The rain pitter pattered on the leaves. The air was cold and damp, but the rest of the group only felt warmth and comfort. Several strange looking monsters approached the camp numerous times, but were all driven away.

Everyone was sleeping in their comfortable sleeping bags and the ground under them was still solid. The fire still crackled, but was slowly dying as no one was tending it and there was little to no fuel left.

At the moment, it was the last watch before everyone woke up and Hika was the one guarding everyone. She had heavily wounded a large lizard that could spit out a green liquid that started to melt anything it touched.

Her weapon was an odachi filled with the Ice attribute since it was made with a White Dragon’s scales. It did look very much like a katana but longer, but it had some very large differences as Rune pointed out to her while on the hovering platform that exploded half a day before. It was serrated near the hilt and went upwards on the blade for about a foot. The second difference was that there were two holes in it to make it lighter and to attach chains or rope to. The third was the weight which, since dragon scales were lighter than most metals, weighed less than a normal blade, but the amount of force was greater than a mithril greatsword.

There were several blood stains about the area, but none were from her and none of the previous lookouts had lost any either. They were mostly the reptiles and wolves’ blood with some of their severed limbs or tails around. Even with the amount of carnage surrounding hem, they hadn’t managed to kill a single one.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead as she looked around. Her blade was dirtied with the dried blood of those she hurt, but she paid no mind to that as, when she sheathed it, the sheath cleaned it up. She had some blood splattered on her clothes which were made of synthetic fibers and were quite easy to move in. She was wearing a jacket that insulated heat, pants that wouldn’t tear, and a shirt that was covered in a camouflage design, but instead of green, it was yellow for they planned to be in the desert more than the jungle.

At the end of her watch, she hopped out of her perch from a high branch and made her way to the rest of the group who were lying on the ground, but in comfort. She landed on the ground without making a sound as she was trained by Rune to do so and her foot falls were as silent as her fall.

She shook the rest of the group awake and they slowly stirred. They were quite groggy from waking up after several hours of short rest. Especially Rouna who took watch before she did.

They climbed out of their sleeping bags and rolled them up like how Rune did it before. Erin was having the most trouble actually getting out of the bag as he was tired from his previous small voyage in which he found Rune at the end.

They each readied their weapons and poured the remaining boiled water into their water bottles and water skins as some had metal canteens. They each separated their bags of food to be proportionate to one another in case they were separated so that they still had food.

“Ok then. Let’s go in… this direction!”

Rena spun three hundred and sixty degrees before pointing in the direction she was looking in before. Hika just giggled and the rest chuckled at the way she decided which way to go. There was too much tension about them and they needed some way to blow off steam.

They started to walk and made sure that their gear was all good to go. Erin had put on some metal pads on his legs to keep them from getting scratched like before. The reason he didn’t put them on before was because he felt like they were constricting him of his freedom and it was actually quite heavy on his legs. This time, though, he was smart enough to put them on.

The group wandered onwards as they occasionally cut through the undergrowth and the roots that would sometimes stick up out of the ground. They only managed to encounter a single enemy that was a wolf. They decimated it and, at the end of the battle, intestines and limbs were strewn about.

Everyone was already tired, even without that battle, and barely managed to scrape by. The only fortunate thing about the situation was that they were able to deal the first strike in surprise and followed through by killing it.

It seemed like the only one able to stay standing after that fight was Rouna who ended up filling the corpse with bullets from start to finish. She then hauled everyone up to their feet as they leaned against a tree and continued onwards.

The nurse’s office only had four people in it at the moment and two of them were injured. The walls were white and there was a desk pushed up against the wall which was also white. Shelves lined the left side of the room while curtains and beds were against the right. The shelves were basically empty except for the health and mana potions that Sophia produced which were quite effective. There was a stack of papers on the desk which were lists of what to put in the nurse’s office and there was actually a large amount of unused space.

Standing near the door that was opposite of two windows was Rune, with his arms crossed, and Kelly, who was fidgeting with her fingers.

“How come we have large amounts of incredible tech, but we don’t even have medicine?”

Rune tilted his head slightly as he spoke to indicate that he was obviously confused by the fact.

“Well, I mean, none of us are doctors. We are… were students at a high school. The only reason why we are able to recreate and better the technology from Earth is due to my and Jared’s knowledge and that we have the ability to advance our research in that subject further due to the almost infinite amount of time we have.”

Kelly was getting nervous around Rune. It was mostly due to the menacing appearance he donned when he was in his Demon Lord form. Not only that, but his facial expression, that was usually neutral, was now angry and his eyebrows were furrowed. Also, since she was usually only with Jared and some automatons, she was definitely nervous around him and even more so since he was her boss.

