Chapter 1 - Section 3: Adventurer Rescue

Morning came quickly and without grace I might add, as the time from my skill started sounding an alarm directly into my brain forcing me to awaken rather abruptly but since It's been quite a while since I used the alarm I forgot I wasn't on earth and worse yet that I was sleeping two stories above the ground so when I rolled over to hit the alarm clock that usually rested next to my bed my arm instead whiffed and I was sent tumbling out of my hammock spinning with the momentum provided by my unrestrained swipe as I rocketed like a drill headfirst towards the ground

'THUD'

The scene from the outside would probably look like something out of a cartoon as my upper torso was fully embedded into the ground, when I pulled myself up and out of the divet no hole I had just gouged out of the ground I was greeted with the worried face of a crouching Kurama whose eyes were tear filled, behind her Creed, and Rocky my Stone Golem sentries who'd protected us from any attacked through the night were also turned staring in my direction with their faces being made of stone I couldn't confirm but I'm pretty sure they were just as worried for me. I mean I have nothing to prove it but I'm sure if their summoner aka me was to die, they would also vanish from this world and would likewise die at the same time since I would be required in order to summon them.

Quickly springing to my feet, placing my hands on my hips and gaffeing loudly in front of them, covering up my folly as a little prank played on my trust worthy companions rather than admit the truth that I had just fallen out of bed. Without allowing for the only vocal one Kurama to voice her dispute on the matter I turned away and quickly set about making breakfast, Rocky and Creed returned to their duties but behind me I could feel a tiny foot making small kicks against my back. Knowning full well this is just her way of dealing with me being unreasonable, since she's a summon she can't actually hurt me even if I were to command her to so even if she threw a 'real' kick when it came into contact it would feel no different than if she had just merely tapped me.

The breakfast I had chosen was a simple granola cereal with a side of sliced fruit. As I was sitting there eating my breakfast with Kurama sitting across from me, still with an unsatisfied look on her face. I manipulated the menu in my mind to path to the woodworking section under the professions tab.

Under the tab it was broken down into further various section with a cross section showing the lumber and wood items from my inventory.

I quickly moved all of the branches I'd collected into the Processing section before hitting confirm afterwich a timer was shown up in front of me. This was similar to how my other skills worked when using the game interface so I was forced to remain stationary until it finished otherwise the action would be canceled and I'd have to start all over again.

With nothing else to do I carried on eating my breakfast as I watched the time slowly tick away, until it finished with a <Done > popup appearing. Selecting to get rid of the popup I checked my inventory and saw that all the branches now showed a status of having been dried to the optimal condition.

So next I moved them all into the second section where a new window appeared asking me to specify what kind of wood cuts I wanted to turn them into. The cuts were numerous but almost all of them were greyed out, since these were branches after all I could verywell turn them into squared planks so since I hand an ample amount of them I opted to turn them into a good selection of 2x4 and 1x4 boards. With that a new timer appeared but I still had access to the menu so I selected to move all the remaining wood, from the tree's trunks themselves into the drying section.

Now with a pair of timers holding me anchored to the spot unfortunately for quite a lot longer than the time it indicated was required to dry just the branches, I decided not to be idle and selected to summon up my wolf pack once again, before commanding the pack leader Kurama to once again head out with the pack in tow for some hunting, but with the command to have the pack be the ones responsible for all the kills since the current theory I have on the summoning skill has it level up the more experience is earned by the summons themselves doing the fighting.

With that I was left all alone well sort of except for my stone golem bodyguard but since I was still stuck not being able to move I had no choice but to find something to do so I went on a mental shopping trip by pathing over to the In-Game store and taking a look at the shops present, it's been over a week now since I last went to this section as I had used it to build and summon Heracles but perhaps something else had changed since last I had accessed the shop, and further more I wanted to find out why it had changed in the first place.

Exploring the shopping district as I liked to call it since It really looks like vitual shopping centre, when I first got to this world and went to the shop there was only a single vendor selling goods, but now there were three separate stalls and beyond that were the higher ranking building for the purpose of creating guilds, or building non-playable characters.

Since I had time to kill I opted to check out the new sales stands, my original stand was still there but I'd go as far to call it the general store since they sell a little of everything but none of it is anything to write home about, the two new stalls seemed to be tied to my skills, since one of them was a grocery vendor selling all manners of ingredients and food, and the other was selling goods and reagents that could be used by an alchemist. Flipping through the menu and checking my professions both my Cooking and Alchemy were my two highest skill which recently had achieved Lvl 3 in this world that's the cut off point to being refered to as experienced so without leveling up other professions to confirm I'd say that's the requirement to unlock more shops, that or as my own level increases I can access more shops in the menu, well I should have an answer to that soon since with all the wood working im doing now and will be doing in the near future I can't imagine not leveling up my profession enough to unlock another store.

Though that being said after checking my professions vs what I could see in the new shops I couldn't really do much more than simple experimentation with them and well when compared to real world items all the goods I could buy from these new shops cost almost 10x that which would be purchased in towns. Of course the quality and rarity of otherworldly herbs, and ingredients cannot be overstated but since I spent so much on Heracles already, and then the money used to purchase the temples plot, along with renting our house my funds are far from being infinite at this point, and well since Raisa is my main source of obtaining new funds I can't really do much about recovering my finances until her shop is up and running, but again with this being the boonies the sum I could obtain is going to be significantly lesser than back in the city.

Perhaps I can use these shops in the future to further grind my skills to a higher level but not until I have a vast fortune, but until then I'll keep searching for higher level herbs, and ingredients from this world. And if this skill works like the game perhaps when I reach a high enough level I'll also unlock the auction house which was used by production classes (those that focus on their professions and creating new items, and goods rather than focusing on combat) not sure how it would work in this world but the auction house was the best way in game of earning a ton of money in almost no time at all. Though since I should be the only one in this world with the skill would it give those back on earth the chance to bid on the items I put up, or would it just create a mock bidding war for items? No way of knowing or even both speculating on since I don't even know if or whenit would unlock.

While I was digging around a timer set off along with another popup indicating the profession task had been completed. So as a final move I set the now dried trunks into the 2nd production category and made my selection to have a series of thick beams, boards, planks, and even shingles lastly I selected to have quite a number of pillars to also be crafted.

