AbyssRaven
patreon
Chapter 216: Geisenlarg Infestation. [Release Version]
🕑 Added 2021-08-27 05:27:50 +0000 UTC<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 18]>
<Attributes have increased due to level up>
<Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 4] gained>
““Skrreeeee!”” The sight of their companion’s head exploding into tiny bits right in front of them naturally angered the three giant bugs in the back. Clicking my tongue, I used the Job skill [Instant Heat Ignition] from [Infernal Hellblade] to instantly heat up my tail without needing to grind it on something.
I readied to kill the remaining bugs, but paused when I noticed something moving behind them.
“A bloody nest, there is a bloody nest under here! Falakash!” I heard the elven word for “shit” from behind me, spoken with some serious anger. In the next moment, I felt mana concentrating behind me and noticed an arrow moving behind the bugs before five green air arrows appeared around it.
In the next second, the remaining bugs lost their heads, too. As their green blood gushed out their bodies, the wooden arrow shot over us, returning to its owner. Turning around, I saw a certain familiar blond-haired elven woman with a wooden bird on her shoulder. When she caught the arrow, she gave it back to her treant, who swallowed it whole, but what actually piqued my interest was the two green magic circles, one floating on her bow and the other on her bird respectively.
Custom spell, right? Delayed and continuous cast to keep it working like that, multi-cast to cast more. Not only is she a trained mage, but she’s also stealthy enough to sneak up to me without Saori or her garms noticing her.
‘Stalker of Phantoms.’ ‘Haitiri.’ This woman is scary… And she’s looking at us with a pretty angry expression.
“D-Did you follow us, uhm, Ma’am?” I meekly asked as an ice breaker.
“I entered the cave to check on you after I heard that loud cry from the depths,” she stated before walking up close to us, not softening her sharp eyes. “Just for your information, these are geisenlarg soldiers. They primarily inhabit the eastern parts of Altrust, where the beastman alliance is situated, not here in Artorias. Like ants and bees, they build colonies around a single geisenlarg queen and, due to how large these soldiers are, the nest could be massive.”
Muraina then inhaled deeply and continued her explanation, her tirade slipping into a full blown rant, “Queen geisenlargs always breed soldier drones first due to how competitive their natural habitat is, as they can serve as both competent fighters, since they are born at D rank, and workers until it's safe enough to breed the smaller, but more numerous, worker drones. The fact that a colony is being built under our feet is from the monster spawning you five caused with your fight with that wyvern! Normally, nature balances everything out, especially in naturally-made monster-infested areas. Remember this, clean the areas out if you use spells! We are cleaning this cave after we are done, alright? Ahhhhargh, rant finished! I was so worried you five got hurt, haaaa.”
After taking multiple breaths, Muraina calmed down and dispelled her two magic circles. Letting out a deep sigh, she scratched her hair while we looked at her, astonished.
“I’m issuing another urgent quest for you, Aurora. C rank. If those were worker drones, I would probably have to issue a B rank just because of how large a colony would have become at that point. I can’t risk a ‘king’ being born.”
“Why is that?” I asked her, noticing she was back to her normal demeanor. She understood how to switch from one mood to the next, although I was sure she was a hot-head.
“‘Kings’ are the main ways geisenlarg colonies expand. They are the powerhouses that colonies spawn to beat down rival colonies. Depending on how much the queen is fed, the king can be born as an A rank, an absolute boon for them and a disaster for everyone else. Luckily, they cannot live for longer than a week due to a quirk of how they are born.” She then pointed at the hole. “I won’t force you, but will you help me? With compensation, of course. We are professionals.”
“We are already here, so we might as well clean up this mess, right?” I turned around to the others. Nobody objected.
She nodded with a smile. “Good. Saori, keep a lookout for any sounds or smells approaching from the holes. Everybody, take a small rest and freshen up. We’ll venture out once you are fit to continue.”
Ellaine does need a rest to recover her Stamina. Gotta play [The Will to Fight and Survive]. But… we have a small problem.
