11 Ch. 10- Auction Revenge (1/2)

Today I plan on testing my new augmented abilities from Jareth's evolution now that I have a proper weapon to fight monsters with. I have a quick breakfast of cereal with my summons eating with me at the table. Jareth is sitting up properly in his chair across from me and continues to eat daintily which makes for a hilarious sight considering his type of monster is known for being brutes.

Brutus sits on his hind legs in the chair diagonal from me and quickly demolishes his core. Emett took more coaxing to get onto the chair next to me due to his weight and low intelligence, but once I got him up on there, he seemed content to remain and just sat quietly while dissolving the core I placed next to him.

What an odd sight we must have made, and I'm sure Mira would have teased me incessantly about it, but it felt nice to eat like a family once more. I'd almost forgot what it was like, with no one but Mira to eat wit.

Even then, she was gone frequently due to being busy with her work and experiments. After we had all finished our impromptu meal I sent a quick text to Mira letting her know I would be gone hunting for most of the day and then set off to the gate.

Brutus continued to get bigger, to the point he was nearly as large as me and likely much stronger as well. Seeing as he was large enough to ride by now I decided to try and ride him as a mount into the center of the city.

He seemed to have no problem with the arrangement and after I unsummoned Emett and Jareth we took off down the street heading for the town square. Buildings rushed by in a blur of tan and brown bricks as Brutus raced down the path until a short 20 minutes later we made it to the open area in the middle of town.

I brought Brutus back to my storage and silently slid into line amongst all the other summoners going through the gate. No one seemed shocked at having a large wolf in town as it was a common sight, especially amongst the stronger summoners.

There seemed to be someone gazing at me as I felt a tingling on the back of my neck, but I couldn't pinpoint any one person so I shrugged it off and continued on through the gate after scanning in.

I began my endeavor out in the outer edge of the forest to start off fighting some weaker monsters for a warmup. I had Brutus summoned out on standby in case he needed to intervene and save me. I was kitted out in full tier 2 armor minus headgear, I had my bandolier strapped on my chest and my sword at my hip ready to draw at any moment.

I loved my new sword, it was shaped to cleave just about anything and had a bright green sheen to it that seemed especially sturdy. Despite the price I had to pay for it, it should last me for quite some time as it was a tier 3 weapon which I've only just started to have Jareth hunt.

It seemed that not only did I receive a stat boost, but I also gained a basic understanding of one-handed weapons as a result of Jareth's experience and him being a humanoid monster allowed this ability to pass on to me.

I started with a tier 1 armored ant, it had red plate-like chitin armor surrounding its' entire body and had large piercing mandible, it honestly looked like a miniature tank than an insect.

It started off by lunging towards me with its' pincers set to crush my midsection, but I sidestepped the ant and its mandibles and swept downward with my sword from above and sliced right through its neck, decapitating it with the ease of passing a hot knife through butter.

My increased strength, the low ability level of the ant, and the great advantage of a tier 3 sword on a tier 1 monster allowed me to easily decapitate it as if it was a chicken with its' neck outstretched for me to cut off.

The sword felt natural to me, not only from the inherent skill passed on from Jareth to me but from my weapon classes at the academy where we learned basic sword movements and lightly sparred against each other. The difference in ability with the sword before and after Jareth's evolution was quite clear.

I never would have been able to accurately aim and maneuver the sword in such a way to pass through a gap in the ant's armor and chop off its' head with my previous beginner ability with the sword. Brutus had nothing to do and sat to the side of the clearing waiting for me to finish up collecting the ant body before moving onto our next target.

After walking further into the woods Brutus detects the tusk markings and smell of a boar, so we track it a little ways from where we initially saw signs of its' presence. We came across it a short while later and like last time, I had Brutus take a seat to the side as I face off against a tier 1 giant boar.

This was a harder fight, as the boar was much larger than the ant and faster as well, this speed forced me to avoid and dodge its' charges every time it would come near. If the ant was an armored tank, then the boar was a fighter jet prepared to gore anything unlucky enough to cross its' path.

Eventually, I got a lucky break and managed to nick an artery in the boar's neck after a particularly reckless charge, it seems to have underestimated me to its' detriment. My strategy after having made a deep wound on its' neck was to keep my distance and let the boar bleed out.

I knew cornered monsters and animals are the most dangerous, so I gave myself plenty of room to avoid an attack while also keeping it engaged to prevent it from running off and healing itself. After about 2 minutes of blood pouring from the wound, the boar began to stumble as a result of blood loss.

I knew the time was right for me to finish it off. Its' knees buckled and I darted in to swipe my blade the rest of the way across its' neck while avoiding its' sharp tusks. Despite the energy exerted fighting both monsters I felt surprising spry and decided that I at least had a decent grasp of my sword now and could move on to actual hunting with my summons.

I flicked the blood off of my blade and resheathed it at my side and then summoned out Emett to join Brutus in today's hunting. I would bring out Jareth as well, but I still have trouble with summoning 3 summons for any long period of time, plus it would be overkill to have him fight weaker monsters when I was trying to gauge Emett's ability level.

From what I could see, Emett has low capabilities right now and can only physically attack or shoot out rocks at enemies, so I have him acting as a ranged attacker while Brutus keeps the monsters' attention and does damage to it. They managed to bring down 5 monsters in an hour with Emett dealing the final blows to them to allow for him to evolve sooner and get a better grasp of his attacks.

After doing this for a while and slaying a few monsters with little difficulty I decide not to waste any more time in the weaker area, and so our group moved over to the tier 2 area and began to hunt after Emett is switched out for Jareth.

We go through 3 pairs of monsters with minimal intervention from me before taking a quick break with Brutus getting a dark hound core and Jareth the core of a hobgoblin I had previously bought. As we get up after finishing our meal and plan to hunt once again we are attacked without warning by two summons that seems to have come out of nowhere.

I would have been dead if it wasn't for the warning provided by Brutus due to him smelling the scent of a dark hound like of the core he had just eaten when a gust of wind blew by alerting him to their presence. Luckily his warning came through in time and I was already prepared to launch into action and dodge their initial charge.

As I sense the summons beginning their attack I immediately bring out the steel turtle shield from my storage and equip it to my left arm just in time to fend off an attack from a tier 2 dark hound while Jareth faces off against a tier 3 fire salamander.