Chapter 14

As soon as the angel had disappeared, Fey noticed that she had far too many people staring at her. Some of the people even looked like they were going to approach and talk to her. To prevent this (horrible) fate, Fey quickly slipped into the forest, out of sight (*escape*). Finding a trail, Fey walked quickly towards the monster territories, wanting to take advantage of Leandriel’s Helping Hand before it wore off.

Being the weakest, slimes lived closest to town. Fey was about to bypass their territory in search of stronger monsters when Amethyst suddenly jumped off her head and started hopping away.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Fey took a step (being legless, Amethyst hadn’t gotten very far) and grabbed the slime, who immediately began wriggling in her hands. After a few seconds’ struggle, Fey finally resorted to dangling Amethyst by the bubble to prevent her escape. Amethyst began to swing back and forth like a pendulum, always facing one particular direction. Curious, Fey turned her body so that if the slime continued to swing the same way, she would be pointing in a different direction. Instead, Amethyst adjusted her movements to point the same way.

“So… You want me to go that way?” Fey guessed.

Amethyst gave a (n affirmative) squeak.

Fey sighed and followed her slime-compass to an unknown destination.

As Fey walked, the sun set fully and only the faint glow of the moon lit the forest. Fey noticed that her night vision was much better than in real life, one of the perks of being a moon elf. As well, Amethyst seemed to emit a faint glow, enough to make her visible, but not to illuminate other objects. As Fey passed through the slime territory, she saw newbies hunting other glowing slimes. That sure is convenient. The developers thought of everything. Without the bioluminescence, the (translucent) slimes would be extremely hard to find during the night, making it difficult for new players to complete their first quest. Fey quietly avoided the newbies and continued following Amethyst’s swaying movements.

Fey started having second thoughts about where she was going when she heard shouts and screams coming from the forest ahead of her. Stopping to consider her options, she saw an unmistakeable streak of light signifying a dead player travelling to the rebirth point.

Dubiously, she asked Amethyst, “Are you sure about this?”

The slime squeaked, and swung even more insistently back and forth (you are getting very sleepy… *hypnotize*).

“If I die, I’m going to be really mad at you,” Fey grumbled, but walked forwards anyway.

When Fey saw the cause of the ruckus, she laughed. The King Slime (blue this time) was avenging his slain subjects by attacking a bunch of newbies (*recycle adventures* Bad author). At level 1, they had absolutely no chance against the level 15 boss. The only reason that they were not all dead (yet) was because the (legless) King Slime was fairly slow, giving the newbies a chance to scramble out of its way as it smashed its bubble at them. The sight of all the people running frantically around the (cute) boss was indeed quite hilarious. I wonder why they don’t just all run away? No one seems to be trying to escape the area. The reason for the idiocy became apparent as one particular newbie tried to rally the others to fight. He soon disappeared in a second flash of light.

Fey had gotten the measure of the situation. “I’ll take care of this,” she told her pets, shooing them up a tree. Pitching her voice to carry, she called out “Scatter and meet back in town! It can’t catch us if we run.” Hearing the command amidst the panic and chaos made the newbies automatically obey; they ran off in all directions, with one (unlucky) newbie being chased by the King Slime.

Fey stepped in smoothly to intercept the King Slime. Sighing at the necessity, Fey used her Terrify skill to get the boss to stop its chase. As she had guessed, the sound that accompanied the skill was the same loud, high-pitched shriek she had emitted when she had first learned the skill (see Chapter 6 if you don’t remember).

The sound hurt her throat, but accomplished its purpose, making the King Slime come to a startled stop (and the newbie run away even faster, scared of the creepy sound).

Fey took her embarrassment at sounding so undignified and channelled it into extra viciousness as she used Vicious Strike in her first attack against the King Slime. Her strategy in the fight was again to use a combination of Mana Blade and Bleed, but this time she added a few strong kicks to make the King Slime bleed more out of its wounds. Between her increased levels, Leandriel’s buff, and Fey’s own Terrify debuff, it was not long before the King Slime was nothing more than a puddle of (blue) goo.

