The air was a perfect balance of cool and humid, full of the pleasant earthy scent of decaying plant matter. The various sounds of the swamp filled the air with reptiles sending out their repeated calls, birds crying high in the mangroves, and bugs that came and went. “Are you sure you don’t want to use the bait?” “Yes, I’m sure! How many times do I have to tell you, monsters and people are one thing, but to me animals are another!" Alzolami’s eyes flashed with anger as Yohan nervously shifted his gaze away. You wouldn’t think someone like her would find the act of harming bugs and frogs so uncomfortable.

On the second day of the Master game competition preliminaries, a team of sixty had challenged them to a game that heavily favored numbers and they ended up losing all six of their medals. Their only consolidation was that the opposing team had lost all of theirs a week after. Apparently, some of the senior students called it swarming and was it notorious for never ensuring a path to the finals. Yohan had suggested that they could get some intelligence by spectating the finals, but Alzolami refuted this idea saying she’s watched almost ten of them and couldn’t come up with anything to give her an advantage.

Alzolami’s HCs were about eight thousand seven hundred. They were low relative to the time she spent in Helgram because she preferred to take the high risk, high reward approach of utilizing predatory tactics with Master games. Thankfully, Nick and Yohan had convinced her to abandon that tactic.

Currently, they were on the third day of an eight hundred each HC contract to the swampy wetland dimension of Kudrougul. The contract stipulated that they spend a week culling the recent population explosion of an F rank fish beast called a shear gar. They look like ordinary gar, but had very long jaws capable of tearing flesh.

The people of Kudrogul supported themselves by fishing and gathering water plants, shellfish, and other resources that dwell within the swamps, often sending out harvesting parties guarded by a heavily armed militia capable of taking down larger individual monsters. Most small, low-ranked monster species won’t attack large groups of mortals unless they have a numbers advantage, which the shear gars currently have. The general tactic for breaking swarms was to send in a small highly capable force to take out large groups of monsters in single strikes, which is why they called on the Master’s Academy.

“They said that they like to lurk in groups of ten or more in open water clearings, this one seems like a dud. Should we ship out when Nick gets back?” “We could be waiting a while since he got that underwater breathing Power from the captured gar that they let him kill” “I’ll stay here so we can leave soon after.” “You know, just because you’re the only one that can drive this thing doesn’t mean you can spend all of your time at the helm, which just so happens to be the safest place on the boat. Besides, I thought faemen were dangerously allergic to metal?” "I'm only half faeman, so it only itches instead of burns. And I can cover my hands in Aura so I don't make direct contact."

Their employers had provided one of their most monster-resistant boats and their best fishing equipment. The boat itself was about fifteen feet long and six feet wide. Attached in various places across the boat were dispensers for small floating cluster mines to dispatch monsters attacking in swarms, spring-loaded spikes on the bottom of the boat to deter anything that would attach and attempt to compromise the hull’s integrity, and a launcher affixed to the front for harpoons that could burrow into the bodies of anything they hit to impale their vital organs. The boat itself was about sixteen feet long and nine feet wide. A metal cage open toward the front surrounded the helm. It had tank tread-like paddles that can shred through most vegetation that clogs normal boats and could even function amphibiously on unstable terrain. Emblazoned on both sides of the front were the words The Aquinator.

Suddenly, to the side of Alzolami’s line in the greenish, murky water came up a series of large bubbles that stopped for a moment and repeated two more times. She turned back to Yohan. “I got the signal, he’s coming up.” Suddenly, some splashing noises came from Nick emerging from the surface. He smiled after blinking the water out of his eyes and said “Can I have a hand?” Alzolami’s eyes glinted playfully. “How about you grab the line and I yank you out?” “I’d rather not be filled with holes by all those big barbed hooks woven into the length. I might sink!” Alzolami chuckled, put the rod in its slot, and stretched out her arm into the water. She felt Nick put one foot on her enlarged, cupped hand as he grabbed her stretched arm and started pulling him up. He grabbed the edge of the boat when he was a head over and managed to hoist himself over the rest of the way.

When he was on the deck, he turned to Yohan. “Thanks for not deploying the mines this time.” “Hey man, it’s better to be safe than sorry. For all I knew you could have been a drowned zombie or something!”

