Fight. Level. Survive.

Chapter 77 - One, Two, Tree.

Nina

Wandering around a grove staring at trees was not the exciting time Nina had imagined. She wasn’t even entirely sure what she was looking for; the contract specified the tree was bigger and a slightly different colour than the rest, but apart from that, she was just walking around the grove, waiting for something to happen.

She managed to stay focused for the first few minutes, but try as she might, her mind kept wandering as to how she had gotten to this point.

As the daughter of a blacksmith, her life had mostly been filled with helping her father in the shop, delivering orders and adding her enchantments to her father’s work. It got a bit boring a times, but it was a good life. The customers that visited the blacksmiths were usually hunters or adventurers looking to have their weapons and armours repaired or to commission new items. She often found herself daydreaming about the lives they led, where they were heading off to next, the monsters they would fight and the incredible places they would see.

She had begged her father for years before he finally allowed her to take out a hunter contract of her own. She was so over the moon when he gave in that she excitedly planned and prepared for days before she even looked at the available contracts.

Despite how it sometimes made her feel, she knew that her ability didn’t make her invincible, so for her first contract, she made sure to choose one that sounded easy.

In the last few days, she had been ambushed by a stinking flesh monster, taken to a cave and fed to an even bigger flesh creature, all of this before she had even found the target of her contract! After all of that, she knew she should be dying to go back home to her life of simplicity, but in reality, she found she was loving it. She had been majorly freaked out when she had awoken in the pile of goop with Mayry staring down at her, but since then, she had been having the time of her life. She found travelling with Mason and Mayry to be exciting and fulfilling, and when she had fought Mason in her almost fully ramped dragon form, it had been the most fun she remembered having.

A soft rustling came from behind her, but being surrounded by trees and her mind being elsewhere, the sound barely registered.

Her ability had manifested at a young age. She had gotten into a fight with a young boy over a toy they had both wanted and accidentally grown claws. Luckily, her father had pulled her away from the boy before she accidentally eviscerated him. Ever since then, she had always done her best to keep her emotions in check, only using her ability when training, so being able to almost go all out against Mason had been such an amazing experience.

The pair’s air of secrecy just fed her intrigue and made her want to stay with them for longer. She even enjoyed bickering with Mason. The fact that it annoyed Mayry was a plus.

The sound behind her grew louder, suspicious. She whirled around, claws instinctively extending from her fingers. Nothing. The sound had ceased, and all she saw were more trees.

She was almost certain something was following her. She opened her mouth to call out to the others but stopped herself. What if she was wrong? What if she was just imagining things? If she called out and they came running, what would they think? Maybe she shoul-

Her train of thought was interrupted as the floor fell out from under her. Her head hit the ground, and all the air was knocked out of her lungs.

No fucking way this was happening to her again! Her dragon ability made it far harder to knock her out, so instead of losing consciousness, she stood up and turned to face her attacker.

Mayry

She rolled her eyes at the pair’s bickering and shook her head as she watched Mason walk away. Despite his many, many flaws and the many little things he did that annoyed the shit out of her, she was falling more and more in love with him.

Mason had a point about splitting the party possibly not being the best idea, but she’d never admit that. A few minutes on her own was worth the risk; she always loved the time they spent together, but some time alone with her thoughts was way overdue.

She walked passed the trees, inspecting each one as she did, looking for anything that looked out of place or that felt different to her magic sense. All the trees seemed to have a small trace of magic, but that wasn’t that unusual; most living things had some magic if you looked hard enough, but none of the trees she saw had enough to worry her. She half suspected that this contract was just someone making things up. Mason loved blaming things on trees, but she had yet to figure out why he was so obsessed. It was one of the many things that made Mason Mason.

She would scope out all the trees in her area, then circle back and wait for the others. If none of them found anything strange, then they would head back to Sparksford, and the contract would be put up again. Once nothing had been found three times, the contract would be voided, and each other hunter that attempted it would be given a portion of the bounty. It was rare but did happen from time to time, but for it to happen to Nina on her first contract was really unlucky.

