The Unwanted Tamer

Gaia tried analyzing the monster using her skill, but it took her a few attempts. The wound in her shoulder, along with the monsters that were still attacking, were making it very difficult for her to focus.

Name – Shattered Arboreal

Level – 80

It took a moment for the information to sink in. The monster was nearly twenty levels higher than them, and it still had a large number of lower-level monsters attacking. Her companions were preoccupied with the groups of monsters in their areas, and they were still coming. That meant she had a few options. She either needed to try and hold the monster off or distract it alone for a bit. Get her bonds to assist her and thus leaving her companions alone or try to somehow drag it away from the camp. All of this crossed through her mind as she continued to deal with the attacking monsters and tried to heal herself.

"I think I have the instigator of this over here! It's level eighty, what should we do!" She called through her party's telepathic link.

"What is it? Do you think you can distract it if you had your bonds? It would make our fights take longer though." Griff asked back.

"I might be able to with my bonds, but I don't know how long we could. I'm already injured and this thing can probably do a lot of damage. I'll do what I can though. There are still monsters in my area, but most are stuck now. I'll have Malachite try and hit them from range as we try and distract this thing. Keep my bonds for now, I'll let you know when I need them."

"Alright. Focus on distracting and dodging it, not the monsters. Stephanie and I can deal with them when we have time. I'll also let some of the teachers know to attack them as well. We'll be there to help when we clean up our areas. Be careful." Fergus replied.

"Got it." She replied as Malachite ran towards the Shattered Arboreal.

As Malachite ran, he grew to be the size of a small house. He was only about half the size of this monster, but he picked up speed as he ran and morphed his armor to become spikes. He slammed his shell into the monster; there was a loud thud and the sound of wood creaking when they collided. Gaia was inside his armor, by his neck so she was safe from being squashed. She was in a small pocket by the front of his shell, the armor protecting her from all sides, sitting on a throne that had webs holding her like a seat belt. This was good since the impact would have thrown her across the area if she hadn't been held in.

She could sense everything outside the pocket she was in and could feel when Malachite ripped his armor out of the monster. He could manipulate the armor as he wished, and luckily Gaia could do the same. She made her chair move to the front of the room and had her vines go through a pair of small holes she made. She'd discovered her vines were much bigger than they appeared. She wasn't sure why or how they were, but guessed it had something to do with her bonded body ability. She decided she'd figure it out later.

She just used this to her advantage and had them whip and bite the monster whenever they got close. This helped to keep the monster's attention since Malachite would bite and bash the monster when they got close while her vines attacked too. When they were at range Malachite fired water shots at the monster, but they didn't seem to do much. The ranged attack that seemed to work best was when he would lift a tree or rock with telekinesis and throw it at the monster. This would bring the monster's attention back to them, while it ignored the water shots.

The only attacks that left lasting marks were when he bit the monster with his beak, and when his armor pierced the monster. When he bit it, the monster's wooden body would crack and break in the area directly around the attack leaking some kind of thick liquid. When his armor pierced an area, the wood would splinter inwards before being ripped out as the spike was pulled out. This attack caused more of, what she assumed was sap, to leak. She let her vampiric vine take some of her blood, which caused its thorns to grow and make the monster bleed when it struck, causing more of the sap to leak. Her Tainted Flower would lash forwards and bite the monster injecting all of its stored miasma into it. The areas around this were slowly rotting. She was also using her hex skill with each attack, causing each of Malachite's attacks to become stronger and stronger.

Neither attack was doing much, but it did slowly accumulate with each attack. The more miasma her tainted flower injected made the rot speed up, while the more gashes her vampiric vine made cause more sap to pour from each wound. Her aura was also slowly applying conditions causing the damage to ramp up. After about twenty minutes, the monster's attention was solely focused on Gaia and Malachite.

With this done, they were successfully distracting the monster from the camp. They hadn't, however, dealt much damage to the thing. There were many holes and splintered sections on its hide with sap flowing out, but it hadn't slowed or really shown much of a reaction outside of focusing on them. The only reason it was, was because they were the only ones dealing any damage to it, even though the damage was minimal.

