Chapter 56

I was abruptly awoken from my restful sleep as I could feel my mana draining as a whirl of metallic screeches rang out from outside with Tina rolling off me and throwing on a shirt and sweat pants in but moments as Tamamo did the same in throwing on a robe. "The wards on the beach went off," I grumbled as I threw on my clothes, and then after a moment I just threw on a set of chain mail I fused previously in case I actually did have to fight while I gave Tina her spear and Tamamo a staff for her to channel her magic through.

Rushing outside the back of the mansion we bought, I saw a large crowd of water-based monsters were valiantly trying to rush up from the beachfront with the glow of the enchanted swords that made up the Monster Refining Array providing a harsh stream of light to see the faces of the variety of water monsters that tried and failed to rush up onto the beach.

And the monsters were clearly monsters obviously directly from the water floors of the dungeon as their eyes glowed red with the dungeon's influence controlling their actions. But as I took in the monsters I cursed mentally as I saw a Merman Leader who was riding a Kelpie was leading a squad of other Merman. And even worse was how there were three mermaids following behind the Mermen which could heal other monsters with their blood.

I took a breath and then said to Tina. "Tina, we need to kill the Merman leader first." 

Should the merman leader die, the other mermaids and mermen would enter a stunned state that would leave them open to being killed while my array was dealing with the other lesser dungeon monsters like Drag Octopus and Raider Fishes.

Then it hit me as I saw the Merman leader. He didn't have glowing red eyes, which meant that he was a natural-born monster, which also meant that he had a clear mind and knew that this beach area had been penetrated before which was how we bought that mansion from the Amphrite Famillia that was disgraced.

'That merman has some intelligence.' I thought with a mild grimace before shaking my head as I grinned as that didn't matter if he had some intelligence as none of the monsters he wrangled could withstand the hail of swords slashing and stabbing through them as they pushed onto the beach.

I then took out the large ballista I had fused from several bows and then later some monster tendons to make it stronger and with a more powerful draw weight and then slotting in an a fused javelin that had a rope tied to the base of the ballista and I took careful aim as the Merman who was riding the large Kelpie charged to the side of our property heading towards our neighbor in the Kusanali Familia.

'It's even closer than the lizardman I shot with the explosive bolt previously...' I thought and then with a violent cracking noise. The javelin shot forward at tremendous speed as it shot towards the Merman Leader who was trying to lead it's small horde of monsters to what it considered a weaker target.

But with a loud snapping noise I cursed as I missed, as the javelin instead slammed home into the side of the Kelpie instead of the Merman. "Tama, Tina help!" I snapped out as I grabbed the rope as I tossed the ballista back into my inventory as I couldn't reload it without Tina and Tamamo both helping me pull the string back.

Both girls helped me and the javelin had pierced deep into the Kelpi and even with the Merman leader roaring in fury, we didn't have to pull hard to force the Kelpi to stagger towards us as the water-themed horse made its way towards us until the Merman furiously threw its own landform weapon at us that was a large trident.

However as the spear sailed at us, I heard a quick chant. "In endless vitality, we discover wisdom, jungles of life restrict and crush!" And from the very lake in front of us bloomed a terrible thorny forest made with large vine-like trees violently growing up through the water and strangling and tearing the monsters apart horribly with the Merman leader had a large barrel-sized vine completely encircling him with the fist-sized thorns audibly scrapping off his fish scales and tearing his flesh from bone.

"Can you not kill the mermaids?" I asked as from our neighboring side of the beach the Kusanali Familia Captain in the green-haired elf Elanor along with a witchy-looking human woman and finally a male elf who was clearly a warrior with the two swords at his waist.

Hearing my question Elanor raised an eyebrow and she visibly frowned with concentration as she controlled her conjured vine spell as I did the same with mentally controlling the array to go into monster stone collection duty with the visibly wrecked blades going to work cutting open the monsters to extract the monster stones for me.

But in a few moments, I saw her dragging the heavily bleeding mermaid trio over to the beachfront while I walked over as Tina and Tamamo threw a heavy chain net onto the Kelpi to paralyze it as they knew I wanted a mount and the Kelpi would be an amazing one. "Very well, you may have the three mermaids. But for me doing this, you owe my goddess a favor as you wouldn't have been able to capture them in the water." She said proudly making me raise an eyebrow in amusement.

"You would not consider it a gift between neighbors?" I asked jokingly but her flat stare was my only answer and I just shrugged and nodded as she was right. Mermaids were notoriously annoying to deal with in the dungeon as they had an inner Charm skill like what Freya could use. And even though mermaids didn't want to fight, if they were in the water... Only level fives with the Dive development ability could remotely hope to actually kill them let alone capture them. 

Elanor coughed and then said. "In any case, your... Defense system has also garnered the eye of my goddess so be at rest as the monsters will know your beachfront will not be so easily penetrated so they will leave you alone for at least a week."

I gave a grunt and then said noncommittally to her mention of the wards. "Fine, I acknowledge a debt for the favor, please let me capture the mermaids as I need to work to tame them and give them some potions so they don't bleed out."

The elf mage tilted her head to the side and in thought and then the bundled-up mermaids were deposited in front of Tina and Tamamo who went back inside to grab some ropes to tie the three mermaids together. Thankfully I didn't need to worry about mermaids needing to be underwater to breathe or anything.

But with that all done I gave Elanor a nod as I headed back inside as I needed to get to work taming these mermaids and the Kelpi. Which was just perfect with the skill I got that made my tamed monsters stronger.