Chapter 48 – Into the fray

Catherine: Five locals plus a veteran hunter. They were sent here with us from Hunter's Guild to train with a supervisor.

Helia: Alright. You can expect us soon. I'm also bringing Xethu along, she's an old friend. I won't be telling who she is out of VOW though, it's for her to share if she wants.

"Catherine says they are with a bunch of local hunters." I discard the panel after replying to the message from five minutes ago and say to Letty and Xethu running on my sides, former lighlty, and the latter visibly not wanting to show she's getting tired and failing miserably. "There will be ten people plus us. A rather large group."

"Yeah." Xethu confirms between her quickening breaths. "Usual hunter groups range from four to six."

"So we've like two and a half, yeah. That's a huge overkill for some Water Serpents, huh?"

"I wouldn't say so. Water Serpents are usually high bronze. It might be an overkill, but not so huge." Letty disagrees. "Though it will be a bit different if larger variants appear, cause they are in mid silver."

"With me that's still an overkill." I grumble. I can one shot a high silver easily, so mid silver isn't even a good warmup for me. Unless I purposefully handicap myself, but even then I could probably beat such thing without trouble.

"Mid silver?" Xethu asks in confusion, probably not hearing me. "Isn't Black Lake, like, in the middle of outer forests? High bronze should be the limit there, no?"

"Not really." My girlfriend shakes her head. "On land, sure, but it's a large lake. The rules there are different, and low silvers are normal. And if one evolves there, it has no real way to go deeper into the forests, and stays as mid silver in outer forests. Especially if it isn't killed, then it can get even stronger."

"Oh, okay." Xethu nods. "I didn't know that."

Letty only smiles in response and we continue running at quick pace, though I slow down a bit and the other two do as well, Xethu visibly with some relief.

Speaking of our speed, we're going at constant ten or so meters per second since we sped up, and we're running already for over an hour. I expect to reach Catherine's group within another hour, though I can't say for sure when since I don't know how far have they gone. About the only thing I'm sure of is that they would be camping before the lake, they will take on the serpents tomorrow, then rest for another night and treat any wounds, and come back to Black Harbor the next day.

"Letty?" I ask. "Do you know how far away the lake is?"

"I have only seen the map, so I'm not certain, but I'm sure less than an hour away at our current speed." She says. Exactly as I thought.

"Alright. Xethu, are you confident in flying between the trees?" I look at her with raised eyebrows and a small smirk.

"Huh?" She looks forward and thinks for a moment. "I think so?" She replies uncertainly. "I've never tried, but I'll probably manage. Do you want to fly the rest of the way?"

"Yup." I grin. "Letty?" I turn to her, this time with a much larger grin, and she smiles and spreads her arms.

I jump up to her and wrap my arms around her waist while she throws hers over me, then flare my wings and shot up into the air while accelerating greatly. I start beating with my wings regularly, though for now without any assist from my Primordial Energy, something I actually surprise myself I can do while carrying Letty. I make a barrel and look at Xethu, who gets redder on her cheeks, most likely because of Letty's method of flying, and I wave for her to come into the air.

She flares her wings as well and jumps up into the air, starting to accelerate and catching up to me within half a minute.

"So? How is it?" I shout to her with a grin when she slows down on my side.

"Fantastic!" She replies with a wide smile. "I love it!"

"Come on then!" I say and beat my wings strongly, speeding up to a few tens of meters per second with one assisted beat and leaving Xethu's mouth gaping open. I hear and feel Letty's giggle as she nuzzles her head into my shoulder and look back at the demoness, who is flapping her wings and trying to accelerate to my speed. Not really succesfully.

I giggle under my nose and make a huge turn in the air, bleeding out a bit of my speed and ending up on Xethu's side.

"Set the pace!" I tell her with a grin and she rolls her eyes, then twists sharply in the air, barely avoiding slamming into a tree as a payment for the gesture. She looks at me again with a small, giddy smile and continues to fly in silence at thrice our previous running speed.

"At this rate we'll arrive in twenty minutes at most." Letty says and I hum in approval. That's much better.