Throughout this, Gaia's wound was bleeding more and more. The miasma that was her blood would flow and rot the area around it before her healing would kick in. This would speed up the recovery, but when she let her vine consume some blood it made the wound heal slower. Luckily, the wound wasn't getting worse and the bleeding was gradually slowing as the monster focused on them. She did realize it wasn't going to be fully healed before the day was done, though. A healing potion could do it but they didn't have any, let alone afford one. They were expensive, less so than the mana variant, but still around a hundred cores.

That was a problem she couldn't really worry about at the moment though, because the monster was moving towards them. It wasn't very fast, but each step took it a decent distance making it move rather quickly. Malachite was moving as it approached, ready to dodge or attack. The monster slowed for a moment when it was almost to them, and Gaia sensed the mana within it fluctuate. The next moment chunks of wood were propelled from the jagged front of the creature towards them at high speed. She didn't have time to think and put a shield on Malachite. The wooden stakes were at them not even a moment after Gaia sensed them being ejected. Her shield blocked one that went for his head. For the others, he was able to dodge or angle himself, so they missed or just scraped the armor without doing any damage.

The ones that missed pierced through multiple tree trunks before stopping buried in one around seventy feet away. The projectiles were dangerous, but it looked like it had to slow to aim and fire them. She could easily identify that and warn Malachite so he could dodge sooner. Now they just needed to learn what other attacks the monster had and hope they didn't get caught by any. If the projectiles were any indication, all of its attacks would be dangerous and possibly fatal if taken head on. Gaia wanted to avoid that for multiple reasons, but they needed to know what they were up against. They let the monster move closer as they drew it a bit further away from the camp.

Gaia hoped the others were doing well, and that the students were still safe. She also hoped her friends would be able to join her to deal with this monster soon. She focused back on the monster when it got within thirty feet of them. It kept moving towards them and stopped abruptly when it was about twenty feet away. She sensed the mana fluctuate again only this time no wood chunks were shot. The fluctuation the first time had been on it's front, while this one was focused on its legs.

She didn't know what could be coming, but had Malachite lift himself with his telekinesis hoping to evade whatever was coming. He did so and leaped forwards trying to get himself slightly in the air to help. He got a few feet off the ground, and his telekinesis helped him get to about the halfway point of the monster. This was luckily enough as roots shot out of the ground in a wide circle around the monster and nearly reached him, with only about a foot between them. The roots pierced through anything in their way, including the trees and any monsters within. As the roots slowly retracted, the monster was unmoving.

It couldn't move until the roots had returned to it. Gaia took the chance to have Malachite land on the monster and lay attacks into it. Her vines did their work, but she soon started to realize she was getting lightheaded. She couldn't let her vine consume any more blood, especially since the wound she had was still slowly bleeding and the fight was only making it worse. Anytime she was jostled around or had to move her wound would tear a bit or reopen. She focused on healing herself again, letting her vines wreak havoc on the monster, as she tried to stay as still as possible.

While Gaia focused on healing, Malachite was biting and ripping anything he could on the monster's back. He was actually making some decent progress when the monster started to move. It shook trying to dislodge him, before rearing up on its back two legs and falling backwards. Malachite immediately leaped away using his telekinesis to boost the distance and speed, barely making it out from under the monster before it hit the ground.

Malachite thought he might be able to capitalize on this since the monster was similar to a beetle. Just as he was about to move towards it, the monster's limbs bent backwards and grew allowing it to push itself back up. It returned to its initial form as it arced back to its front. This was going to be more difficult than they'd thought. They still weren't sure how much longer they needed to distract this thing before her companions could join the fight. They also didn't even know how long they'd been distracting this thing. For all they knew, it could be anywhere between a couple minutes to more than hour.

Malachite was pretty much distracting it alone at the moment, since Gaia had to focus on healing herself. He worried about her as he ran around, dodging and attacking. He couldn't think about much aside from dodging and trying to plan his attacks. Gaia had told him about the timing for the attacks they'd seen but they both knew it probably had other attacks it hadn't used yet. He began to circle the monster only getting close and leaping onto it when it made one of the two attacks. The use of telekinesis was taking a toll on his mana reserves though, so he couldn't keep it up for much longer. He could only hope that the rest of Fauna could come help him soon.