Surprisingly after choosing all of my requested selections the timer that appeared indicated the time I'd need to remain stationary which wasn't all that much time compared to the hour I was made to wait just to dry the wood. But I guess that does translate since on earth it would take weeks to dry a whole tree's water content, while simply cutting and forming the wood could be done in minutes.

With the timer approaching the final minutes I placed a hand in my mouth before releasing a extremely loud high pitched whistle from the fingers I'd used. This was my signal to draw the attention of Kurama who was still absent on her mission to hunt with the wolf pack

The timer didn't have the chance to expire first as Kurama riding the beta of the pack of wolves emerged from the forest with the other wolves trailing behind, when she hopped down and patted the wolfs head the timer sounded informing me that I was finally free to move once again.

"Well that concludes the first round of lumber procurement, next up is some mining at the mountains to the east from the forest so we'll need to move at speed since I want to make it back to town before nightfall if possible" <Satou >

"Hunt more?" <Kurama >

"Sure why not, you and the pack can hunt all you want on the way there, as well as when we're there but" <Satou >

[Dispel: Creed, Rocky] <Satou >

[Summon: Beast F] <Satou >

Opting to dispel his guardians the stone golems and instead further increase the numbers of the pack for the journey.

"I'm going to be moving at full speed so hunt what you can on the way there, but once I reach the mountains I'm going to reduce the packs numbers by three" <Satou >

"Kay" <Kurama >

With that I did a quick dust off of my clothes before taking a starters stance and dashing out at full speed as soon as I kicked off I felt I had made a mistake and that almost came true as the trunk of a tree suddenly appeared in front of my face which I only narrowly avoided by reflex as I kicked of the ground shooting myself out sidewides. This carried on as a form of training I guess you could say as I worked on getting more accustomed to my newfound strength, and speed since leveling up and increasing my stats.

When I first set off like a cannonball there were endless numbers of near misses, and even some 'light contact' as my shoulder, or arm would clip a tree in passing taking with it a chunk of the tree which would explode from the impact but my momentum never ceased. After running like this for tens of minutes I finally started getting a feel for it and my darting became more fluid and the occurance of near misses became less and less.

[Perhaps when I get more used to it I can jump from branch to branch in a straight line like you see in ninja's, or elves in anime]

Setting about unrealistic things I'd want to do if I managed to further increase my stats the mountains which where so far in the distance to be obscure by the high trees of the eastern forest came into full view as the tree's themselves thinned enough as they became sparser at the foot of the mountain were piles of rocks and dirt at first glance this was a dumping point from a mine or just the runoff from a landslide that had occurred somewhere up on the mountain.

Well either way I doubt there are any usable stones or mineral I could find in these piles I'd be better off digging straight into the side of the mountain.

Having come to a halt at the foot of the mountain, I quickly dispelled the three wolves I warned Kurama I'd be unsummoning upon arrival

[Summon: Gorons Digger, Dozer]

[Summon: Seeker Hunter]

Choosing three cards from my monster binder I produced what I think would be the best choices for the job two gorons who are known as rock eaters I figured I could use them to eat the soil and since they eat metals and stone they must have a sort of sense of smell for tasty eats, and then there's the Seeker the card description said it was a support type summon it's ability was to help you locate rare items and goods giving the party it belongs to a buff to increase the chances of finding rare items or even great quantities of what your after.

The greatest change I noticed though wasn't the looks of my new summons since they looked exactly like they did when they were monsters, but the monster binder in front of my eyes sudden became greyed out, after flipping back to the first page I could see why. The first page was what showed my 'named' summons and at present all the card slots were filled with the monsters I had named so far. Not to say I couldn't summon anything more the monster book always greyed out when I reached my maximum number of summons in the field but if I were to try and name another now I'd probably have to get rid of one of my other summons first and replace them with the newly chosen summon instead.

Not wanting to dwell on this since it really didn't matter I took out my personal mining supplies of a pick axe and shovel before giving the newly summoned monsters the commands.

To the Gorons "be on the lookout for Metals, and colored hard stone or gems, feel free to eat the rest" and to the Seeker I had it assist me by pointing out areas that it claimed contained 'rares'

And so with that the days work began, the gorons working like heavy weight food competition eaters shoveling fistfuls of dirt and rock into their mouth one after the other but not increasing in size at little bit, I on the other hand swing my shovel and pick as hard as I could digging a sizeable hole into the face of the mountain, each section that broke off of scoop of dirt I picked up went straight into a slag folder in my inventory, later on I planned to dump the mountain of soil and rock outside or even to block up the tunnel itself.

Hours passed and the size of the hole which I'd created continued to grow larger and larger, looking more like a vertical quarry at this point rather than a mining tunnel, the Gorons on the other hand had disappeared into the heart of the mountain digging their own feeding tunnels in a straight line until a few feet where I lost track of how far away they'd gone. Deciding enough time had passed that I should stop for lunch I figured I'd see how far their progress had gotten before calling Kurama back. If I didn't call her back she'd have a tantrum since she seemed to like getting to eat even though as a summon she didn't actually need it.

After taking a quick look from the entrance of diggers tunnel I couldn't really see much and even my minimap only showed the mountain itself not the tunnel, though back when I was in the dungeon the map did change so…

Taking steps into the tunnel until I was encompassed by darkness the only source of light seen was in the distance as the entrance to this tunnel, once again I pulled up the map which did indeed change but what I saw floored me. After only a few hours of digging the tunnel network the pair had created was vast and extensive looking like a human mining operation that had existed for years.

"Did they did into an existing series of mine shafts or did they really eat that much in such a short time?" <Satou >

If only I could communicate with everyone telepaticly but so far Shenron is the only summon I have that can do that, so how would I get them to stop and come back, I didn't see anything outside the tunnel so I guess they haven't found anything yet. Plus since it's more a meal than work it's no harm to let them keep going I guess.

Choosing to leave the tunnel and use my ear splitting whistle to once again summon Kurama and the wolf pack, as I waited for their return I pulled a basket from my inventory which contained a series of sandwiches, and canned drinks, dropping a couple of larger stones I'd found and using my blacksmithing skill along with a chisel to create flat surfaces to act like a stone table, and a pair of stone chairs for out meal.