...

"They are fighting." I say, furrowing my eyebrows and straining my ears as we're flying between the trees, around five minutes after we started flying. "And it's quite the crowd by the sounds of it, probably lizards, but I'm not sure."

"Alright. Are we helping them?" Letty asks, twisting her neck to look up at me.

"Yeah. No reason not to, I guess, especially since they can't be serpents this far from the lake." I say and turn to Xethu flying on my side. "Xethu! We're going straight into a fight!" I shout to her and she turns her head to me in alarm, but a moment later nods and looks forward in focus, furrowing her eyebrows.

I do the same, feeling giddy anticipation in my belly, and I grin. "Letty? Can I drop you into them?" I ask softly and she snorts.

"Sure." She replies with a giggle. "Get me somewhere on their backline, if possible."

"Mhm. Contact in around ten seconds." I say, judging the distance by the sounds of battle I hear thanks to Primordial Energy in my ears and already seeing glimpses of the battlefield between the huge trees.

Five seconds later I have a good view of the fight and I can see both sides fighting against each other. One is a large group of hunters in varied clothing and with various weapons ranging from swords and daggers to flashy magic, around third of them human.

I spot Catherine dancing around an enemy with a lightly shining blade, Crimson a few meters to the side with a huge hunk of blazing black stone on his back I can only assume to be Vulcan, and Daria in the rear currently preparing a spell shining in my magic sight. They aren't faring very well, but they're far from losing and should gradually manage to overpower the monsters.

The rest, excluding one significantly stronger person standing further away and only killing some that stray away from the main force, are all huddled in one group and fending off a large group of the attackers. And if we're on them, the monsters are basically a swarm of a hundred or so various smaller and larger lizards, most of them in low and mid bronze and ranging between one and two meters of length, including tails.

Most, because there are three much stronger than other that would probably place in high bronze or low silver, all currently not fighting, but watching. At least somewhat intelligent then.

"Xethu, you go help Daria! The spirit!" I shout to her and she gives me a quick nod and starts slowing down. "I'll drop you on the back, but don't do much. They'd manage even without us." I tell Letty.

"Sure." She nods and looks up at me with a grin. "You as well. Don't slaughter them all."

"I know." I roll my eyes and loosen my hold of Letty.

She does the same and starts falling down with her arms and legs spread, the cloth covering her flapping in the wind, and laughs aloud. I give her a small wave and tilt my wings up, flying high into the sky and stopping in place.

I look at the battlefield from above and first thing I notice is Letty falling onto the backline and turning one of the lizards into a paste as she breaks her fall. There is a commotion among the monsters and one of the three larger lizards immdiately rushes to her as she makes a pair of swords from her nanobots and twirls around, decapitating around five lizards within a second. Fortunately she slows down a moment later, trying not to reduce their numbers down too much.

The next thing that catches my eye is Xethu landing softly next to Daria and causing her to fail a spell, which arguably is completely Daria's fault because she should pay attention to her back when she fights. They almost start talking before the strongest man from the second group dashes to them and attacks Xethu with drawn sword shining with mana. Sheesh.

I fold my wings and plunge down, steering in their direction and watching as Xethu draws her sword after initial surprise and starts deflecting every single attack of the man's sword while Daria watches them with gaping mouth and doesn't know what to do. Not surprisingly, stopping her support causes Catherine and Crimson with Vulcan to get surrounded.

I whip my arm out, sending a wave of flame at the lizards attacking them from behind, causing them to burn charcoal black within seconds, and land heavily in front of Xethu, using my Energy affinity to transfer the whole impact into the ground below me. The man, who just looked up to the flame in the sky, makes a horrified face and jumps back.

"Step down, we're here to help." I say in low, annoyed voice. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd all be dead already." I turn to Xethu, who is looking at me with surprise, and Daria, who is looking at me with comical mix of relief, surprise, and a bit of fear. "Go help Catherine, I'll handle him."

