Camping is a lot more fun with company. The tedium can be broken up by pranks training exercises and stories, which are mostly true. I think the fact that she invariably accuses me of telling tall tales just illustrates how poorly she understands the time honored tradition of exaggerating ones own feats.

“Then I wrestled the Black Striped Python into a pit of acidic venom left behind after I beheaded her mate.”

“Which was as tall as a mountain. I remember.” Said Meifen.

“Right, and while that would have been the end of it if it had been a rank 6 monster, this one was at most mildly inconvenienced by the skin irritant. Fortunately, I understood that the python was a earth element monster, so it would be exceptionally vulnerable to...?”

I turned to see Meifen distracted by something. “Hey this is when you point out-” She shoved a hand at my mouth, which owing to her poor aim or my large mouth just wound up with her fingers inside my mouth instead of wrapped around it.

“Shhh, master.” There's something out there.

I extract her fingers and close my eyes. I can feel it and it's small but not too weak. Rank 4, wait! “It's concealing it's own strength. I can't get an accurate reading on it.” I write out in the dirt.

Meifen wrote out in response, “what should we do, master?”

“We'll continue to hide. It's far enough away I don't think it heard us and the wind isn't blowing out scent towards it.”

It triggers one of the pitfalls, but is too fast to fall in. It also triggers a snare and net combo that should have caused it to struggle until the noose tightens. Instead it gnawed a whole large enough for its body in seconds.

I write out, “I'm pretty sure this is a rodent or marsupial sized prey. Rank 5-6 based on speed but probably pretty fragile.”

It went through all of our traps and claimed the bait in each without fail. Then it left.

“What a waste.” Complained Meifen.

“Don't think about it like that. We've can learn a lot about it and our traps based on how to sprung out and now we get the fun part—improving them.” She perks up a little. Compared to the stake-out portion or simply resetting the traps this will be more interesting.

***

The next day our small furry friend returned, but we were ready for it. The key was to disarm it's greatest weapon—its speed and reflexes. This time our traps led it down a path that ended in a ditch. We promptly dumped an enormous amount of tree sap down on it. It partially escaped to the left, but the area around the ditch with the exception of the route it had taken in was covered in lard. From then we began taking turns attacking it with projectiles. The endurance contest wound its way back through the path it had taken, with it slipping and sliding whenever it wanted to zig or zag.

What finally decided it was a single trap without any bait that the creature had missed on the way in. It was a wide, but not particularly dangerous trap involving a disguised pit of sand. It as soon as we had forced it to enter it the jig was up and it switched tactics. It began a full frontal assault on us, which just meant it tried to ram me.

I was only two dozen arm spans away from it and it headed for me like a missile. While it had difficulty getting traction for more manueverable dodges it mustered plenty of speed for its charge. I also recognized it as a Hurricane Ratatoskr. It was non-native to this region and heavier than it looked. Worst of all it could cloth itself in strong winds that could knock aside projectile attacks. It must not have wanted to do that earlier due to its limited traction. That was no longer an issue.

For all of the Ratatoskr's strengths, though, it had equally glaring weaknesses. It was still only knee high, and a straight charge is a terribly predictable attack pattern to use. While I would have had trouble taking it head-on, parrying its charge was as simple as sliding my sword into the ground at an angle in front of me, and then bracing it. The creature slammed into my blade and with me and the earth as a brace it bounced off it to the side. Unfortunately, Meifen was not prepared to predict which way it was bouncing and missed a golden opportunity to hit it in midair while it was defenseless.

A throwing knife did impact the ground where it was going to land and resulted in it throwing itself to the side in midair and literally jumping off of the throwing blade that was coming at it. I lost track of it at this point with my eyes, but my ki senses were becoming clearer as it drew on more of its innate power. I located the monster that looked like a drill toothed squirrel up high near the canopy with a small whirlwind forming around it once again.

“Heads up.” I yelled as I took off after it. The smart thing to do at this point was probably to continue to chase it until it had exhausted its stamina. I didn't do that.

Instead, I slammed against the trunk of the tree it was resting on midway up the tree and caused the upper broughs to shake. It abandoned its perch and I moved to intercept it in midair. While arrows and slingshots wouldn't be able to pierce its defenses I was certain my sword could. It did, but all I missed its body and sliced off only a single front leg.

“I've got it.” Cried out Meifen, as she saw it knocked into a bush.

“Wait, don't get too close.” A second later my words were justified as it released a massive burst of air. Meifen, who had frozen as soon as she heard me, was knocked onto her backside and then rolled a few times to the base of a tree.

I threw one of the potions I'd prepared at the crater before turning away and shielding Meifen. I heard the vial burst and spray its contents everywhere as it was picked up by the chaotic air currents. To my satisfaction I heard a snarling scream a second later.

I had used a pungent acid that was useful trump card, but not ideal for this mission. The corpse was too heavily mutilated to be used for our purposes. Transplants of it chemically scarred tissue were unlikely to perform any better than our current bodies. That said, we did recover the one arm I'd lopped off and I had a few ideas on how to use the tiny amount of usable muscle fibers from it.

***

After one more week of hunting and trapping we decided to pack up the traps. In addition to the rank 5 Hurricane Ratatoskr, we had also met a pair of rank 4 ground wyrms, and a rank 4 Fal Slug. Arguably our most useful piece was the detachable tail from a rank 5 Gigant Anole. We never even saw it get caught in a trap owing to its natural camoflage, but in order to escape it had torn off its own tail. As soon as I saw it I decided to we would quit now while we were ahead. Plus, it would be difficult enough trying to bring this much material back with us.

Many of the parts, such as bones, muscle, skin and claws, were hardy enough we'd be carrying them back rather than implanting them in the field. Others, especially the parts from the Fal Slug and the blood vessels of the Gigant Anole would not keep, so I prepared for surgery in the field. In particular, for the Fal Slug their own vulnerability to salt meant I preferred to only use their internal organs.

I decided to give most of the upgrades to Meifen, since it would be challenging to perform surgery on myself in the middle of the woods without all the pieces of a proper medical kit. She went under the knife in a meditative state and with any luck (60-70% I'd say) there would be no rejections once it was reforged by her ki.

I still had her chugging regenerative potions like they were water, though, just to be sure. 10 days after we'd packed up our traps, and after a little over two weeks in these woods, we were finally ready to go home.

With far heavier packs, we headed back to my shop. After several days of travel, we finally saw our village, but what awaited us were only smoking cinders.