The Unwanted Tamer

The night passed uneventfully. The girls were woken up by Fergus who relayed that nothing of note happened before crawling into the tent. Griff was there a few minutes later with a similar report. There were a few monsters that got close but were driven away or dealt with before anything happened. They started their patrols while the guys went to sleep and by the time the sun started to rise, they had the same experience. The few monsters Gaia sensed during her patrol all fled when they noticed Malachite, but one was caught and dispatched by Stephanie.

The morning began with the teachers rising to make breakfast. A few students woke up early and helped as well, which seemed to have been a surprise for some teachers. With this, breakfast was done earlier than the day before and the other students were rudely awakened by the sound of banging pots and pans. The teacher causing the ruckus seemed to take pleasure in the reactions of the group. It honestly just hurt Gaia's ears, but at least she was already awake. Fergus, Griff and Gaia's other two bonds seemed to have been awake before it as well, since she sensed them moving towards the meal area.

Gaia's ears rang from the sound for a while, as did Shadow's based on the whimpering she got through their bond. It luckily didn't effect her ability to patrol so she continued doing so until Fergus swapped with her. When he did, he brought her food with him. She thanked him and happily dug into the breakfast. It was once again eggs, bacon, sausage and toast. Or at least their equivalents in this world, she still wasn't sure what the meat actually came from, so it could be from a pig or some other creature she didn't want to know. She tended to just ignore these thoughts and just assume it was from some form of monster or animal similar to earth's versions.

After finishing the meal, she made her way towards the meal area. She wasn't sure what to do with the leftover tray or utensils but quickly figured it out after sensing someone take theirs to a different table. She did the same and left the area, she wanted to go stand by their tent for a bit. It was the only area of the camp that was kept the same, while everywhere else had people's stuff strewn about. They reached their tent a couple moments later and she hopped off Malachite's shell. The seat he had was comfortable, but she wanted to walk or stand sometimes.

As she stretched and stood there, she tossed a small ball for Malachite to fetch. It was still odd to think about, playing fetch with a turtle. Even though she knew Malachite and knew he wasn't just a regular turtle, the disparity still got to her sometimes. She enjoyed how happy he was when they played though, so it didn't stick in her head for too long. She enjoyed the moment as she stretched her legs, which hadn't gotten much use in the last few days.

She walked in the immediate area for a bit, just walking in the small area made her feel good. She didn't have to rely on someone to help her move around here, unlike everywhere else for the most part. The capital was confusing and difficult to get around if she wasn't on Malachite. Mostly because of how populated it was. She could sense the people so she didn't run into them, but she couldn't focus on trying to learn how the ground was shaped because of them. That didn't even include the time she was recovering from bonding to her artifact.

Here, she could just relax and walk around the small area without having to worry about anything like that. She could even play with Malachite since he would walk right up to her and put the ball in her hand. It was nice to just relax and feel normal for a couple minutes. That wasn't something she was usually able to do, especially since they'd come to the capital. She was there for about an hour, Shadow had come over and had Gaia toss the frisbee for her. That also helped her relax, the only way it could have been better was if all of her bonds were with her. She understood that they couldn't be until they returned, though. They helped ensure the safety of everyone there.

With that thought, Gaia was broken from her relaxation. They were on a request and she needed to get back to work. She hugged Shadow and sent her off to find Griff, who was her partner for the request, before hopping back on Malachite and going back to patrolling. She sensed Fergus long before they reached each other, she'd apparently gone to his side of the camp without thinking. They reached each other a few minutes later, as they kept a lookout for any monsters.

"Hey. I saw you relaxing. You can continue for a little while longer if you want. I know you've been stressed from being unable to get around alone, even if you try not to show it." Fergus stated as he hugged her.

She was silent for a moment as she processed what he said. "Am I really that obvious? Like is it visible on my face or something?"

"Honestly, yes. You pretty much wear your heart on your sleeve. You can hide pain pretty easily as we've discovered. Your emotions, however, show on your face and through your posture. We can tell when your stressed or sad or really anything else." He replied.