As I was thinking of an issue, Ellaine walked over to Muraina and asked her about it herself. “Muraina, uhm, d-did you see?” Her left arm was bare again, the [Claw] she had on dispelled.
We were worried she might have seen Ellaine using demonic powers. If this were some dark fantasy anime, we probably would have said something like “If she saw something, we might have to kill her” but that was not only cringey but also probably dumb. I hadn’t checked her profile yet, but she most likely was pretty powerful.
“Like I said, you can trust me. I won’t divulge anything. Even then, I have no idea what it was I saw you use, Ellaine, so I can’t do much with that information until I ask you personally or use [Identify].” Thankfully, Muraina respected our privacy. She assured Ellaine and then went over to Saori.
I took out the [Room] runes and placed them on the ground, opening the subspace for Tasianna to grab some drinks and snacks for us. Our mobile base truly was the best. After I handed Elaine some fulinoe tea and white bread sandwiches, I went over to Grimnir to give him his portion.
“Oh, thanks for the meal, lass.” The dwarf took the tankard of mead and plate of sandwiches with gratitude before lowering the beard guard of his new helmet, revealing a round hole for him to eat and drink with.
“Huh, and here I thought it was only added to protect your still-growing beard. You made sure to add a way to eat stuff with your helmet on, nice~”
“Hmph,” he grumbled at my comment. Never talk ill of a dwarf’s beard, right? “Normal dwarven helmets don’t have these things; we usually don’t need to, since we use a special mixture to harden the tips of our beard into rockhair, as a gesture of respect to Crustacia. A taz’s beard is resistant to fire to a certain extent, like the rest of our bodies, but it can’t withstand stuff like your scale-dust, aye? I had to think of something to protect my face if I was going to keep fighting alongside you, lass.”
“Innovation through necessity,” would be an apt way to describe the addition of this beard guard. While Grimnir chugged down his mead, I pulled out one of the leftover hamburgers our party had made yesterday for dinner and sat down next to him to eat it.
“Pah!” Grimnir slammed his empty tankard on the ground. “Still tastes like pisswater. I hope the barrel Tasianna helped me make comes out better.”
While I ate, I looked over to where Saori was speaking with Muraina about something. “How did you do that? I did not notice you following us at all, nor did my garms. No smell, no presence, no footsteps. Your [Silence] and [Odorless] must be extremely high leveled.”
“Evolved skills, of course, created through the merging of lesser skills into one superior one,” Muraina spoke as if it was the obvious answer.
“Hmm, I should have been able to guess that. Still, I have my own evolved skills to help my detection and stealth abilities. Yours circumvented both of them.” Saori was speaking about [True Wolven Instincts] and [Night’s Caress] respectively. They were both still level one, so I couldn’t blame Saori for not detecting Muraina.
“Really? Amazing, then you must have made a lot of progress since the profile you sent to King Drangleic. Monster evolution, I presume?” Saori nodded to Muraina’s guess. “We Haireti train to become like ethereal phantoms, similar to lesser fae, when we move through our forests and woods, and I have been training for a while now. I heard Gael trained you a bit, but would you be up with some Haireti training? I can teach you this interesting custom spell.”
A small green magic circle appeared on Muraina’s hand before she flicked it with her finger. It vibrated a bit but nothing really happened. Saori looked at it in confusion, but a few seconds later, the magic circle trembled again and some words on it lit up slightly.
“‘One. Moving. Large.’ That was the information I got from this spell called [Manalocation]. How are your [Detection Sensor] and nose, Saori? What do they tell you?” Muraina asked.
“Hmm, multiple targets. Most of them are small, probably insects, while the others might be rodents or moles, maybe. I can hear something moving in the hole but nothing loud enough. No smell, except for dirt. Wait! A signal my skill recognizes as a threat appeared. It’s moving. Do you mean that one?” Saori returned her head to Muraina who flicked the magic circle again, nodding her head after it shook again.
“[Manalocation] is a custom spell created by an empty vessel mage who used sounds as his spells, much like Princess Hestia over there with her songs. It’s a wind-affinity spell, giving the circle its green color, but you can learn it without needing to learn the empty vessel or [Wind Magic].”
