Around six hours after Aki ran away.
"Dammed, fucking, guarshit, of an earthquake!" Loudly cursed Xera as she literally held a building from falling as ten residents tried to find whoever was still alive inside the collapsed mine dormitory.
*Thunk crack* [1]
How they'd been unlucky enough for both the closest building and the tallest building to topple and fall into the residential area was questionable, but there was little that they could do besides react and try to get the citizens out to clear ground while salvaging the highest amount of resources.
*Thunk crack*
The underground farms were the main source of food, and even if the platations themselves were somehow still intact, no one thought the way to the chambers would be. Luckily there was still a lot to forage on the surface, though it would mean setting the new reconstruction plans back and leaving the plans that were previously in motion in third place.
*Thunk crack*
Luckily no one that really mattered for the stability and organization had died, though several had still been injured thanks to their lesser speed and constitution. They'd be treated till they could help and deal with the pain. Even with the warning, there was just no way to quickly evacuate all.
*Thunk crack*
There were at least a couple hundred citizens still stuck underground thanks to a rockfall. With luck they'd have someone to lead them and enough resources to wait it out. Otherwise...
*Thunk crack* *ROOOAAAAARRRRRR*
Finally stepping stepping out of a range where she'd hurt and even kill people, Xera did her ultmost and threw the building while reducing it's weight and reaching rock botton of her mana pool and hitting the ground just as the collum of dust hit her body, severa trees having been turned to splinters with the metric tons of concrete falling over them in all it's actual weight.
The woman had no clue how her husband could have predicted she'd ever need such an specific spell, but was actually quite happy she'd been convinced to train weight reduction and tranfer over large areas as part of his spartan training. She could, however, feel her brain try to leave her skull through ears, and really didn't understand how said man could ever find it in himself to train to a point that doing such with pure magical might was a simple task.
Those were her last thoughts before she passed out.
*****
Mari was happy to see that the airheaded dryad that followed Aki around after he came back to the city was keeping to her words and gently stroking Clair's head as she sung her good dreams. She was actually taking care of a whole wing of patients that were not in the best of mental conditions, either from the shock of lossing parts of themselves or from seeing their loved ones turned to pulp right in front of them.
Monsters, she learned, actually did have feelings. They were just very alien to those that did not have the context behind those feelings.
Looking at the head of the orphanage, she was still having dificulty believing the person to be a pretty hobgoblin crying for the death of several children even as he ate his lunch. It was like looking at a rather short elf with strange skin, even if the individual in question was one of the more 'humane' examples.
She didn't see Sera as a monster, no, but it was a wide-spread belief over the free western realms that creatures with a wise enough leader or that have reached a certain rank are more than capable of enough to be menbers of a society.
The first were generaly still monsters, just able to perform military formations or the like. The later, however, were considered outliers and sometimes were murdered by their own kin for being diferent.
When asking the cute green skin at home, she'd learned that she was actually the next chief of her tribe, but was in the middle of a ten year long pilgrimage to learn about the world, form a harem and comune with the spirits of nature as well as with the cities of men. Turns out, orcs are generaly a matriarchal tipe, exactly because they have less females, which are actually marginally stronger than the more numerous males. Individuals like Sera are actually considered extremely rare, and are born with even more power than normal.
In turn, she found out that Mara, Xera's grandmother, was considered a curse on the other side of the continent because of her coloration, inteligence and dificulty in giving birth, while being considered a holy child on this side.
There was, aparently, actually a lot she did not know about 'people' and 'monsters'.
There was also, aparently, a great invasion that brought a conquering war lord from outside the planet more than five thousand years ago, which led to the creation and/or corruption of several races, leading to what the civilized now call 'monsters'. At some point in time, monsters were just that, completly mindless creatures that behaved purely on instinct, with even fewer exceptions than nowadays. Now they were more in line with the world itself instead of being mindless troops of a nigh all powerfull tyrant.
Acording to what Aki had explained after they got to the city, that was the ressumed version of the story of the gods and the demon king.
That had been some time ago, but the headache from the further shatering of her world view had already granted her the grotesque mind skill. When even Clair told her she had such skill, she'd been baffled enough and imediatly leveled it.
Sighing, she got up and put her tray back on the faux kitchen they'd made, the baise woman taking it with a nod. Meeting one such rare beast-kin in such an enviroment was not what she expected, but the white tigress with digitegrated legs was definetly not the strangest thing she'd seen around.
*****
"Ok, if that is not the nest we're supposed to not let them form, than i don't know what we've been doing till now." Complained Aki, pretty much voicing the concerns of those around him as they all looked at the black and purple sponge-like creature with huge teeth, eyes everywhere, 'bone' protusions ancoring it to the ground and walls of meat and strange fluids around them. It was pretty much a max level *erg hive if that helps with the image. "We're going to need a plan for this, and i don't think there's much time before whatever behemoths are inside those ichor capsules grown up and get out to become a fucking pain to deal with. My idea? Whoever has the best fire resistance goes to the heart of the thing while carrying a teleportation anchor, them we shove everything we have that can cause heat and explode in a huge pile wherever they ended up after five minutes. Anyone has something better?"
