Chapter 274

I rode on my gryphon construct mount and traveled along the edge of the caravan our group was escorting. The merchants drove three massive supply wagons being pulled by two uunas each. Eira's carriage was the only vehicle being pulled by horses, they would have normally been significantly slower than the uunas, but the merchants' wagons were so full they would be moving slowly enough for the horses to match their pace comfortably anyway. Eina's carriage had a group of ten succubi with her, including herself. They had two teams of five with a balanced composition in each. Since my group would be taking care of most of the security in transit, they would be the ones doing most of the night watches at the forts we would be staying at.

"Hey, Lilith. Do you think that thing you're riding can fly?" Silva asked as she pulled up next to me.

I shook my head. "No, I told it to spread its wings but they're stuck. They're more like decorations." I ran my fingers along the wings of the construct until my fingers hit the blunted edge of where they should have gone under the wing if they were real.

"This magic is rather strange, you know? Why would it create random animals all wearing saddles like this?" she asked.

"This magic seems to be modeled after a carousel, a fair ride from my world. A bunch of painted wooden animals would spin around a moving platform for children and adults to ride," I said.

-- "Lilith! Monsters up ahead!" -- Morrigan's voice traveled through the bond and I caught the eager emotion that leaked through. Morrigan had been on the first round of our protection team for a reason. She wanted to see what it was like to grow her mana pool through her new karma ability.

I signaled the others and the five of us rode ahead of the caravan along the right side of it. Next to the road was upturned earth where something had been burrowing underground. Silva slowed down and waved for the caravan to stop as our group approached the burrow.

"Holy shit!" I cried out. A gigantic spider larger than I was suddenly ripped its way out of the ground to leap at us.

"Got it!" Morrigan confidently yelled out. Large spikes of ice materialized in a flash, caught the jumping spider mid-leap, and impaled it in several places. There were loud cracks in the air as long black arrows shot from Torien's bow and punched through it in a few more places.

There was some rumbling in the ground before two more spiders broke through the upturned earth and leapt at the others. Sibyl's tiger mount leapt out of the way before jumping forward and letting Sibyl slash a deep gash into the spider's abdomen. Black ichor splashed on the ground as she repositioned away.

Silva simultaneously dodged to the other side, shoved her spear through the giant spider's thorax, and pinned it to the ground. I activated [Coin Flip] and called tails. The moment the coin touched the ground in front of me, the magic activated and punched a hole through the spider monster.

When I looked back at Morrigan, she had moved on from the first spider she had killed and began to fire her sharp icicles into the last spider monster. I could feel the silent nudges and silent communication they shared through the bond as they coordinated to keep constant pressure on the arachnid until Morrigan was able to finish it off. The moment the spider monster had been staggered by Sibyl, Morrigan took the opportunity to drive an icicle through its head, finishing it off.

I didn't see any more spiders yet, so I was quick to jump off my mount and use a ritual spell to use tremor sense through the ground. If there were any other of these jumping spider monsters nearby, this spell would pick them up. After three pulses, I was confident that we had gotten all of the ones nearby.

"We're good, no more in the area," I called out for everyone's benefit.

Torien slid off of the giant badger she was riding and started carving into the nearest spider to find its magic core. Sibyl dragged the other corpses nearby and started helping her with the others.

I saw Morrigan off to the side, staring into the distance. A familiar sign that she was looking at her status. I climbed back onto my mount and walked it up to her. "How'd it go, Mori?"

She looked over and smiled. "It worked... not a lot of mana, but definitely something! I'm starting to realize the reality of what it's going to take to actually build anything functional, though."

I nodded. "I suspected that would be the case."

"I got some karma for killing the monster too. So killing monsters is doubly helpful for me," she said.

I walked my mount a bit closer so we didn't have to talk as loudly. "It seems like building up an effective mana pool will take a while, so it's not like you will be able to change your fighting style any time soon."

"True. Not that I would want to change my fighting style too much anyway. The mana pool would give me a lot of options and cover some of my weaknesses though," she replied.

"You'll be less likely to face unfavorable matchups when the mana aspects you have nearby are limited, right?" I asked.

Morrigan nodded. "Yeah, but your ability to change the mana available with your ritual spells is helpful too. Giving me access to ice magic when you use that water fording spell, for instance."

I looked over at the giant spider Torien had already carved her way through. "I almost jumped out of my skin when that giant spider jumped at us."

"Not good with bugs?" Morrigan asked with a chuckle.

"Are you?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I was forced to learn to deal with a lot of things I didn't like. I got over any phobias of bugs and creepy critters a long time ago."

"You looked almost gleeful when you spotted them," I said with a laugh.

