Sworded Affair

Chapter 121: Free Bird

[Crane Demon - Level 5]

The bird-shaped demons weren't particularly dangerous, in Emma's estimation. At less than half her size and weight, they simply didn't output enough force by beak or claw to pierce her armour.

[10 EXP gained.

Objective: Eliminate 6/25 Lesser Demons]

Emma didn't even need her weapon; one punch being enough to bring down her attacker. Unfortunately, the rest of the patrol weren't clad in full plate, and the demons were clever enough to target their exposed vitals. Adding to the annoyance, the birds proved remarkably agile in the air for their size, ducking and weaving and easily avoiding her arrows.

Emma found herself envying the firepower of the remaining rifleman; whilst she was capable of far greater damage with enough anima invested, none of that mattered if she couldn't hit the target. Falling into a support role, Emma began to hold back her arrows, waiting for the demons to lock in their dive path before firing. They'd learnt the futility of going for her after a few grazing blows achieved nothing, so Emma was effectively playing bodyguard for the more vulnerable soldiers.

[10 EXP gained.

10 EXP gained.

10 EXP gained.

Objective: Eliminate 9/25 Lesser Demons]

Emma managed a couple kills in this way, but even her misses served their purpose in forcing the enemy to dodge, aborting their attack runs in the process. No longer needing to worry for his own safety, the remaining rifleman downed five birds in a single magazine, whilst the two machine gunners opted to conserve ammo for the M2s, drawing Glock 17 pistols to add supporting fire into the mix and bagging a pair of birds each with precise bursts of semi-automatic fire.

I should get some guns, Emma decided as the patrol took down the last of the Crane Demons. No reason not to, now that I have the space for it.

[Having more weapons is never a bad thing. Whilst small arms won't do much against the more formidable threats, those will always be in the minority. Even after the apocalypse, humans are still the most numerous species by a considerable margin.]

Emma was thrown out of her thoughts - and nearly off her feet - as her ride came to a sudden stop. The machine gunner in the truck behind her jumped off his seat, grabbing a briefcase labelled 'First Aid' before pausing, looking around with deepening confusion.

"He took a bad cut to the neck, so I put him in here," Emma called over, pointing at the ring on her finger. "As long as he's inside he should slowly heal, and at the very least won't get any worse."

"Is that so?" The gunner grunted, eyes narrowing as he spotted the bloodstains on the floor. "Tch, bright red. You got a way to check his condition?"

Belatedly, Emma realised that Eden's Echo was invisible to others; the gunner didn't interrupt though, so she assumed he'd seen enough weirdness since the apocalypse to take her word for it.

"Not without taking him out."

"Leave it until we're back home," he decided, climbing back into his seat. "If the cut's deep enough, there's nothing we can do out here without a proper medical tent."

"Are we calling off the trip?" Emma asked, trying not to sound too disappointed.

"Depends," the rifleman up front cut into the conversation. "Can that ring of yours store an entire truck?"

Glancing down, Emma tried to take a best estimate of her ride; it wouldn't be exact, but she doubted it was any longer than fifteen metres.

"Easily."

"Great. We'll shrink down to two technicals, if you can keep pace without one?"

The driver of Emma's ride ran out, now carrying a rifle of his own that was stored in the front as he replaced the stricken rifleman at the back. Taking this as her cue, Emma pulled the entirety of the vehicle that she alone occupied into Eden's Echo.

[Ford Ranger (2015) stored.

Wren (Level 0) withdrawn.]

In went the truck and out came the bird Emma stashed before departure; a quick application of Oversoul allowing her to settle into the tiny Wren. She flew three circles around the remaining convoy before settling onto the roof of the back truck, ready to keep going.

"Damn, wonder if I could learn to do that," the rifleman muttered, before turning away and saying something to his driver.

Emma wasn't quite able to hear what was said, but a few moments later they were moving once more.

---

[ERROR: Access denied.]

Half an hour later, Felix was officially pissed off. After his first dozen guesses had all failed, he'd basically resorted to the brute force approach of running down every item available as a reward, in hopes of finding one that fit.

[ERROR: Access denied.]

Unfortunately, he'd never thought to encounter such as situation, and thus hadn't built in a framework to issue rewards in bulk.

[ERROR: Access denied.]

Which meant he had to manually select each option in the administrator's console, and see what happened.

[ERROR: Access denied.]

Saint, for her part, was now sat in front of him, offering nothing except a smug smile.

[ERROR: Access denied.]

She was also remarkably agile, and dodged his ill-tempered kick with ease.

[ERROR: Access denied.]

Even ordering his minions to grab and throttle Saint didn't work; since she was officially designated as a trial champion, she was untouchable according to the Dungeon's rules until and unless she broke them herself.

[ERROR: Access denied.]

Regrettably, merely being annoying did not qualify as a violation, so Felix was stuck.

[Reward accepted!]

When finally, one of his offered items made the cut, he didn't even realise it until he automatically reached for the next item on the list, only to find that it had vanished.

"It worked? It worked! Thank God!"

Only after a long sigh of relief did he finally check the console to see exactly what he'd given the cat.

[Potted Hydra: A flowerpot filled with blessed soil, containing a seed that will one day grow into a fearsome nine-headed Hydra. Water regularly with fresh blood!]

"What the fuck?" Felix blinked. "Why do we even have that in stock?"