The Unwanted Tamer

The party immediately jolted upright and scrambled out of the tent. Gunshots continued to ring out as they rushed to discover the threat. By the time they had successfully extracted themselves from the tent, Stephanie was needing to reload her rifle. This was also when the monster got close enough for Gaia to sense it. Stephanie could apparently see a lot further in the dark than Gaia thought, since she'd been firing at this thing from outside the range of her aura. Her aura could cover about a hundred-twenty feet in every direction now, so Stephanie could see further than that in the dark.

To Gaia's senses, the monster seemed to be almost exactly what the mayor had thought, a bipedal humanoid wolf monster. There were, however, many incredibly important details that hadn't been known, though. First off, it was around the size of a two-story building. Second, it had ten nearly three-foot-long claws on each of its hands and feet, five in one direction and the other five in the opposite. Third, it was unbelievably fast and was dodging Stephanie's bullets as well as Fergus' arrows with ease. Fourth, it reeked of death and seemed to be moving in impossible ways. Fifth, not all of its parts seemed natural, like one arm was slightly longer than the one it was attached to. The worst part was left for last, as she realized it wasn't alive. It felt the exact same as the undead monsters she'd fought in and near the Ruins of Xerios.

This monster was undead and obviously had no problem with contorting itself to move ridiculously quickly. She could sense joints moving in ways they very much shouldn't have been able to. It seemed to be able to reverse or contort every inch of its body to capitalize its speed for whatever purpose it wanted. The monster was rapidly moving towards them as she processed this information. By the time she'd finished, it had already gotten close enough to try and attack.

The monster's attack was simple but so fast that it didn't matter. Stephanie was luckily in front of everyone and activated her Colossal Buckler, blocking the claws and keeping it from landing. The monster's claws raked across Stephanie's shield before the attack somehow reversed itself. Five claws ripped backwards just as fast as the first attack had, but were blocked. This was when another disturbing realization occurred, the monster's limbs weren't singular appendages with ten digits on each. They were two limbs split down the middle and could be independently controlled. This caused the monster to be even more dangerous.

Fauna grouped up and Gaia had her bonds prepare to fight by giving them orders based of Griff's preplanned tactics. Liv would focus on trying bind the monster in any way possible. Shadow was on distraction with Griff and Malachite as the others tried to deal some damage. Gaia would likely be able to slowly start dealing some damage through her conditions, but no one knew what would effect the monster. The monster wasn't one they had ever heard of, or seen, so they were very wary.

The monster was attacking them as they moved to take a formation, leaving Stephanie to be the one to take the brunt of the first attacks. The attacks were fast and strong enough to cause her to slide back with each strike. This luckily made it quicker for Griff and his helpers to get in front of her and start their work. Fergus was still firing arrows at the undead as everyone maneuvered, attempting to land a hit. Antonio fired his skills at the monster, but his curses didn't seem to do much. This was likely due to the monster being undead, and it not having any way of feeling pain, so it just ignored his attacks and took the negligible amount of damage he was dealing.

The monstrosity was still able to dodge them, even while attacking, without needing to move much. Its body would just contort so the arrow would fly past by a hairs breadth. The monster hadn't taken a single hit yet, despite Fergus and Stephanie's attempts. Instead, it was attacking and pushing Stephanie back as she tried to desperately block the staggering slashes. By this point, Griff had gotten close enough to try and attack the monster. He threw a punch, which was dodged without moving. The monster's chest just sunk in before Griff's fist could even land and went back to how it had been when he retracted his fist.

Whatever the monster was doing, it was quick and automatic. The monster hadn't even slowed or stopped attacking Stephanie as this occurred. Griff was still for a moment as he processed what occurred, but was soon back in the fight trying to land an attack on the monster. Shadow was having more luck, though. Due to her ability to become incorporeal, she was able to switch between states and slash at the monster from wherever she wanted. The fact that she was incorporeal made it impossible for the monster to attack her, allowing her to land attacks unimpeded. This hadn't taken the monster's attention from Stephanie though. Liv, however, was having even less luck than Griff. Her webs, while decently strong, weren't quick enough to even touch the creature. After realizing this, she decided to just use her trapped webs skill to fling web balls at the monster. She figured that even if she couldn't hit it with one, they might be able to get it by surrounding it with them.

