Ank

The second layer of the jungle.

Starting at 20 KM from Taffy’s house, and ending 40 KM away from it, it took half a day to reach the place, so we couldn’t just go back whenever we got beaten anymore, and monsters there were, supposedly, way stronger, pushed away by the retired adventurer’s aura.

“That’s kinda tasty, though” Hunah said, munching on one of the gifts Taffy gave us.

The older woman was beaming with excitement all the time, while we were preparing to go away, and gifted us a pack of chewing gums, new underwear, and even a pot, (non-platinum) cutlery, and a pair of wooden plates. “Oh, my! Your first dive~ Come back when you finish it!”, she said while we were trying to say our goodbyes.

Honestly, that woman’s reaction was way scarier than any story about layer kings, and revenge against the [Gods] themselves…

“That’s true”, but, yeah, I was chewing them too, and the chewing gums were incredibly sweet and tasty; neither my sister nor I knew about those things until Taffy gifted them to us. “Hm?”, I stopped. “What's this?”, and pointed at a few weird marks on the ground.

“Bites? Seems like something was eating mushrooms”, Hunah said, crouching down.

“But there are bites on the trees, and dirt, and even rocks. I don’t think that there’s a monster who can eat all these things, at least not around here”, my sister crossed her arms and looked pensive, but not coming with any idea, I suggested: “Well, it's not like we can guess more than: it was a big and heavy thing that did this. We can, though, follow its tails and have an upper hand against the inhabitants of this layer by discovering them first.”

And so we did.

After we had lunch an unfortunate anteater, and a maybe-not-so-short rest and nap, that is, but nevertheless.

In the end, the trail led not straight to the nest of whatever its owner was, but to the creature still on its way back; standing 1,40 meters tall, and having a length of 3,30 meters, the creature was almost perfectly semi-spherical, displaying a heavy carapace, with only its rodent-like face, and the heavily armored tail extending beyond the natural protection of the back:

[Race: (D – Collector) Glyptodon, level: 26

HP: 1000/1000]

I had no idea what the “(D - Collector)” meant, but it wasn’t a person, and EXP was EXP, so, just as the monster spat all the weird mix of plants and rocks it was carrying inside its mouth on the ground, I made the first move:

“[Summon: Fake blowgun, Chullachaki]”, I burned 4 of the little hoofed men into existence, I had Mana to spare (as long as I didn’t summon much more weapons, spell that, while didn’t account for the summoner’s [levels], had a way higher [Magic] cost), my level was too low to call for any more summons. It was obvious that to aim for the carapace was a mistake, and that the monster had invested almost every point in its defenses. Steadily chipping away the things health must have been the right choice.

“Fush! Fush! Fush! Fush!”, my summons blew their darts right onto the monsters head, and:

“Hey”, I called the two hoofed men. “Wheres the poison?”, I asked, noticing that the HP of the approaching angry monster wasn’t coming down at all, for what my summons exchanged a glance and shrugged.

Come on, will I really have to unlock [Summon: Poison] or something like that too? Even if non-poisoned blowguns are useless?

As the [Glyptodon] charged, everyone managed to avoid the things hit, as it wasn’t the most graceful charge, but the fallen tree that resulted from the headbutt attack made it clear that all it was needed was a single direct hit to end us.

“That doesn’t look really fair; it has high defense and attack?”, Hunah pointed, and jumped closer to the monster and smashed her improvised mace against the creature's leg.

As she retreated and avoided another mortal headbutt, I noticed the enemy’s [Health Points: 980/1000].

“It's better you two to have quite a lot of darts, because this will be a long fight”, I said to my summons, as they re-started the blowing of darts, which barely gave 5 damage points each.

Spoiler: they didn’t have a lot of darts.

Then, 1 entire hour had passed already, the terrain around us was completely transformed, from a green flourishing jungle, to a devastated mud arena littered with fallen trees and crushed stone.

Even after saving my stamina to only run away from the monster’s attacks, hitting just when the enemy was passing by my side, I was breathing with difficulties and sweat fell from the tip of my nose, and chin. On the other hand, Hunah was drenched in sweat, her clothes and hair glued to the her body, using double the Stamina.

My summons spent all their darts in the first hour, and I forced them to throw rocks from the ground (thank goodness I had already 5 points in [Summoner Control]), and even, later, when they ran out of stones too, to grab sticks and bash that damage sponge of a monster.

“Crack!”, Hunah’s maces shaft split in half, as she hit the [Glyptodon]’s leg for the hundredth time.

“Here, take mine”, I threw her my own weapon as she was cursing. Not long after, however, it was my time to curse too: “Shit”, my last 2 exhausted summoned [Challachakis] had reached their limit, and failed to jump away from the charge of our opponent, even if this last one was relatively clumsy, and they were instantly crushed to death.

I checked the monsters [HP: 532/1000].

My Magic was almost full again, but I was honestly divided about what would be actually effective against that monster; I decided to call for something agile, so that, at least, I wouldn’t die as easy as my previous creatures:

“[Summon: Deinonychus]”, each of the 6 [Level: 3] carnivorous birds were almost double the size of my other summonable dinosaur, being 90 cm tall, and 3.4 meters long… though most of its length was just the tail.

Break time over, and back to chip that monolithic health bar down again.

“Gruuuu!”, the [Glyptodon] grunted, as it used all of its remaining energies for a last dash.

At the same time, my summons bit into each of the creature’s legs, in the neck, and the tail too, mixing litters of blood in the soil beneath us, that was already soaked with sweat and plant sap. The final hit was given by my sister, though, as she spun on her heels, getting away from the trajectory of the charge, and bashed her improvised rock mace straight against the already cracked carapace covering the head to the beast.

There was a loud splitting sound, but this time I was the bony protection of the [Glyptodon] that broke, and the noise was followed by the squishing of a brain popping, and grey matter raining around us.

[Race: Glyptodon (D Collector), level: 26

HP: 0000/1000]

[You leveled up!]

And all of this only took us 2 entire fucking hours.

I immediately fell on the ground, panting, without even caring about the mud, and was soon followed by my sister.

Then, the body of the monster vanished, burning away in green flames as if it was one of my own summons.

“…What?”, both of us asked in unison.