The two nod and turn back to help the rest while I look at the man with raised eyebrows. Lean, quite handsome features, toned muscles, typical hunter's attire consisting of leather reinforced with metal, and a large bastard sword in his hands. I'd say he's a veteran hunter, possibly a noble judging from his clean and meticulous appearance even in the wilderness.

"We're here with the Wayfarers." I wave my hand into their general direction. "Go back to your pupils."

He hesitates for a split second with sweat glistening on his forehead, but fortunately turns around and runs back to the group of hunters that's close to being overwhelmed. Though not without glancing back at me warily.

He does his own things, and I turn to Catherine and the rest. Their position has stabilized with my and Xethu's help, and right now Catherine, Crimson and Vulcan are fighting and overwhelming one of the large lizards while Xethu is holding off the smaller ones and Daria is supporting them all from the back.

As I'm watching, she sends out a bolt of ice into a small red thing trying to attack Crimson and starts preparing another spell. The large lizard, attacked by three people, each capable of defeating it alone with some effort, loses quickly and tries to escape, but doesn't manage to get far away before Catherine jumps after it and stabs her large sword into its neck. The lizard gets pinned to the ground and doesn't manage to live for much longer as the Wolfkin finishes it with another stab, this time through the head.

Xethu in this time manages to kill most of the remaining smaller lizards, and afterwards it's carnage with numbers on both sides close to being equal, but strength far from that.

I also spot Letty with two bloodied swords in her hands, grinning at me from the other side of the battlefield as she stands among corpses. I reply with the same and turn to the last group, which is just finishing the battle with only a few smaller lizards remaining. I must have missed the third larger one since it was out of my magic sight, but it's probably somewhere among corpses... yup, there are two laying next to Letty.

Yup, so we're finished with the battle. I'm kinda disappointed that I didn't get to fight, but I didn't really expect it from the outer forests.

I approach Catherine with the others as they gather together and Daria starts healing their larger wounds, though she's already faint to my magic sight. Well, she'll manage, I guess. Xethu is standing on the side a bit awkwardly, and as she looks around, she spots me and runs up to my side.

Letty does more or less the same, with the only difference in her destination, which is my side in much more literal meaning. I take her hand into mine and we walk up to the group, who notice us and turn around collectively.

"Helia!" Catherine shouts instantly and shots up and out of Daria's healing spell, making the spirit curse and wave her hand in exasperation as she realizes the reason. The little wolfkin runs up to me and almost jumps on me before she is stopped by the sight of Letty almost clinging to my side. Then her eyes wander to Xethu and she makes a cute frown, looking up at me questioningly.

I wait a moment till everyone else pays attention and I briefly introduce Letty and Xethu. I don't say who the latter is out of VOW, and she doesn't fill others in, so I assume she prefers to remain unrecognized for now. Then Daria introduces everyone from the other side, leaving Vulcan as the last one, to whom I walk up to with a grin and take him in from top to bottom while the rest is apprasing each other.

"Hello, Helia. Daria already explained your circumstances to me. It's good to finally see the real you." He says in deep, low voice with a smile, which looks kinda cute on his molten face. Ehehe.

Frankly, I could say he looks like black Viel'Heirr, and it wouldn't be exactly wrong. He is around seven feet tall, has rough, black skin that looks quite like cooled down magma, and his body is lean. Not to the point of being thin, but his figure is like Crimson's scaled up a bit. Also, his face is humanlike, but rough, and there is orange light shining out from the orifices of his face, mostly his eyes that look like molten pools of lava. And it's cute, honestly! I wanna have him serve me. Hm. In innocent meaning, of course... though I'm not entirely sure why.

As a side note, he is wearing some loose... I don't want to say rags, but that's what comes to mind when I see what's hanging off him. Hm. That's bad.

What interests me the most though is his energy. It's not mana, and in fact it is much stronger than it. Three times? A bit less than that. It really resembles my Primordial Energy, I think? It's weak, but has a tint of this raw, primal power that makes up my energy, and it's also similar to mana. And it feels... lazy, boiling, hot? And at the same it's hard and cold. Probably Magma and Metal affinities, if I had to guess? I'm not experienced in that, so I'm not sure. Though its density in his body is nothing impressive, just a bit more than base soul size.