This proved successful when Malachite, who'd been running around building up momentum charged towards the creature and shell bashed it. He'd been able to gain just enough speed to hit the monster full on. This made the monster slide into one of Liv's webs, hopefully binding it. Liv didn't waste any time and began using her web manipulation to make more and try to bind it tighter. Gaia did the same as her vines slashed and bit at the spots where there weren't webs. She'd already noticed her aura's effects on the monster.

Gaia's aura had already been in effect from the moment she awoke, so it had started trying to inflict conditions on the monster. It had taken a little bit for any to actually be inflicted, but the first one was, predictably, her spiritual toxin. This one had been slowly stacking as she threw web balls at the monster, which it didn't even try to dodge or block. It just let them bounce harmlessly off of it. These were made of her toxic webs, so all they had to do was touch the target. Gaia guessed that the monster wasn't able to tell that they were even attacks or doing anything, since they didn't deal any damage themselves. The next condition was hex. It hadn't been of much use since no one had been able to actually hit it aside from Malachite, so far. The last two conditions were bleed and radiation poisoning.

Bleed had been working, but most undead didn't need blood to function so it had just been a damage source. Radiation poisoning had only just been inflicted as Malachite hit the monster though. Gaia just hoped the bonds she was making with Liv were strong enough to hold the thing down so her companions could attack it without worry. This seemed to be the case for the first couple of seconds, and everyone got a couple of attacks in against the monster while it was down. It broke out of the webs after those couple seconds, though.

It ripped its limbs out of the webs, as it slashed at everyone. The party dodged back as it pulled the rest of itself from the impediment. Some webs were pulled up from the ground, while others were completely ripped apart. The monster was much too strong for their webs to hold it. It also appeared that the party's attacks hadn't done much to the creature. The monster wasn't slowing down in the slightest and Liv's webbing wasn't doing anything now that it had been ripped from the ground.

This left the party in a worrying situation. None of their attacks seemed to be working, while its attacks were strong enough to force Stephanie back. They also weren't sure if Gaia's conditions would do much considering its nature. Realizing the situation, Griff had everyone focus on distracting the monster while Gaia continued to try and inflict her conditions. It would be a long drawn out fight this way, but it was currently their best option.

This decision led to the fight continuing for hours as they tried to attack the monster. Griff and Fergus would only get attacks to land whenever they were able to lead the monster into a large premade trap of Liv's webs. This would cause the monster to be stuck for a few seconds and allow the pair to pummel the momentarily bound creature with attacks. Stephanie took this time to breathe and brace herself for the onslaught that would resume once it was free. Luckily, Gaia was able to hex the creature both through her aura's infliction of random conditions and from touch using her vines. This was a new discovery, but a welcome one especially considering the situation. It allowed her party member's attacks to deal more damage, meaning they were actually hurting the thing.

Eventually, Gaia's aura had inflicted all of the conditions and caused the undead monstrosity to become Calamity Stricken. This had both good and bad parts. The good parts were that it meant the creature would suffer a lot of damage consistently and caused a few other things that helped the party. One example is the random phenomenon that could occur and make it stagger or fall. The bad part was that it removed all other conditions from the creature and made it so Gaia's aura couldn't inflict anymore conditions on it for twenty-four hours. Meaning she was out of the fight in terms of being able to damage it, until she could inflict and stack her conditions again. The party watched as the creature was struck by the damage for the first time. It staggered backwards and fell.

Griff and Fergus took the chance and lashed out with a flurry of attacks. Griff was punching and kicking the monster while Fergus slashed with his arrow dagger. Stephanie was breathing hard as she held herself up with her Colossal Buckler. The monster was stunned for around what Gaia guessed was ten or fifteen seconds. This was significant since Liv's webs had only given about three to five. This gave them hope the battle could actually be won.

The monster, however, got back up and continued its onslaught without a hint that it was injured. It wasn't even slowed by the condition, at least until a small lightning bolt appeared and struck it with a deafening boom. Gaia lost her hearing for a while due to this, but the creature was twitching on the ground when she focused again. The two guys, alongside Shadow and Malachite, were laying into the creature as it twitched on the ground.

