Masters

Chapter 13

The air was a perfect balance of cool and humid, full of the pleasant earthy scent of decaying plant matter. The various sounds of the swamp filled the air with reptiles sending out their repeated calls, birds crying high in the mangroves, and bugs that came and went. "Are you sure you don't want to use the bait?" "Yes, I'm sure! How many times do I have to tell you, monsters and people are one thing, but to me animals are another!" Alzolami's eyes flashed with anger as Yohan nervously shifted his gaze away. You wouldn't think someone like her would find the act of harming bugs and frogs so uncomfortable.

On the second day of the Master game competition preliminaries, a team of sixty had challenged them to a game that heavily favored numbers and they ended up losing all six of their medals. Their only consolidation was that the opposing team had lost all of theirs a week after. Apparently, some of the senior students called it swarming and was it notorious for never ensuring a path to the finals. Yohan had suggested that they could get some intelligence by spectating the finals, but Alzolami refuted this idea saying she's watched almost ten of them and couldn't come up with anything to give her an advantage.

Alzolami's HCs were about eight thousand seven hundred. They were low relative to the time she spent in Helgram because she preferred to take the high risk, high reward approach of utilizing predatory tactics with Master games. Thankfully, Nick and Yohan had convinced her to abandon that tactic.

Currently, they were on the third day of an eight hundred each HC contract to the swampy wetland dimension of Kudrougul. The contract stipulated that they spend a week culling the recent population explosion of an F rank fish beast called a shear gar. They look like ordinary gar, but had very long jaws capable of tearing flesh.

The people of Kudrogul supported themselves by fishing and gathering water plants, shellfish, and other resources that dwell within the swamps, often sending out harvesting parties guarded by a heavily armed militia capable of taking down larger individual monsters. Most small, low-ranked monster species won't attack large groups of mortals unless they have a numbers advantage, which the shear gars currently have. The general tactic for breaking swarms was to send in a small highly capable force to take out large groups of monsters in single strikes, which is why they called on the Master's Academy.

"They said that they like to lurk in groups of ten or more in open water clearings, this one seems like a dud. Should we ship out when Nick gets back?" "We could be waiting a while since he got that underwater breathing Power from the captured gar that they let him kill" "I'll stay here so we can leave soon after." "You know, just because you're the only one that can drive this thing doesn't mean you can spend all of your time at the helm, which just so happens to be the safest place on the boat. Besides, I thought faemen were dangerously allergic to metal?" "I'm only half faeman, so it only itches instead of burns. And I can cover my hands in Aura so I don't make direct contact."

Their employers had provided one of their most monster-resistant boats and their best fishing equipment. The boat itself was about fifteen feet long and six feet wide. Attached in various places across the boat were dispensers for small floating cluster mines to dispatch monsters attacking in swarms, spring-loaded spikes on the bottom of the boat to deter anything that would attach and attempt to compromise the hull's integrity, and a launcher affixed to the front for harpoons that could burrow into the bodies of anything they hit to impale their vital organs. The boat itself was about sixteen feet long and nine feet wide. A metal cage open toward the front surrounded the helm. It had tank tread-like paddles that can shred through most vegetation that clogs normal boats and could even function semi-amphibiously in low water levels. Emblazoned on both sides of the front were the words The Aquinator.

Suddenly, to the side of Alzolami's line in the greenish, murky water came up a series of large bubbles that stopped for a moment and repeated two more times. She turned back to Yohan. "I got the signal, he's coming up." Suddenly, some splashing noises came from Nick emerging from the surface. He smiled after blinking the water out of his eyes and said "Can I have a hand?" Alzolami's eyes glinted playfully. "How about you grab the line and I yank you out?" "I'd rather not be filled with holes by all those big barbed hooks woven into the length. I might sink!" Alzolami chuckled, put the rod in its slot, and stretched out her arm into the water. She felt Nick put one foot on her enlarged, cupped hand as he grabbed her stretched arm and started pulling him up. He grabbed the edge of the boat when he was a head over and managed to hoist himself over the rest of the way.