"Well... I was excited to see how my new karma ability works. Now I just need to find something to compare it to. It would be nice to know if I got a relatively flat amount or if the monster I'm fighting matters at all. Being a spider monster was not even in my top ten concerns about fighting it."

"We're done here!" Torien called out as Silva dragged the remains off the road to clear the way for the caravan.

The caravan started to move forward again and the driver of the first merchant wagon nodded his head thankfully toward us. It seemed like we had impressed them with our first monster encounter of the trip. Hopefully things will continue to go smoothly and we won't have any situations that make us look bad, like the featherjack incident the other time.

Before I forget, I want to try to replace the featherjack mount and summon a new one. Silva gave me a grin but didn't complain as I tried to replace it. I summoned a new mount and this time got a bear with odd-looking spots. When I confirmed the animal was fully ridable, I desummoned the featherjack before Silva could complain. Rather than make a fuss, she just gave me a teasing smile as she climbed up on the mount I had summoned.

Not long after that, we were back on the road again. The merchants were professional about getting right back on track as soon as the danger passed. This road was a lot less safe than the one linking the Capital to Goldenhearth, and most of our day was spent dealing with giant spiders. None of them gave us any more trouble than the first ones, so when we took our midday break, we swapped out some of my friends for Eira's succubi to get some experience. They were still relatively low-level compared to us, so they wanted to take advantage of any opportunity to get some experience for themselves. For now, Morrigan and I stayed on and we took three succubi to work with. Morrigan was still looking for any chance she could get to increase her mana pool, though. The next time we ran into spiders I got to see them in action.

"Spiders!" the rabbitkin succubus called out.

Without any verbal communication, the two others surrounded an area as the rabbitkin drew the attention of the spider. The large spider crashed against the girl's shield, which held strong despite their difference in size. The two others, a wolfkin and a catkin, stabbed their spears through the spider's legs and pinned it down for long enough that the rabbit kin could get a nice slash at the spider's head. Unfortunately for the girls in training, they weren't quite strong enough to end the fight right there despite their impressive coordination. The spider ripped its legs free of the two surrounding it and frantically scrambled away from them. At one point I saw one of the girls dodge a flailing attack from their blindspot without looking, she had seen it coming through the bond of one of the others.

Before the spider could run any further, a sharp shard of stone pushed out of the ground just in time to intercept it. Even though it could burrow through the earth, that didn't apply to solid rock, and it crashed into it at full speed. Morrigan had cast the magic at the last moment to support them and stop it from getting away. The catkin dashed in and stabbed her spear deep into the spider's abdomen at an angle that it could pin it down like Silva had done earlier. The angle looked less comfortable for this girl, but she managed to hold it long enough for the other two girls to catch up and finish the job. With an overhead swing, the rabbitkin split the spider's head open with her sword and killed it.

The three girls panted and looked winded from the fight, but I could feel the exhilaration in their chests and their satisfaction flooding the bond. "I leveled!" the rabbitkin happily called out. The three of them cheered and hugged like best friends. It was honestly rather cute to watch.

"Not it!" the rabbitkin yelled. The catkin and the wolfkin repeated the phrase a moment later. The wolfkin's ears went back, and she grumbled as she got to work cutting open the spider they had tackled together to look for its monster core.

I looked over at Morrigan. "You could have stolen that kill, couldn't you?"

She started scratching the back of her head. "And deny these girls the chance to get better? They would have lost it if I didn't stop it from getting away. I decided to help them out a little rather than steal their glory."

"Even if it meant missing out on the mana?" I asked.

She chuckled. "I don't want to be too greedy about it... though I admit the thought crossed my mind."

I reached over and patted her on the head. "Good girl."

She chuckled before pushing me away. "Don't treat me like a kid," she replied without any heat in her voice.

The girls finished up with the spider bodies, and I helped them drag them off the road. I had seen these girls around at the brothel before, but I didn't know any of them that well. Obviously, I had been the one to transform them originally, but that was as far as our relationship went. They were in "work mode" right now though, so they weren't flirting or teasing me or the others as much as they normally would, which was nice to see. They were taking things seriously and that was reassuring.

We got back on the road and continued on our journey. The day passed quickly, and off in the distance, I could see the town of Norta coming up on the horizon. The last time I had been here we were attacked by the Cult of Amphores, and ran into the Tamin priests that were fighting them. We also came across Bella's mother here. We hadn't run into her again since, so I was a bit curious what had happened to her. It's been a while since we were last in this town. I wonder how well it's been rebuilt after what happened.

Unfortunately, things didn't seem to be ideal. We saw the banners of the Tamin church hanging from the town's walls as we approached. My friends and I will have to be especially careful while we're here if we want to stay out of trouble. I didn't have the best feeling about our return to the town.