"Like you said, we need a plan and don't have much time." Shrugged the man with an impressive white goatee.
"Sounds good. I have cursing bombs too." Offered a smilling man in common clothes while taking the mentioned aparatuses out of nowhere.
"My plan was just charging in, but i guess i can fight that one that seems more mature when your plan works." Pointed out a very muscular barbarian.
As other nods and affirmations from the twenty so powerhouses present, everyone agreed to go with Aki's plan.
"Ok, so whoever has heat resistance at level ten or higher raise your hands." Just him and two other guys did. "Seriously? Guess being precausious did bite me in the ass." He grumbled. One of the others with fire resistance was a man burning in white flames and floating a bit over the ground, the space around him was even being distorted by the heat. He was obviously not the best choice with a stealth mission. And the other person...
"Why not me?" Asked the female samurai while raising a brown.
"No offense, but i saw you fight and now i'd trust the two and a half meters tall guys packed with muscles here to be more stealthy." He said, getting several nods from the crowd. The woman was a beserker that completly bathed on the blood of her enemies, having tried to kill whatever appeared on their way and almost doing so to at least six people that had suddenly joined their group. Even now she was bathed in a rainbow of blood that completly covered her white hakama.
Aki himself only knew the original collor because she danced around a lot and the inner side of her clothing was still white somehow. She was wearing a sash over her breasts and some shorts, so no panty shot, but most people around still had zero interest in the woman completly covered in guts even if she was drop dead gorgeous.
Except the demon lord of lust, who'd been flirting with basically everyone.
*****
Looking at the small notification saying he'd unlocked the 'suicide bomber' job, Aki mechanically repeated the process of turning his upper torso to spirit form and healing the mangled representations while slowly crawling his way out when he finished that.
Turns out, the nest was extra flammable, and although it looked like it'd fall apart at any time, it held together as Aki made his escape, slowly regenerating his lower half and keeping the flesh in contact with the super hot monstrosity from melting.
He'd apparently unlocked a lot of random requirements with this operation, because he actually obtained a new cardinal skill, Determination (actually Diligence).
While it was not like the time he obtained Pride, the bonuses for his defensive and boosting skills were certainly welcomed now and forever. The fact it'd given him a level in basically all his other skills and even evolved some, was not something he could yet care about on a moment like this. He'd certainly use the maxed out sex skills till they evolved on the next oportunity, but trying to just work with the pain had the downside of not allowing for a lot of humor, so he couldn't think of anything too specific at the moment.
While he'd love to be able to say he was doing just fine by imitating some kind of nigh indestructable hunter killer robot hunting down some random kid, there was no avoiding the fact that he looked and felt like utter shit.
"FOUND HIM! Looks undead, but i'm not so sure!" Announced one powerhouse he had no time to reconize. He also didn't really have the strenght to answer directly. So he played 'Not Dead Yet', by Ledger, because when else was he going to. The person listened for a while before screaming again. "Nope, he's definetly alive, undead don't have this kind of sense of humor." And they began to pour potions on him. Luckily it wasn't the kind that would simply evaporate before even touching him, so he could use the potion as an extra to speed up his healing. "Hey, that's a greater health potion you know? At least use it normally! You're paying for it, you hear?"
As Aki regenerated enough of his head to do so, he laughed. It still looked like he was choking on blood more than trying to express mirth, but it passed over well enough.
'I'm not really dying anymore, thanks. What do you want for the potion though?' He said through telepathy.
"You're seriously fucked up, you know? Even i wouldn't survive being like this." She sighed. "Just treat me to a drink if we ever meet again and don't call me a bumbling beserker."
'Oh, it's you? Couldn't really tell. Yeah, sure, i'll treat you. Just never seriously attack my wives or child and everything is fine.' He mentally shrugged.
"You're married? Seriously?!" She bellowed, frustation clear on her voice. "How?!" She demanded, stomping her foot.
'I have broad tastes and actually dedicate myself to my partners?' He said with some confusion. 'I just found the right people that would accept me. By the way, i'm gessing people are just scared or don't even consider you when they think of love. A lot of men actually don't like having a partner that may just wake up and accidently cut off their head. Have you tried dating a troll shaman?' He suggested, completly serious.
"Fuck you." She frowned.
"I'll tell Sera to do so. But seriously, either find someone that can accept you and is fun to be with or change, no other option." He said, finally having the extra enertgy to reconstruct his vocal cords. The woman with the katana seemed extra depressed at his words for some reason. "Wait. You have wrath, don't you?"
"What of it? It doesn't make me go beserker anymore." She shrugged.
"Tell me if i'm not making much sense, but when was the last time you saw collors?" She shivered. "I'm taking that mine are starting to fade. Here." He said, extending a mental tendril around her panicking mind and sharing his fear with her. "Yup, you're comming with me."
[1]: Think of that sound when a giant in one piece walks around.