It was back on its feet and attacking not long after the lightning bolt dissipated, though. The fight continued this way long into the night, Stephanie guarded against the monster's attacks and would switch off with Gaia whenever they had to. This let Stephanie regain her strength and attack while Gaia took the attacks head on. Her resistance was the highest meaning she could take quite a beating before it would actually damage her. She would act as a living shield for the party between the brief openings for attacks.

Gaia acted as their shield more and more as the fight continued. Her conditions on the monster had been consumed due to it being Calamity Stricken, so she saw this as her way to help. Her conditions would be extremely slow to build again, especially since they could only be inflicted by her, without her aura's assistance. Everyone else could attack while she put up shields from her Niðhoggr's Oath item to defend them from any attacks that didn't go for her. She also had Liv, who had integrated into her armor, using her two spider-like limbs to slash and block for her as needed. Antonio was with her as well and using his healing shot, alongside his first-aid skill to help Gaia and the party. He mainly healed Gaia if her defensive barrier broke and healed the others if an attack was too fast for Gaia to defend against.

The rest of the party focused on attacking. Luckily, since her Calamity Stricken condition did so much damage, the monster focused on Gaia allowing them to attack without much difficulty. This was when the monster hit Gaia with a slash that cut deep into her chest. They still had a hard time landing attacks due to its weird ability to automatically contort its body. The party continued to attack this way and had Gaia take the brunt of the monster's aggression for what was essentially the second half of the fight. The phenomenon caused by Gaia's condition gave them brief openings to attack at random times. They could be caused by the regular instances of damage or by a random phenomenon occurring and it being knocked over by the explosion of a fireball. This made the fight very long and drawn out. The last phenomenon to occur was a small puff of some mana like gas that ignited as soon as it appeared, launching the creature into the air. It slammed back to the ground after flying upwards around a dozen feet. No one hesitated and they immediately rushed at the creature hacking, and punching it. It wasn't until about five minutes of this that they realized it was dead and wasn't getting back up. It had also begun to crack like stone, an indication from her condition that it was dead.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

By the time they had killed the thing the sun was just over the horizon. When they sat down to breathe after the fight, Gaia felt the warmth of the suns rays peak over the horizon and land on her skin. They'd fought all night and only just taken it down, just what was the monster? Gaia didn't know, but she did know it wasn't normal. Around thirty minutes after the fight was done, and the party had finally caught their breath Lara peaked around the bend of the wall.

"Are you guys alright? Is everything over?" She called out.

"Yeah. The monster is dead. It's currently shattered over there. It'll take a while for it to decompose like most do. Just a side effect of how we killed it." Fergus called back wearily.

Lara approached cautiously with a nervous Nolan beside her, his hand at his waist, prepared to pull a weapon at any time. They reached the party a couple minutes later and found the monster's carcass. It was broken like a statue had fallen over, cracking into many pieces. The only part not broken into small shards was the torso, which was still mostly in tact. This was when Gaia realized she could still sense it, even though it was shattered by her condition. She'd guessed she could only do so before due to the Ruins high mana saturation but wasn't sure now.

"It's dead? You actually killed it?" Lara asked.

"Yes, ma'am." Griff replied.

"What was it? I can't tell due to the fact that it's broken and nearly shattered to the point I don't know what part is what. I can tell it was some kind of monster and seemed to be vaguely humanoid, but that's it." Nolan stated.

"Yeah. It was almost exactly what you guessed it was. A humanoid wolf monster, but that's where the similarities ended." Griff replied.

"What do you mean?" Lara asked, obviously intrigued.

"First off, it was undead. I don't know why it kept attacking the livestock, but undead creatures don't usually need to eat and aren't natural. Then, it starts getting bizarre. The monster had eight limbs, two held together to make each limb. It only split them when it attacked, allowing it to make a reverse attack whenever it desired. It also looked to have parts stitched onto it, meaning it was created by something. My best guess for what was happening is that something created the monster and ordered it to take livestock every night. I don't know for what reason, but an undead only attacking livestock is nearly impossible unless it was being ordered to, or was highly intelligent. Its "intelligence" seemed to be more like instinct instead of true intelligence, though so I'm leaning more towards the former." Griff started before continuing and everyone else kinda tuned him out. The only ones without the glassy eyed stare were Lara and Stephanie.

After an indeterminate time later, Gaia tuned back in to Fergus nudging her. She turned towards him wondering what had changed, when he spoke. "Um, they've been talking like this for a while, and don't we need to head back to the capital for that other request?"