"Well, that's good to know. I can't hide anything. You know what, it's probably a good thing. I can't try and hide anything important from y'all." She mused aloud.

"You thinking of trying to hide something?" Fergus joked as he held her a bit tighter.

"Yeah. I got to hide all of my evil plans somehow, don't I?" She joked back.

"Ah, yes. Gaia the evil mastermind. It definitely has a ring to it."

"It does, doesn't it?"

They were silent for a few minutes as Malachite continued along their patrol route, before Fergus spoke again.

"Never change." He whispered.

"I don't plan to."

They relaxed like this for a few more minutes before Fergus hopped back down from Malachite and they returned to their respective patrols. Gaia had finally fully relaxed so she hopped right back into her patrol duty, with her mind at ease. Their patrols went for another hour without interruption, but that ended when Zelios called everyone towards the center of camp. He was going to go over the schedule for the day. There would be eight classes for the day.

The four afternoon classes would be the same, but the groups would alternate. The morning classes were different though. There would be four classes that consisted of cooking, sparring, maintenance, and tactics. The cooking and sparring classes were straightforward and would teach exactly what they thought they should. Maintenance would teach how to maintain and repair weapons, armor and other items like their camping equipment. The tactics class would teach them formations and would help determine who in the groups were fit to be leaders.

The morning classes were more for supplementary knowledge that would make any requests easier and safer. The tracking class was also similar but would help in keeping them alive while trying to find a request's target. The alchemy class was more for during or after a fight to ensure their survival. Cooking, sparring, foraging and tactics were for outside of combat. Tactics was also useful for both, but formations were more useful in combat than plans, since they were useless after meeting the enemy.

The classes would all be useful for the students and Fauna since they might give them some new ideas. Stephanie chose the maintenance class since she figured they might do something different than normal. Griff chose tactics since he was their leader and came up with their formations and plans for battles. Fergus chose cooking since he wanted to learn some new recipes and beat Gaia to it. Thus, Gaia got the sparring class. She insisted that Fergus let her go with the cooking class the next day though.

The classes would be like the afternoon ones, with only two going at the same time. There would be the morning classes then a lunch break followed by a couple hours of free time and the evening classes. The day would end with dinner and a couple more hours of free time. The first two were maintenance and tactics so Stephanie and Griff went to meet their respective groups. Fergus and Gaia continued patrolling as the other pair left.

The monsters were a bit more inquisitive today, since Gaia sensed multiple skulking towards the camp. They were each different with one being a wolf-like creature, another a plant monster and another a small snake creature to name a few. They stopped when Gaia moved towards them or got close. When she was within twenty feet of them, they fled. This worried her, the monsters were getting bolder and coming more often. They were comfortable or brave enough to approach the camp, even with everyone still there.

This made her think about what would happen when a class went off. Would they start being attacked when they split into the classes? It was a possibility, but still a worrying thought. She quickly checked with Fergus when they met up at their crossing point. He'd noticed something similar; the monsters he could see would approach the camp unless he moved towards them or just got close by following his patrol route. They decided to let Griff and Stephanie know before relating it to Zelios. They'd be able to see if they noticed the same thing during their patrols and then they'd know if it was just a coincidence. They noticed the same thing, so Gaia went to let Zelios know at dinner time .

"So, the monsters are coming closer and closer and only running away if you guys get close? That's a bit worrying. I think we might need to have at least one of y'all go with each class, only it's just to keep a lookout at this point. The monsters might get brave enough to attack the classes when their out of camp since they'll be a smaller group." Zelios stated.

"Yeah, that's my worry too, but I'm more worried about what could be causing it. If it's just because we've been here a few days that's one thing, but there have also been more monsters during our patrols. It could also be due to the smell of cooking food and the number of people, but it could also be caused by other factors, which is what worries me the most. If something is causing the monsters to move towards camp, we might be in a lot more trouble than just more monsters being drawn to the area." Gaia explained.