Just as I finished chiseling the final bit of the second chair a Fox-kin riding a wolf burst through the tree line before the rest of the pack followed shortly afterwards.

I still don't exactly understand why she's choosing to mount them since her own speed when running is quite a bit faster than the wolves own running speed is, but oh well mayber it's just easier to give commands and hold back on her own attacks leaving the combat to the pack itself.

As they approached Kurama hopped down running towards the table, I motioned my hand to the rest of the wolves who formed a line before me, taking a bag from my inventory I pulled pieces of jerky from it and tossed one piece to each wolf thanking them for their work, before letting them take a 'break' again nothing said I had to do either of these things, but alive or not hard work deserves to be praised as least that's my belief. Once the rewards to dished out and the wolves took up formation before laying down for a 'nap' I headed back taking the open seat before once again offering up my prayers to the gods, along with the promise that soon I'd be able to give a proper prayer rather one that was always was modest or humbly given at a dining table.

Lunch progressed smoothly, Kurama ate like a machine consuming sandwich after sandwich I stopped halfway through my first just to watch chuckling a little as I mistook her for a Goron going to town on the soil, she tilted her head at this but didn't inquire further.

The food I'd brought out disappeared quicker than usual, even though I'd barely eaten more than a single sandwich myself.

"Busy day so far?" <Satou >

"Yes, Fight Lots!" <Kurama >

"That's good to hear, any dangerous foes yet?" <Satou >

"Hmmm… Some big things, but all fight and win" <Kurama >

"I see so when fighting as a team you could take it down?" <Satou >

"Yes!" <Kurama >

"Well that's good but you are avoiding anything they can't win against right?" <Satou >

"Mhmmm" <Kurama >

"Well that's good then, so for now we're going to change things up a bit I'd like to gather up some materials since Raisa wants to sell some of my goods so I'll need supplies" <Satou >

"Mkay" <Kurama >

"So can I get you to send two of the wolves into those tunnels and call back the Gorons for me, the rest you can send out to find places in the forest that are abundant in herbs." <Satou >

"Yay!" <Kurama >

With that she kicked off her chair leaping thorugh the air towards to still resting wolf pack, the pack stirred awake and formed up while Kurama made a back and forth walking motion looking like some movie set general commanding the troops. Hunter meanwhile flew back to me and perching on my shoulder. The wolf pack divided into two teams the larger dove into the forest while the smaller dashed into the tunnels.

I meanwhile as the site foreman remained in my chair cracking upen another can of juice and slowly sipping it since leaving this place was a no go until both parties returned to me so I knew the results of the mining, and where to head towards for the herb procurement.

---

My extended break continued for another half hour until I heard a scraping sound coming from the tunnels into the mountain, looking over my should I saw the two wolves dash out into the sunlit world, moments later the pair of gorons emerged from their separate tunnels behind then though was the source of the sound as they were dragging something that from a distance looked like a massive light brown bag, but as they got closer I realized this was far from the truth.

Quickly getting to my feet and approaching the pair what I saw was unbelievable the 'bags' as I mistook them was actually a part of the goron's I believe you could call it their distended stomachs. Guess I should've called them back sooner…

"Did you manage to find what we were after at all?" <Satou >

'Blaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggggg' <Digger >

'Blaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggggg' <Dozer >

Without warning both Gorons proceeded to 'throwup' right in front of me reflexively jumping back after hearing the sound but what I saw was far from what I expected as from their gaping mouth shot rock after rock, and even a couple of gems and metal ores mixed into the batch. Minutes of this passed as the mountain of 'loot' continued to grow meanwhile the size of their 'stomach' continued to shrink until they returned to their normal size once again.

"Wow you two did amazing, I didn't even get a small fraction of this amount after carving out that entire section of the surface."

The two acted embarresed rubbing the back of their heads, while giving jostling punches to each others shoulders.

I thanked them for the hard work before dismissing them, and then turned to store the pile of harvested materials into my inventory.

As I was working on this the rest of the wolf pack returned. The scouting mission now compelted they assembled themselves once again as a full pack before Kurama.

"Find good hunting grounds for Herbs?" <Satou >

"Lots, and Lots!" <Kurama >

"Good to hear" <Satou >

Giving the fox-kin girl a head pat, and pets for the success of her orders. Looking down at the 'commander' I gave the newest order to lead the way to the first hunting ground. So our small hunting party headed out with a company of wolves, myself, the fox-kin and the Seeker bird moving as a group

---

Having finished collecting from the first three hunting grounds my herb stocks are being replenished nicely, maybe it's just because my profession leveled up before but the number of herbs I can identify has been increasing, and once I used to pick all the time have changed to be displayed in my heads up as grey which is a carry over from the game to state that I'd earn no growth from that herb any longer, or even earning experience towards leveling up by picking it. But not holding back I cleaned the forest floor of both the physical and digital drops amassing an alchemists dream storehouse within my inventory. Sure they're all still relatively low level reagents but when I factor in this worlds low level base this forest alone is a treasure trove.

"H….. ANY...… PLE...…GOD...…EN"

As I was crouched over harvesting another batch of moss from the side of a tree, in the distance I thought I heard a voice being carried by the wind.

Looking over to Kurama I could see her ears twitching nervously.

"Is there someone in trouble?" <Satou >

'Nod' <Kurama >

"I know I said we need to avoid people but if their in trouble I don't mind you telling meso we can lend a hand" ,Satou>

"Oh. Big trouble should help" <Kurama >

[Dispel Summons]

Choosing to disband my ragtag party of monsters leaving only Kurama and myself I quick changed into my combat gear before setting off through the words following after Kurama who could tell where the person/s in trouble were. Though my instructions were to only lead me to, but not reveal ourselves just yet. Since if this was a duel I wouldn't want ot interrupt but if I was bandits it would be better to send in monsters to break up the fighting and follow the bandits to their lair, but if it was monsters attack then we'd resuce whoever was in trouble before the worst happened.

