Battle in the Base
Reizo pushed back the maces and cracked his knuckles. All of the bandits panicked and began fleeing the area.
"Stop those bandits from escaping. Reizo and I will take care of the tuxedo guy." Gyanku's bow formed in his hand and he shoots two arrows through the skulls of both guards.
The man runs as fast as he can away from Reizo and yelled "We have a problem! Get over here now!"
Two figures from the end of the tunnel rushed towards Reizo at lightning speed. Light surrounded Reizo's hand and a sword appeared. The sword had a grey guard that was pointing at one of the six colors on a ring that was located at the throat of the grey scabbard.
He pulled out the metal blade and clashed with the two figures who attacked with steel claws. An arrow ricocheted off the tunnel walls and pierced through the man's ankle. The man pulled the arrow out and he had to heal himself, giving Gyanku enough time to catch up. The man was forced to fight Gyanku and formed a big gauntlet out of light around his right arm and took a swing at Gyanku.
Meanwhile, everyone else was trying to round up the bandits. I summoned a radive and flew to the entrance to seal it off with an earth wall. The bandits were completely helpless and couldn't do a thing against us. It only took a couple of minutes for us to knock out all the bandits.
Our captains were still battling in the tunnel with the man and the two figures. The man had three arrows lodged in his left arm and two in each leg. He was panting heavily and nearly fell unconscious. Gyanku was confident that he would win and spun his bow around his hand.
"You can't beat me, so you might as well surrender before Reizo is done fighting those two." The man slowly stepped away from Gyanku. He made his gauntlet disappear and put both his hands up. Gyanku approached him to apprehend him and bring him back to the headquarters. The man kept backing away slowly until he got close enough to a hidden panel.
He quickly opened the panel and pushed a button that opened up another tunnel in the room. A giant four-legged beast that was on fire emerged from the tunnel. The monster's skin was like charcoal, and it was bigger than the arborex. The flames on its body burned so brightly that it lit up the entire base. All bandits in a five-meter radius around the monster were burned to death and the ones that were any closer were cremated on the spot.
Gyanku and Reizo turned their attention to the monster and tried to save us from it. The man formed his gauntlet again and used it to fire a beam across the tunnel's ceiling, causing the tunnel to collapse in them. "I'll bury all of you with me!" The man madly laughs as the tunnel falls on him. The tunnel was now blocked by rubble and our captains were still in there.
"We need to help Reizo!" Serith ran to the rubble and I had to pull him away to prevent him from getting eaten. "There is a giant flaming monster trying to eat us! If we don't deal with it first then we'll be turned to ash."
Serith had no choice but to help us fight the monster. Derin summoned an arborex to fight the monster. The monster turned its attention to the arborex and used its breath to engulf the arborex in flames. When the arborex disappeared, it looked disappointed.
"You're level 50 already?" Derin was surprised when Saliza asked him that. "Everyone on my team is level 50 and above. Shouldn't you guys reach level 50 by now?" He was shocked to find out that our team has barely reached level 40.
With their higher levels, they were much faster and stronger than us, but still not a match for the monster. Derin wielded a shield and flail which he used to attack the monster. His attacks were ineffective and his teammates couldn't do much damage either. They dodged the monster's fire breath and grouped.
"If it's using fire, then we'll use water!" Together they blasted the monster with a stream of water. The monster started showing signs of pain and screeched at them. It released the heat stored in its body to create a heat barrier to protect it. The stream of water that the other team was shooting evaporated upon contact with the barrier.
The base was now scorching hot and we had to get out of here. The monster circled around us as we tried to escape and blocked the entrance. It released a heatwave that was going to hit us.
"This is it, we're gonna die." The other team panicked and some of them even cried. The body of one of the guards was thrown in front of us and blocked the heatwave. Saliza and Serith grabbed the body of the other guard and threw it at the monster.
Their armor melted but their body made it through the barrier and hit the monster. Surprisingly enough, their bodies didn't turn to ash. "Quit your crying and lend us a hand would you!" Saliza scolded the other team. The monster pushed the body away and roared. I summoned a doruso to run around the monster and gain its attention. It ignored my doruso and charged at us.
