Ank

It’d be really nice to have Taffy’s power that just made nature get out off her way, and walk straight through the jungle, because even after our experience in finding our way in the wild, even relatively small journeys were quite long: in the very next day after we got our rank up quest and explored the city (when I bought a few more books concerning monsters, animals and summoning), we ventured inside the jungle before the Fortress Cloud City.

Nevertheless, even if we took our time; and this had nothing to do with how long was our breakfast, or lunch; as we followed one of my summons, a creature better adapted to find the correct paths in a jungle, we finally started to hear bubbling and gushing sounds.

A few minutes later, we came out off the dense greenery, and found ourselves before a large pond. There was a stream flowing into it by its left side, and a old and falling apart wooden building by its right, this last one still containing decomposing clothing, buckets, plates and cutlery that the city inhabitants brought to wash two years ago.

“Okay, monster-man, what’s a ‘Lilly-Monster’?”, Hunah asked, as we approached the old hut, slowly and carefully, while I looked at the pond, but also throwing glances outwards just to be sure.

“Do you really expect me to know about every monster in existence?”, I asked, sounding outraged. After a couple of seconds of silence, I added: “Okay, I know about the Lilly-Monster, but I could have not know: the thing is, basically, an overpowered plant which like to sip on the blood of the living.”

“Like that?”, as we were halfway through to the hut, Hunah pointed a form coming off the pond, spilling water everywhere.

A dog had come from the jungle, and once it tried to drink from the water, it was struck by a quick green blur. The monster, then, revealed spectacularly itself, as it looked for the wounded, but still alive dog.

“Yeah, like that”, the thing was huge mass of intertwining and moving vines with a single white lily flower in the middle.

[Species: Lily-Monster, Level: 204

HP: 2000/2000]

“It have surprisingly little HP”, my twin sister commented, advancing. And the monster noticed us.

The enemy attacked first, throwing dozens of vines from its “body” against Hunah, who jumped backward, avoiding some, and slashed with her whip, cutting some more.

Even after many of the wiggling green vines were split and became immobile, not a single [Health Point] was reduced from the monster.

“What?”, Hunah asked, confused.

And I started to laugh.

“[Summon: Dolichorhynchops]”, I called fourth a 1.8 meters long oceanic reptile into the lake.

With four fins where its arms and legs would be, a long neck, and many thin and sharp teeth along its long beak, the [Level: 10] monster swan straight to our opponent, and the [Lily-Monster] immediately forgot about my twin sister, immediately understanding the real danger there.

Looking smugly at a dumbfounded Hunah, I conjured again:

“[Summon: Ophthalmosaurus]”, looking straight at Hunah, I made another aquatic summon, this time a 5 meters long [Level: 30] carnivore. “[Summon: Platypterygius]”, I continued. And I had many, many more: “[Rule Bender]”, dozens and dozens of my supposedly useless fish summons filled the pond, and the enemy was being overwhelmed, surprised that is natural habitat wasn’t its domain anymore.

“What are you trying to say, hu?”, she sound just a little pissed.

“What I’m trying to say? Well, nothing, really. You know, it’s just that, as adventurers and everything, its expected we will meet up with an aquatic monster some day, and I was thinking ‘wow, I’m really thankful hat I can summon this weak-ass fishes’, and stuff…”

“…Seriously?”, this time Hunah sounded just a little angrier.

She stared at my creatures destroying the vines and, slowly, lowering the lily flower at the center of the monster down to the water level; just like last time, the monster’s [HP] hadn’t decreased a single point, but it was clear by the creatures increasingly more agitated behavior, that it felt its doom nearing.

Crossing my arms, I nodded, satisfied: after saying all that crap in the Beginners’ City, my twin sister must have realized her mistake in depreciating my summons, even the water ones. Just because of her, I hurried to invest more points in this branch, to keep it as strong as the others.

Then, Hunah harrumphed, took off a piece of cloth that we used for cleaning from her back, the stone from the trashy improvised mace she carried around, infused both with [Weapon Soul], and hurled the stone straight at the lily flower at the center of the monster.

[Species: Lily-Monster, Level: 204

HP: 1799/2000]

She looked back at me, smugly.

It was totally different from the fact that my fish summons proved their usefulness, but the fight continued, and the monster proved itself worthy of its [Levels], so I left it pass.