AA-94

  “-kay, now ask her how to push a Class upgrade in such a way as to sort of side-grade the Class!” Mark asked, the small dwarf practical bouncing on his feet as he walked a step ahead of Mia and kept glancing back at her and at the weary-looking Nikki.

  “I think that’s enough questions for now,” Carmilla said what Mia was trying to come up with a nicer way of saying, and pointed up ahead. “I’m hearing something heavy shuffling in that house’s garage.”

  “Into combat readiness people!” Brent said, his voice low, but still reaching each of their ears.

  Mia snapped her fingers and motioned for her Familiar to do a quick patrol around the area and the cat shot off a moment later and was scampering up to the nearest rooftop a second later.

  “Something nasty might be in that garage,” Mia whispered to Nikki, translating for her benefit. “Get combat ready, is what the big guy said.”

  Camie sent back a look Mia took for one of mild concern, but then she, too, shot off and was up above the garage in question a handful of seconds later, silent as a ghost. Helene stayed grounded, just as lightning started to crackle between her fingers. Mia noted an ethereal figure floating next to her ear. Is that an Air spirit?

  “I’m ready,” Nikki whispered, dragging Mia’s attention back onto herself and she took a moment to observe the woman.

  To her senses, some light bluish-white mana was curling around her similar to how Mia’s Lesser Wards looked, and while in one hand she wielded an ornate wand, the other held a short spear of ice.

  Mia raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask questions. She had guessed right, or rather, her instincts had been correct that sharing one’s magical capabilities with just anyone was something a mage just did not do. Nikki relayed her very basic capabilities such as some protection, long-ranged spells, debilitating effects, and some minor melee abilities, but nothing specific.

  Not that her listing out Ice-specific spell names would have helped them understand the specificities of her powers, but still.

  It only made Mia more curious though.

  “Come around for a round of Wards,” Mia said in a whisper, her ears straining to listen in on their targets. The vehicle was large and almost cumbersome as it shuffled around in the garage. It was also audibly digging through the concrete base of the building. She continued in Common for Nikki, “Do you want a Lesser Ward … of Protection?”

  The proper name of the spell was a bit cumbersome, so she never really used it, calling it just ‘Ward’ since she had no other Wards in her repertoire aside from her newly learned Alert Ward. Still, being specific was a must with someone who didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “I don’t- Actually, did you get the Order aspecting done?” Nikki asked, a thoughtful look coming over her face. “I doubt the basic Chaos aspect Ward would not mess up my own protective spell.”

  “I did,” Mia said.

  “Then I’d be thankful for one,” Nikki said, bowing her head graciously while layers of what Mia was guessing to be Ice mana curled around her short-spear and settled onto it.

  A half a minute later everyone but Camie had a Ward on them, though it seemed more than redundant on Mark and Clive’s weird magic slurped it right up a moment after she’d applied it.

  Mia gave him a narrow look, but the man just shrugged sheepishly and said it would empower his own defences for a few minutes. Well, now Mia knew why the man was so comfortable standing in the way of monsters with just a shield. Even with him using Ki, he must have had some darkness affinity skill or technique that apparently allowed him to siphon away magics applied to him to empower himself. That together with the strengthening power of the Earth element, it was easy to see why he was pretty good at standing in the way of dangerous shit and not dying horribly as a result.

  Mia summoned up her Spectral Blade, trying to feel for any difference in its structural integrity, but it was vague at best. Still, she had tried to swing the thing at concrete walls with full force and while it didn’t cut deep; it made a mark and, more importantly, didn’t dissolve from the blowback like before.

  “It’s coming,” Mia said, her grip tightening around the sword as she prepared her Arcane Shield and piercing Bolt spell circles in her runic model. Even that was pushing it though, as the piercing variant was much harsher on her spirit to cast than the regular Bolt.

  “Let’s test it,” Brent said, his sword brandished and hanging leisurely in his arm. “This is a lone archetypal monster of this rift, if we’re lucky. Best find out all its tricks before we stumble upon packs of them.”

  “I suppose testing it means I shouldn’t blow it to bits,” Helene mused, the lightning curling around her fingers dimming significantly. “Alright.”

  “We’re going to just poke at it to figure out its kinks,” Mia translated for the Ice mage who nodded in understanding.