“... And no one thought to work on the health subject?”

“Um, that’s kinda, how to say, really boring. Get a doctor or something.”

Rune sighed and put his hand on his face for a face palm. After a moment he looked back to the two figures on the white matresses of the nurse’s office. Of course, since modern medicine hadn’t found its way to Arborea, there was no one with extensive knowledge of health, much less first aid, ergo there was no nurse or doctor in the office.

“You should realize that, even though doctors do exist, they, one, cost wayyyy too much and, two, can’t even do something as simple as help a patient recover from a cold. This is why epidemics are a problem. Luckily, there are Healing Mages, but they can only help minor wounds and small colds.”

“I understand your concern, but isn’t it also kinda your fault for not having us force, I mean, teach someone how to research wounds and medicine?”

“Wait. You just said “force” just now, didn’t you?”

“Uh.”

Kelly looked around to try to find a way to escape the situation. Unfortunately for her, Rune took a step and blocked the door. She shook her right hand in the air to express her frustration at not being able to leave and Rune looked at her silently.

After several seconds of making her extremely uncomfortable, he started to speak.

“Have you… “forced” anyone to research at all?”

“Um… maybe?”

She started waving her hands while giving an explanation as to why she did it.

“I mean, two people isn’t a lot and they were able to grasp the knowledge quite easily until we reached the section on how to work on computers. I think that was when we lost them....”

Her speech start to speed up as she was making excuses and he just put up a hand.

“Just send some paperwork to the career building in the capital. Tell them that it comes with pay and housing for their families, effective immediately. Next time this happens, just tell me.”

Rune turned to leave the room and, as he closed the door, he could hear her sigh.

At the moment, he was frustrated by two things, not including the lack of doctors. He had went out thinking that they could handle the situation when they weren’t ready and they came back with both injured. One internally with the cold and one externally with a leg that was bent at a terrible angle.

Actually, Elisa was getting better much more quickly than he anticipated. On the other hand, Riika only finally stopped bleeding. Part of her bones were visible when sticking out of her knee and there was a large blood stain on the pure white mattress. They straightened out her leg and cast healing magic on her several times.

He was going to have to have strength and intelligent tests to see who was qualified to go with him next time. The strength was going to be to see if they could withstand the conditions and also attack with a lot of power. The intelligence test was to have someone realize what their limits were and what they would do in specific situations.

He stroked his non-existent beard. I could actually teach this stuff in my classes. At least no one died yet and it was a learning experience. Wait, did I just set off a death flag?

After a while, they reached an open, but muddy, area. It seemed like they exited the forest and reached a new terrain where it was more like a swamp without many trees. The only other problem was that it was pouring as if someone kept dumping buckets on them.

The group was wearing protective clothing, but they were clearly not suited for heavy rain and it was not waterproof. Instead, they relied the barrier that Rouna set up above them. It wasn’t placed in a fixed position and moved around along with them.

Te barrier was tinged green above them, but was mostly clear above them. The rain streamed down it as it would for an umbrella and the group trudged on through the mud.

In the middle of the muddy area, they could see a slight outline of something tall and like a rectangle, but more of a tower. As soon as this sight came into full view, they regained some more morale and set out at a faster pace than before.

At last, they reached the base of the tower, but, instead of one, it seemed to be a giant pillar with hundreds, if not thousands, of large runic symbols carved into it. Each symbol was different, but all glowed with the same murky yellow and green light.

Rouna and Erin seemed to be staring at the symbols as if in a trance and it seemed like the two of them went pale. Hika looked upwards, but to no avail as the peak of pillar was shrouded by fog. Rena took a glance around the pillar. It was quite wide, much wider than the largest dragon they had seen.

Suddenly, ripples were made in the mud and the ground shook. Everyone except Rouna fell down and found themselves sitting in mud that went up to their waist when standing. They all looked up at the pillar as soon as the three got up.

The mud stained parts of their clothes and armor and Hika got a little bit annoyed. She was known for, even in the short amount of time in the class, dressing up nicely and fashionably even in strange outfits. Rena and Erin paid no mind to it as they were both used to getting muddy and grimy.

Then, whistling through the air. Three sharp cries from above, like a battle cry. A murky and distorted shape in the fog above. The being came crashing down onto the place the four of them had been moments before.

Luckily, they heard the whistling long before it landed and were able to back up and ready their weapons. Erin had his chain gun at the ready. Rouna had spells that were to be cast at any time. Rena had taken out her dual kamas with a chain connecting them. Hika had unslung her burst rifle. They were ready to fight.

