BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

The machine gun gets off one parting gift before coming to a halt, as the lizard’s tail disappear from it’s sight.

We’re still following it closely, though.

“Let’s try to herd it back or make it stop with illusions!”

Hilde nods. “Earth wall.” I nod to the suggestion - we found it easier to make the illusions if we cooperate, but everyone involved need to know what we’re making, else the conflict will make it worse.

In front of the [Basilisk], a wall of earth rises up. It rears for a moment, coming to a halt.

And turns towards us.

For a moment, time seems to stand still as it glares at us with it’s remaining eye, the head and front of it’s body covered in cracked and chipped scales. Then we unleash our attacks.

As it starts moving towards us, a {Mana Bolt} hits it in the lower jaw, breaking off a jagged tooth and disappears into it’s maw, surely doing internal damage.

Three relatively weak {Mana Spikes} hits it in rapid succession, only the hit to the damaged eye doing anything of note.

Finally my charged spike hits the other eye with great precision, eliciting yet another screech as it loses the rest of it’s sight.

While blinded, it is hardly harmless, but I follow Hilde’s example and flee upwards, making an internal facepalm as I question why I didn’t do this the first time.

Now that it can only rely on hearing and any other senses it might have - for example it seems able to sense mana - I can take a bit of a breather. This thing clearly has aspects for both Earth and Lizard, and I want both of those. Collect all the aspects!

The rest of the part fans out around it, hitting it whenever it’s focus is elsewhere, and strafing to the side otherwise. Some of the soldiers are here too, taking our example of attacking from the flanks. They do, however take a great deal more care of when to shoot, as opposed to our non-existent trigger discipline.

Our magic will dissipate after a short fifteen to thirty meters, though, so there’s a lower chance to hit something we shouldn’t.

I feel like I am on the cusp of unlocking the Earth aspect, so I focus on the basilisk. From my understanding, learning an aspect is done with a few steps:

First you need to realize it exists. Then you need to recognize it. Both of those are fairly simple and quick, especially if someone can show you.

The harder part, though, comes when you need to learn its properties. To do this you would want to find different things that have the aspect. For example water is pretty easy to learn if you have tap water, fresh water and the sea nearby.

Setting aside ‘The Four Elements’, it seem to me that the ‘larger’ the aspect, or the more it encompasses, the harder it is to learn, the forest is teeming with life, and thus the aspect of Life, but I am still unable to actually unlock it, even if I know it is everywhere.

With that in mind, I focus on the Earth aspect in the basilisk, sensing how it affects it, and how it is used.

Like the final piece of a puzzle is revealed, I suddenly have a much clearer image of what the Earth aspect is, and a quick check tells me I have unlocked it.

Suddenly, I am struck with an idea.

“Hold fire!”

A few more shots are fired before the order is echoed by their actual officer. Now that everyone stops shooting, the beast freezes for a moment.

I seize to opportunity and I turn to my normal form over its’ head. I drop down with my legs bent and after a quick switch of abilities, start charging up mana.

Coming in for the landing I straighten my legs and unleash the full force of a second-and-half of mana as force, directly through my right heel and into its brain-case.

The shock of the impact goes through my leg, but [Body Enhancement] should save me from all but the worst injuries, and I got a healing skill.

Crack!

The resistance suddenly vanishes, and I continue through a substance that feels like gel, finally crushing the lower part of the skull against the ground. Well, that oughta do it. Also:

“Gross!”

I slump against the body for a moment before standing up and pulling my leg out.

...I should have thought that through, now I gotta wash my boot of gore.

“That was reckless!” the sergeant yells at me.

I shake the worst of it off my leg. “Yeah, sorry. But the {Meteor Kick} totally worked!”

“You’re crazy! What if it didn’t work?”

I blink.

“If it didn’t work, my foot wouldn’t be stuck, so I’d just use the mist-form to get away. And honestly, I might be crazy.”

I got to it’s side and sweep mana through it to find the core. There!

“If you have no objections, I’d like to [Dismantle] it. Especially for the [Mana Core]. But I bet I could make some sweet gear with the scales, and possibly it’s hide.” Not that I know more than surface knowledge about leatherworking. Google-sensei!

“[Mana Core]? Like in fantasy stories? Either way, I will need to check with HQ. Until then, don’t touch it.”

I let out a sigh and take a couple steps away, then sit down to take off my gory boots. Before I touch them, however, I retrieve my rolls of plastic bags, a flask of water and a box tissue paper.

As I do that, I explain myself to the officer. “You see, I have a Quest to make a {Magic Gun}. I reckon a {Magic Core} would be all but necessary for that. I can make or gather smaller ones, but this is is the biggest and best I’ve seen.”

The sergeant stops fiddling with what I assume is a radio. “A Quest?”

“Yeah. The [System] apparently recognized a personal goal of mine as a Quest. If I finish it, the [System] will apparently recognize {Magic Guns}, and I’ll get an ability called [Quest Giver - Rank 1].”