Muraina explained the original spell was changed to send out mana, instead of wind or soundwaves, and acted similar to a bat’s echolocation. The mana would be sent out by touching the magic circle — Muraina flicked it — and it would return eventually, where the Divine System would give the caster scouting information.
“Metamagics are amazing, right? [Fluid Cast] to repurpose the original spell into something non-wind mages can use. [Delayed Cast] to keep it in a limbo between ‘Activation’ and ‘Release’, to prevent it from dispelling. Finally, [Continuous Cast] allows me to flick it as often as I wish,” Muraina explained the functionality of the spell, intriguing me as I realized I’d never made use of both [Delayed Cast] and [Continuous Cast] in the same custom spell.
[Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Sanctified Blaze], and [Panzer] are single-usage spells where they cast their ability and that was it, similar to most System spells. [Halo of Consecration] and [Unheilige Engel] work on the principle of [Continuous Cast], where as long you continuously pour mana into a spell’s magic circle, you could cast the spell as often as you liked and even use [Fluid Cast] to change their function if you wanted to.
In spell casting, the four stages of casting were the base of all spells — Invocation, Incantation, Activation, and Release. Without the meta-magics, or advanced spell casting techniques, of [Fluid Cast], [Multi-Cast], [Delayed Cast], and [Continuous Cast], you couldn’t change this sequence.
Seeing Muraina use her [Manalocation] spell prompted me to ponder on some more spell ideas. Thinking of new and creative ways to cast spells was tricky to do, so when inspiration hit, it just dragged me into my own world where I could experiment with theories in my head. While I was imagining the effects of a test spell, somebody suddenly shook my shoulders hard, bringing my attention back to reality.
It was Tasianna. She told me everybody had finished resting and we would depart soon. I looked down at my plate and saw that I still had half my quadruple-patty burger left. Sighing, I put the burger back into my storage to eat later and drank enough water for the upcoming extermination.
A moment later, we all jumped down into the hole, landing safely with Tasianna’s wind magic. For our formation, Grimnir and I were in the frontline. Then came Ellaine, Tasianna, and Muraina for the middle, while Saori was our rearguard. Both Muraina and Saori were responsible for scouting and ensuring we wouldn’t get ambushed, which reassured the rest of us as we explored the tunnel.
“Lady Hestia, please, remember not to overuse your fire. I don’t exactly want to suffocate to death today,” Muraina joked as we walked through this dank tunnel.
I nodded to her request, agreeing to rely more on martial arts and non-fire spells. “Oh yeah, Muraina, do you want to join the party? My party bracelet has the platoon function.” This function was an addition to our expensive party bracelet Farron gave us, which allowed us to invite twenty people to a single party.
However, instead of an immediate answer, Muraina made some disagreeable noises before answering, “I apologize, but I’m a bit of a, uhm, I don’t like sharing my kills with others. I’m at a level where slaying D ranks would give too little experience for me to care about, but every bit counts, right?”
It could be said that she wasn’t very cooperative, but I could definitely understand where she came from. Experience was important, but now I was worried that she would hog all the experience!
After walking a bit more, we encountered the soldier drone Saori and Muraina had detected before.
Mana Eyes.
<Geisenlarg Soldier: A giant beetle with a hard carapace and six limbs which it uses to protect and develop the colony of its mother, the [Geisenlarg Queen]. Possesses a mild nerve venom on the sickle on its front legs, which it uses to slow down the movement of its prey before it lands the deciding blow with its mandibles. D rank>
Nerve toxin, huh? Might help me make my own.
To make sure it wouldn’t call for reinforcements, I snuck behind it while it was digging to expand the tunnel and jumped. Using [Air Walk] and my wings, I maneuvered my body over the soldier’s and pierced its head with my tail, instantly killing the thing. Unfortunately, it gave less experience than the C rank bolushzi.
All of these monsters are too young. They didn’t have enough time to gain levels.