It took Gaia a few moments to realize what he was saying. They needed to go back to the capital to meet the leader for their next request. They were supposed to meet them at noon but needed and wanted to get there early. Depending on how long they'd been sitting there while Griff rambled, could mean that they'd fail the next request or at least have a bad first impression.

"There are many different creatures that could have been used to create-" Griff trailed off as Gaia waved her arms to get his attention.

"What's up?" He asked a moment later.

"We need to leave, now. We have that other request to get to." Gaia replied.

"Yeah, but it's just past sunrise. We should have plenty of time-" He was cut off by the sudden realization that the sun was partway into the sky now.

"What time is it?" He asked.

Lara pulled something out of her pocket and replied. "Around eight thirty I think, why?"

"Sorry, Lara. We need to go, like immediately. We'll report in to the League for you. Oh, and you may want to step back a bit." Griff replied as Malachite grew to have their portable building.

Gaia was already within and Fergus was going up the webevator by the time Griff finished speaking. Stephanie apologized to Lara herself before climbing aboard. The last to climb aboard was Griff, who was bidding a stunned Nolan and Lara adieu. When Griff was finally atop him, Malachite turned and sped off towards the capital. They were behind schedule and needed to report their findings to the League before they could go to the meeting point for the next request.

Luckily, the ride was smooth and Fergus used the map to help navigate Malachite back. This left Griff free to write a report if their findings for the League. He'd rather report it directly but knew that they'd miss the meeting time if they needed to report it in person. Thus, he wrote everything they'd discovered about the monster, situation, and even his speculations about them. He prefaced the final section with a statement saying this was unknown but was what they believed could be possible causes. At the end of the report, he wrote that they'd be willing to give a report in person upon their return from their next request.

As Griff wrote the report Stephanie napped on a couch. She'd been the one who'd blocked the monster for the longest while and never really got more than a few moments to rest before continuing it attacking instead. No one begrudged her the sleep and they planned to let her sleep until they reached the meeting spot. Gaia just rested and nursed her scratches and bruises. It didn't matter how strong your defensive barrier and resistance were when you were a meat shield for multiple hours on end. It had been inevitable that some attacks would make it through, she was just happy there weren't any major injuries among them.

The worst injury she had was from a slash that had cut across her chest. It had been really deep, but Antonio had focused on healing her for a long time to close it. His healer ability helped greatly in speeding up the process too, so it hadn't been able to cause any major problems, but it wasn't healing. At least not as quickly as it should. The biggest help for the others had been the regeneration boost from her Calamitous Aura, since it only worked on them and not her. She was mostly healed now with just a deep cut left from that particular attack, most of the wounds she had now were superficial and had been incurred at the end of the fight where the monster had attacked more rapidly. It was slowly healing though, with the help of Antonio so she should be fully healed long before reaching the capital.

The only other one that had gotten a more serious injury like Gaia's was Stephanie. She'd gotten a deep puncture in her arm where the monster's claws had reached around her shield and stabbed into her arm. It had since been fully healed by Gaia and Antonio working together, they'd started healing her during the fight but hadn't been able to completely heal it until after it was over. Griff and Fergus had only gotten superficial cuts from the monster. They'd been quick enough to dodge most attacks and had only gotten grazed by the monsters claws a few times. These cuts had already healed without issue by the time they climbed on Malachite.

The travel continued with nary a bump. It was comfortable enough that Gaia could have slept had she not been able to hear every footstep Malachite made, along with every monster and animal running from Malachite as he sprinted towards the capital. She spent most of her time producing and trying to weave her webs together. They hadn't been strong enough to bind the monster they'd just fought and wanted to try and make them stronger. She did this until her concentration was broken by some guards shouting.

"Monster attack!" One yelled.

"What's going on?!" Another cried, obviously panicked.

"We're hunter's from the League! Our party is called Fauna. The turtle is one of our creatures!" Fergus yelled to them.

This seemed to calm most of them down as the yelling and panicked cries died down.

"Where is its identifying item? We also need to see everyone's League badges." One guard called back.

"I'll bring our badges and have him turn to show the belt." Fergus replied before collecting everyone's badges and getting down from their trusty steed.

