Aether Engineering

Chapter 59

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

The afternoon felt lazy. Kate had to shake off her drowsiness. It was a common problem she had. Right after lunch, she had a tendency to grow lethargic. Now was not the time for that.

Monster hunting was a challenging class. Unlike those of her friend’s, the class didn’t always take place behind the walls of the academy. Sure, they often spent entire days listening to Granite, their grizzled former shikari instructor, go over the weaknesses of certain monsters or theories on the best way to avoid danger in the voidlands. Those days were becoming less the norm lately though. Today was definitely not one of those days.

Kate stood outside the gates of Maston in what they called the safe area. While it was technically part of the voidlands, there was a ring of safety around the city. Apparently, some of the faculty at the academy had taken it upon themselves to clear an area of monsters, not allowing anything to approach the town. Occasionally, the odd ogren would wander into the area, but at the very least, monsters weren’t common.

“Listen up all you brats!” Granite gathered their attention. He was a huge man with a rough beard and plenty of scars to speak of. Apparently, he was once an accomplished shikari. Kate had no idea if Granite was his real name or just a nickname he had picked up along the way, but it fit him well. The man was tough as stone, stubborn as well.

Granite swung his finger around the group of gathered students. “I’ve looked over the reports on your missions and I have to say I wasn’t impressed. Not recognizing common monsters, not knowing how to fight them, even getting surrounded by packs of the beasts. Have you no shame!”

Kate lowered her head. She thought she had done a reasonable job. She hadn’t recognized the enaira, but she had looked it up after getting back to the academy. It was an uncommon monster, usually not appearing in the province.

“Recognition, planning, and execution!” Granite shouted. “These are the three things you must be able to do. We’ve mostly worked on recognition up to this point, but now I need you to start on the planning and execution side of things. How you fight a monster matters. Knowing its behavior patterns, its natural weapons, and any techniques it may possess is crucial. You there, Terris, how would you handle a pack of ogren?”

The boy who had stood towards the front of the group quietly muttered a response that Kate couldn’t hear.

“I couldn’t hear, but I know you’re wrong because you’re a buffoon!”

Terris flinched back and Kate heard some of the group start to snicker. She couldn’t help but clench her fist. She had been laughed at for most of her life, her ‘affliction’ turned into a joke. As she had run from her mother’s clinic, screaming in pain, the others had pointed at her laughing. She could still remember the jokes she had heard about her ‘theatrics’.

“You think that’s funny! As far as I can tell, you’re all buffoons, inexperienced, ignorant buffoons.”

The group fell silent.

“I won’t have any of my students staying that way forever though.” Granite gave them a confident smirk. “Split into groups of four, now!”

The group scrambled into action, no one wanting to incur Granite’s anger. Kate and Seth immediately gravitated towards each other. They didn’t exactly get along all that well, Seth was just a little too proper for Kate’s liking. He had a habit of keeping his uniform spotless and doing everything by the book. His habits made Kate want to beat him in everything. She didn’t like the idea of someone like Seth who tried to act perfect at all times beating her.

Despite her misgivings though, Kate wasn’t exactly in any place to spurn his cooperation. As irritating as he was, he knew his stuff. If Kate had a guess, Seth probably would have found a way to read up on the enaira. If he had been there, he would’ve been spouting off trivia throughout the fight. She doubted it would do him any good, but he would know it.

The other problem was that Kate hadn’t really socialized with anyone outside of her dormmates. She had never really bothered with people in general before coming here. As far as she could tell, they brought more pain than anything else. At any one time, just about anyone would have at least a few small injuries.

When Seth reached her, he started scanning the group around them. Kate knew he would be looking for the strongest people around. That was just how Seth worked. He would always take the route with the highest chance of success. Today, Kate had other ideas. She dragged a protesting Seth through the crowd until she found who she was looking for, Terris.

The boy hadn’t earned himself any friends from being singled out earlier. To begin with, he and his partner who Kate imagined was his dormmate much like Seth was hers weren’t anything special. Among everyone there, she had to say they were probably on the smaller side, not exactly someone you wanted to team up with if you made your decisions logically. “Do you want to work with us? I’m Kate.”

“That would be great.” Terris mumbled, holding out his hand. Kate gave it a good shake.

Seth seethed a little in the corner of Kate’s eye, but he still introduced himself politely enough. As it turned out, Terris’ partner was named Tullis. Kate had noticed they looked similar, but she suddenly realized they weren’t just similar, they were identical.

