Night has begun to fall in the portal, and both groups agree it'll be safer to camp together by the entrance than to attempt to stay inside tonight. We pack up what we can, Karl making a pair of wagons for me and Jurgen to pull the remains of our most recent fight back to the portal.
"I'm a Lycan, not a pack mule" I mutter, making Jurgen laugh and point back at his own wagon.
"Sorry Kat, it's the best we can do at the moment, and my physical strength is nothing compared to the two of you" Karl tries to console me.
We finally reach the portal, the night now well and dark, to find Mary waiting for us.
"The others have taken the wagons to bring back our bounty. They think with the 3 of them they should be able to manage it. We only made it a few hundred yards then spent the day picking off water buffalo from the herd."
Sounds like they need more help than we do, only having one site to clear plus a mangled gorilla corpse well into the woods that's likely not worth recovering, so we head to help out the guys.
"Food always comes first" Jurgen pipes up cheerfully, pulling both empty carts behind him.
We find the boys struggling to load the second cart and chuckle a bit. They've thought ahead and rigged a pole and pulley system, but the 10 ton beasts are still a hassle to load. Karl lifts the bodies one at a time into wagons, finding that well stacked, we can get 2 water buffalo per wagon.
This is going to be one stressful trip.
Wagons now loaded and split 4 per group, me and Jurgen on one side, Jake and the Ramirez brothers on the other, all of us enhanced with Karl's support magic. I notice now that he's much more stingy with it than Mary is.
I wonder if it's about mana usage for his attack spells, or if he just wants us to fight under our own power until we need it. All 'struggle makes you stronger' style?
With the magic, it doesn't take long before we've got the first load back and emptied and are headed back for another. The second one goes quickly, all loaded with magic and pulled back with magically enhanced strength. But everyone's muscles are aching by the time we return.
"Forget the combat treadmill. Dragging those wagons around full of water buffalo is all the exercise anyone could need" Jake announces, flopping down on the ground and turning towards the fire where Karl is cooking more steaks.
"Oh yeah, you guys didn't get a chance to try these yet did you?" Jurgen asks, as Mary hasn't learned the fire magic yet to make a controlled cooking fire, and an open wood fire isn't enough.
Mary looks up from her pot of something really savory smelling "I gathered a bunch of wild herbs and roots during the day. The poison detection spell says they're edible, and I've taste tested them, so I'm going to make a vegetable stew to go with our meat. Call it the full portal experience"
The stew is actually really good, so I make sure Mary has a collection of each ingredient stored and Karl sends 2 Tupperware bowls of the stew through the bag linked to the storage room. One for Lala to sample, and one to put in the fridge to be entered into the food creation spell later.
After Karl contacts her on the longer range radio in the Toyota, Lala reports the base technicians tried to recreate the magical beast meat with the food creation spell, but it comes out as plain meat, none of the stored energy or special qualities translate.
I guess our collection of meat really is going to be valuable. Lala also knows a little bit about magical beast meat. She's never been allowed to eat it before, so Karl sends her a water buffalo steak, cut into bite sized morsels. In case she wants to share he says, but I think he's just got a thing for babying my favorite bunny.
According to her, the energy doesn't translate into calories directly, as the body won't store it as fat. Once you're done circulating it and your body has absorbed what it can, you will just release the excess into the surrounding air.
Which also means, it's not viable as your only source of food for an extended period of time, so making pemmican or equivalent meat based trail foods alone won't be enough. But it would be a great option for quick energy.
Well, that's better than the 'Take a single bite for lunch or get fat' option.
Settling in for the evening, I notice Mary's frilly goth loli style extends even to her comfort wear. She's changed into a long black kimono style robe with sakura petals on it and a pink sash with lace trimming.
It should look a bit odd, but somehow, it just seems to fit her.
Karl, as usual, is in jeans and a black shirt, though he's put aside his leather biker jacket now that we're in camp. The rest of the men are in military gear, camo pants and green shirts. It seems I'm the only one still over dressed in my full combat gear.
I'm not sure I want to be too relaxed though, fighting off a sudden attack in a robe might work for Mary, but I'd be showing off a fair bit more than I'd like, given my fighting style. I guess just losing the jacket and corset would work. Grabbing a fresh red tunic shirt from my bag I step behind the truck to change.
"Oh, she does relax" Jake jokes, having rarely seen me in anything other than my fighting leathers or gym clothes. Maybe this is the first time? I really should change things up more often when I'm at the base, but Karl enchanted my leathers for perfect fit and they're just so comfortable.
Karl sets out a bunch of pre drawn magical circles on the ground and starts pouring mana into them while muttering a spell. This is new, must be something too complex to just cast in his mind, but I trust him not to blow us all up by accident.
Circles set, 10 of his little purple bunny maids come out. But these ones are carrying a pair of scimitars.
"Mary, now you try. I've got a copy of the circle here, write one up yourself and see how the summoning goes." I guess not even the battlefield is a safe space for Mary to escape from Karl's accelerated Combat Mage training plan.
"They've got a functional knowledge of double bladed sword techniques built in, and understand basic to intermediate commands. They're not too physically strong, but they're fast, and the magical blades will do a lot of damage."
"But can they serve tea?" The Ramirez brothers ask in unison.
"Actually they can. The base spell was intended to be an actual maid, I just added combat techniques after getting an idea from an informational program Lala was watching."
"An informational video gave you the idea to give magical maids swords?" Jake looks sceptical.
"What exactly was this video called?"
"Overlord"
Now we're all laughing so hard our eyes are tearing up. Mary got so distracted by the unexpected answer that she ruined her first circle and had to start all over.
Karl continued his answer anyhow "we also watched the first season of Azur Lane together. I was going to give the golems guns, but ranged targeting is a really complex macro to write into a magical circle. So this is the prototype I came up with to teach Mary more about Arcane circles and their modification."
We all watched quietly for a few minutes as Mary finished inscribing her spell, only cutting herself once with the magical tool needed.
She's definitely getting better, when she did my clothes during her first day learning to inscribe I could smell the blood on them as soon as they entered the room.
Karl looks over her circle, points out a half dozen parts that need to be changed, and Mary begins again. 15 minutes of intense effort later, Mary is glistening with a sheen of sweat from the intense mana focus needed to inscribe such a complex circle, but it's done and Karl finds no fault with it.
"Okay, it's done, now call out your golem and let's see how your actual casting skills are."
This is the moment of truth for Mary. If there's a hidden mistake it either won't work, or won't respond once summoned.
After a few moments to catch her breath, Mary calls out her golem. It's Jake with a pair of swords.
100 percent sure.
It's even got his facial features, but the whole golem is a light pink of Arcane energy.
Mary has flushed a bright red, realizing what she's done, while me and Jurgen exchange amused glances and Jake does his very best to look nonchalant, despite the furtive glances he keeps shooting at Mary and his slightly flushed cheeks.
Good think Narishma isn't here to see this, her vampire senses make her unable to ignore anyone blushing.
"Knowledge base transferred successfully. Physical skills are as expected. Circle is stable. Command script is functioning, looks like a near perfect golem."
"Near perfect?" Mary stutters "What did I miss?"
Karl leans down and whispers in her ear, still loud enough for all of us shifters to hear "He's got a scar on his left abdomen headed down to his inner thigh that you forgot to visualize."
I didn't know a human could turn that particular shade of red Mary did before she darted behind the truck to hide. Jurgen gives Jake a quick kick to the backside and sends him after her.
"Go get her loverboy"
Now it's Jake's turn to do his best lobster shell imitation, but he sneaks off behind the truck anyhow and we see him take Mary into his arms, whispering something to try to calm her down.