We dashed through the woods until Kurama came to halt hiding in a bush, I joined her peering out at a small clearing watching as some bipedal monster that if I was to label a species to would be gnolls, wich are bipedal boar type humanoids, in the game lore that I know they are highly aggressive and carnivouros as I sat there watching what I saw took my breath away, the monster party wasn't really that large only six in total. But what they were doing did, there on the ground bound up and gagged was one of the ladies from the adventurer party I'd met in the western forest yesterday.

[summon: bird G]

Summoning my maximum number of birds and issuing a silent command to scour the area for the others in her party. Though ever part of me wanted to rush out and save her now I couldn't do that without known if I was saving one but putting the others at risk. So while the birds scouted around I followed the pack of gnolls who had slung the young lady over their shoulder carrying her like luggage off into the distance. Making sure to stay far enough away to react if I need to in an instant without allowing them to detect me or Kurama.

The gnolls only walked for a bit before they left the edge of the forest into some open land next to a lake, with a small house or rather shack setup next to it.

Perhaps it's a retirement home, or a fisherman's shack. The gnolls walked up to the shack opening the door before tossing the young miss in before closing the door and leaving to join some others who were sitting down in the clearing drinking water straight from the lake.

"Hmmm well that's good I guess, though can't confirm for certain since I don't know whats going on in that shack, we'll have to sneak in so let's change into maximum stealth gear"

'nod'

Taking no time at all the swap out all our gear for a set of equipment that bandits or thieves of this world would certainly kill for. The birds I'd dispatched returned with a verdict that no other humans were in the vicinity.

"Did they run away and leave her to die? Or did hse just come out here all alone?" <Satou >

…

"Well, if they left her to die, I'll owe each of them a punch in the face when we get back to the village" <Satou >

I ran in the shadows slipping past the gaze of all the mingling gnolls running up to the wooden shack sitting idly next to the lake side silently unlatching the door before slipping inside.

"MMMphhhhhgggghhh" <Julia >

What I saw in the room once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness was the Fire mage Julia laying on the ground still gagged by some sort of dirtied cloth, her arms and legs bound by rope but even with that the state of her legs didn't look good as one of them was bent in an irregular angle likely broken. Her eyes were streaming tears while her eyelids were clamped shut in terror, I quickly looked around the room and didn't sight any enemies or even anything else for that matter. Next to her prone body lay fragments of what I assume formerly was her Fire staff, now just pieces of kindling scatter on the floor.

"Don't make a sound I'm here to rescue you" <Satou >

"MMMMMM!" <Julia >

Her eyes shooting wide open upon realizing the one who'd entered the room wasn't a Gnoll I had to move quickly, since Kurama was still hiding by the front door as a lookout. So I quickly motioned forward drawing a dagger and cutting her bindings.

"Are you alright, can you get out of here?" <Satou >

"N.No… I can't they broke one of my legs, and I'm sure they shattered the others ankle so I couldn't run away" <Julia >

"I see…" <Satou >

While I could just pull out some potions and heal here wounds broken bones are different I'd need to set them first or use a high-grade potion which I don't have on hand, the best choice would be to get her back to town where a priest or priestess can cast healing magic.

"In that case forgive me in advance but we need to get out of here" <Satou >

Not waiting for a reply I quicked moved to scoop the prone lady up in a princess carry

"Ugh I can't believe I've been reduced to having to rely on someone like this" <Julia >

"This is life and death, an adventurer has to swallow their pride from time to time in order to survive at all cost?" <Satou >

"I get it, but how big is your party to be able to take on all those monsters?" <Julia >

"It's just me… or rather it's sort of like that, and we didn't defeat any of them." <Satou >

"Seriously then we need to leave now!" <Julia >

As I slowly opened the door croching down as much as I could whilst still carrying my passenger.

As the door opened what greeted me was the worst possible outcome.

"Oh my Gods" <Julia >

There before us was more than fifty Gnoll like monsters all of which were bearing arms and snarling in our direction.

"I don't understand with my gear they shouldn't know I was here" <Satou >

"You can't underestimate these beasts, I was just a trap to lure in more prey, this type of monster exclusively hunts humans the books I read stated they love the taste of our flesh, and the more despair they can cause to those they capture apparently increases the voracity upon which they will fight to get a taste of the hunted flesh" <Julia >

"Gross, but if that's the case, this become a true fight for our lives, though if that's the case what I'm about to do you need to promise never to tell anyone about" <Satou >

"If I get out of this alive I'll promise you anything" <Julia >

Moving to place her down on the deck leaning up against the wooden shacks walls, I took up position standing alone in front of the army before me.

"Kurama you protect Julia" <Satou >

'Whoosh'

A slight breeze of wind passed by, before Kurama appeared suddenly sitting on the seated lap of Julia.

"Alright let's get this battle started"

[Summon: Beasts F]

In an instant the wolf pack emerged before me and dove into the army of Gnolls currently charging towards us. Being taken by surprise every Gnoll attacked by my wolf pack fell to the ground taking a Fatal blow from the first bite as each wolf aimed for the neck. As they continued to rampage the Gnolls took positions to flank the wolf pack, but each time a wolf was killed I quickly summoned a new one to take it's place, after a ¼ of the Gnolls had fallen dead into the field, I felt a rush of power welling inside of me which prompted me to cast additional summoning, which further increased my number of wolves.

"Well not surprising given the number of adversaries, but it increases our odds to have more numbers on our side"

The seemingly endless fight continued as wolves scattered into blue particles of dispersing mana, before being resummoned, and the number of Gnoll corpses grew. When their numbers had dropped to half two things happened one in our favor and the other working against us.

Bad news first a new army of Gnolls entered the clearing from the forest… reinforcements, or just the other half of their army I don't know but the timing sucks since we're already overwhelmed.

But on a good note I received a notification from my menu that my Summoning skill had leveled up, thanks to this the number of summons I could have out at once time increased yet again and best of all the summons I could create also increased.

Quickly I cast a dispel upon all the wolves I had currently fighting out in the field.

Taking up a confident stance before the newly reformed Gnoll army.