“Looks like you’re finally done.” Granite strode through the group, seemingly unable to stay still long enough to finish speaking. Heads turned, spinning to track him. “Today we’re going to be hunting down an army of gestouds. I expect each group to return with the core of at least one of the beasts. You’ll be watched by the same people who grade you on your exams. Go!”

Some of the groups raced off, but most chose to take their time. The groups who had raced off were probably thinking of getting to the monsters before the rest had a chance to take them out. To anyone who knew their stuff though, it was a foolhardy idea.

“Terris, Tullis. Would you mind sharing your capabilities with us?”

The pair nodded eagerly, answering Seth’s question. “We can only use pure mana so far, but we’ve been trained to use these.” The pair each pulled out an identical set of short swords. For each of the twins, the weapons were unbalanced in size. The sword they held in their right hand was the larger, boasting a length about equal to one of their forearms, a negligible size considering their small stature. This sword looked to fold in on itself, allowing it to be more mobile. The weapon in their left hand looked to be more dagger than sword, but its thickness likely made it the heavier of the two.

Kate eyed the weapons with interest. She wasn’t sure how the twins would use them, but at a guess, she would imagine the foldable sword was used for quick slashes or stabs, probably used to wound and weaken. The heavier, smaller blade would be what would do the killing. Its heft looked perfect for cutting through defenses and delivering a brutal blow.

For their part, Kate and Seth had taken up the fireball construct spears. They had little mana in them at the moment, everyone had been too distracted to contribute much towards recharging them. Still, Kate felt they would have some merit in the fight to come.

Gestouds were a kind of large frog monster, reaching about the size of a bull. They usually travelled in a group (or army), but upon reaching a body of water, they would split up, each striking out on its own to bury itself at the water’s edge, waiting for someone to come by.

A gestoud, even just one by itself would be a considerable threat to their group. Its primary methods of attack were from the two organs on its back as well as its massive canines. Kate had found the images of the creature’s to be unsettling at first. As far as she was concerned, frogs, even massive, monstruous frogs had no business growing fangs. Like it or not though, gestouds did have fangs, and they used them to finish off their prey.

The gestoud’s primary goal was to ambush its prey with the organs on its back. They were a sort of tube that the beast could freely aim, releasing a powerful blast of sound. Stunned from the noise, the gestoud would put its fangs to good use.

It would be a disastrous twist of fate if they were ambushed by one of the monsters, so the group carefully went over the information on them again, paying special attention to the tracks they left.

By the time their group headed out, most of the others had already left. The four used the tracks left behind to judge where they could go. Their best bet was somewhere on the water’s edge that was as far away from any others as possible. The last thing they wanted was to come across a gestoud that was already wary from hearing sounds of battle nearby, or the voices of its fellows as they met their ends.

It took them awhile to find what they were looking for. They were forced to venture about an hour out from Maston before they found tracks. Calling them tracks was generous. Gestoud’s were ambush killers. Their ambush wouldn’t have much effect if there was a clear trail leading up to where they laid in wait. To that end, gestoud’s used their stubby tails to disturb and smooth over any tracks they made.

This made the effort of tracking difficult. The water’s edge wasn’t some beach like Kate had heard of in whimsical stories. It was a bank of tall grass rooted in soggy, marshy dirt. Tracking here without clear prints was exceedingly difficult. The challenge was made even harder by the group’s inability to communicate.

They had no idea when they might come across the gestoud, so, they had changed the pattern of their commuted armor, bringing it up and over their ears. The move was critical for protecting themselves from a sudden sonic attack, but it also meant that they couldn’t hear each other speak. They had to rely on gestures when they found the direction the trail continued in.

By the time they found what they were looking for, the sun was already on its way down. In the dwindling light, they almost missed the slightly upraised mound, Kate having to be pulled back by Tullis.

Kate was able to tell the difference between the two twins only through the patterns of their injuries. Ever since Reah had started teaching her to manipulate her mana space to minimize the pain that came through to her, Kate had a much easier time identifying the source of that pain.

In this case, the wins didn’t have any major injuries, but they did have enough for Kate to tell them apart. Terris had a bad bruise on his back that throbbed slightly and slight twinge to his left ankle, probably a sign it was recovering from a bad twist. Tullis had a different set of pain points altogether.

The group crept up to the mound, moving slowly and relying on their commuted armor to decrease the sound of their approach even further. The plan that they had come up with relied on getting close to the buried gestoud without it noticing.

Kate breathed a sigh of relief when they all got into position, using gestures to indicate they were ready. Terris had taken on the most dangerous role, creeping into close range of the beast, preparing to strike.