While Malachite was fighting the monster with Gaia, her companions were dealing with the onslaught at the camp. They'd seen Gaia lure the monster away but couldn't do anything to help. Her bonds were integral in dealing with the monsters quickly and protecting the camp. Without them, they wouldn't be able to keep the students safe or go to assist her in any reasonable amount of time. Her bonds were antsy as they continued to deal with the monsters, obviously worried. Her companions tried to reassure them, with varying degrees of success.

It wasn't until the monsters were almost completely dealt with that they acted differently. Shadow stopped in the middle of an attack and looked in the direction Gaia had gone. Antonio started frantically running over Stephanie's shoulders, pointing his antenna in that direction as well. Liv just stopped moving before madly spinning webs. When she finished, Fergus realized she'd created words out of her webs.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Not answering. Can't speak to Mom. Malachite mostly ok." It read.

Fergus nearly tripped as he ran when he read that. His heart sank at what that could mean. He immediately yelled through their telepathic link. "Gaia! Answer me!"

There was only silence.

His heart beat faster, and he heard the other two shouting the same thing through the link. They got no response either which only caused their panic to spike, Griff had to be the one to calm everyone down. He was just as panicked but realized that the link was still there so Gaia was still alive. The fact her bonds were alive was also a major indicator, but knowing this was still a relief.

"She's alive, just not responding to us for some reason. Calm down. We need to finish off the monsters around us, then we can go help her. We can't just leave the students here with all of these monsters, nor can we bring them to Gaia's fight. They'd just cause more problems and probably end up getting one of us hurt. There luckily aren't many left. We can finish them off within a couple minutes and head towards her." Griff shouted.

Fergus was gritting his teeth as he loosed his arrows as quickly as he could. Each arrow that left his bow killed one of the weaker monsters. They were only just weaker than the party, but Gaia's conditions had wreaked havoc through their numbers weakening them considerably. Within a couple minutes, as Griff predicted, they had cleaned up all of the attacking monsters and were meeting in the center of the camp.

"Let's go!" Fergus urged when he saw the other two.

"Hold on." Griff told him before speaking to one of the teachers. "Can you guys hold out for a while if we went to deal with the monster our friend is distracting? We need to go help her, and I don't want to bring that thing closer to the camp again, do you?"

"N-no! We can protect ourselves for a short period, at least if it comes to what was happening earlier. If it's the occasional monster, we'll be fine for a while." The teacher replied.

Fergus realized the teacher was the one that taught the monster hunting class. Was his name Byron? Eh, it didn't matter. They needed to go help Gaia, like now.

"Alright. I'll add you to our telepathic link. If you need us just think about letting us know and we can send someone to help or abandon the monster if need be." Griff replied.

"Uh, ok. Be careful and I hope your friend's alright. Please come back soon." Byron replied as Fauna dashed away in the direction of the giant tree monster.

"Liv, let Malachite know we're on our way to him." Fergus said as they ran.

"I really hope they come back alright." Byron said after they'd exited the clearing, then began ordering the other teachers and students to be on their guard.

Fergus led the charge towards Gaia's position, following the trail of destruction wrought by Malachite and the monster's fight. Most of the damage was caused by the monster's attacks and it moving through the forest knocking everything that was in its path over. Malachite was destroying the few trees that were still standing as he dashed around the monster, dodging and attacking it. He was trying to be careful since Gaia wasn't conscious. It was around this time that he heard Liv relay that the rest of the party was heading towards them. That was good news, very good news for them.

He was starting to get truly worried about Gaia. She was unconscious, still bleeding, and had taken on a few more wounds from him before passing out. She wasn't even able to heal herself because of it, so he was trying not to jostle her much. He'd already changed the small pocket she'd been in to make it smaller, more padded and had her secured laying down on the floor of it, so she wasn't moving. It didn't stop the bleeding, though, she'd taken another wound for him because he'd been running out of mana when the monster shot another round of wood chunks at them. He hadn't been able to dodge, and Gaia made a shield that protected him from a possibly fatal wound, but one of the chunks had torn a section out of his back left leg.