"Had enough yet or are you ready for round two?" <Satou >

"do you have a death wish" <Julia >

"Him… Yes" <Kurama >

Hearing a whispered conversation behind me I quickly glanced behind to see the still seated Julia hugging and petting Kurama for emotional support while a bloodbath took place before her eyes.

'Garrragh Garrrrooooooo'

At the head of the reformed Gnoll army stood a slight large Gnoll than the others, the commander or general…. King perhaps? His warcry causing all the other Gnolls to follow suite before they all looked to be in a frenzy waiting to charge at the helpless humans before them

"I tried to warn you, but now you shall become the prey" <Satou >

[Summon: Beasts E]

Large blue magic circles emitted from the ground in front of me out of which lept massive black wolves, Dire Wolves to be precise. Twice the size of a regular wolf with jaws that reportedly in fantasy could crush steel plate armor in their grip.

Were I to be on the enemies side and I saw 10 of these wolves leaping out of the ground bearing fangs and flying towards me I would hold no hesitant thoughts to cast aside my weapon and run for the hills.

These newly summoned wolves were a clear cut above the previous rank F beasts I'd summoned before and not just due to their size. The number of Gnolls was falling faster as claw and fang rended flesh from bone. Blood casting arcs across the sky forming blackish puddles in which endless ripples flowed with each new body that fell into them.

Even when a Gnoll got lucky enough to throw a blow towards an exposed direwolf the weapon would shatter upon impact, just like the myths of earth said a dire wolf was the ultimate wolf short of a god like being such as a Fenrir their fur like armor, and their teeth and claws razor sharp.

As I stood there watching over my army of beasts tearing apart the foolish monster army that stood to oppose me. I was both impressed by the strength of my summons, and equally awestruck… afterall this is only a Rank E summon from what I know my skill could increase all the way to S if I keep ranking up in the summoner vein, once I reach S I wouldn't doubt the chance at being able to summon an army of dragons which could make me a world altering entity on par with the 'real' summoned heroes.

Only a few moments passed since the introduction of the dire wolves, and though the field was now littered with the torn apart corpses of many gnolls not once did I have to re-summon a single dire wolf.

The pack approached by lining up in two rows of five before bowing their heads and bodies in a fashion towards me.

"Thank you all for your efforts in this battle"

[Summon Dispell]

'Whoosshh'

All ten Dire wolves faded away into particles of light as I canceled the summoning.

[Phew thank goodness that's over with, now since I have a moment I should check out what else changed since Summoning leveled up to 3]

Since I now had a higher skill rank I wanted to know everything about it, meanwhile behind me Julia was far to preoccupied in her cuddle therapy to realize that the battle had finished.

[Hmm so not t much changed, just like every time I reach a 10 level milestone my number of summons increased so now I'm limited to 11 (10 others since I still have Kurama summoned all the time) and on top of that each summoning tier increased so I can now summon rank E beasts, and Insects, Rank F birds, and a new tier of summon called Grass at rank G… Well Beasts are Damage dealers, Birds are scouts, Insects are Supporters, so I would guess Grass is some form of Healer? But only one way to find out]

[Summon: Grass G]

A small blue circle formed with a small patch of grass rising up before the circle disappeared

"ummm… what really…" <Satou >

Staring down in disbelief, since I just wasted mana on a useless summoning to create a small tuft of grass concentrating all of my focus on the patch of grass a readout finally displayed.

The creature I had summoned is called Walking Grass, though it just looked like a tuft of grass at first when I gave it a command to move, it sprang up and 'walked' along the ground to the indicated spot.

Since my summons are quite a bit different from the monster book summons I don't get any information as to what they can do or how strong they are so it's left to experimentation to find out all their tricks.

"Um let's see wandering grass please show me what you can do, use your special power" <Satou >

Upon my command the grass once again sprung up by rather than doing something like cast magic or perform an attack it just walked behind me towards the still seated Julia, before wrapping itself around her broken leg almost becoming a splint, in that moment I could feel the invisible connection I had with my summon breaking, and even when I focused on the now wrapped grass on her leg the Read out no longer displayed Walking Grass.

"So it's probably a healer type summon then, but being Rank G it's a one off?" <Satou >

'GRRRRRAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!'

The silent experimentation was broken by the earsplitting cry resounding across the corpse filled bloody clearing.

Turning round to look at where the sound had come from, there before me stood a Gnoll who was twice the size of all the other's who had come at us so far, atop his head was a hair band with various claws and large fangs pointing outwards. The readout informed me that this newly arrived monster was a Gnoll King, most certainly the true leader of the Gnoll forces who had come to this place, next to the king was a small squad of what I would guess is the Elite royal guard whose purpose is to protect the king.

"This one could be tricky…" <Satou >

Staring out across the battle field their side visibly seething in rage, and anger. While on our side Julia was lost in her own little pink space still to engrossed in Kurama's Fluffiness to realize what was going on around her, I on the other hand was now contemplating how to deal with this situation, the Gnolls on their own were comparable to F rank beasts, so I could assume the Elite unit would be a cut above at E or even D rank, but the King was the real problem for all I knew that thing could be an A rank. If that was the case no amount of endless low level summoning would do anything against it.

"Well guess we just need to test the waters and see where we stand" <Satou >

[Summon: Beasts E]

Calling forth my dire wolf pack the numbers were in our favor since it was 10 against 6 but upon seeing my Dire Wolves appear the other side hardly moved, the King just made a small movement and the Elite unit moved ahead calmly brandishing their weapons.

"Work as a team, since we're not outnumbered this time I would be using 'Regeneration' on you so use that to your advantage

'Woof'

The pack leader gave a quick reply before the entire pack set off at a running pace towards the oncoming Gnoll forces. Breaking into three groups of 3, 3, and 4 our opposing 'armies' set out tearing into one another, the wolves worked in perfect harmony not dealing lethal blows but causing cut after cut, wound after wound on the Elites. Meanwhile our side was not without casualty as the Gnolls crude weapons did hit almost every time they were swung but rather than causing injury or hindering the Dire Wolves the wounds healed instantly thanks to the power of Summoning which allowed the summoning to be restored to full health at the cost of the Summoners Mana being drained the appropriate amount.

