front of us, then inject it with as much of my mana as I can. With a wretched screeching sound, a whole quarter of the blob around where I'm touching explodes. Goop showers over my companions, and so the senior hunters immediately panic and try to get it off.

Maybe the goop normally remains active, but I can tell it's long dead before it touches them and doesn't seem to be hurting them at all. Which is good, because now I'm completely splattered with the stuff.

"This is why I got in the tree," Orville comments, the only one of us still dry.

"You didn't know that was going to happen!" I snap at him.

"I didn't even know that was going to happen!"

"I'm not sure why you seem to think that somehow makes it a better idea to stay near you when you try stuff like this," Orville counters. The ozoid starts slowly flowing away from us, whatever sort of menial intelligence it possesses apparently enough to recognize that it is in over its head. I want to eat it though, so I step forward and shove power into it again. This is great! I can just do this, and it won't make anyone suspicious of me! After all, it's not soul magic.

If anyone tries to figure out what I'm doing it's just going to look like…

"…Some kind of metamancy," Mateo mumbles, apparently also having turned on mana sight.

"Yep," Netta agrees.

"Disrupting the magic inside the ozoid. Probably wouldn't be deadly to any other sort of creature, but magic is the only thing holding this one together."

"Yeah, things don't normally explode when I do this," I agree.

"Although, I pretty much only figured it out this morning, so maybe it's more common than we think." Another burst of mana into the ozoid is all I need to weaken it enough for a soul grab, so I gleefully chomp down on it and watch with satisfaction as the rest of its body loses cohesion and spills out over the forest floor. Tasty!... Wait, shit, soul grabs are definitely not metamancy. And I'm being watched. Fuck.

I hurriedly glance backwards at the two senior hunter mages, feeling at their souls to be ready the moment they try to cast anything… but they just seem mildly perplexed, not aggressive. Of course. Even Theodora didn't identify the snippets of my talent she saw as animancy, because nobody knows what animancy looks like since nobody is allowed to use it. Hopefully this just lends credibility to the metamancy lie.

"Well, it's dead," I say nervously.

"Next we should probably go—" Something suddenly pops into my radius. One of the vrothizo, a big one. It's approaching fast from… above the trees?

"Incoming!" I bark.

"Flyer, high threat, contact in twenty seconds! It's a target!" I point, running back behind Norah to get in our combat formation. The senior hunters prepare in their own way, absurd amounts of mana flowing into the two casters as Alan readies his blade. A war screech shakes the entire forest, rattling my skull. This is easily the largest Hiverock monster I've ever felt, and I can't even imagine what sort of terrifying creatures it has eaten. I feel another grin blooming on my face.

These things might have very strange souls, but they're just as edible as any other kind. I confirmed that on the way here. This is going to be a wonderful meal.

"If it's big, it won't have room to divebomb us through all the trees," Alan shouts above the roar.

"Keep near cover and expect ranged attacks!" Sure enough, at his words, a scattered spray of black, bone-like shards tears down through the canopy in a cone-shaped blast, smashing into anything in the way. Hiding behind Norah, Penelope and I are perfectly unharmed. Alan defends Mateo while a swirl of wind redirects all the shards away from Netta. Bently and Orville, however, both get perforated, the strikes punching clean through their armor, their bodies, and out the other side.

Orville falls from his perch immediately, reduced to a bloody mess. Alive, thankfully, but unconscious and on a collision course with the ground. Despite his many wounds, Bently manages to jump and catch him.

"Get behind that tree!" Alan orders. Bently nods, rushing that way as Norah follows to give cover to Penelope as she retreats to heal our team. We're just in time, too, as a follow-up spray smashes into the dirt around us just as we make it behind cover. Netta and Mateo both unleash retaliatory fire in the direction of the attack, eliciting a screech from our assailant. It doesn't feel like the monster got more than clipped, however.

The dense forest may protect us from getting divebombed, but the tradeoff is that we can't see the fucking thing past it. I can feel it, but the tree canopy is too thick and we don't have a clearing that will give us a visual on whatever is attacking us from above. Both sides are stuck shooting blind at each other. I don't know our odds in a blind shoot-out, but maybe we don't need one.

Nearly every Vrothizo we've encountered is the furthest thing from patient, so perhaps we can bring it down where its mobility should be next to nothing. Sure enough, we don't have to wait long.

"It's diving!" I announce.

"Port side, dropping below the canopy!"

"Got it!" Alan barks, moving to intercept. He must have had the same idea I did, as it feels like he's been waiting for this. Still, I'm not happy with this for some reason. It's incredibly difficult catching the emotions of most Hiverock monsters since they tend to exclusively just feel hungry, but they have some subtlety to them. I can tell they feel pain when hurt, and sometimes they even feel fear when in danger, though this is rarely enough to get them to stop attacking. This one feels a little different.

It feels a bit too… confident. And as it dives down out of sight, where it should be far too large to fly at all, it doesn't seem to be slowing down. Why isn't it diving on top of us? The vrothizo finishes its dive, quickly leveling off just above the ground and shooting straight forward, utterly ignoring the half-dozen adult trees in the way.

It flies right through them, and I don't even have enough time to shout a warning before black, bladed wings slice through the rock-hard wood that should be protecting us like it's not even there. Norah blocks, her talent as immutable as always. She crashes into the rest of our team, knocking us flat and saving our lives in the process as the dark edge passes above us in an instant.

Alan's sword meets the wing head-on and is cut just as easily, leaving the powerful yet suddenly-weaponless fighter only an instant to dodge the wing. He barely manages. Mateo and Netta aren't quite so lucky. The last two pieces of our ranged offense die before their pieces hit the ground.