  With a nod from Brent, Camie swung down from the rooftop and disappeared into the garage for just a second before coming back out. A howl thundered from the dark interior of the building as the vampire landed a dozen metres away and rolled to her feet, looking unharmed. After some crashes and angry growling, the monster finally made its appearance.

  The trouble it had navigating the insides of the building instantly made sense with the large van’s ruined back half now poking out of the garage. That, combined with the monster’s canine head, covered in mangy brown fur, which reached up to the roof, its shoulder standing level with Mia’s own, meant it must have had some serious trouble moving around in the small space.

  Its head swiveled around, a hateful gaze landing on the vampire standing some metres away from it. A blast of air made it stumble, but not quite enough for it to fall on its side. It also made the beast turn and growl at the group it only now seemed to have noticed.

  “It’s heavy,” Lina supplied. “I’ve turned smaller cars upside down with an ‘Air Burst’ of that strength.”

  “She means one of those tiny two-person electric cars,” Mark said.

  “Those still weigh around seven hundred kilograms,” Clive mused, rolling his broad shoulders as he readied his tower shield before him with a relaxed air about him.

  “Let’s test its defences next,” Brent said just as the beast seemingly decided it wanted Carmilla dead more than the pesky Air mage and started bounding after her. Its speed was quite fast, but Mia was pretty sure even she could have outrun it, which meant Carmilla could run circles around it with just a leisurely jog. “Also, give me an approximate level for this thing, Mia.”

  “Nine, maybe 10,” Mia said with a shrug. “Want me to shoot it with my basic Bolt?”

  “Do that,” Brent said.

  Mia had parts of the piercing Bolt circle flake away, return to their natural resting position and set the remains into the right configuration for the basic Bolt before flicking it off towards the monster’s flank. The spell flew through the air slower than before and looking more like a vague blob instead of the usual roiling mass of energy.

  The damage was about the same though, perhaps it carried at bit more weight with it, but that was all the change it had from its aspect going from Chaos to Order.

  The monster gave a yelp as the spell struck its back left thigh right in the centre and stumbled, its injured leg giving an unnatural kick. Its next step was stumbling, the leg giving out under the beast’s weight for a moment, but afterwards it got used to using its other limbs to carry its massive body.

  The spell also had the monster’s full hate turning towards the group as a whole and charge at them like it didn’t have a feisty vampire right behind it. Which was quite idiotic to do, as shown by Camie quickly catching up with it and sweeping out both of its front legs from under it, sending the large beast crashing face-first into the asphalt.

  “Mark, try to keep the thing down without smashing its head in with a mace,” Brent said. “I want to know how strong it is.”

  “Aye Captain,” Mark said, ambling forward in his fully armoured glory and clamped his pair of large earthy mitts on the monster’s shoulder as he reached it.

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  It snapped at him, its jaw opening wide enough to have teeth sinking into earthen armour’s torso on both sides. Mia grimaced for a moment, she knew she would have to get used to it, but seeing her friends with the jaws of monsters clamped around them was not a sight she enjoyed.

  Mark removed a hand and smacked the wolf in the head as it tried to twist its jaw left and right to throw Mark around, but the golem-like armour didn’t move an inch. Though that likely had more to do with the tendrils of earth mana reaching out from the soles of Mark’s feet and digging into the asphalt beneath them to secure him in place.

  Mark smacked it in the head a few more times, but the monster refused to release him.

  “It’s fucking persistent,” the dwarf said with forced calm. “It’s not able to bite through my armour, but it broke Mia’s Ward about two seconds in. Also, it's really fucking heavy. I can’t make it release me, not without burying a spike in its head.”

  “Can I poke it?” Mia asked, motioning with her sword at the monster and Brent gave a shrug.

  “Mark, can you keep it from moving?” Brent asked. “Try to lock its jaws to your side.”

  “Sure boss man,” Mark said, doing just that, but not with his arms, instead two new tendrils grew out under his armpits and locked both the upper and lower jaws of the monster to Mark’s sides.

  Mia gingerly stepped around Mark, eying the monster warily as it growled and squirmed. The others followed her, all alert, but not all that scared of the monster while by the looks of it, Nikki was more curious about her allies’ capabilities than the monster’s.

  Brent clearly noticed that but didn’t say a thing, so Mia ignored it too. She too, would have wanted to know as much as possible about the people she was about to head into a rift with.

