When I woke up, the first thing I heard were the light snores of Dong Fang Yue Chu close by. He was bundled into his sleeping bag, curled into a ball, and mumbling something under his breath as he slept. Given that he took the second shift after I did, I thought he needed a bit more sleep. Getting up groggily, I climbed out of the tent.
"Hey, good morning."
Theodore was just finishing his shift. He was taking the last 2-hour shift, and was sitting by the remains of the campsite, the embers still glowing lightly in the brightening forest. He poked at it with a stick, and then glanced up at me.
"Are the others up yet?"
"Dong Fang Yue Chu isn't. Should I wake him?"
"Nah, that's fine."
"I've been up since a while ago."
The two of us spun around and caught sight of Pearl exiting her tent, which she had all to herself because she was a girl. It was also because of her gender that she didn't take any watches, and had the benefit of sleeping more than the rest of us guys. Naturally she looked more refreshed and energetic than the rest of us.
"Thanks for keeping watch, guys." Pearl bowed her head lightly.
"No problem," I replied, while Theodore waved her gratitude away.
"Don't worry about it."
"So, what's the plan today?" Pearl stretched herself as she approached us. The two of us glanced away when her uniform pulled tightly over her curved form, but she didn't seem to notice. Or perhaps she was doing it on purpose. "I assume we're going to continue looking for the mission token today." She glanced around before retrieving her smartphone and consulting the holographic map beamed from its screen. "The question is, where should we look?"
I raised a hand. "I actually have an idea."
"Oh?" Theodore looked at me curiously. "Where?"
"That way." I pointed toward the direction where I saw the sparkling stuff last night. I had made sure to mark it out on the campsite, scratching an arrow in the dirt. In the bright light of the rising sun, it was less visible, but I could still make out the sparkle. "I caught sight of that sparkling thing last night, and it doesn't look like any sort of monster."
"Nice catch!" Pearl beamed as she studied the area I pointed them toward. "That certainly looks like the mission token we are looking for!"
"That's what I thought too. Doubtless, Instructor Feng Hai and the other teachers must have placed traps, obstacles or located it right next to a monster's nest, so we have to be careful when approaching."
"…yeah. I see something moving in that direction." Theodore nodded grimly. "Seems like this task isn't going to be easy."
"At least they didn't move in this direction and attack us at night." Pearl glanced around a little anxiously. To be in such close vicinity to monsters…then again, that was the whole point of posting sentries. If a monster came near our camp, we had to wake the others up and prepare for battle. It also helped that we had drawn a defensive formation around our campsite, which produced a barrier that protected us from the attacks of low-ranked monsters. The sentry was supposed to look out for much higher-ranked monsters that had the ability to break through the barrier – otherwise we could all just safely sleep within the barrier without the need for posting sentries. Unfortunately, this was Sen Lin Forest, and high-ranked monsters were known to inhabit this place.
Sen Lin Forest was a place where Emergence happened frequently, after all.
"We have a barrier set up," Theodore reminded her. "Those low-ranking monsters can't sense us inside the barrier. To them, we are completely invisible."
"The convenience of modern magic," I muttered. Then I pushed up my glasses and turned toward the two tents where Dong Fang Yue Chu and Craig slept in. "Should I wake the other two up?"
"Good idea." Pearl nodded as she glanced in the direction of the sparkling mission token. "Let's get this over and done with as soon as possible."
*
As I suspected, the mission token was located behind a monster's nest. The moment we stepped into the vicinity, a ton of Crimson Spiders began to scuttle out from their nest, chittering away. Even though they were relatively small – about the size of Dobermans – in such large numbers, they posed an immense threat.
"Rank F monsters," Dong Fang Yue Chu remarked in relief. "That's not so bad."
"But their numbers are pretty annoying!" Craig grumbled as he slashed a path through the approaching Crimson Spiders. His crimson spear turned into a red blur as he hacked and cut through the scuttling horde, legs and pieces of bodies flying all over the place. Gritting his teeth, he whirled about, turning into a fearsome tornado as he butchered a few dozen Crimson Spiders in under ten seconds. "They just keep coming!"
"Agreed," Theodore said as he hammered a crater into the dirt, pulverizing scores of Crimson Spiders, but more of them continued to emerge from their nest. Evidently, we seemed to have disturbed an entire colony of them.
"Guys, step back!" Dong Fang Yue Chu instructed. The two vanguard glanced at him before they obeyed, retreating to a safe distance. Stepping forward, Dong Fang Yue Chu raised his hands and finished casting his fire spell. A huge wave of flames washed over the horde of Crimson Spiders, incinerating a good amount of them. "I'll take care of all of them in one shot!"
I had my bow out, but as usual, there was little for me to do except watch. Other than taking potshots at Crimson Spiders that were coming dangerously close to Craig and Theodore's positions, I didn't do much. Pearl also hung back – as our healer, she was arguably the most important person in our group. If any of us got seriously injured, then it was her job to begin emergency treatment. Fortunately, it hadn't come to that…yet.
I watched as the majority of the Crimson Spiders burned, despite their high resistance to flames. However, Dong Fang Yue Chu was too powerful, his flames reaching superheated temperatures that roasted even the heat-resistant Crimson Spiders.
However, it was precisely because of their high heat tolerance that a good number of them survived. More than what Rank F monsters usually would in the face of Dong Fang Yue Chu's raging inferno.
"Careful!" Pearl warned, having remembered the characteristics of Crimson Spiders. "They are fire-type monsters! As such, your fire spells are not very effective against them!"
"We anticipated that," Craig assured her with a grin. "But Yue Chu has done more than enough! He cleared out at least half of the army! Theodore and I can take it from here!"