Zelios paused for a moment as he thought about the situation. "Alright. You guys keep focusing on patrolling the camp and be extra vigilant while you go with the classes. I'll go see if I can find anything. I'll be out for the night since I'll be searching in a large area around the camp so be extra cautious, I'll be back in the morning. If I'm not back by the time breakfast is over, take everyone and return to the city. I'll let the teachers know the situation as well, they'll listen to you tomorrow." He explained before he went to get ready.

Gaia relayed this to the rest of her group and they prepared themselves for the long night. None of them would be sleeping that night, instead having them all focus on a different part of the camp's perimeter. Gaia's bonds would still be with her companions so they had some additional help in case of a large group of monsters. This left Gaia with a bit of a conundrum, in that if she ended up having a large group appear it would be up to Malachite to deal with them. She'd be trying to bind them with her webs, but if the monster was strong enough they wouldn't do much.

Luckily, Griff seemed to have planned for that and had Fergus and Stephanie positioned on either side of her. This would allow them to assist her with ranged attacks if they saw monsters. They wouldn't be able to stop patrolling, but if she could bind some monsters, they could deal with them for her to help out. This was a bit of a relief, but she was still worried. Griff was probably the least worried of the group since he was their main damage dealer and could quickly deal with monsters that were weaker than himself. Fergus and Stephanie could too, but they also needed to reload. Not to mention keep an eye out for Gaia to help where they could. The two also agreed to send her bonds to her if they saw it was a bad situation.

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With this plan, they began their patrols. Zelios stopped by to let them all know he was leaving as he began his search. This made each member of Fauna go into high alert, they'd be the only defense for the camp until he returned. That did not include the teachers who would also be awake and able to be called to assist if necessary. This was suggested since Zelios would be away and could possibly scare more monsters towards them due to his strength.

The watches began normally without many monsters appearing. This sadly did not last long as around an hour after sunset, more monsters appeared. Only they didn't run when the hunters got close, they attacked instead. It almost seemed like they'd been waiting for Zelios to leave so they could attack. This was disturbing since it meant there might be intelligent monsters leading or at least causing the attack. Either way, it was bad.

Each member of Fauna had a quarter of the camp to defend, so they were spread out. Gaia was the first to engage the monsters, as far as she knew. As soon as she'd sensed them, she had alerted her companions through both her bonds and Griff's telepathy. They were lucky it worked even at a distance. The others had immediately gone in high alert as Gaia formed webs and began trying to bind the monster. She also started just laying out webs all along her area. She doubted the monsters would get stuck and bound by loose webs but figured they could at least start poisoning them. Within about twenty minutes of fighting the small groups of monsters that were attacking, her entire area was covered in webs. It eased her mind a bit.

The monsters she'd been fighting with had been finished off by Malachite in a few different ways. He'd shell bashed a few into trees causing major damage. A couple others he just used telekinesis on and flung them skyward, letting them slam into the ground. The ones that were bound were ended in two ways. Either he bit their heads after growing or ended them with a water shot to the head. He seemed to be more accurate with his water shot skill now, it also seemed stronger than before but that could just be because he better understood how it worked now.

With her area cleared of the wave of monsters, Gaia focused on her companions areas. The area to her left was Stephanie's which was quiet, but not because she hadn't been attacked. Gaia had heard gunshots as she fought and could sense the entire area was littered with monster's bodies. She saw one twitching and realized it was because of Antonio. He'd gotten good at hitting targets with his curses, and used them liberally. When they hit, the monsters would either stop or slow due to the perceived pain. It gave Stephanie time to reload and pick off any other monsters not effected. Then once the unaffected monsters were dealt with, she finished off the slowed or stopped ones. That's what Gaia guessed at least.

Fergus' area was just as littered with dead monsters. He had Liv with him and she could sense large areas covered in her trapped webs. The pair made a dangerous team, Liv could make large sections of the ground nearly impassable while Fergus fired arrows into the monsters. The trapped webs made the areas monsters could pass through much thinner essentially creating choke points. The monsters could pass through the webs, but would either do so slowly or become stuck, allowing Fergus to easily end it. This meant Fergus could focus on any monsters coming through the choke points Liv had created.

