Ever since Jadis had used Eldritch Overlay to replace her Agility attribute with her Eldritch, she’d been running at what she could only describe as superhuman speeds. Her three bodies sprinted across open ground like horses, her heavy footfalls pounding the ground like hooves. The feeling was amazing, to move at a speed Jadis knew no human had any right to. With her agility only going up with time, her sprint was only growing faster, though Jadis had become accustomed to the speeds enough that she felt she had become mostly used to the sensation.
Sprinting in heavy armor changed the equation by a large margin.
Rather than a trio of horses, Jadis felt more like a train running with plate armor on. Her three giant bodies jogging in single file through the valleys between hills carried an unfamiliar momentum. The earth underfoot was torn up by her boots, the ground seeming to shake with every heavy step. Running wasn’t even the right word for how she moved anymore. She didn’t run. She fucking thundered.
Sabina’s reaction to being carried on Dys’ back had, fortunately, been one of exuberant delight. Maybe even a little too much exuberance.
“Woo!” the half-elf smith shouted with one fist held high overhead. “Yes! Yes! Run faster! Charge! Woo!”
Her innocent excitement at thundering over hills and through valleys was, while loud, also contagious. Jadis couldn’t help but let out a few shouts of her own as she ran.
It wasn’t all fun and games though. Jadis had suggested the trip out into the hills not just for the excitement, but also as a serious evaluation of her new armor and how it meshed with her capabilities. From what she had experienced so far, she had to admit that the weight of the plate mail was affecting her.
Her top speed was reduced. Not by a lot, but enough to notice. Further, she couldn’t change direction quite so easily. She had a lot more momentum with so much steel on her back, and even with supernatural strength she couldn’t completely ignore the laws of physics. Her stamina was draining faster, too. That aspect troubled her the most. It wouldn’t do her any good to get to battle real quick and then have no energy left to do the fighting.
Depending on how things worked out, Jadis might have to reconsider which passive skill she replicated from Thea. The former soldier’s The Long March skill was specifically designed to counter the effects of stamina drain caused by weapons and armor. Then again, she might end up getting her own skill offered to her that would help in future levels. She’d have to see how future levels worked out.
It didn’t take long at the speeds Jadis kept up before she and her companions had reached one of the demon tunnel entrances that had been staked out by the military. The cave entrance was perfectly round, like a titan had taken a whale-sized cookie cutter to the side of the hill. Inside were walls lined with smooth white webbing, the whole thing sloping downwards at a fairly steep angle.
A hastily constructed wood and rock fortification had been set up surrounding the tunnel entrance, not with the intent of closing the tunnel off, but with controlling any outbreak of demons that might come from below. The network of tunnels below was vast, as Jadis well knew from having been lost in them for days, and they were still in the process of being mapped out. Probably would be for months, if not years. But they needed to be explored so they could be cleared of their demonic infestation, otherwise the Spawn of Samleos would continue to pour their armies past all other defenses and right into the lap of Far Felsen.
Jadis slowed briefly as she passed the tunnel entrance, seeing what looked like a good two dozen mercenaries lined up outside the fortification gates. They weren’t the stationed guards on duty but were instead likely another exploratory expedition preparing to delve into the cave system. She didn’t envy them. The dark and cramped tunnels below had not been Jadis’ favorite environment to visit.
There was little to no chance of running into any demons at this entrance, so Jadis picked her pace back up and moved on. Breakouts weren’t common now that the Empire was actively hunting out demons in the depths, but they still happened. However, a company of mercenaries on top of the regular soldiers meant she’d have to seek her quarry elsewhere.
“Are your uncles back at the border fort?” Jay asked Aila.
“I don’t think so,” her girlfriend responded, shifting how she sat in Jay’s arms. “Gerwas said they would be on patrol last time I spoke to them. Out on the roads.”
“Well, maybe we’ll run into some others in Bernd’s Blades.”
Aila’s mercenary uncles had turned up hale and hearty some days after the demon’s surprise attack on the city. Bernd’s Blades, the mercenary company the two belonged to, had not been at the battle all, but instead had most of their forces fighting a smaller horde of demons that had besieged the three forts along the forest border that their company oversaw. Thanks to some quick thinking and conservative actions, their company had been one of the few that had survived the assault mostly intact, forts included. That meant, however, that they were now stretched thin as their manpower was diverted to cover not only the losses of the other mercenary companies, but also the needs of the new demonic threat.
Jadis hoped she’d get the chance to see Aila’s uncles again soon. She liked the constantly bickering Gerwas and Ludwas. She’d barely gotten the chance to speak to them, much less any of the other mercenaries she’d met when she’d first discovered civilization, and she at least wanted to thank the ones who had taken the time to verify the veracity of her claim of killing a Bone Thief Matriarch in the mountainside village.
With that motivation as good as any, Jadis turned towards where she knew one of the Bernd’s Blades controlled forts was located.
A couple of hours of travel later found the Fortune’s Favored approaching the damaged but still occupied fort. It looked much the same as the first time Jadis had seen the structure; a large ring of tall trees surrounding a watchtower in the middle. The fortification was situated on the top of a craggy overlook just on the edge of the forest, giving it a commanding view of the surrounding area. The only difference on the outside that Jadis could see was a twenty-foot section on the western side of the wall that had been broken down, though it was clearly in the midst of being rebuilt.