“I’m not sure it’s legal for you to make a gun, but I will relay what you said to HQ.”

As he goes off to do whatever military stuff he has to do, I finally get out of the boots, and put them and my socks in a plastic bag each. Of course, I’m not planning on walking bare-feet in the forest.

So I take of the wolfkin form, causing surprise among the soldiers.

“What the hell?”

Oh, quick reflexes there. But since i don’t want to be shot, I slowly raise my hands. “It’s magic, better not think too hard about it.”

I stretch a little. This form is pretty comfortable.

While waiting for the officer to return, I talk a bit about [Aspectian] and mention that the military and police should probably start to integrate [System] abilities and magic.

“In fact, I’m planning to make a ‘open letter’ kinda video explaining it. I also think we need an Adventurer or Monster Hunter type organization. Otherwise, if things like this keeps popping up-” I wave my hand at the corpse. “-they will be stretched very thin.”

“So, the organization puts up tasks -Quests- on a board, and people can take the jobs?”

“Well, yeah. We’d probably want something like licensing of the Adventurers. If a system also keeps track of commissions you’ve taken, we have a sort of people’s militia that can handle things like this.

The legal stuff will probably be a clusterfuck to figure out, but if setup correctly, we can have people handle monsters with little impact on the military and police.

Oh, and regarding rogue power users, -which there will inevitably be- there could be special licenses that are given after a training course, which lets hunters take ‘enforcer’ commissions. Think private security, but with magic superpowers.”

One of the soldiers look at me, doubting. Or maybe that’s because of my form.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to have people with magic running around?”

“Honestly, I don’t think it can be avoided. Better regulate it and channel it towards something useful. Already, I am strong enough that even completely naked, I’m pretty sure I could break out of any prison and incapacitate any guards on the way.”

I shrug. “Not that I have any intention to do so, or get jailed in the first place. Also, consider what someone could do if they had that kind of power in a populated area. Terrorism is a hot topic, isn’t it?”

The guy opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again. He then nods to the sergeant, who just returned.

“I’ve spoken with HQ. We will take the corpse, but HQ wants you to explain properly about the quest and making a {Magic Gun}. If you explain it well, perhaps they will give you a research grant.”

I give them my contact info and in return get contact info for the National Defence Research Establishment. They want me to meet them the day after tomorrow.

After getting the worst of the gore off my body and clothes, we headed back to the café, stopping by the lake to let me properly clean my hands, feet and boots.

After sharing contact info and agreeing on meeting tomorrow to talk plans and possible dividing of loot(and crafting), we each go our own way. Hanna did not want to continue doing monster hunter stuff, having had enough of that today.

Turns out, riding a bike in my wolfkin form is difficult at first, but I get the hang of it. Let’s not mention my fall.

It’s still pretty early, despite all that’s happened, so I elect to do some shopping, after a trip home to get out of my hunting gear and shower, that is. I need to get some materials for {Magic Guns}, in addition to the other things I wrote down.

On the way home I ignore the stares, not that most people get a good look, since I’m a decently fast cyclist. However, when I stopped for a red light, though, a kid stared at me, so I did my best gruff and grumpy voice:

“Hey, have you seen a girl with a red hood nearby?”

He yelled and hid behind his mother, but the light was already green.

Shopping list:

Fishing line, more twine, duct tape, gloves to wear for better gripping the pickaxe, gloves to craft gauntlets. Two sets of walkie-talkies that seem good enough while being cheap. Markers to draw what and where a pencil cannot.

As I make my way to where I’m likely to find what I need for a {Magic Gun}, I see a rack of old-school brooms, which gives me an idea.

It: goes broom → witch → flying on broom. I should see if I can make a broom or other tools for mobility. A bunch of energy is required to lift a human off the ground, but there is prototype human-powered flying vehicles.

Assisted by magic, I bet I can make something work, but that will be later… Mmmm! Okay let’s buy a broom as a reminder and in case I get a practical idea. Yeah. It’s cheap, anyway.

As for gun parts; when you see a gun, what do you see? Going for the simplest guns, pre-magazine rifles, the visible parts are the stock, the barrel, and some mechanisms.

For the barrel I get a couple copper and PVC pipes of thickness fitting a slightly high-calibre pistol, with enough length to fail a couple times and still make a working prototype and finished version.

The stock can just be wood, and for mechanisms I buy some copper wire, insulated and uninsulated. On a whim I add a copper rod(who says a magical gun needs a hollow barrel, anyway?) and get some rubber to insulate the barrel.

All in all it burns my wallet, but I have a (not quite) grand plan to earn money, starting when I get home. Boy am I glad I lived at my parents’ until I graduated, I have a reasonable amount of savings. With my loans I am technically in the red, but they are quite manageable. At least if I don’t do any more shopping sprees like this until I get some income.