Together they hunted down not only the ones that had fled their last fight. But proceeded to clear a handful of other watering holes. Now that he knew what to do. Jake simply aggroed the monsters and then worked on dodging until they got in perfect sync. After that, it was simply a matter of closing in during the short lulls between volleys. The last ditch water hose attack was easy enough for him to brute force thru now that he knew it was coming.
By the third hole, he was killing as many as Ella was. By the fifth, he was killing more. He had gotten pretty good at catching their ranged attacks. He was even able to catch some with his off hand at times, but not reliably enough for him to count on it.
With his armor being able to absorb four hits while he caught one or two. By the fifth hole, he blitzed a pack of six when he made it to them. Killing two right off the bat. One he crushed with a downward smash of his fist while he slashed down with his other hand. His razor sharp claws sliced into the monster. With his hand buried in its flesh, he yanked it up and used it as a shield to catch the volley of the other four. The already dying monster went slack before he flung it at the closest monster.
He took a few hits from the next volley but after that, it was all over. His shield hadn't even broken.
Jake smirked at Ella as she came up shaking her head. "I've created a monster!" She shouted with mock fear but then burst out giggling. Ella was an odd one. Sometimes super serious. Other times acting snotty or superior to the point Jake wanted to choke her. Then would be goofy and silly. She definitely didn't seem to mind getting dirty. Neither mud nor monster gore phased her at all.
Even now he watched her cut open one of the monsters and dig elbow deep into it. Fishing around to find the core and mutagen.
She pulled a bloody arm out of the monster and held it up excitedly holding another green mutagen while cheering. "You are so weird." She just stuck out her tongue before diving in to look for the core.
Jake ripped the corpses mostly open then fished them out with his armored hands. When he reduced them back to their fingerless gloves most of the blood and gore would fall to the ground. Unlike Ella, he found digging through the corpses gross. But not so much that he wouldn't collect the loot. He just wished his armored hands didn't retain the full sense of touch.
They cleared the last watering hole Ella knew about and then set about dividing up the loot. They had in total gotten seventy seven monster cores, all D ranked. Jake was super excited until she let him know they only sold for ten credits. He had expected a bigger increase in value. He still needed to get both the boots and the helmet. Plus he wanted to upgrade his chest armor as well as the boots and helmet. All together he needed four thousand credits. Even if he got all the cores, that wouldn't even cover buying the two pieces of gear.
They managed to collect a total of seventy six mutagens. Mostly blue, with about two blue for every green they received. Just like before they split the cores evenly then did a quick match of rock paper scissors for the odd one. Ella won.
Again they were across from one another with the pile of mutagen or monster essences as Ella kept calling them piled between them. Ella was again sitting in the mud, she said it was nice and cool compared to the heat around them. Jake couldn't argue it was hot, but he didn't want to sit in mud either so squatted instead. This time when they went he took the green mutagen each time. He expected Ella to make a fuss but she just kept happily picking until there were no more green ones.
"We might as well just split the rest evenly. They are all the same now." She leaned forward and started splitting the pile then paused as if she just had a sudden idea. "Actually. You know Dexterity is my primary attribute. How about I let you have all the blue ones for your half of the green ones. Let see. That is just your thirteen green ones for a total of fifty one blue ones. Pretty generous of me, right?" She sat back looking smug.
"No way! Intelligence doesn't do anything for either of us. You said you are Dexterity and Strength for some reason." Jake argued.
"Drawing a bow takes a lot of muscle you know!" She flexed a rather skinny arm but Jake noticed it had a lot more definition than he expected.
"Still a bad deal. Dexterity helps with hand eye coordination." He waved his hand letting his glove become the oversized gauntlet. "I kinda use my hands a lot."
For a moment her eyes narrowed as if she was going to complain. Then her face relaxed and she smiled. "How about this then. All the blue monster essences AND this." She pulled out one of the power cores from her pouch. "It's the C rank power core we got from the big beetle. You still need to buy the rest of your starter gear right?"
Jake eyed the core suspiciously. "How much is it worth."
"I dunno. Like I said I have never seen a C ranked core. But it is more than a D rank for sure." She sounded slightly annoyed. "Gah, I just know I'm close to ranking up my Dexterity to C rank or I wouldn't care. Here. How about I add in ten more of the D rank cores. This deal really is way too good. I can't believe you are taking advantage of a girl, some gentleman you are!" She snorted.
Jake took a moment to look over the "girl". She was covered in bug goo, monster blood, and mud. Plus she wasn't very curvy. Jake at fourteen liked curvy. But he had to admit she was at least cute. Well, when not covered in filth.
"I never said I was a gentleman." Jake instead argued. But reached out to scoop the blue mutagen and the cores towards him.
"Geez, didn't even offer to not take the extra cores." Ella shook her head but was smiling happily. She hopped up as he was feeding them into his containers and he flinched slightly. Jake had discovered Ella was a hugger. That wasn't something Jake who rarely interacted with people outside of being forced to was used to. And while he might not think too much of Ella's figure she was a girl. Having a girl hugging him was awkward. But more than anything Jake didn't like how much of her filth rubbed off on him when she did.
"Aww don't be so jumpy. I'm not going to bite or anything." She grinned then her eyes narrowed as she lunged for him. Kicking back hard he flung himself backwards in a dodge very similar to the method he used to avoid the Dread Spitter's ranged attacks. Ella had fully committed and splashed into the soft mud where he had been. Instead of getting mad she just giggled. "Poo! Don't tell me you are afraid of cooties!" She giggled harder while Jake shook his head, keeping an eye on her as he finished depositing his loot.
It was shortly after that Jake thought to check the time and his eyes almost popped out of his head. "Oh, crap did you see the time?"
Ella had just gotten up from the mud not even bothering to wipe any of it off and shrugged. "Yeah. So what? It's the weekend."
"Yeah, I don't like to stay up super late. We still have to go back to the starting buildings to log out. That is a silly way to do it. We should just be able to log out anywhere." Jake was already looking around to orient himself, trying to figure out which way lead back to the starting building.
"Booo boring. I wanted to play some more. I know where some strength based monsters are! Then I can force you to pay a ton for what you need!" Ella spoke with a smirk.
"Right. You just want strength mutagen for yourself since it is your secondary." Jake corrected.
Ella stuck out her tongue in response. "Monster essences!"
"Whatever. I'm going to log out." He turned in the direction of the tech faction starting building. Then stopped. "Uh, are you… I mean do you…"
Before he could finish she blurted out. "Of course, I'm playing tomorrow and like duh want to farm together again. Grinding with you was way easier than soloing. Everything that drops dexterity monster essences has a stupid range attack. Soloing them is stupid hard for me." Grinning she rushed up and hugged him, depositing more of the monster filth on him.
"Ewww no gross stop." Jake wiggled trying to get out of her grip as she laughed. While trying to push her off he realized he had planted both hands on her chest to shove her away. He only realized because his hands pushed into softness he wasn't expecting.
Ella instantly let go of him and he felt his face flush bright red. He expected her to yell at him. Instead, she burst out laughing. "Man I thought you got brave there for a moment but the look on your face." She laughed harder. "Bye Jake." She put emphasis on his name. "That is totally your gamer name and not your real one."
Jake watched her go shaking his head. "That is the weirdest girl ever." He looked down at his hands and felt his fading blush return again. "I can't believe she didn't freak out."
Ella did her best to keep calm even as her heart was pounding in her chest as she walked quickly away. Not wanting to look back as she felt her face heat up. 'Oh my god. He touched them.' She changed her plans from trying to solo grind to logging off as well.