The air whistled past the being as it descended. The being was taking a long rest up until four unwanted guests entered its domain. The pillar was its home and the top was far above the clouds and storms where it could rest peacefully.

That all ended when the guests pulled weapons on their host, but the host itself was not very friendly either. It was actually a hydra, but, instead of being snake-like and having a large body, it was more like a slender body with a long tail and three dragon heads. Each head was similar, but different.

The head on the right was one with six horns that all pointed in front of itself and had amethyst eyes. The one in the middle had two horns that grew towards the back and branched out, like antlers, but ended in sharp points and was absolutely symmetrical. It had teal eyes. The one on the left had four horns that pointed upwards after curving back and its eyes were a scarlet color.

The scales were a light shade of blue and had jagged spikes randomly sprouting from its back. The tail ended in a split, like a snake’s tongue, but with three parts that wriggled around slightly, but didn’t have the capacity to move much as it was at the end of the tail. There were no wings on the being, but it had a passive ability to turn any kinetic energy it built up falling into a shockwave once it landed.

All three head were dragons of the same element. The blue dragons were of the electric or storm aspect and could each fire off different types of spells. The left could use defensive. The middle was offensive. The right was buffing spells.

It had an elaborate background that could easily be summarized up in one, long sentence: A god placed a curse on three Blue Dragons that were each Rank 3 Hierarchs and they were transformed into a single hydra that had more power than when the three used to work together in their own bodies. It was a large mistake on the god’s part, but he was in a hurry and forgot to turn it into a full, weaker hydra.

It landed on its six legs and all three heads looked at the group, one by one. It scanned the faces to see who would be the hardest to kill and decided that it should kill the slightly tired Rouna first.

As soon as it landed, it created a large quake as soon as it landed. Mud sloshed violently, like a tsunami, and the four people were sent back even further.

Everyone was covered in mud and sank underneath the muddy waves. The hydra waited for them and, sure enough, their heads popped up to breath in air. The first one to surface was Rouna, followed by Rena, then Hika, then Erin.

Without any introductions or warnings, the hydra unleashed one of its weaker attacks that could easily annihilate a village or small town. A beam of crackling lightning escaped he middle head’s mouth and vaporized all in its path. The rain evaporated and the mud dried while the rest of the group dodged the beam.

The left head opened its maw to show the hundreds of large teeth it contained and a barrier appeared around the hydra. The electricity was blue as it flickered around the hydra like a cage, but moved as it moved.

The head on the right started moving its mouth to chant something in ancient draconic which was the base of the current draconic language that Rouna and Erin spoke. Lightning escaped its mouth and spread around the barrier to reinforce it.

The barrier Rouna had set up broke when they were forced to dodge the hydra’s breath. The group was already sipping wet, but it just made things worse as it affected their aim.

Rena looked at the hydra in despair and muttered under her breath.

“Where is Rune at a time like this?”

At the moment, Rune was about seven eighths of the way there, but he was constantly badgered while at the school by students and was forced to go the next day.

“We have to handle this ourselves! To prove we are not weak!!”

Rouna had heard her and was standing up, as proud as a loli dragon could be. Her hands were on her machine gun and she was prepared to fight.

Almost like an inspiring figure, the others rose behind her and readied their guns. Hika used her sword and thrust it into the ground.

Pillars of ice erupted from below and ice spread across the wetlands. Everyone hopped upwards to keep from being devoured by the ice while the hydra got a first look at being frozen.

The hydra’s legs were all frozen in several feet of mud and pillars of ice closed in on it, like a crushing wall. The hydra roared with all three heads in as much fury as it could muster and the ice started to crack under its pressure.

Quickly, Rouna fired off several poison rounds intro the left hydra’s mouth as it roared and the rest of them shut their mouths. The poison coursed through he left head’s veins, but never reached the rest of the body.

It gritted its teeth and flared at Rouna as it tried to overcome the obstacle known as poison. It barely managed to hold on even though the poison she fired off was one of her more deadly poisons.

She grimaced as the dragon was found to be more powerful than previously imagined. Rena saw this and decided to strike as the left head was trying to not faint. She stabbed the right head in the left eye, leaving it vulnerable and half blind.

The dragon head on the right squinted its eye and realized that, sure enough, it couldn’t see from it. Even so, the hydra was still going strong and lumbered towards them with even more vigor.

Rouna sighed and held up her hand again to cast another spell.

“This is going to take a while…”