"Wait! Hang on! At least until my fire spell finishes!" Dong Fang Yue Chu shouted hurriedly. Craig raised an eyebrow.
"We know. Do you think we're idiots?"
By now, we had worked together long enough to form a close rapport with each other. Normally I would be teaming up with Elliot and the other Black Roses, but over the past few days I had learned the fighting habits of Craig and Theodore, and thus knew how they would move or react. Similarly, Dong Fang Yue Chu had also gotten familiar with their fighting styles, but he was a little too anxious sometimes. Not that I blamed him. I would have said the same in his position, precisely because we both knew how impulsive and reckless Craig could be.
Especially since we fought alongside him over the past few days.
Honestly, I was aware that neither Dong Fang Yue Chu nor I were without flaws as well, so we didn't really mind that. Working in a team had its advantages and disadvantages, but the benefits far outweighed the drawbacks. Any one of us would find it extremely difficult to tackle such a large number of Crimson Spiders on our own, but together, we were obliterating them.
"Yue Chu, burn the entire area sixty degrees to our left. We'll take care of the right flank!"
Theodore was much calmer and more composed, giving out instructions. Now that I thought about it, we had four society presidents working together in a single group. Oddly enough, I was the lowest-ranking member, being only a vice-president. Even so, no one complained about having to take orders from the others. Not even the usually proud Craig – the spearman merely followed Theodore's lead and rushed headlong into the surviving Crimson Spiders.
The Crimson Spiders' ruby carapace gleamed from the flames, and their mandibles clacked restlessly. Arcing their back abdomen up, they fired streams of web, but I quickly shot them down with flaming arrows from Sagittarius.
"Thanks!" Craig called out to me before he sliced through several more Crimson Spiders that were desperately scattering to get out of his way. They failed to escape, and were carved apart by his wicked spear.
In contrast, Theodore silently bulldozed his way through the swarm of fleeing Crimson Spiders, his crackling Thunder Hammer launching bursts of electricity and frying the rank-F monsters. They might be heat resistant, but they were certainly not insulated. Even so, the main killing power of electricity was the sheer heat it produced, so…I wasn't sure how it worked. It did short out the electric nervous signals transmitted from their brains to the rest of their bodies, so…
At the side, Dong Fang Yue Chu was busily incinerated another batch of Crimson Spiders that had just recently emerged from the nest. They screeched and flailed about as their once ruby bodies were blackened by the superheated flames.
"Now's our chance!"
Pearl began moving toward the center of the nest, now that the monsters were diminished. Theodore and Craig continued to clear a path for her, falling back to escort and protect her. I covered their advance by swapping my bow. Since Sagittarius's arrows were fire-type, they were not very effective against the Crimson Spiders, which had an affinity with fire. So I instead swapped to a more neutral element bow, Orion.
Fortunately, despite being fire-type monsters, these Crimson Spiders were only rank F, so they were unable to manipulate fire or cast fire spells like rank C monsters. Rank C monsters were known as Elementals, whereas rank F monsters were usually called Minions. The gulf between their power and magical ability were massive.
"Betelgeuse!"
Muttering the name of the star under my breath to help me focus and imagine the technique better, I unleashed a hail of arrows from my bow. Hundreds of arrow streaked through the air and smashed into the nest, pulverizing the emerging or fleeing Crimson Spiders with the force of tank shells. Or artillery. Well, that was my role, after all.
"Got it!"
While Dong Fang Yue Chu and I continued to lay covering fire, and Theodore and Craig escorted her, Pearl managed to grab the mission token. Raising it triumphantly, she then quickly placed it in her storage device. The three of them then began fighting their way out. I discouraged any pursuers by bombarding the Crimson Spiders behind them, which meant they were more concerned with trying to stay alive than to chase the insolent humans who dared to intruded upon their nest.
No doubt, if left alone, these Crimson Spiders would hunt down isolated humans, trapped them in their webs, and then drag their poor victims back to their nests for food. They were known to be carnivorous and we humans were on their menu.
So it felt good slaughtering them.
"Just a bit more!" Dong Gang Yue Chu called out in encouragement. Unlike me, he was scorching the front to clear a path for our friends to rush through. Burned and charred Crimson Spiders twitched in their death throes, even as the three of them stomped through them.
"Hey, why are we running?" Craig demanded with a frown. "We might as well go and eradicate the whole nest once and for all!"
The rest of us turned to stare at him. Theodore shook his head and sighed.
"We'll do that after we've escorted Pearl to a safe distance. Then we'll go back and destroy the rest of the nest."
"Yeah, we should…before these monsters attack any humans in future." Dong Fang Yue Chu nodded in agreement. I also agreed silently, raising my bow in response to continue raining down a hail of arrows upon the diminished numbers of Crimson Spiders.
There weren't many left, and it shouldn't take us too much time to exterminate the whole nest.
At least that was what I thought, until there was a sudden tremor across the ground.
"What the hell was that?" Pearl demanded, looking around worriedly. The rest of us shared her concern, having sensed a sudden surge in monstrous energy.
It was coming from the Crimson Spiders' nest.
"Oh…" I murmured, remembering something about Crimson Spiders that I read about in what seemed like eons ago. In a monster encyclopedia back in my house. A chill ran down my spine as I groaned. "It's their boss.
"Their…what?" Craig snapped.
His question was answered when something enormous burst out of the nest, sending mud, soil and leaves flying all about. A single immense Crimson Spider, about several dozen times bigger than the usual Crimson spiders, emerged, its mandibles clacking in rage as it glared at us with its multiple glowing eyes.
Flames began to erupt from its carapace, forming an inferno that was on par with the one Dong Fang Yue Chu created to slay its minions. Rank C. An Elemental class monster that lorded over its Minion class monsters.
"…this is not good," I mumbled under my breath.