Getting bored of the monotonous tree-watching, she got an idea. She could climb one of the taller trees and see if she could spot anything strange from higher up. Before she came into her demon powers, she would never have given the idea a second thought, but with her claws, her enhanced strength and resilience, she should be completely fine even if she fell. If there was a tree monster to be found, she knew it would really annoy Mason if she found it first, and so naturally, that was her new goal in life.

Using her demonic claws was still quite a surreal experience for her. It didn’t take much effort to summon them; all she had to do was partially release her human form veil and flex her hands, and they popped right out. Quite a bit had happened since she got her demon form, and she hadn’t gotten the chance to really inspect her new form; at first, she had been disgusted by it and then anytime she used it, she had been a little too preoccupied to get a good look. Now that she had gotten accustomed to it, she was actually growing quite fond of it; the sudden jump in height still threw her off, but apart from that, she thought it made her look dangerous in a sexy kinda way. Nina, having said she thought the form was hot, had really helped her see it less as a negative.

She watched the long, razor-sharp claws protrude from her fists and experimentally pushed them into the base of a tree. From there, she found it took almost no effort to climb the tree.

Once at the top, she had a good view of the entire area; what they had thought was just a small grove of trees was actually much larger, far closer to a forest than a grove. She looked out, waiting for something strange to jump out at her. She was hoping she could use her magic sense to get an idea of where her two companions were. Mason was easy to spot as he radiated magic like nothing else she had ever met, but Nina was more difficult; Mayry was only able to see her when she was actively using her ability.

Mason was making his way through the forest at an astonishing speed, leaving destruction in his wake; as far as she could tell, he wasn’t fighting anything; he was just being a destructive git.

That was strange. There was another strong magical presence in the direction Nina had gone, but it didn’t feel like her. She stared in the direction she felt the magic coming from and saw that one of the threes was moving, slow enough that she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t already been looking, but definitely moving.

As she looked on, trying to get a better look at the moving tree, she almost lost her grip and fell as she felt the sudden familiar, powerful magic of Nina’s ability flare up right beside it.

Mason had definitely been right about splitting the party being a bad idea. Now Nina was miles away in a fight on her own, she would take at least a few minutes to reach her. Mason was closer but likely had no idea what was going on.

Panicking slightly, she let herself drop from the tree. She hit the ground and immediately started running in the direction she had sensed the magic coming from. She had no doubt Nina could take care of herself, but still, just in case, she would be there as soon as she could as a backup.

Mason

Mason was having a great time. He walked through the forest, knocking down each tree as he passed. He liked to vary his method of deforestation, but punching and sending out mana bolts were his favourites.

Still, he wasn’t completely insane. This was just the best method he could think of to make sure he didn’t accidentally miss the tree he was looking for. He even planned on doubling back and adding the fallen trees to his inventory… if he had time. Who knows? They could come in handy at some point.

“Chop chop chop, chop down the trees, chop chop chop chop down the treeees.” He sang as he skipped along. He briefly wondered how the other two were getting on but discarded the thought as he knocked down yet another tree. This was the life; nothing was currently trying to kill him, there was no one in need of saving, and all there was for miles around were trees aplenty waiting to be slain. Even better, if he did happen upon the Tree monster they were here to hunt, he would even get to assert his dominance over a tree that could fight back; he wondered if it would be another Aboroth or perhaps something entirely different, not that it mattered, a tree was a tree.

A ding of a notification sounded in his head; he was enjoying himself enough that he was tempted to ignore it but thought better of it. He paused his slaughter for a moment and bought up the new message.

Quest Received! The monster hunting Tree-o

Objective: The girls have stumbled upon the Tree monster before you. They could probably do with your assistance, you know, if you aren’t too busy with your mindless slaughter of innocent trees.

Locate your friends and help them slay the monster.

Reward – A Lumberjack box

Accept? Y/N

The idea that his system was based on his personality was obviously false if it was spouting nonsense about innocent trees. Regardless, he mentally selected the yes option and headed back in the direction he had come. Luckily, he had left a pretty easy-to-follow trail.