This was as much as Gaia had time to notice as she sensed more monsters running towards her area. They were rushing towards the camp unlike the first wave, which had snuck up and only attacked when Fauna got close. Gaia braced for the coming wave of monsters. She sent out more webs trying to cover the area to slow them down and made some web balls to throw at them to inflict her poison. Malachite made more water shots as he prepared for the monsters to exit the tree-line.

The group of monsters exited the tree-line sprinting towards the camp. Malachite fired his water shots, hitting monsters with each one. He was able to hold up to five without losing concentration now. Gaia threw the web balls she'd made which had a greater effect than she'd planned. The balls after hitting hitting a monster would either stick to or bounce off hitting another monster. Those that stuck to monsters slowed them depending on where they landed or would continuously inflict her poison condition. It would also do the same for any monsters that bumped into it. This caused her poison to stack quickly while her aura was in full effect, inflicting random conditions.

Her best bet was for her aura to inflict the Calamity Stricken condition as soon as possible, but that was completely up to chance. She luckily had her vines which she could whip around herself or have them attack themselves. The Tainted Flower would lash out biting into any monsters that got close, injecting small amounts of miasma into them. Her Vampiric Vine whipped others, leeching small amounts of their health and mana, giving Gaia a little of it. This was crucial for long fights since it helped Gaia heal and use her skills for longer, since she needed mana for her webs and skills.

Her vines, aura, conditions and Malachite's assistance made the fights manageable. This fight lasted for an hour as monsters streamed out of the forest towards the camp. It was nearly a constant stream of monsters that came around that entire time. She didn't get any more than a moment to rest before more came. Her webs, that she'd been scattering around the ground as she threw web balls, covered most of the area. The rest of it was covered in tangles of webs from where the previous monsters had disintegrated.

This was the second wave she dealt with since Zelios left and had a bad feeling it would only get worse. Her feeling was, unfortunately, correct. There were two more waves that each lasted around an hour each before the monsters started streaming towards the camp without stopping. The only reason they hadn't woken up the teachers was that the monsters were relatively weak and could be taken out quickly within a few attacks. This changed, or at least they'd planned to do so before the horde started its ceaseless onslaught.

There had been around a thirty-minute lull before this attack, which Fauna used to take a breather. The first attack had been small and weak. The second was a bit bigger but was staggered making it more drawn out. The third had been a nearly continuous slog with only a minute between any groups. This one, however, seemed to be a full onslaught. When Gaia first sensed them, she didn't think much of it. It was just a bunch of weak monsters attacking. Then, her senses kept picking up the monsters entering her range and didn't stop.

She started dealing with the monsters and didn't think anything was different, until half an hour later and the monsters were still entering her range without end. They continued to come, it was becoming a battle of attrition. Luckily, around this time was when the teachers were woken up by a scream. Within minutes all of the teachers were spread out around the camp by the members of Fauna. Each member had two teachers that were doing whatever they could to assist in the fight. Some were firing skills and spells into the monsters, while others were supporting them. They'd cast skills to buff allies or debuff enemies or even heal any wounds people got. Within an hour of this attacks start, the students were helping but from a safe distance.

The monsters just continued to pour towards the camp, no matter how many were killed. Gaia's aura was causing a lot of damage to the enemies; she could sense the entire camp and a decent area around it. Therefore, her aura was inflicting conditions on every monster within range allowing her to help everyone. This eased the burden on almost everyone and made it easier for her conditions to be inflicted. Due to this her conditions were being rapidly inflicted on everything. Some were even being Calamity Stricken and causing more damage to the surrounding monsters due to the creation of the random phenomena.

It set her mind a bit more at ease, even if the monsters continued to stream towards them, they could hold them off. Her aura was much better in a battle against a large number of enemies it seemed. She hadn't known that, but this fight seemed to be demonstrating it almost perfectly. The fight continued all the way into the morning, with everyone eating a jerky breakfast during the fight. Fauna could deal with all of the monsters alone, but the teacher's assistance allowed them to conserve a little bit of their mana and energy.