Nick chuckled as he set down the basket that strapped to his back in a pool of water dripping off his body. Alzolami walked to the side of it. “Did you find any gars?” “About three, I also managed to snag a knuckle crab, a tazer eel, some barbed kelp, and a blunderbuss oyster.”

Their employers had told them that they could also kill other monsters and keep anything that they could find. So far they had killed about thirty gars, Yohan had calculated that on Helgram, the average monster material exchange rates go for one HC for an F ranked monster materials per pound, five per pound for D, ten per pound for C, fifty per pound for B, and one hundred per pound for A. Of course, there are a number of factors that can fluctuate the costs such as the abilities of the monster, rarity of the species, and the demand from the market. Nick had suggested he swim down close to the bottom to find anything that he could kill and use, which he had recently done. “Turns out, I can breathe underwater while using any aquatic monster’s abilities. I don’t think I’m ready to use more than one monster at one time yet, so this will come in handy for any underwater contracts in the future.”

Alzolami turned to the back of the boat. “C’mon Small Fry, we’re burning daylight! Clay Head here can use Aura to find hotspots, so let’s get moving!” Yohan exhaled, grabbed the steering wheel, and engaged the throttle. I suppose Small Fry is more endearing than lump.

***

Nick pulled out the barbed net and laid it along with the six shear gars out on the deck. The gars helplessly flopped and snapped their fangs about before he grabbed the studded club and, with a few swift strikes, put them out of their misery.

“That’s nine for me Alzy!” Alzolami yanked her line onto the deck with three hooked shear gars and, with as many quick jabs of an elongated needle-like arm, dispatched her captured quarry. “Thirteen! Better luck next time!” Once again, Alzolami was the victor of their who can catch the most gars in one area competition.

After cruising through the swamps, they came upon a clearing with at least twenty gars. The water was calm in the area circled by the mangroves. No doubt that without Nick’s scanning Aura, there would have been no telling that monsters infested the pool-like clearing.

“You should probably put your line back in. The ruckus and blood in the water could draw in some stragglers looking for a new territory.” Alzolami playfully scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, just tell me if something’s coming. Don’t try to rack up some points on your own to soothe your damaged ego, loser.”

Nick sat down in a cross-legged position and extended his Aura into the water below them. He elongated his Aura to the edge of the clearing and began sweeping it around in up and down bobbing motions.

The first time he used Aura to locate prey in Kudrougul, he realized that the longer he extended his Aura, the less definite the shape of what it hits forms in his mind. He could make out clusters of fish and water grass, along with some irregularities in the shape of the bottom most likely caused by rocks and sunken timber. After about eighteen minutes he could make out a large mass coming in from the southeast. “We’ve got incoming, Something from five o’clock.”

“I got this.” Alzolami took the fishing rod, cast it over the right side of the boat, and started splashing the surface of the water with the tip to draw the monsters’ attention. The mass stopped for a moment and quickly approached the line. Nick retracted his Aura to get a better look at it, only to find something surprising.

Suddenly, Alzolami started struggling as something big yanked on the line. “Nick! What’s pulling on me?” “It looks like an evol- Arg!” The boat lurched as something big rammed it, causing Alzolami to lose her footing and fall into the water and disappear below the surface.

"ShouldIlaunchthemines?” “No! She might not be able to focus enough to use Aura to shield herself. I’m going in after her!”

Nick walked up to the edge of the boat, crouched, jumped, and dove in arms first. The water was murky with algae and earth until he engaged the abilities of a shear gar. With the natural abilities of an aquatic monster at his disposal, not only could he see the shapes of everything in his surroundings, he could feel the presence of everything around himself through the water and identify many different scents. He inhaled as a comfortable liquid sensation filled his throat and lungs. As he focused, he could feel Alzolami thrashing in the water as a bunch of smaller shapes swirled around her, whenever one got close, he could smell the scent of blood growing thicker.

Nick got out a small crossbow with a pistol grip, and a tall box-like part over the groove and string. He quickly pulled the trigger several times as a number of bolts soared through the water towards Alzolami, curved slightly, and pierced many of the shear gars attacking her.

The crossbow was a torpedo bolter, made from the remains of a fish beast that could create a burst from its tailfin while precisely controlling their trajectory to spear prey called a smart needlefish. It was one of several aquatic sidearms the militia of Kudrougul provided for Nick.