She'd taken it since he wouldn't have been able to dodge and keep them both alive otherwise. This is what had caused her to lose consciousness, though. He just hoped Griff and Antonio would be able to help her. He knew they both had healing shot and was hoping that'd be enough. He couldn't think about it much though. Most of his mind was taken up by his need to watch the monster and react to it.

He was in this state when the rest of the party finally reached the area. They saw Malachite leaping, dashing and otherwise moving around as quickly as he could. He was dashing in to bite or bash the monster when he could, but his attacks were few and far between. He only went in after one of the monster's big attacks. Fergus and Stephanie had the best eyesight out of the group, so they noticed the small wounds peppering Malachite long before Griff did.

There were small gashes along the entire length of his shell, along with chunks of wood sticking out of it. He had a few embedded in his legs but thankfully didn't have any in his face or neck. That was the only good thing they noticed. The overall state of him and the surroundings, however, made them worry. The monster could deal a lot of damage and in a wide range, the surrounding hundred feet were completely barren. Where the forest had been, there was a clearing nearly two hundred feet in diameter, littered with the destroyed parts of the forest. That didn't include all of the similar areas and destroyed areas that the monster had chased Malachite through.

The monster was obviously strong, and it looked to only have some superficial wounds. It was leaking sap from the wounds Gaia and Malachite had inflicted, but it didn't seem to be affected otherwise. The rest of the party saw this as Malachite continued trying to fight the thing, with little success. They continued running the entire time and reached him a few moments later. When they reached him, he shrunk down so Gaia was showing through his armor. Fergus took the initiative to fire at the monster alongside Stephanie to give Griff and Malachite some time to rest and figure things out.

This didn't really work, since the monster was still focused on Malachite and Gaia. He had done a lot of physical damage to the monster, while her conditions were still in effect and damaging it. This led to Stephanie acting as a wall to block the attacks while Griff focused on the situation. Any attacks that came were able to be blocked by Stephanie, who was bracing her shield. She was being pushed back but the attacks weren't coming through and Griff could focus. This was when Griff tried something he hadn't thought to do before.

He added Gaia's bonds to the party for his Tactician's Insight ability. He'd never thought about doing it for two main reasons. First, he hadn't seen a reason to since Gaia could contact and speak with them through her link. Second, he'd assumed they could only speak through their link with Gaia. He'd assumed that even if he did make it, they wouldn't be able to talk because they weren't bound to them like Gaia. He essentially thought it was a way to communicate via spirit instead of through their minds.

He made the link and tested it by saying hello. There was brief moment of silence before a few confused voices spoke. They all sounded like they were young teens, but had distinctive ways of speaking.

"H-hi?" One boy's voice questioned hesitantly.

"Hey." A girl replied in a monotone.

"Hiya!" A girl said much too loudly and enthusiastically.

"Hi." The last was a boy that spoke flatly.

"I'm going to assume that worked. Malachite, how's Gaia? Why wouldn't she answer us? I know she's injured, but why'd she stop responding?" Griff asked with a chorus of 'Mom!'s.

"She fell asleep. Still breathing, but lost a lot of blood. She took the injuries from me. I think she bled too much." Malachite replied slightly panicked and with shame before he dipped his head sadly.

"Ok. It's alright, Malachite. You protected her and she did the same in her own way. Don't worry about her, Antonio and I will make sure she'll be alright. Ok?" Griff stated in a comforting tone as he lifted Malachite's head to look the turtle in the eyes.

"O-ok."

"For now, let me heal you up really quickly. Then, can you go help the others while we focus on Gaia?"

"Y-yeah. I'll go help. I don't have much mana left, though. I won't be able to do much."

"You'll be very helpful, don't worry. Now, let me heal you and I'll need you to grab Antonio from Stephanie for me."

Griff proceeded to heal the big turtle as much as he could in a few moments. He was luckily able to heal all of the larger puncture holes and the small gashes along his shell. He wasn't able to fully heal him, but the turtle started moving when Griff told him. He seemed to be doing much better, so Griff had to hope it was enough for now.

