Silas ground the toe of his boot into the dirt and sighed. “Why are we doing this again? Can’t we get back to the fun part already?” They were almost there, and now they just had to stop and check the ground, again.

“Be quiet Silas, you’ll have your fun when we find the giant cat monster that’s been running around here.” Gabriel seemed vaguely irritated with his antics, he needed to chill out a little. He was normally such a calm guy, but now he was all high strung over this one monster. Sure, he had probably been even worse in his first monster rampage, but they got old after the first dozen or so times. It was still important to stop them as soon as possible but putting yourself on a hair-trigger wasn’t really helpful. Especially for mages, friendly fire was no joke after all.

“Relax a little Gabriel, it's just one monster, we'll be fine.”

“That’s easy to say now, but what happens if it's tier six? What then Silas?”

“We’ll all die too fast to notice, now stop worrying about it.” He wasn’t actually concerned about this monster even if it was tier six, not that he was going to say that aloud. He was pretty confident that things would be fine though, probably. Ambush was bad business for mages, maybe his former guild master had a point. Silas doubled the number and complexity of the mana shields around him, paying particular attention to darkness mana that was so favored by stealthy types. It paid to be certain, he hadn’t gotten this old by being stupid, at least not all the time. Gabriel of course noticed the uptick in his magical defenses but refrained from commenting.

The more powerful shields would slowly drain his formidable reserves of mana, but it would be well worth the price if he actually ended up needing them. He was looking forward to getting back to the little dungeon town, as much as he deposed the paperwork it was still infinitely better than traipsing around the forest.

There was a blur of motion just in front of him and he saw gaping jaws wide over Gabriel’s head before he acted. Instincts honed over hours of practice and battle had not deserted him and he called on the winds. Grasping the surrounding wind mana he spun it in a tiny cyclone around his fellow mage. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he roughly yanked the fire mana out of his impromptu spell forcing the water in the air to become ice.

The monster slammed into his barrier with a nasty crack, its momentum struggling against the winds Silas had spun into place. The second or two it hung suspended in the air were not kind to the feline monster as shards of ice and hail shredded its face and body before the air currents roughly tossed it aside.

The glorified cat yowled in pain and struggled to stand back up but Aiden was having none of that and his hammer turning the skull of the unfortunate monster into mulch. Silas nodded in appreciation and canceled the earth spike he had prepared. Gabriel looked a little dazed from the rapid turn of events, and Silas wandered over to the dazed man. “See Gabriel nothing to worry about, it wasn’t even tier five. Never would have even scratched your shields, so deep breath, and let's get out of here I am sick of the forest.”

Gabriel choked out a relieved chuckle and then went over to examine the monster. Aiden kicked the creature with his foot and then spat with contempt. “The old man is right guild master. This thing had to have been tier four. It was way too weak, didn’t even put up much of a fight once it attacked.”

“I agree, when it was attacking me I couldn’t sense any chakra, chi, or mana at all. That would support the idea that it was tier four right, Silas?” He nodded in agreement, he hadn’t sensed anything from the monster either. That meant it was almost certainly tier four, it could be even lower but just based on its speed it was probably tier four. Silas leaned forward and took a good look at the neck of the deceased monster. It was a little hard to tell given the mulched head but its neck looked a little off.

“Aiden, Gabriel take a look at this, does it look like the cat wore a collar before to you?” The other two men crowded around just as the rest of their expedition came crashing out of the forest. Silas waved them over, several of the guild knights looked relieved at the already dead monster, and a few of them vomited at the sight of its grizzly remains.

Gabriel carefully poked the monster’s fur with his finger exposing old scares that matted the creature’s neck. “I would say this creature definitely had some sort of collar at some point. Looks like a rather nasty one too judging by these scars, but that begs the question. Who lost their pet monster?”

Aiden snorted and Silas wandered back to the group. “That’s the wrong question, my friend.” Gabriel looked a little annoyed at his cavalier attitude but let him continue. “The right question is who let out a furious monster to ravage the countryside?” Gabriel paled at the thought and looked down again.

The knight commander crossed his arms and looked grim. “It's got to be the Bancrofts right? They’ve been planning something, but what do they get from staging a disaster like this?”

Gabriel brushed off his slightly bloody hand on the ground before standing back up. “I’m not sure, but I think we should hurry back. Aiden stick with Silas, the rest of you follow me, we're going back to Corinth.” Aiden nodded and then took off jogging into the trees, Silas groaned and followed after. Hopefully, nothing too crazy was going on back at the dungeon town.