  With a lazy thrust, Mia poked at the wolf’s side and managed to leave a tiny, bloody wound behind. She put her entire weight behind the next thrust, piercing at least a dozen centimetres deep into the overly tough muscles of the monster.

  “It’s really tough,” Mia mused, then slashed at its underbelly, finding her sword having a much easier time there than on its leg, where the corded muscles stopped any less serious blow in its tracks.

  Then she was forced to hop back as the beast kicked out with a leg, paddling at the air blindly with its four limbs even as Mark smacked it in the face again with an elbow.

  Lina easily avoided a kick of her own, practically floating back with torrents of air coming out of her hands carrying her along, but Helene’s Ward flashed as it stopped a paw from doing much beyond sending the woman stumbling back a few steps.

  “Fu- “ Helene stopped and coughed into her elbow, her pale eyes glaring at the monster. Pulling her arm away, she sent a small bolt of lightning at the beast, which had it seizing up and twitching like it was having a seizure. “Big, tough and hits hard. I suppose we know the basics of what to expect from these things.”

  “It’s also slow and has little to no defences on its underbelly,” Brent added, his gaze lingering on Helene with a hint of worry before the woman waved him off. “Do you need a potion? That kick could have left behind some internal injuries.”

  “It did, but they were minor and the ring handled them easily,” Helene said, walking back over to the beast's side, joining Mia with a calming pat on the shoulder and now standing a respectful distance away from the monster. “It also reacted particularly badly to my lightning.”

  Mia looked her mother over with a suspicious gaze, checking her elbow for signs of coughed-up blood, suspecting that since her mother got kicked in the chest, she’d be more likely to have some lung injuries than others, but found none.

  Then she looked over the wolf again, squinting at the rust-brown fur covering it from snout to tail. With a flick of her sword, she cut off a few tufts of the fur and asked Line to gather them out of kicking range with her air magic.

  “Think this is rusted metal?” Mia asked, sniffing the tuft of fur in her hand before holding it out for the others. Camie snatched a bit up and sniffed it, but Mark surprised her when his helmet melted away and he threw a bit of fur in his mouth before spitting it out.

  “Pure oxidised iron, with some organic stuff mixed in,” the dwarf provided, ignoring the bewildered looks the group was sending his way.

  “Smells irony too, I guess,” Camie noted silently, staring down at the small bit of fur in her hand before shrugging.

  “Suppose that makes our lives easier. Metallic wolves shouldn’t take well to getting electrocuted and I doubt non-conductive materials would be included in their fur. Though maybe some gems might be … diamond-furred wolves could be nasty.” Mia tilted her head thoughtfully before turning to Nikki and continuing in Common. “Do you know anything about wolf monsters with metallic fur? Is that a common thing?”

  “Metallic fur?” Nikki asked, her piercing blue eyes turning to observe the monster. “Like iron, right? Is that … rust on its fur? I’ve heard of Rust Wolves before.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’d be rust,” Mia said. “Remember any general weaknesses or something we should know of?”

  “Well, lightning magic or even general electricity made by artifacts,” Nikki said, nodding towards Helene. “But you already noticed that. Beyond that? No. They are not supposed to turn into anything too nasty at Rank 1, just Iron Wolves and perhaps Wolfling … which are just bipedal wolves with some primitive weapons.”

  “Thank you,” Mia said with an appreciative smile before turning back to the others and relaying what she’d learned.

  “This should be a breeze then,” Lina said, glancing at Helene. “Shouldn’t it?”

  “I can’t take care of everything,” Helene said, crossing her arms under her chest. “My skills are costly, more so than any of you lots’, I’d wager. I could use only the basic lightning Subskill, but even that eats through my mana like a ravenous beast.”

  “Yeah, I saw you drinking mana potions like water back on the wall,” Mia said. “But we can handle most of them, I think. If you just paralyse the nastier ones or keep them back if too many come at us, we should be able to tear through them quickly.”

  “Indeed,” Brent said. “Though we must be careful. Weeks have passed, and no one has killed any of the escaped Rift Guardians. Rushing this could end up with up to three extremely dangerous monsters ambushing us … maybe four or five if the escaped Guardians of the Bird Rift are still around and want to have a go at us when we’re weakened.”

