After our first encounter with the owls, we realized how complicated this mission is. Without the assistance of Zephyr's magic that was really capable of harming the owls in more than one way, it would be very difficult to face several owls at once, even if their bodies are not very resistant.
I expected owls to be strong and their elemental abilities strengthen when used in groups, but I didn't expect them to create an aria with chaotic wind currents to strengthen their movement abilities, we only fought four owls and their speed was already gone very big and his movements were very complicated.
I believe that if we are surrounded by a large number of owls their speed and range of motion should be even greater, this is really a four-star difficulty mission, without a tactic to weaken or restrict the owls it would be impossible to do the mission.
After dissecting the owls, I took a look at the tree the owls were in, who knows if we're lucky and it turns out to be an owl's nest, but by the time I checked the top of the tree and started looking I didn't find anything beyond of dirt and some dry branches.
I think our luck is not so good, but it is not completely useless either I found a metallic nugget before I came down from the tree, I don't know what kind of metal this is, but it contains a good amount of mana due to its small size. So, I prefer to pass on positively and be happy with my little treasure.
"So, are we going to continue hunting some owls?"
Hilda and Alice were quite excited, but Gloria lost some of her earlier good mood.
"Let's go soon, we have to kill a few dozen of them before the sun goes down."
"Can we face more owls at once?"
"I don't think it's a good idea to try to attack a very large group of Alice Owls, even with the help of Zephyr's magic fighting several owls at once is quite dangerous and should make it difficult for Zephyr's magic to be very effective."
"The more chaotic the element in the air, the more exhausting and difficult it is to influence it."
"Well, what would be your Zephyr limit?"
"That's pretty hard to say, but I think six owls would be a good boundary line. The more of them are causing the chaotic wind the more complicated and trying to extrapolate how chaotic the wind element can become, that's not something that grows steadily so it's pretty hard to be sure how strong the wind will be."
"So, six owls, let's go south now. Follow me."
Returning to leading the team through the forest we made our way into the forest; I wasn't too surprised that there were very few magical animals besides the owls in this forest. In the information given by the examiners they made it very clear that this forest is basically dominated by owls, the other animals that live here and the very few magical beasts that will manage not to be extinguished by the owls serve as food for them.
Owls can be omnivorous magical beasts, but they have a good preference for hunting so they can feed only on meat. In reality if there are no groups of adventurers coming here and killing a part of the owl population, they can end up coming down the mountain and killing a large number of magical animals or even humans.
This is the reason for not having a village very close to this forest, on the opposite side from which we arrived and now we start exploring there must be a very decaying ruin of a small town that was completely destroyed by the owls that will decide to come down from the mountain and hunt for new items for your diet.
The magical animals that serve as food for the owls were all common, not one of them had a valuable body beyond their common core of level two and three. So, we didn't waste a lot of time killing them, and luckily for us they weren't really motivated to attack us either.
Before mine was done we managed to kill a dozen more owls in four different encounters, and unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to kill much more of them today.
"Are you okay Zephyr? You're a little pale now, how about we get some rest as lunch break is coming up."
"Thank you, Ulric. I think I underestimated the owls."
"Is normalizing the chaotic air harder than you thought it would be?"
"Well, the amount of mana and elemental energy I have to sweat out isn't much more than I expected, but the mental and physical strain of using this magic is greater than I expected."
"I thought that after using magic once or twice I would gain experience and it would be easier and more effective to neutralize the chaotic wind that owls create to move uniquely through the air. But the chaotic nature of the wind streams is quite unique, I don't feel it's more face-to-face but it's getting harder, the owls that are farther into the forest would stop being more skillful than those on the edge, even though they have the same level that is quite unusual."
"This is not good news, there are some ways to reduce wear and tear."
"I don't think so, maybe after I get more practice, I can improve a little, but if it keeps going like this, I can sweat my magic about three or four more times. I think it's a good idea for us to leave, going deeper into the forest will be very dangerous for us."
"This is not good news, but I can't even come up with a solution. Does anyone have any ideas to help us."
"No, my ice element isn't very useful as it would affect all of you besides the owls because of the chaotic winds."
"I don't think so, my shadow element might even be able to tie a couple of owls since even though it's daylight the light here inside the forest isn't very strong. But the problem is getting to hit the owls first so you can tie them up."
"Not an idea, I can only block them."
Okay, nobody has a good idea here. Cool.
"So, after resting for lunch we'll make our way to where we climbed the cliff in the first place, but we'll take a slightly different path to kill a few more owls. At this rate we'll have to spend two more days to finish this mission, it's not bad speed, but it could be better, so be careful because it would be a bad idea to spend even more time here."
The next group we faced the region owls in a different way when Zephyrus' meow swallowed them, instead of being overwhelmed and running away, the owls took a death dive aiming at the four, that was the memento for Gloria to shine. She blocked the three owls with her shield which was covered with the earth element.
I was pretty shocked when owls basically became projects that will collide with Gloria's shield, she was blown back as the earth and wind element she had conjured over her shield spread through the air, but that wasn't a blow either. nice for the owls who will attack Gloria's shield head on.
The owls became the targets for my attacks and Alice and Hilda, I barely managed to cut the tip of the owl that was closest to me, but Alice and Hilda were more successful in their attacks. The reach of a spear is greater than that of a sword.
Hilda simply pierced the owl's body killing it, but Alice pinned hers to the ground as her spear pierced the owl's wing. The owl that tried to escape after having a wing wound was hit by Zephyr's magic, and so I was able to hit the owl that was trying to escape with my aura and wind blade.
I think the owls aren't really enjoying Zephyr's magic, without Gloria's protection he would have had to have defended himself from the attack of the three owls. I think our tactics can get a little less effective over time.
And with that our first day of hunting the owls ended sooner than we expected, but not the walk we can do, without the support of Zephyrus' magic fighting the owls is quite risky and even though we spend more time here to complete the mission an injured teammate would be a waste of time and would greatly diminish our team's combat power.
On the way back we killed a few more owls, but as Zephyr was already reaching his limit, we started to calmly descend the cliff.
After killing so many owls in one day I have an image of them and their movement and jabs well engraved in my mind, I obviously can't replicate their erratic movement, but I understand how they manage to shape the wind flow to do so chaotic.
I even tried to replicate this ability on a small scale, but in the end, it failed not because I can't shape the airflow but because I don't have wings, owls use them to curse the chaotic wind, I even tried to use them. to the flow of wind that the owls conjure with their wings with my arms, but it ended up not working.
But since we didn't even get one of the eggs, the only real cane we had was the bodies of the owls we killed today.