Kira groaned in annoyance, things had gone sideways from the moment this fight had started. The first problem was Arthur running away with his tail between his legs. Not that she really blamed him; she probably would have run from two tier threes when she was at his level as well. It still was really inconvenient when she was trying to keep everyone safe, once she got her magic going she wasn’t super mobile.

An ax bit deep into one of her plants, but she was having none of that, and one of the thicker roots ran him through. Her plant mana had been an excellent and versatile choice for her tier four class, but it wasn’t the best at overwhelming damage or as she had noted before, very mobile. However, it did let her create what amounted to a very aggressive and vicious thorn bush, with thorny vines that could lay open skin and sharpened roots that acted like spears.

She snapped her attention back to the battle at hand just in time to notice Vance running into the woods after Arthur. She had more than a few choice words to say about that but she needed to act before the fool boy got himself killed. Roots pushed through the ground following the noble as fast as she could expend her power. Kira couldn’t leave the entrance herself, that would let all of the enemies stuck in the boss room loose, but that didn’t mean she was quite unable to assist. This particular tactic was rather dangerous for her though, splitting focus, especially in combat was a bad idea, but she didn’t have much of a choice now.

Another thorny vine whipped around and struck a spearwoman in the face as she pulled her arm back to throw her weapon. The soldier curled on the ground howling in pain as others reluctantly stepped forward, goaded on by Gary who was conveniently sticking to the very back of the group. The root she had sent out caught up to Vance and she heaved a sigh of relief as she noticed both of her charges were still alive. It was a little mean but Arthur dying wouldn’t have been as important as Vance dying. She thought the kid might have potential and would protect him where she could, but at the same time, it wouldn’t get her executed if she failed to protect him. The Storms were a lot nicer than most noble families, especially the major ones, but they were a bit overprotective of their relatives and she had no doubt that she would be on the hook if Vance died.

She gritted her teeth as her plants in the boss room stilled and the soldiers started to creep forward. Another root through the leg of one of them sent them scrambling back, quickly she turned her attention back to the forest just in time to watch Vance perform a beautiful sneak attack. Maybe he didn’t need her help after all, but where was the second soldier? It took her a moment to find him, it was a little tricky seeing through her plants as the only sense she could use was her mana sense, and touch to a limited extent.

Kira watched as Vance fought the soldier and snorted with derision. These two bit chi users really were terrible, seriously a tier three struggling with a tier two? That’s just bad form there, Vance was lucky his enemy was a chi user, to be honest, a poorly trained chakra or mana user would have been a lot more dangerous. Chi wasn’t really used actively as mana or chakra could be, it was used to improve the body making its users faster and stronger than any other energy. The downside was that you needed to actually train to get the most benefit out of it, pushing your body to the limit before allowing chi to refresh and strengthen you. Larger amounts of chi would let knights train longer, and harder, and get better results from that training, but it was not super helpful in an active fight. That was the main thing that was letting Vance keep up with the soldiers right now.

She was actually quite impressed with how well Vance was doing, she was quite surprised when he even managed to stun the soldier. As he reared back for the killing blow the soldier tried to fling his knife back at Vance in a last-ditch attack. Kira was having none of that though and her power was just strong enough to tie his wrist to the earth. Nodding with satisfaction as she watched Vance take care of the remaining soldier, she allowed the root she had grown to dissolve. Fire really was nasty and having your eyes half burnt out wouldn’t be a fun experience for anyone no matter what tier they were. Still would have been safer just to kill the soldier, well he'd learn eventually.

As she reeled her consciousness back to her body she felt a stab of pain and looked down. A black cloaked dagger was sticking out of her lower back, swiftly she grabbed onto the assassin who was holding the dagger with a triumphant smirk on his face. Idiot, her wound might hurt but it was hardly enough to kill her, as she fully returned to her body the control of her mana jumped. The plant clogging the boss room that had been getting slowly whittled down now sprang back to full strength sending the soldiers fleeing again. She watched in satisfaction as the assassin’s eyes widened in shock in horror right before a root speared him like a fish.

Chakra users really were the bane of all mages, weapons infused with chakra could sail right through pure mana shields like they weren’t even there. Things got a little more complicated at higher tiers as everything else did, but most mages still hated assassins, and for good reason. Who wants to die in an instant without even being able to fight back? Kira sighed and resolved to get a specific defense against chakra when this was all over. Even if the enchanted gear would cost her an arm and a leg, something that could save her life would be well worth it. She looked up and saw Gary slinking around near the back of his soldiers, it was time to finish this before he got any bright ideas and managed to get himself killed.