This time, the King slime dropped coins worth a few hundred gold, as well as a thin bracelet in the same copper as Fey’s ring (see Chapter 8 if you don’t remember)

As Fey put on the bracelet, it shrank to fit the exact dimensions of her wrist, conveniently not getting in the way of her arm guard.

As Fey’s pets came out of hiding, Fey said to Amethyst, “I suppose you want to eat this,” indicating the King Slime’s bubble. She could not think of another reason that Amethyst would lead her all the way here.

Amethyst hopped over to the (blue) bubble, which was slightly bigger than she was. She nosed the sphere (actually, slimes don’t have noses, so she just poked it with her face), and even opened her mouth to try to engulf the bubble, but could only reach a third of the way around it before her mouth would not open any wider. Looking (cutely) disappointed, Amethyst hopped away.

“Looks like another present for Kallara, then.” Fey reached for the bubble.

Magic surprised Fey by hopping onto the sphere. He appeared to ‘plant’ himself in the object, causing an indent where his stem met membrane. After a few seconds, the bubble began to deflate like a beach ball having its air let out.

When the bubble was nothing more than a flat, empty membrane, Magic hopped to the ground and bowed to Amethyst (translation: “Your meal, madame.”). Amethyst bumped him in gratitude (“Thank you, kind sir.”) and happily ate the remains.

“Okay…” said Fey, “no present for Kallara, then.” She looked up Magic’s new skill:

…That doesn’t explain how Magic was able to deflate the bubble of a dead King Slime. Oh well. Fey gave up on trying to understand the mechanics of a whimsical game.

“Let’s go.” Fey collected her pets and continued deeper into monster territory.

Fey decided that she had found a good spot for training when she reached the level 12 miniature boars. Each of them was the size of a normal piglet, though much more muscled, and armed with small, sharp tusks that gleamed white in the moonlight. Fey knew that level 12 monsters were capable of maiming her level 14 self, but the creatures were too small and cute for her to feel threatened.

The first thing she did was to kidnap two boars, one at a time, and tie them up a little distance from the herd. They squealed and struggled madly in her grip, but Fey was able to secure them without much trouble (hogtied, so to speak).

Fey placed a pet on each boar. “Drain,” she told Magic, who hopped up and planted himself on top of a squirming boar.

“Amethyst, use thornweed poison to kill this one.”

Amethyst secreted a layer of toxic slime, and then cruelly hopped over until it dripped into the boar’s eyes. The boar squealed in pain.

“Woah.” Fey was equal parts impressed and seriously disturbed at Amethyst’s ruthless and sadistic approach (the readers may also be wondering about the author’s state of mind; have no worries, she is a law-abiding citizen). Half running away from her cute and deadly slime, Fey drew her sword and dagger and went off to attack the rest of the boars.

Fey’s combat with the miniature boars was both ungainly and dangerous. The boars were creatures that attacked on sight by charging repeatedly and trying to gore their opponent (’s ankles). At shin height, the boars were difficult for Fey to attack with her blades, so she resorted mainly to kicking attacks while dodging and trying to keep her balance. She had a feeling that she would be in far greater danger of injury, pain, and death if she fell down and the boars could gore other parts of her body.

As the number of attacking boars increased to five, it was all Fey could do to avoid charging tusks, and she was forced to give up attacking at all. After a minute or so of jumping around and a couple of close calls, Fey decided that the indignity of hopping around dodging miniature pigs was greater than that of making creepy shrieking sounds, and activated Terrify.

Having high attack initiative, the boars only hesitated for a second, but it was long enough for Fey to reach down and slash the nearest boar with her sword while activating Bleed.

Fey then jumped away to dodge the other boars while the one she had cut bled profusely. Haha, bleeding like a stuck pig (this is a cliché simile describing copious bleeding, for those who don’t understand why Fey is laughing). Fey now only had to deal with four boars, the fifth being severely weakened by blood loss. She dodged and kicked and even managed to swipe at a few with her sword, but it appeared that unless she made a sufficiently deep cut, she could not activate Bleed.

Fey began to study her opponents’ movements more carefully and dodge more precisely. Finally, she found an opportunity to neatly sidestep a boar as it charged and cut it deeply as it passed, activating Bleed.