The teachers took turns on attacking from what Gaia could sense. One would attack while the other would rest or cast a single buff spell if they had one. She could tell all of the students and teachers were getting tired. The teachers had to take breaks more often, while students had to stop helping altogether for longer periods of time. This was when their assistance paid off. Fauna still had mana left so they weren't strained nearly as much as they would have been at this point.

Gaia made more webs and spread them around the area again, before checking on the others in her senses. Griff had been relaying how everyone had been doing since the beginning and they'd continuously been talking through his telepathy. It was a supremely useful ability in times like these. Through it she heard everyone saying they were alright, and the teachers were stopping to rest. She sensed the same from her aura, so she knew no one was trying to hide anything. Gaia was brought from her focus by her vines whipping forwards and catching a monster as it slashed at her. It was only a foot from her face, she'd gotten distracted.

She focused back on her area and continued destroying the monsters as they poured out of the forest towards the camp. The monsters continued for another hour before something changed. Gaia sensed something large and powerful moving into the area of her aura. It took nearly a minute for it to completely enter her range, not only was it massive but it was moving slowly. It was almost like it was leisurely moving forwards letting the monsters wear the party and camp down. It caused a spike of panic to shoot through Gaia's mind that made her stop for a moment. This was a mistake as an insect monster was able to get in and stab at Gaia. Malachite raised up, moving Gaia out of the way but taking the attack himself. Gaia tried to make a shield for him but was moment too late. The monster's horn went straight through his barrier and shell. He'd been taking the brunt of the damage that was directed towards them as he could only fire so many water shots. Then he had to attack in close combat, and with Gaia on his back, it made it very difficult to dodge so a majority of the attacks hit him.

The attack stabbed straight through his shell and out his soft underbelly, nearly causing his front right leg to be torn off. Gaia's vines whipped the monster and her tainted flower actually bit through the monster, bisecting it. She didn't even notice this, the world around her completely dropping away as she sensed Malachite unmoving on the ground. Her vines were rampaging around and attacking the monsters imbued with her chaos mana as she sat shocked.

"Malachite?" She hesitantly asked.

She got no response.

"Malachite!" She screamed this time.

There was silence for a few more moments before she got a response.

"M-mom. I-it. H-hurts." He barely gasped out.

Hearing his voice in her head made tears well in her eyes. She could sense a hole, nearly a couple inches wide piercing entirely through him. She started consciously casting healing shots on him, she'd been doing so without thinking from the moment the attack landed. He didn't seem to heal very quickly, due to the damage, so she did something she knew she'd get scolded for later. She used her transfer skill, healing Malachite while taking the injury herself.

She felt a massive hole appear in her shoulder, only it wasn't a straight hit. It started by her shoulder joint, through her chest, breaking a rib and piercing through her scapula. The pain was excruciating and it was bleeding profusely, but Malachite could move now. He was the only one who could kill the monsters quickly, so if he was out of commission her area would become overrun. She also couldn't bear to see him so injured, he was like her son and she could still "fight" with this kind of injury, he couldn't. She started casting healing shots into herself trying to heal the wound faster. The wound was visibly healing, but extremely slowly. She was just hoping it hadn't hit an artery, as the bleeding was very bad, and her bones would heal.

Malachite was screaming through their bond trying to make sure she was okay. He knew she had the skill but he couldn't help worrying. She told him she was fine through gritted teeth and tried to focus back in the fight. The monsters were still coming and her vines were going in a rampage. She could sense them biting and sawing through the monsters that got close. Malachite was rushing around dealing with monsters as well so Gaia focused on the larger monster that had started approaching. When she did, she realized it was almost at the tree-line. Now that it was closer she could truly sense what it was and how strong it was. The monster was a giant tree. She didn't know any other way to describe it than a giant quadrupedal tree. It was similar to a bug but had the canopy of a tree covering its back. It's face wasn't natural, it was made of sharp and jagged pieces of wood like it had been broken off from something. It was at this moment that the monster exited the tree line, and the trees were knocked to the ground. This was also when she heard the students and teachers start screaming.