He walked over and handed their badges over to the guard who examined them carefully. When he was handed their badges, he had Malachite turn to present the belt Gaia had gotten made for him. The bright purple contrasted with his shell and armor, making it very visible from the side. The guards having seen this relaxed.

"Thank you. You all may enter." The guard stated before moving aside.

The party entered and made a beeline for the Hunter's League building to hand the report in. They got there around twenty minutes after entering the city. Griff had Fergus run inside and hand their report to Freya. He was inside for a few minutes, obviously explaining the situation, before he sprinted back out and climbed aboard their transport.

"We're good for now. We'll need to give a report for both requests in person after we get back though. For now let's move. We're cutting it really close to our meeting time." Fergus relayed.

"Understood, let's move." Griff replied as he got Malachite moving and gave directions.

Gaia wasn't sure if Griff was using a map or what, but he obviously had some way of navigating since he was giving clear directions to their destination. Gaia just nervously sat while Malachite ran, since there wasn't anything she could do. Griff was navigating while Malachite was carrying them. Fergus was relaxing while Stephanie continued to nap. Shadow was curled up on Gaia's feet napping while Antonio was still slowly healing her wound.

Her miasmic regeneration ability had been in full effect during the fight, so she'd been healing extremely quickly with Antonio's healing speeding it up on top of it. The issue now was that Gaia was trying to suppress the ability. She'd tried to let it work, but it only made the wound worse when she'd let it do its thing before. She wasn't sure if it was something the monster had done, but she didn't want anyone to worry. It also didn't hurt much so she could ignore it while Antonio focused on healing, which was working but very slowly.

While they traveled, she cast a few healing shots at herself to try and speed up the healing. This was when she remembered her healer ability, it made her harder to heal unless she cast the magic herself. It did however make it easier to heal others. This compounded with her bound poison attribute made it much harder for her to be healed. She realized that might be part of the problem, so she cast healing shot on herself for the entire rest of the trip.

They reached their meeting point at the southern gate's square around a half hour after leaving the League. By this point Gaia was partially healed, Fergus was up and looking for the leader for their next request. When he'd gone into the League, he'd been given a description of the leader so he could identify them. He spotted their contact and guided Malachite towards them.

When they reached him, everyone climbed down except Gaia and Stephanie. They stayed on his shell while Griff and Fergus walked up to him and introduced everyone. Gaia was sitting with Stephanie trying to heal herself stealthily, while Fergus shook the man's hand.

"You lot are Fauna? You took the request?" He asked.

"Yes, sir. We just finished another request that required an overnight investigation and fight. We quite literally just returned to the capital." Fergus replied.

"Will you be alright to do this request then?"

"Yes. We'll be fine. It's an escort request so we'll be vigilant."

There was silence for a while as Gaia guessed the man eyed them. "Fine. I'm Zelios, the leader of the excursion. I am bronze ranked, the only one that will be joining the trip. I'm only here to teach and deal with any bronze rank monsters. You lot are to protect the students and staff. You are also expected to defend the camp overnight. Otherwise, as long as there are a couple people patrolling, you are free to do as you wish. If you help with any classes, you will receive some extra pay."

"Sounds good. Are we going to meet the excursion group here?" Gaia asked.

"Yes. They should be arriving in about fifteen minutes. When they do, I'll introduce you to them. Once that's done, we'll start out from the city. We'll be gone for around a week and have a few classes outside of the camp everyday."

"Very well. Is there anything else you think we should know?" Griff asked

"No. For now, just rest and relax until the students and other staff arrive." Zelios stated.

Fauna did as he suggested and rested for fifteen minutes. People slowly trickled into the area and idled in the surrounding area. When the time had passed, Gaia sensed a large group of people waiting in the area around them. Zelios waited for a few more minutes and a few more people sprinted into the square. When they finished running into the mass, he finally spoke.

"I'm glad everyone could make it. The party beside me is Fauna. They are a stone rank party from the League and will be acting as our escorts for the duration of the excursion. Now, teachers take attendance, we'll be leaving when you finish."

With this statement, the teachers began taking a roll call. This lasted for around ten minutes, and the students spent the last five checking their bags. When the fifteen minutes had passed, Zelios called for everyone to follow him as he started walking towards the gate. Fauna followed and fanned out around the large group as they exited the city.