Each time a wolf was hit I could feel the strain in my mind, as if I was accumulating mental fatigue from having worked overnight without rest, the strain wasn't unbearable since In my work life on earth I had on more than one occasion worked upwards of 72 hours straight. But with this strategy even outmatched as we were with the Elites being stronger than the dire wolves the 'immortality' of the wolves worked to allow the death of a thousand tiny cuts to finish off the Gnoll elites.

With the falling of the Elites I quickly dispelled the wolf pack, since our next enemy would be the king and even 10 on 1 I knew that I would long run out of Mana before the king would be taken down by weaker ranked monsters like my Dire Wolves.

The king gnoll advanced into the field his eyes having become red, taking on the appearance of a berserker who had lost all sense of reason and intelligence. Gripping the handles of a massive blade slung on his back before pulling it out. This was a Bastard sword roughly five feet long and almost a full foot in width. The strength required to move with a blade of that size let alone fight with would be absolutely insane, but this Gnoll king was doing just that and with one hand.

"Let's see the best plan of attack for this would be…" <Satou >

[Summon: Creed, Rocky, Hoogan, Gojira]

[Summon: Insects E]

My chosen army a mixture of my Named Monsters, and Magical summoning appeared before me, Creed and Rocky to serve as the tanks with their high defense and endurance, Hoogan to be the field commander and being the highest ranked he also stood the best chance of going toe to toe with the king, and lastly Gojira the lizard who could swap places with our tanks being a mobile fortress in a sense. The Insects that got summoned this time were small when compared to the Dire Wolves but were quite large when thinking of insects themselves.

<War Mantis> A Rank E insectoid monster only as big as a human baby but the scythes at the front numbered four and the blades themselves were shiny as if they were a natural form of metal weapon.

I had only summoned the rank G insect before so this summoning was a chance but since the insect types were a damage dealing high agility type I chose them since they could do hit and run attacks with the best chance of not getting hit in the fight to come, I could've chosen the Bird summoning to have a two front attack from both land and air but the only known thing about the bird summons was their high speed, but not really much on the front of attacking power.

Deciding that even with the forces I had arrayed before us was not going to be enough I also withdrew the remainder of my equipment taking my sword, wand, and staff out. Now fully kitted as the summoner leading the army of monsters before the king. I strode forward taking up my position atop Gojira giving me a higher vantage point from where I could cast my magic and get a better overview of the battle as it progressed.

"I'd like to have Kurama help with us here but she's still a bit preoccupied at the moment, so we'll just have to survive on our own here" <Satou >

With that say so I raised my staff to signal the start of battle, as my line quickly rushed out towards the King, I on the other hand remained standing where I was working the menu with my mind to quickly being casting my own magic. Since this would be a close quarters fight I had to refrain from using any area of affect spells like fire magic, and my daily magic wouldn't do any real harm so all I was left with was my Shadow style curse magic.

Quickly casting every debuff spell that I could in rapid succession the interface applied answers to whether or not they had been successful or instead were resisted by the enemy.

Luckily though, three of my debuffs managed to hit. <Slow >, <Blindness >, and <Curse of Infected Wounds> out of all the spells I had cast these three succeeded but they were also the most effective ones to have possibly worked as well.

<Slow > was a curse to cause the enemies agility to drop by 20% making all of their movements that much slower than usual.

<Blindness > wasn't really total blindness at this level it was more like going from 20/20 vision to 20/200 vision with absolutely everything you look at becoming a messy blurry smudge.

<Curse of Infected Wounds> was the most potent curse I could cast at my level, this curse causes any and all wounds made to the target to become infected with a Level1 infection, as the number of wounds increase the infection would get worse and spread, at first there would be no noticeable difference but as wounds stacked up the targets movement would deteriorate as paralysis set in, each blow would carry additional damage due to the effects of the infect tissue having a lower constitution than healthy flesh. The only real drawback to using this style of curse would be that you wouldn't be able to harvest the infect flesh once the battle was over even if you cast remove curse, or purification.

With my mana having been drained considerably thanks to the casting of my debuff spells the reserves that I had left would be enough for me to use one or two attack spells, or allow for some minor healing to my summons, so at this point short of joining in for from close quarters combat my effectiveness had come to and end, so I quickly returned my staff to my inventory before sitting back and watching the battle begin to unfold.

The battle was one sided and not even in our favor, even with the restriction of its vision, movement and added damage compounding from my curses the Gnoll king still swung his bastard sword with reckless abandon, the War Mantis's were deft enough to dodge the blows, but both Rocky and Creed had no choice but to take the blows head on fissures, and cracks running the length of their bodies worse so than even the fight against the dungeon master minotaur we'd fought previously.

The only one among my summons who wasn't being pushed back was Hoogan the Goblin Paladin but if this was a 1v1 fight he would surely lose, his even fight now was only due to the disadvantageous position our teamwork put the Gnoll king into.

The fighting progress with our forces taking hit after hit, as we traded blows with the Gnoll king in almost no time at all the War Mantis's I had summoned were gone, Gojira had joined the fray as I now stood alone as the rearguard

'Booom'

The black stone golem creed was shot back past me like a cannonball before tumbling to the ground, after ceasing his momentum the hulking stone form did not move any further. Choosing to be safer rather than sorry I dispelled the stone golem before 'death' could set in allowing it to recover in the monster book

The fighting continued on but our frontline was now collapsing rather quickly after losing Creed, Rocky was dispelled soon after, and with the reduction of numbers I was forced to take to the field of battle alongside my summons. In one hand was my wand incase I decided to cast my remaining spells, and in the other was the demonic blade I'd acquired as a reward for clearing the dungeon.

Fighting shoulder to shoulder with Hogaan I got the idea that I was on par with an Epic class enemy but that being said I hadn't figured out just what this meant since all my monster summons varied greatly since Kurama who was only an Uncommon summoning was on par with me as well, if not possibly even better than me when it came to fighting.

But even with this without our other companions beside us two epic grades were nothing when compared to the Gnoll king we were fighting against now.

So while Hogaan continued to fight up front matching the kings blade with his own shield and sword, I on the other hand tried to perform like an assassin deftly moving around slashing as much as I could with my black blade.