With only three boars to contend with, Fey quickly found opportunities to hit them all with her sword, then returned to dodging while she waited for them to lose health. 70 damage was not enough to kill a boar, but combined with accumulated damage from Fey’s other attacks, the boars’ health dropped to below half, making them severely weakened and unable to charge. Fey efficiently killed them off.

Like the treants and twiggys, the miniature boars’ bodies did not disappear upon death. I guess because they’re edible? Maybe I should bring them to Tallen. Since the boars were fairly small and light, Fey piled them into her backpacks.

While she waited for the boars to respawn, Fey went to check on her pets.

Amethyst’s boar (*cough* “victim”) was long dead, with her thornweed poison inflicting a whopping 120 damage every five minutes if allowed to run its course. I probably shouldn’t bring Tallen poisoned meat, Fey thought as she untied the carcass. She left the poisoned meat on the ground (it suddenly disappeared five minutes later).

Magic’s boar was still alive and kicking (weakly). Magic’s Drain was now at level 2, but it still only drained 1 health every 4 seconds. Fey felt bad as she watched the boar’s struggles weaken. It was not in her nature to kill things in a way that prolonged suffering (though really, her experiences were pretty much limited to insects who made it inside her home). When the boar finally stopped moving, Fey could not help but tell Magic to stop.

Magic hopped off the boar and Fey untied it. Hoping that the monster-taming process would be simple this time, she picked up the boar. Unfortunately, no system notices appeared. Fey sighed and sat down, putting the miniature boar in her lap.

As it regained health, the boar began to struggle vigorously. However, Fey had no trouble with the small creature. As long as she held it in the air with her hands around its middle, its short legs and small tusks could not hit anything but air. It took a long time, making Fey waste the rest of her time with Leandriel’s Helping Hand, but eventually, the boar stopped, tired itself out, and went to sleep.

It only took a few seconds for Fey to come up with a name this time. “Boris,” she decided. It was not a particularly elegant name, but it was not a particularly elegant pet, either.

Hey, look, it has one of the same skills as me (see Chapter 6 if you don’t remember). With the experience from the boar kills, Magic and Amethyst had also just reached level 12 (this is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the fact that the author doesn’t want to be bothered with keeping track of the levels of three different pets).

Fey put Boris on the ground to nap. Creeping over to the wild boars, she kidnapped another two.

Huh? Fey looked up the skill.

This was not the first time that Fey had grabbed a monster out of a group (see Chapters 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9 if you don’t remember), but it was the first time she had tried being even remotely sneaky while doing it. Even with the first two boars, she had simply grabbed them quickly and moved out of the boar territory before the rest of the herd could react.

Fey tied the boars up, sicced her pets on them, then went to attack the rest of the herd again. She had lost the boost from her buff, but now had a proper strategy for dealing with the boars that more than made up for the loss. Before the boars could even attack, Fey used Terrify, figuring she would be eventually forced into it anyway. Hearing the sound before they could get worked up into battle-rage made the boars hesitate even longer, and Fey was able to wound two with Bleed before the fight even started.

Several rounds of boar hunting passed. As Magic’s Drain increased to level 3 and then 4, he was able to kill the boars Fey brought before she returned from her hunts. Fey began to bring Amethyst more and more victims, as the slime did not need to stay in constant contact with her opponent for her poison to work. Eventually, Fey just brought the whole herd of eight boars (you would think she would run out of rope, but nope), making Isolate improve to level 4 quite quickly, and found a second herd to hunt herself. Fey got Bleed to level 5 and filled up her packs at a steady rate, despite the fact that she did not collect Amethyst’s or Magic’s kills. While Magic’s boars were not poisoned, they looked strangely shrunken and dry after being fully drained, so Fey decided not to chance it with their meat.

When Boris woke up, Fey decided that her packs were heavy enough and that she did not have to distress her new pet with the sight of more fallen herd-mates. “Let’s go buddy,” she told the boar, and headed back to town carrying Amethyst and Magic.

Boris was easily capable of keeping up with her walking pace, Fey noted with approval, making him the first pet she had tamed who was able to do so. While miniature boars were not very heavy, they weighed considerably more than either slimes or mushrooms, so Fey was glad she did not have to carry Boris as well.