Next, he started focusing on Gaia. He started casting healing shot on her, and it was working only not nearly as fast as it should. He knew that her titles, bound attributes, and abilities made it hard for her to be healed quickly. More so if it was done without the poison attribute. He focused all of his attention and mana on her, though so it was healing at least. A few moments after he'd started casting healing shot, Antonio was brought back on Malachite's head. He crawled over Griff's hand and onto Gaia before casting healing shot himself. His bound attributes were almost the same as Gaia's but the main one that mattered was the poison attribute for spirit.

This allowed his mana to heal Gaia better than most other healer's and could lessen the dampening effects on healing from her titles and skills. He would be the best option to heal her in any reasonable amount of time. Griff would assist as best he could with his healing shots, but the main healer would be Antonio. He was crawling over Gaia's armor and hesitating by her wounds. They were slowly rotting and healing due to her ability.

This was the main issue with healing her. If it was done incorrectly or at the wrong times, it could just cause the wound to get worse from tearing back open. The puncture wound that went all the way through her shoulder into her chest was the worst one. Antonio could see all the way through to the ground beneath her. The worst part of the wound was that the scapula was shattered and had an inch-wide hole through it.

He started focusing on the areas he could see that were bleeding, hoping to stop those first. That was the entire reason she'd ended up unconscious, so he wanted to focus on that. He knew she wouldn't wake up for a while due to this, and there wasn't really anything he could do about it. He did have Griff assist in the more awkward spots he saw, since he couldn't crawl into the wound because of the miasma. Griff could angle from above unlike him though.

After a few minutes of focused and intricate work, Antonio couldn't see any parts of the wound bleeding. This was a very good thing, but it was only one side of the wound and only one of the two she had. He focused on the other smaller wound that was on her leg. This one was more jagged but was on her prosthetic leg. This didn't matter though, due to the enchantments and it's construction, it still bled and acted like a regular leg. The only difference was that it wasn't her original leg.

Griff and Antonio didn't know if that would cause any issues and didn't have the luxury of worrying about it. They began healing her leg as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The bleeding stopped, but the wound stayed the same, it wouldn't heal properly due to it not being actual flesh. This wasn't too worrisome, and they just ignored it for now. They flipped her over to check on her back where the hole was.

It had an inch-wide hole with part of the scapula jutting out where it was forced backwards before shattering. There were shards of the bone sticking out of the skin and when Antonio looked closer, he noticed shards of the bone scattered throughout the wound. Some jutted out from the flesh that was partially healed while others were underneath the skin. Some had caused the bleeding to resume when they'd flipped her, so he pulled those out with Griff's help and healed the areas again.

With this, the healing was done. At least what they could do here; They weren't going to be able to fully heal her without the help of an actual healer. They couldn't stimulate the creation of blood like many healers could so they had done all that they could for now. Realizing this, Griff focused on the fight between the others and the Shattered Arboreal.

When he did, he discovered that it wasn't going well. Stephanie was blocking any shards of wood that were shot towards them, with some success. None of the wooden chunks were stuck in her shield but she had obviously been pushed back from the strength of them. The bad part was that she was making them become glancing blows and shoving them to the side, instead of taking them straight on. Shadow was having to do the same since she'd been hit by a small chunk she couldn't dodge, and it pierced straight through her defenses.

She luckily healed extremely quickly and had already healed the wound. Fergus was huddled behind Stephanie, ineffectually firing arrows at the monster. They would hit the monster and just bounce off of its wooden hide. The few that hit a wound that Malachite had made would pierce in, though. They continued firing arrows and Stephanie eventually started firing her rifle at it. That was when some damage started to occur, her bullets were able to pierce through the hide letting some damage happen.

Griff decided to pull Gaia further away and towards the tree line. He laid her down there, trying to keep her safe from the monster's attacks. He couldn't take her back to the camp, but he could put her somewhere she shouldn't get hurt. After setting her there, he grabbed Antonio and ran back to the others to help. He got Fergus and Liv to go to Gaia and wrap her in webs for some extra safety. They happily did so and tossed some trapped webs around just in case any monsters ended up getting close. Following this, the party, outside of Gaia, was together and began their fight with the monster.