He could sense that the remaining gars had stopped their attack on Alzolami, most likely in response to their greatly diminished numbers. He holstered his torpedo bolter and started thrashing around himself to draw their attention. The gars started quickly approaching him. Before they drew too close, Nick manifested a blunderbuss oyster from his hand, opened it, and fired a buckshot-like swarm of pearls in their direction. The shear gars started floating dead, some of them in pieces.

Nick swam over to the still thrashing Alzolami, grabbed her right upper arm, and began focusing his Aura into her. Alzolami stopped thrashing. He could feel her inhaling and exhaling. Nick, Yohan, and Alzolami had undergone training to be able to engage Super Powers at will instead of at random, but so far it required direct contact and only Nick and Alzolami were able to produce reliable results with it.

Nick tapped her on her shoulder with his other hand to get her attention and pointed at the large creature lurking near the edge of the clearing. Its body had to be at least eighteen feet long with an extra ten feet added by its horizontal jaws. Its large eyes placed on both sides of its head at the base of both of its jaws. Its open fangs went back and forth on the jaws, lined together like a zipper. A mail of pointed scales as large as Nick’s hand covered its body. Its axe-like fins gently waved as they cleanly cut through the water.

It has to be at least a C rank evolution of the shear gar. Those jaws look like they could cut a group of people clean in half. I think I’ll call it a guillotine gar, since it wasn’t on the Kudrougul monster registry.

Nick manifested the head of a taser eel on his other hand and flicked it as a stretching frog-like tongue with a small fanged mouth on the tip shot out and grabbed onto one of the gar’s back fins. Nick willed a strong current of electricity into the gar as it began thrashing around. With advice from Alzolami, he managed to figure out how to manifest monster parts regardless of the relative morphology.

Alzolami enlarged her other hand and morphed it into the shape of a solid black loaded harpoon gun, once one of many useful tools provided by the good people of Kudrogul before she smashed it to pieces on the ground and in front of them. She launched the harpoon made of her body mass at the gar, but it could only dislodge one of its scales. Undeterred, Alzolami morphed more of her body mass into another harpoon and let them fly one after another.

The gar managed to shake off the tongue and darted toward them while opening its jaws all the way apart. Alzolami morphed her legs into big flipper-like shapes and yanked them upward. As the gar sailed below them, Nick manifested a mass of barbed kelp and entangled it in dozens of hook-lined tendrils. As it snapped and thrashed, Alzolami morphed her hand into a black meat hook, lashed out her extending arm toward the gar’s head, and gouged out its left eye.

Alzolami grew another arm from her free shoulder, extended it towards the boat, and after covering her body in intensified Aura to boost her strength, dragged Nick and the guillotine gar upward.

When Alzolami and Nick pulled themselves aboard, Yohan placed his hand on the release lever for the mines. “Nowthemines?” Alzolami spat some water out of her mouth and shouted. “This thing’s big! Those mines were for swarms of smaller monsters, there’s no guaranteed kill that way with this one! Nick, keep holding it! I’m going to pull my line over the other side so we can pin it to the bottom! Yohan, when I say 'now,' trigger the spikes!” Yohan saluted in affirmative as Alzolami raced around the front of the boat to drag her line to the port position.

She intensified the Aura on her shoulders and yanked her line as taut as possible while retracting it back into her body. Once she could feel the gar thrashing against the bottom of the boat, she screamed, “Now!” Yohan pulled the release lever and the metallic whining of the spikes rang out from the hull.

The thrashing intensified before petering out and stopping. Alzolami completely retracted her surprisingly unharmed hand back to normal size. “Is it finally dead?” Nick wrapped his body in Aura and yanked the guillotine gar to the starboard side of the boat. “Its eye is glassy, it must be.” Alzolami plopped down on the deck. “Anyone want to call it a day after we get those dead gars?” Nick de-manifested the barbed kelp. “Agreed.” “Yeahdefinitely.”

Alzolami stood up and started wringing out the water covering her body. “If we’re still counting, this thing’s got to be worth a million points at least.” Nick started getting out some rope to secure their quarry. “I guess I won this one.” “Hey, I’m the one that pulled the lever!” “But it was my plan that killed it.” “Which wouldn’t have happened without me saving you!” “I made the kill!”

They all continued to happily argue while collecting the dead shear gars, securing the guillotine gar to the boat, and riding into the distance towards the central town.