Walking through the night-darkened forest, Fey was easily able to see the orange glow of fire somewhere off to her right. She decided to investigate and turned off the main trail that led to town. As she got closer she heard two disturbing sounds. The first was cackling laughter, and the second was the impact of an axe chopping wood. Fey kept quiet and ducked behind a tree to observe.

Fey saw a party of well-armed humans around a large fire, drinking and speaking loudly. Based on the similarity of their equipment, she thought that they might be NPCs or human monsters, but since low-level armour options were quite limited, the group could also be composed of real players. One of the humans, armed with an axe, was hacking branches off a tree to add to the fire. Fey could see scars on many of the trees indicating lost limbs.

Isn’t an angry ranger supposed to show up and punish people who damage trees? Fey was half-expecting the entire group to be massacred with arrows at any time now. However, no ranger showed up, and the tree lost more branches.

Fey decided that stopping the men and protecting the forest was part of her job description as a forest guardian. However, she did not think that she had the ability to fight and defeat the entire group. The situation called for sneaky and underhanded tactics.

Positioning herself so that all the men were in range, she told Magic, “Cast Spore as many times as you can.” Clouds of glittering particles drifted outwards. Some of the men noticed the spores, but none of them were alarmed until they inhaled and the status effects began.

Judging by the stupidly overdramatic names and the swearing coming from the group, Fey realized that she was attacking real players. Oh well. Might as well get into some real trouble. She stayed hidden as chaos erupted around the fire. Other than the sleeping and paralysed humans, the party was scrambling around looking for the source of the status effects. One player tried to shake the sleeping player awake. Another called out, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

The real fun began when the confused player, who happened to be the axe-wielder, started swinging his weapon wildly in all directions. The other players scrambled to avoid him and yelled at him to stop.

One of the players, searching randomly around the fire, neared where Fey was hidden. Unable to resist, Fey used Isolate and snuck up on him without anyone else noticing. Pulling a thornweed thorn out of her pouch, she stuck it in his neck and shoved him sideways before going into hiding again. The player panicked and yelled even louder than the rest of the group, drawing attention. Fey quietly sneaked around to the other side of the fire while the men approached her former hiding spot.

By now, status effects were piling on top of other status effects, and the players were noticeably handicapped. Fey felt a sense of satisfaction whenever one of them pulled out a green antidote to combat Magic’s poison (making people waste money is her idea of ultimate punishment). The sleeping player had woken up, but now three players were paralysed. One confused player charged off into the forest at right angles to where Fey was hiding. Fey decided that she could move on to the second phase of the plan (wait, she has a plan?).

Leaving Magic behind to continue the chaos, Fey took Amethyst and Boris over to the river than ran through the Elvenwood. Using Amethyst’s Osmosis, she picked up some water. Frowning at the small amount, Fey made a mental note to have Amethyst train Osmosis whenever they had some free time.

Heading back to the terrorized group of players, Fey was glad to see that they were all paralysed (other than the one who had disappeared into the forest) and a good distance away from the fire. Paralysis effects wear off quite quickly, since a player is basically helpless during the status effect, so Fey hurried to put out the fire before anyone could move and stop her. She kicked logs over, stomped on flames, and had Amethyst dump her water over the last few embers. Easily staying out of sight in the newly darkened forest, she snuck back to where she had left Magic.

“You can stop now,” she told the tired mushroom. She petted her hard-working fungus as she waited for the paralysis to wear off. As soon as the players were able, they went back to swearing and yelling.

“Give me a nice squeal,” she told Boris, who made enough noise to silence the players. As they clumsily made their way towards the source of the noise, still encumbered by numerous other status effects, Fey used Terrify.

Even against players, Terrify incited a visceral sense of fear. The men stopped advancing. Fey shrieked the skill again, a little more loudly. The men looked visibly nervous. Fey then shrieked continuously while walking slowly towards the players. Just before she came into view, they broke and ran.

Fey decided that Terrify was not such a bad skill. It sounded undignified and hurt her throat, but considering what it did to her opponents, she could suffer a little indignity.

Footnotes:

[i] Pokemon has three Grass-type moves, Absorb, Mega Drain, and Giga Drain, that have this kind of effect