  Saying so, Brent himself stepped forward and sent a thrust followed by a vertical slash at the monster. Both had more effect than Mia’s attacks, but the man had a mighty frown on his face as he eyed the edge of his blade.

  “I’m going to have to get a new sword soon,” he murmured, then turned to the group. “Anyone else wants to test something, now is your chance. Afterwards we should head further in. The other groups pushing on the other streets have gotten ahead of us. Even the regular soldiers have.”

  Lina attempted to force the monster to stop moving and then battered it around with tendrils of air, but while she might have given it some internal bruising, none of it showed on the outside.

  “I have some meaner stuff, but with Mark near it, I don’t want to use it,” Lina said, arms crossed as she glared at the monster like she’d taken personal offence to the monster resisting her magic.

  Mia followed that up with a piercing Bolt, which made a thin, but deep wound on the monster’s muscled shoulder and left Mia in a cheerful mood. One of those spells into the head should be more than enough to down one of these monsters.

  Camie just shrugged and didn’t bother testing, which was a given. The girl’s Blood spells were near impossible to resist and she had made the monster fall on its face without breaking a sweat. That told everyone more than enough about how she’d match up against them.

  “May I perchance test something too?” Nikki asked, staring at Mia who just nodded and stepped aside with a motion saying ‘go ahead’.

  The Ice mage smiled and tapped her spear of ice with her wand before tapping the spear’s tip on the monster’s stationary head. She stepped back with little happening for a moment, but the monster gave a shudder and its kicking and growling slowed, soon icy crystals formed on its fur and the monster fell fully into what looked like slumber, but Mia felt the icy tendrils of mana that had been carving their way through the monster’s body even through the overpowering, revolting mass of broken mana inside the monster’s body muddying it to Spirit Sense.

  “Hypothermia?” Mia mused questioningly in common. “Or did you just freeze it from the inside out.”

  “Both,” the woman shrugged, smiling prettily at the group that was now staring at her with varying levels of curiosity. “The spell’s supposed to freeze it solid, but I’m not yet strong enough to manage that. Thus, it merely sent the monster into a hypothermia-induced sleep. I was fairly certain it would be like this, but I’m glad to know it only took seconds for it to take effect.”

  “Could you do that to more than one monster?” Mia asked curiously. “Or at range?”

  “I could manage both,” Nikki said. “I suppose we’ll proceed soon? May I extract the monster’s core, or do you have dedicated follow-groups that dismantle the carcasses for you? Rust Wolves have thick hides that are good for low-grade leather armour and the dust made from their metallic fur is good for low-grade alchemy and inscriptions. Bones should have some properties too, but I don’t think those are worth the trouble of cutting them out from under all that tough meat. The dusted fur and the core would make for good artificing materials too, if there is nothing better around. May I get some of those?”

  “Ehm,” Mia turned to Brent. “Do we have ehhhh … dismantling parties following us? People who’d cut up the carcasses and get anything of value out of them? Nikki is asking if she could get a portion of cores and maybe some of the ground-down rusty fur for her artificing hobby.”

  “I think I remember something of the like,” Brent said, rubbing at his coarse beard with a faraway look as he glanced down the street behind them. In the distance, a military buggy was rolling down the street with some soldiers spread out around it. “Those guys are supposed to catch any stray that gets past us, but I don’t think they are meant to loot the monsters. If we have scavenge parties, those would come around when the location is secured at the soonest.”

  “Do you think we could ask the Colonel for a portion of our loot?” Mia asked. “I mean, we are the ones killing the monsters. Even if we don’t bother looting them, the kills should be ours, no?”

  “I’ll ask around when we get back.” Brent nodded. “I never bothered before because none of us could make use of some monster parts and the Colonel has a small army of crafters gathered up already, but I’ll see what we can get.”

  “Alright, thanks,” Mia said, quickly translating the answer to Nikki who bowed her head thankfully.

  After that, Mark drove a spiked fist through the sleeping monster’s skull, ending its life easily and then they set off. They were supposed to clear the street of monsters before nightfall at the latest to keep on schedule and they didn’t want to be the slowpokes out of the dozens of groups similarly clearing other streets, all aiming to head towards the wolf rift far into the southern part of the city. Perhaps even further and inside the forest beyond the city limits.

  They had a long fight ahead of them, but it was no sprint, it would be a marathon.

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