“D—do you see that?” Thea pointed to the east. The timid woman was forced to shout to be heard over the clank of Syd’s armor. “W—where are they g—going?”
A dozen soldiers armed with spears and shields were marching at a fast clip away from the fort. They didn’t seem like they were just one of the regular patrols that swept the area since instead of following the border roads or heading into the hills, they were marching into the forest. They were going off-road too from what Jadis could see.
“Probably a hunting team,” Aila advised. “If the scouts reported back a sighting of a large grouping of demons, whoever is in charge here probably ordered their extermination. Standard operating procedure for Bernd’s Blades.”
Having been a member for some six months, Jadis was sure Aila was well familiar with how the much larger mercenary company acted.
“Let’s follow them,” Jay announced, already changing course. “If they’re about to get into some action, then I want in.”
Catching up to the soldiers was easy enough, especially once they took note of Jadis’ approach. She wasn’t exactly subtle, being three giant women decked out in black plate armor and also carrying five more women with her.
“Hail!” a man in the lead called out as they drew up close. “What’s your business here, Nephilim?”
Jadis wasn’t surprised the man knew what she was. Any soldier stationed in Far Felsen had to have at least heard of her by that point, if not seen her during the battle or around the city after. While his question was blunt, his tone was friendly enough that Jadis assumed he wasn’t protesting her presence, just the interruption she presented.
“Hail!” Jay called back, taking a stab at the local vernacular. “We saw what looked like soldiers on the warpath and thought we’d offer our assistance! Need a hand slaying any demons?”
“Ha! You would offer that, wouldn’t you?” a familiar voice shouted back from the crowd of faceless, helmeted men.
It took Jadis a moment to place a name to the voice, but when she did, she lifted her visor and gave the blonde man a smile and a wave.
“Hey there Volker, find a tall woman who’ll fuck you yet?”
The question prompted a chorus of laughter and jeers from the group of men as well as a proud response from the merc who had once hit on both Jadis and Aila for fetishistic reasons.
“I’ll have you know I have!” He stamped the butt of his spear against the ground. “And she’s a far sight classier than a barbaric giant like yourself, whichever one you are!”
Jadis took the good-natured jibe with a grin and a wink.
“Well, introduce us sometime! Unless you’re scared we’ll charm her away from you.”
“Not a chance!” he waved dismissively. “She’s my sweet girl, through and through!”
“Shut up about your girl,” the first man commanded, ending the back-and-forth banter. “We’re on duty. As to your offer,” he turned his attention back to Jay. “I won’t deny backup would be welcome, but we’re not looking to share the profits on this venture.”
Jadis could understand that. Mercenaries were paid by the city for proof of every demon they slew. A hunt split twelve ways was already a lot. Adding her eight people on top of that would be a big negative in the eyes of mercs trying to make a profit.
“The bounty is all yours,” Jay nodded her head towards the man in charge. “We’re just here for some practice, not silver.”
“Practice, huh…” the man muttered, barely loud enough for Jadis to hear. A second later, he shook his head but waved her group forward. “Fine then! We accept! Follow us, we’ve got a heading.”
Setting her companions down, Jadis’ group fell in line behind the Bernd’s Blades mercs, moving at their much slower pace compared to what she was capable of. Jadis guessed that the dozen men all had a combined level rating in their thirties or forties. A higher level than most non-combatants, but also nothing special for soldiers during the active years of the demonic cycle. Compared to any one of her group, Jadis was sure the mercs were weaker overall since their classes were likely far more common and thus carried less benefits.
Volker fell to the back of his group as they marched onward, along with another man that Jadis quickly recognized as Specht, a taciturn merc that she had met previously as well. The two men, along with Gerwas and Ludwas, had helped her stave off a demonic ambush and slay the first grundwyrm she had ever seen.
“What’s the mission?” Aila asked after they had exchanged greetings. “What did the scouts spot?”
“Manticore,” Specht succinctly explained. “Big one.”
“Has to be possessed,” Volker elaborated. “Scouts reported between thirty and forty bramble fiends either riding on or crawling near the beast.”
“Where was it headed?” Kerr questioned the two soldiers. “Where and when was the last sighting?”
Volker shrugged his shoulders, his movements exaggerated as he replied.
“That’s the odd thing about it! It wasn’t headed towards the hills or the forts. It was headed back north for some reason. Last sighting had it heading northeast from the creek that’s about a mile from here.”
Jadis was no expert on demon behavior, but even she knew that sounded odd.
“If it’s that close it should be charging right at the fort or at least trying to find a way to sneak in or maybe stalk the woods around the fort looking for easy pickings but to be heading away is so weird unless there’s some other factor we don’t know about so it’s probably a good thing that we’re hunting it down now but that’s just my opinion and I know I don’t know much about these sorts of things but maybe I’m right since it’s what you’re all doing anyway.”
“Yes, thank you, Sabina. Good analysis,” Aila said dryly.
A manticore. Jadis mulled the information over as they all continued their march further into the Great Southern Forest. She knew what that creature was from Earth mythology but was surprised to find that it was apparently a real creature on Oros. Or maybe not all that surprised, considering there were plenty of other fantastical creatures and beings on Oros that were considered imaginary on her home planet. She did wonder how similar it was to what she pictured based on old Earth legends. Surely it wouldn’t actually have the face of a man, would it?
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