As dismantling the corpse would take up too much time, we left the dead geisenlarg behind until we found the queen. Muraina and Saori both noted that multiple signals were moving around alone, probably expanding the tunnel network of this colony. On the other hand, there was a large gathering of signals in the depths of this place, which we all assumed must be the heart of the colony.
Deciding that hunting down the individual geisenlargs would be too much work, we moved deeper towards the nest. We evaded what patrols happened to come near us and made sure to remain undetected. Muraina explained how a colony would collapse and die off if the queen and all of the princesses were killed. Any soldier or worker drones we left alive wouldn’t be a big threat.
“Jeez, this place is huge.” After evading the attention of as many beetles as possible, we ended up in a tunnel leading into a huge cavern about double the size of the Sydney opera house. Beetles were crawling around in an organized fashion through the multiple bridges they’d built across the place to connect from one hole to another.
At the very bottom of this cavern, there were stockpiles of building materials like rocks, wood and leaves, and next to them was a pile of mangled bodies. There were corpses of monsters of various sizes but, thankfully, Saori didn’t see any human, beastman, or elven bodies there. They belonged to only monsters and animals.
“Hestia, could you harden the interior of the cavern? Like when we fought Kiiro's mana beast?” Saori suggested.
“Harden? So we are going into this without a plan like a bunch of rampaging equerochs? Otherwise, I cannot imagine why we should fortify the walls to prevent it from breaking down if we are going into this with stealth,” Muraina asked Saori, who wobbled her hand as if Muraina was half-correct.
“Just in case, right? If we were to be detected, we would not want to waste time doing it afterward. Considering the size of those geisenlargs, we probably cannot afford to hold back if we get surrounded, even if they are only D ranks.”
Muraina nodded. “Plan B, alright. Then, as for Plan A… well, I haven’t participated in a geisenlarg extermination before, but the number one advice I’ve gotten from reading those reports has been to target them with ice. Their carapace protects them from the cold as they live underground, but extreme cold causes them to break and significantly reduces their movement speed.”
We turned to Tasianna. She understood what we wanted from her and she gave her opinion on it, “I can do that with [Aifli eir Vintral], yes. I can reduce the surroundings down to the freezing point without any problem since a mana-based body is less susceptible to the cold. Lady Hestia, you should probably use your catalyst’s heat field, since using your core to regulate your body temperature might waste solar energy.”
“Good point, Tasianna. I have enough in my core to keep myself warm if I don’t use [Solar Beam], but it might be better to test this orb out for today.” Muraina had already seen my core when we bathed together in the hot spring. There was no need to hide it at this point.
“Should we blitz them then, everybody?” Ellaine suggested. “[Musclemass] gives me enough Strength to deal some serious damage through a sneak attack. Hestia and I can handle the ones taking care of their stockpile, while Saori and Muraina have the range and maneuverability to quickly and silently dispatch the ones moving on the bridges.”
“My aim is true. I can handle it. Saori?” Muraina looked at Saori as though she were issuing a challenge.
Saori agreed with a smirk. “Enclosed room, a lot of shadows once Hestia uses her rocket boosters, and plenty of places to strike from. This should be no problem.”
Why are they trying to compete right now?
As I was baffled at those two, Grimnir spoke up, stroking his growing beard while deep in thought. “Hmm, we might be detected if you do strengthen everything up with [Terra Wall], lass. If this were a tazongn tunnel, we'd notice when something is happening with our home. We know it best.”
Grimnir brought up a good point against Saori’s plan B, causing us all to think over it. Grimnir continued, “There are too many ways for the beetles to enter the cavern, and they could always rely on creating more at any time. We will get surrounded too quickly, and I can only protect everybody from one front.”
“Saori and I can always rely on our original forms if it gets dicey,” I argued, but Grimnir seemed unconvinced.
“True, with you two and the yflei on your back shooting down arrows, those beetles won’t have a chance. But what about the queen? Don’t forget, our primary goal is to hunt that royal down. If we waste too much time, the queen might escape. How about it, yflei, can the queen move fast enough to flee?” Grimnir spoke with Muraina. “Yflei” was dwarven for high elf.