'Slaash'

'Graaaaaah'

Hoogan was dealt a slashing blow across the chest massive torrents of blood flowed out of the gash, in haste I dispelled him along with Gojira meaning I now stood alone against the weakened and injured Gnoll king.

The only way I can win now is to really fight dirty, so using my superior speed I quickly go within the Gnoll king swing range of his massive sword before leaping up into the air, pointing my wand out mere inches away from his face

<Maximize Greater Fireball>

'Boom'

An explosion of fire was created after the massive fireball collided pointblank with the Gnoll kings face, if he wasn't blind before now he certainly was.

The explosion had propelled the midair me backwards but while the King stumbled around writhing in pain, I had kicked off the ground moving around to encircle the still distracted Gnoll king, as soon as I'd gotten to his back I raised my wand for the second time to use the last spell I would be able to use for now.

<Maximize Shadow Scythe>

A pitch black arcing blade that looked like it could cut through the very sky itself shot out, before slicing deeply into the back of both the kings thighs. Even this powerful slicing magic attack didn't succeed at fully amputating the kings limbs but I did manage to hinder his movement more so than ever before as he dropped down to his knees unable to remain standing any longer. The wounds I'd created would further progress the curse infecting his surrounding tissue.

But the biggest problem now wasn't that the king was still alive, it was the unfortunate side affect that I as of yet had never encountered in my travels.

With my Mana all but depleted my consciousness began to fade as it felt like I was teetering on the edge of passing out. But with all my will I fought back the oncoming darkness placing my wand back on my waist and reclutching the sword in my main hand.

'RROOAARR'

The Gnoll king had spun itself around now facing me unable to stand any longer the king was forced to fight it's foe while on it's hands and knees, now unable to fight properly with its massive sword the ensuing fight was one between my sluggish self and the wild swings of the blinded kings arms as it franticly swiped in an attempt to hit or better yet capture me. Each time it's arms swung I would also swing my own sword while doing my best to maintain distance since to be caught would mean my death.

But try as hard as I could this king was not one who would go down with a death of a thousand tiny cuts, even bleeding out as much as it had in this prolonged fight it still had the strength and will to go on.

And then

'Wham'

As I dodged one oncoming arm I failed to see the second one coming and was hit, but it didn't stop there as I started to fly back from the impact my momentum was halted and I could feel a great amount of pressure squeezing the entirety of my body.

As I forced my eyes open trying my best to endure the pain what I saw was like a death sentence to me. The Gnoll kings handwas firmly grasped against my body, I was fully unable to move, and the only good thing about this situation was that my blade didn't snap but instead hand pierced all the way though the hand, but without being able to move it further this was to be my end.

Closing my eyes as I had to except my fate, I challenged an enemy I couldn't win against and lost… with that resolution my consciousness faded and death took me as I was crushed to death.

…

Or that's how it should have been but what happened next surprised me, as my eyes opened and I saw the cool green sky with clouds wheeling over head, the cool breeze running across my face.

Looking left I saw the body of the Gnoll King without a head, so I chose instead to look right and what I saw was the kneeling form of Kurama her eyes closed and hands clasped together in what looked like prayer.

Not saying a word I quickly opened my menu and checked my status, the condition it showed was rather ghastly, my health was the lowest I'd ever seen it before, and the status ailments section was filled with reported, broken bones, and fractures. Though since I had managed to 'rest' my mana had managed to recover significantly, but without being able to move my hands even if I could call out a health potion I would be unable to use it without disrupting Kurama's heartfelt prayers so instead, I decided I'd play along a little choosing instead to summon.

[Summon: Grass G]

In a flash many tufts of grass appeared before quickly jumping to action and wrapping themselves my shattered limbs. As I felt the connection with the summons disappearing I could also feel a rush of warmth flowing through my body, and while still watching my condition in the menu, my health points were steadily rising and the ailments section was also being cleared away.

[Not the experiment I'd choose to run but good to know I can heal broken bones and fractures, or maybe that's just a direct result of my health points going up?]

Once my self treatment had been completed I slowly stirred starting to move each of my limbs checking for irregularities seeing as how I had been a relative quadriplegic only to be mended by walking grass, as I shifted around I felt the grass releasing and falling away from my body.

Looking over I saw Kurama had sensed my movement and ceased her prayers before opening her eyes only to immediately dive into my face afterwards.

Unable to do much else I accepted the assault of my person and hugged her flailing form with one arm while petting her head with my other. Getting up to a sitting position while doing this.

Looking out across the bloodstained battlefield. From the clock in my menu I could tell the time but to think I'd passed out for four hours. If we didn't hurry we wouldn't be allowed back into the village without sneaking over the wall. Thinking of this my eyes settled on the fishermans shack remembering that there should be a third member of the party right now. What I saw was the sleeping form of a young lady still propped up against the wall.

[Well maybe the walking grass can't cure others broken bones? Or maybe Kurama put her to sleep somehow so she could take down the Gnoll king?] <Satou >

Foribly pulling the still clinging Kurama from my body I held her to my side with one arm while making the way to my feet using the other. Once I was standing her flailing began again in and attempt to escape my grasp which I relented dropping her down to the ground.

"So this was your doing then?" <Satou >

"The best" <Kurama >

Striking a victory pose after running around to stand before the defeated Gnoll king decapitated body

"Certainly the best, to think all of us failed when you succeeded, next time a strong boss like this appears we should leave it to you to fight alone?" <Satou >

"Uwah! No Fair!" <Kurama >

"Hahaha no need to worry I'm just teasing of course we'll all help out" <Satou >

Patting her head a couple times after approaching her sulking self.

"So about the young lady, she's going to be alright yeah?" <Satou >

"Mhm, sleep only" <Kurama >

"I see, well can you wake her up? We'll need to have her be awake before we can start heading back to town afterall" <Satou >

"MKay" <Kurama >

With that she headed off running towards the still sleeping young miss meanwhile I did a tour around the battlefield searching for anything of note that that I could scavenge or even recover from the many gnolls.

At the same time I chose to summon my Goron pair since my golems were still recovering, who proceeded to dig a mass grave we could put all the gnoll bodies into.

As our cleanup work progressed Julia came slowly limping towards us.