"Well, hello, Vulcan. You rolled random, right?" I ask with a smirk and his eyes widen in surprise.

"How did you know?"

"What did your description say? Hellcarver, so you're like the architect of hell?" I ask, stepping to his side and boping him on his arm with my finger, watching his energy swirl around it, admire it and worship it. That's how it feels, at least. Hm~. There's some interesting connection between me and him, I'd say. Or rather, between our races, and I'm pretty sure it's also in my new mentality.

"Uh, I guess?" Vulcan replies uncertainly and I wiggle my eyebrows.

"I'll need to ask Shiva about you." I mutter.

"What?"

"Nothing." I wave him off and turn back to the rest of the group. "I guessed by your energy. I don't think you can get anything as powerful as it without rolling random."

"Well, yeah." He nods and smirks, looking at me. "You also rolled random, huh?"

"I did!" I spread my arms and spin around with a grin. "And I can't be more glad that I did!" I stop and turn back to him, then look around at the group. "Well, alright. If you wanna talk, it'll be later when we camp. Now go back to Crimson, he's jumping in impatience already."

"I'm not!" She shouts back at me, though not without a grin.

"Hey, Letty?" I hear a conspicious whisper from behind me and turn my head around to see Catherine standing on her side.

"A friendly reminder, Catherine, I can hear you." I say, looking at them with raised eyebrows, and the Wolfkin blinks in surprise. "If you wanna talk in private, I don't mind, but do it somewhere private when we camp."

"Oh, okay." She nods with faintly reddening cheeks and I see Letty looking at her curiously.

"Now let's take care of this matter." I turn around to the man approaching us along with the group of five hunters and walk up to Letty, who coincidentally is the closest to him. I find her hand with mine and take a look at the group.

Most of the rookie hunters are intact, though that's most likely thanks to one of them in a light cape who is most likely the healer, probably mage as well, but I can't say for sure. She's looking at me with a heavy frown, unlike others who are either cautious or admiring me. All of them have mana density ranging from two to four times the base, which is more or less the same as Catherine and the rest.

Apart from the healer they have a big, bulky dude in heavy metal armor, a dark-violet-skinned, distinctly non-human female swordsman with slim twin swords, similar to Letty's, an... archer, from the looks of it, though his mana feels different than the others... sharper, swirling, whistling? Air affinity or something? Hm. He has cat ears on the top of his head, and I guess he is also a scout. The last one seems to be a mage as she has no weapons on her except for a short knife, and I'm pretty sure she has fire affinity.

And the last one is the veteran hunter, who, now that I pay attention, has almost as much power in his body as Xethu, though in his case it's only normal mana. As a side note, it's two and a half times what Crimson has and twice what Catherine has. They have grown well.

Daria, seeing the man approaching, swiftly floats to my side, since she is sort of the leader of their team. Hm. Their? Yup, their. I can't say I like it, but I've grown kinda distant from them, and I guess Letty is a large reason for that. I mean, she herself isn't, but it's rather my love and all other feelings, plus everything that has happened recently conerning us two. Oh well.

The man comes up to us with all the hunters behind him and first thing he does is a light bow in Xethu's direction, who has turned around and is looking at him with a small frown. "I'm sorry for my attack earlier." He says apologetically. "I only saw you approaching and assumed the worst, but forgot miss Daria's warning."

"It's alright." Xethu nods, her face relaxing. "Your reaction was quick and logical."

The man nods in response and looks between me and Letty, probably judging who is the leader among us, logically concluding from the earlier fight it's not Xethu.

"Hello, sir." I say, saving him the trouble. "I assume you were informed we would come?" He nods lightly in response. "I'm Helia. I'm sort of the leader of our three." I gesture at Xethu, with mine and Letty's hands together being good enough indicator the other person is her. "We'll be accompanying you on this mission."

The man nods in response and smiles. Nervously. "I'm Grant, a mid silver hunter. Thank you for the help earlier. We'll be in your care."