“The queen is B rank. A large behemoth with a hardened shell like a giant crab and a long stinger like a scorpion. Not only can she produce hundreds of soldiers and workers in a timely manner, she should also be a capable combatant. There will be guards protecting her and she will engage if she thinks she can protect her colony. If she thinks otherwise, she will try to escape instead,” Muraina explained, before beginning to scold herself, “Hmm, I was being a bit too bloodthirsty. Haven’t gone hunting for a while.”
“Aye, I thought so. Wisdom doesn't come with age for your elves, huh? Ha!” The dwarven man acted smugly. “However, I like Ellaine’s idea. We should blitz the ones below us, and then have somebody scout out the queen’s hideout. The moment we find it, that’s when Hestia and Tasianna should act. Fortify the interior so it doesn’t break down and have Tasianna weaken them with the cold. We then move towards our target. I’ll handle the charge, you five and the garms handle the killing.”
Since the eggs were supposedly also stored either in the same cavern with the queen or one next to it, everybody accepted Grimnir’s strategy. It was time to execute everything.
Ellaine used [Whiplash] to transform her left arm and used it to attach herself to my arm. It felt pretty fleshy at first, but without the claws, it felt like a bunch of sausages were grabbing my arm. As we needed to sneak up to the monsters, I couldn’t play any music for now.
[“Hmm, what an interesting place. Like a hive. So many creatures working mindlessly and tirelessly for a single monarch, their mother. And now, they are about to perish for our power. The strong rule over the weak, an interdimensional fact, hiehiehie,”] Klea’Hatma spoke before breaking in a maniacal laugh. Ellaine and I both ignored her, while I had one of my parallel minds ready to cast [Shine] in case she tried something.
With my wings repaired, I was finally able to fly and glide properly without needing to rely on wind spells or my rocket boosters. I would probably need [Tailwind] for the best maneuvering control or to race another flier, but I was satisfied I could use flying now as part of my repertoire.
As Ellaine and I hovered behind a piece of rock, we observed the diligent geisenlargs. Once we found a good moment, we decided on our targets and snuck over to them, killing them simutanously like two assassins.
<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 18] to [Level 19]>
<Attributes have increased due to level up>
I quickly broke the beetles we killed into smaller chunks and shoved them into my storage to hide them from the other geisenlargs. We then hid once again and repeated the process. When I had some time, I looked above us, witnessing Saori and Muraina efficiently and quietly taking down beetles upon beetles. It was honestly scary seeing them killing them so fast while Ellaine and I were taking it slower.
Over time, we noticed fewer beetles coming out from tunnels and putting stuff onto the stockpile. That was when I gave Tasianna and Grimnir the signal for them to rejoin us at the bottom.
<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 19] to [Level 20]>
<Attributes have increased due to level up>
After some more kills, Saori and Muraina came over, informing us they might have found the queen. As with echolocation, [Manalocation] generally couldn’t see through obstructions and it was soft countered by mana barriers like pavise and my [Draconic Barrier], but if it worked, it could tell you the size of the target it had tagged.
Muraina used that spell within the different tunnels and managed to find one which gave her the most promising result. As such, I cast [Terra Wall] with [Fluid Cast] to strengthen the earth around us instead of creating a wall.
Jeez, this is so easy. Everything is working as we planned. Going into things with a plan is seriously the be—
“Skruuuuuuuuuuuch!”
What?!
“You have to be kidding me! The queen of this colony already managed to make a flying soldier drone! Tch, just how long have they been down here?! Damnit, C ranks, everybody!” Muraina shouted, pointing upwards.
There I saw a giant beetle around the size of an elephant flying above us. Compared to its companions, its body was slimmer while its two pairs of front legs were long and thicker, with sharper, more sickle-like claws. Two large wings were beating rapidly, giving it the ability to move in any direction like a hummingbird.
“Skrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch!”
Guess Grimnir was right, super right.