It's not interested in my doruso and it didn't bother eating the guard who was much bigger than us, so does it want to kill us?
I summoned a radive and used the remaining spray on it. I had it fly around the monster and this time, it gained the monster's attention. The monster snapped at it with its jaws and swallowed it.
I ran over to Saliza and Serith to tell them what I found out. I washed myself with a water spell and went near the monster. I yelled as loud as I can at it but it didn't bother looking at me. Saliza and Serith washed themselves and threw the large maces at the monster to stop it from getting closer to the other team.
"All of you summon arborexs around that monster now if you want to live!" The other team had no idea what I was planning but they were desperate enough to do as I say.
The monster started ripping each of the arborexs apart, pulling the wood off their skin and swallowing it. We stood around the other team and sprayed them all with water until the monster finished destroying the arborexs.
"What are you doing? This is no time for pranks!" The monster was done and stared at us. Instead of attacking, the monster looked around the room and removed its barrier.
It's a fire monster that likes attacking arborexs, so I'm guessing that it likes to eat wood. I created a large stick in my hand and threw it at the monster. It ate the stick and took and nap in the middle of the base.
"What did you do?" Derin asked. "That monster only attacks arborexs and anything that smells like it. The spray we used earlier made us smell like an arborex so we had to get rid of it."
After a few minutes went by, an explosion came out of the rubble and our captains returned. Gyanku rushed to his team to see if anyone of them got injured. The monster woke up to the scent of an arborex, so Reizo washed himself and sprayed Gyanku with water. The scent was lost and the monster went back to sleep.
"So how do you guys figure out what to do?" Reizo asked. Saliza told him about how I figured out that the monster only eats arborexs and he nodded in approval.
"Good work. They were planning to use that monster to kill the bandits if they needed to. This monster is called a fernon, it's an A rank monster. They're mostly harmless towards humans but they will attack arborexs to eat their wood armor which increases their life span. This usually leads to them chasing their prey into a forest and setting it on fire."
Reizo checks the tunnel that the fernon came out of. There was a large circular device in the room that doesn't seem to be active. "Tech this advance could only come from two of the countries in the world." he thought to himself.
Gyanku was looking at his wallet that he retrieved from the bandit. "Oh thank goodness, my lucky casino chip didn't break."
Reizo walked out of the room and discussed with Gyanku what he found.
"I found the body of that man crushed but those two that I was fighting probably escaped. It's possible that they'll use that tech to come back here."
Eventually, they decided to let Meitre plan their next action. We left the base where a fernon now sleeps above the ashes of the bandits. We flew back to the headquarters and the captains reported their findings to Meitre.
Later, the other two teams arrived. Oraten was comforting a distraught Testra. Their recruits were battered and bruised, some even had to carry unconscious teammates back to the headquarters.
"What happened?" Gyanku rushed over and she hugged him as she explained everything.
"We snuck into the base and hid among the bandits until a well-dressed man came in and noticed us. He pressed a button and we got attacked by a giant man with a big sword and a boy with a dagger. The boy used illusions to separate me and Oraten away from our recruits. His illusions prevented us from helping our recruits until I was able to get a good hit on him.
We went to rescue our recruits but we were too late, they were laying on the floor defeated. He grabbed one of my recruits and slit her throat in front of me while laughing. Before I could kill him, the boy came back and used his illusions to escape with that man."
Everyone who was well aware of how powerful Testra is understood how serious this is. It's no easy feat to stall someone like Testra.
Haler just so happened to walk by and saw Testra crying. He came over to comfort her while Reizo downed a bottle of alcohol. Everyone glared at Reizo as he emptied the bottle. "What? I've been sober for a couple of days now and I want a drink."
All the captains except Reizo continued to comfort Testra and bring her to her room. Meitre called for Reizo to have him further look into the case and not get drunk.
He groaned and signaled for us to come to him. "Now that you've completed your first mission, you can go to the receptionist and claim your cash." He walks off to go talk with Meitre.
The money that we earned wasn't that much since it was just an investigation mission, even though I had to fend off an A rank monster at my level, but it's more than enough to pay for the book I broke.