[Right her ankle is still broken] <Satou >

Watching as she slowly made her way across the slightly cleared battlefield Kurama walking beside offering modest amount of support in case she were to slip on the bloody grass and fall.

Deciding it was in my best interest not to start, and continue to cleanup, without fully healing her wounds the broken leg could be explained away as having been muscle damage or a dislocation but her ankle was a total break so to fix it would be to expose my healing capabilities.

Once they were close by I halted my work as a question was posed to me by but I didn't really hear it.

So I just looked at them tilting my head in confusion.

"Are you really going to just toss that away?" <Julia >

"Huh well yeah I was planning to I mean not really sure what I should take from any of these corpses" <Satou >

"Oh well if that's the case do you mind if I point out some parts I'd want to keep?" <Julia >

"I don't mind I guess I was just going to toss it anyway so what you guide me and I'll extract what you want" <Satou >

"Wait really just like that?" <Julia >

"Why were you joking? Tell me what you want and well package it up, oh and I saw your staff before was broken so I found a similar one among the hoard I recovered from the gnolls and since I don't need it you're welcome to have it" <Satou >

"Wah Wha What!" <Julia >

Having been overwhelmed she fell down to her knees, Kurama got fussy checking all over to see the reason as to why she collapsed.

After a couple moments passed she managed to collect herself only to see my still waiting form standing before the Gnoll kings corpse holding my carving knife waiting to dissect the body as per her instructions.

"Well if you're serious, can you get the internal organs, aside from the intestines, and stomach." <Julia >

Before she had even finished her sentence the organ's she'd requested were all already extracted and placed into sealed earthenware jars laid before her.

"Anything else?" <Satou >

'Blink blink'

"Alright well if not then, Hup" <Satou >

With that and a twist of my body the entire remaining gnoll kings corpse went flying before landing atop the pile of gnoll bodies that were piled up in the mass grave the Goron's dug. With that the last of the bodys were dropped in before we covered them up with the remaining dirt, the excess that couldn't be placed became the reward 'lunch' for the Goron's hardwork.

The cleanup having been completed, well aside from the sea of blood still coating the grass I made my way back to the still kneeling Julia

"Aren't you going to store them?" <Satou >

"How would I do that?" <Julia >

"Oh sorry do you not have an Item box?" <Satou >

"Nope I've got 0 affinity for null magic so I can't use even a little bit of space magic" <Julia >

"Oh I see, do you mind if I store it for you till we get back to the village then? The same would be for your staff as well?" <Satou >

"No no no, not at all" <Julia >

So with that the last of the cleanup was completed as I placed her chosen rewards into my inventory before dispelling the Goron's.

"Well as late as it is now, we'll need to move at speed to make it back before nightfall, are you able to ride?" <Satou >

"Uh ride? You mean like a horse?" <Julia >

"Something like that…" <Satou >

"Well I should be fine, as long as I don't have to walk since It'll be slow going with my ankle being like this" <Julia >

"Ok well just as a warning don't get scared" <Satou >

Turning round and raising a hand this time I verbalized my casting

[Summon: Beasts F, E]

Three blue magic circles appeared before me whereupon two black dire wolves and a dark grey normal wolf rose from the ground.

"Uwaaaa" <Julia >

A light scream erupted from her mouth before she covered it with her hands. Kurama meanwhile knew my intent and ran right up to the regular wolf beginning to pet its head and body before jumping briskly up onto it's back.

I on the other hand called forth one of the dire wolves who strode up next to me, as I reached out a hand offering assistance to the grounded Julia. She took my hand without a word and with that I brought her to her feet before also lending a hand to get her seated atop the wolf who had lain down to offer an easier time for her to mount it.

Lastly I approached and mounted the final dire wolf before the three of us mounted wolf riders set out heading West into the forest cutting a path on our way back to the village.

"So I wanted to ask, did your party just run away leaving you behind to the mercy of those monsters?" <Satou >

"N.. No I came out here alone… I left that party behind" <Julia >

"Oh I see, well that's good I guess better than them just leaving you behind to die, but care to explain why you chose to leave the party behind? I mean It is dangerous to go solo after all" <Satou >

"I don't mind, I mean consider it my payment for the Gnoll King parts you gave me in the end." <Julia >

"Sure I guess that works but I don't need payment for those" <Satou >

Choosing not to argue and just accept the situation. And so Julia started to recount her reason for leaving the party behind and venturing into the dangerous Eastern Woods alone as the wolf trio continued to carry us on through the woods.

It mostly ended when her party returned to the village the other day with the Seeker birds corpse in tow as per their guild request demanded, but the party leader agreed to a reduction in the reward due to the condition of the monsters body, and then further to the point gave more than half of the reward to the girl he was dating in the party before dividing up the remaining reward between the rest of the party in the end what should have been an even split for a rather high reward turned into a mere pittance, and the leaders reasoning behind the split was due to the girls family needing money in order to keep their bakery open, a totally selfish reason to steal someone else's hard earned money on terms that had already previously been agreed upon. In the end she was fed up and threw the tiny amount earned from the quest into the party leaders face before storming off.

Additionally since the party leader had previously agreed to the fact that although the quest was completed it was also failed since the quality had been less than promised as a direct result the guild had penalized the group by marking the successful quest as a failure resulting in her own guild ranking declining, she was a C-Ranked adventurer but thanks to her parties ineptitude she had become a D-rank now, so she'd decided to head out to the eastern forest to hunt and regain her C-rank status as soon as possible.

That's when she ran into the Gnoll's who managed to exhaust her mana supply before shattering her staff, and then capturing her. Crying out for all she could since Gnolls are known carnivores who have been known to eat their prey when their still alive, sadistic creatures who reveal in the suffering of others.

By the time she'd regaled me of her last couple day's worth of exploits the wolves had cleared the tree line and were increasing in speed rocketing towards the village.

When we'd arrived the guard on duty confessed he nearly died from shock thinking the stampede had somehow managed to evade the vanguard forces heading straight for the village, but was thrilled to learn that these were tamed beasts in the end. Our makeshift party separated at the gate, and I dispelled the wolves, before Kurama, and I took our leave and headed home.