Cut. Block. Slash. Bash. It was slow, dirty, messy work, and for someone like Bellona only slightly dangerous given the circumstances. It would be a different story if these monsters were more organized, if she was alone, or if they hadn’t already had a chance to cut down more of the pack.
They didn’t have the numbers or organization to overwhelm her and take her off her mount, or the strength to get through her armor readily. Her mount was also a well-trained warhorse, able to respond to her commands to turn and maneuver precisely; which in turn enabled her to protect him with her shield or her axe as needed. She needed enough space for this that she wasn’t in one of the tighter groups and was using her mobility to help the others and keep anyone from being overwhelmed.
The scouts had pulled back once they’d found the spawning ground and fallen in with the three teams Bellona had organized. There was nothing particularly unusual in the formations: an outer ring of people focused on defense, an inner ring with people armed with spears and the like, a center ring of people with ranged weapons, and a couple of people who had some minor spellcasting skill (which included a couple of the merchants who had volunteered for this hunt). There weren’t enough people to organize into formations that could relieve the outer rings, nor were they familiar enough with each other that they could have pulled it off anyway, but they more than sufficed to deal with the chaotic surges of overly aggressive and disorganized pack animals.
Bellona was glad that these monsters weren’t organized and coordinated the way a real wolf pack would be. While a wolf pack wouldn’t attack humans without a strong compulsion, they would be much more dangerous if they did, especially for her since she was not in a formation and was acting as a one-woman light cavalry.
It didn’t take too long to clear out the last of the adolescent monsters, which brought them down to finding the dens and digging out cubs. As long as they were careful this part had minimal danger, but it wouldn’t be too hard to lose fingers if you weren’t careful. Bellona took the brunt of scooping cubs out and putting them into the various sacks and small crates that the hunting party had brought along, since her gauntlets were sufficient to keep her fingers intact. When that was done, it was time to gather the bodies and dispose of them, leaving the remains to burn after the hides had been quickly gathered.
The last of the afternoon and a good portion of the evening was spent getting the cubs settled into larger crates and figuring out how to best take care of them for the rest of the trip. While some of their cargo was already living creatures, a set of baby predators was not part of their accommodations.
They had picked up a few wounds along the way, and some people were going to take a couple of days to completely recover, but mundane and magical treatment had taken care of the worst of the problems.
Several days later they finally reached their destination. This was where she and the caravan parted ways, though she was delayed by an extra day filling out reports on the incident. After that, it was a couple more days on horseback to reach the final town on her route, which was where she left her steed. She left early in the morning for the rough mountain road, and by noon was standing at the start of the hard part of her journey. She sighed as she looked up the mountain, then started making her way along the switchback curves. According to her map and directions there at least would not be any actual climbs. Bellona was capable of climbing a short cliff in her armor, but it was a matter of using her strength and pitons, no graceful leaping for rocks on the other side of a crevice for her, and it was exhausting so she’d rather pass unless she had to do it.
While Moriko’s caravan continued to slowly make its way to the dungeon, Mordecai and Kazue had a couple more groups visit from the Azeria clan and Riverbridge. Both were starting to include people from further away and the gaps between visitors were shortening. At this rate, Mordecai was guessing they’d have people visiting almost daily within a couple of months. It was odd being so close to civilization and his entrance had been further up the mountainside too, so he’d not had groups visiting so often.
One of the groups from Azeria included Kazue’s mother, who had finished her preparations for handing off her garden and had brought the plants she had skipped last time. After Kazue’s enthusiastic greeting, she grinned up at her mom. “Guess what? You’re going to be staying a while, Moriko’s bringing back a special present for you. I can’t say he’s wrapped up in a bow though, I think it’d be hard for him to run a caravan that way.”
“I – what?” Akahana started to reply, trying to figure out her daughter’s cryptic hint. The bit about a caravan made it click into place. “Oh! She met Ricardo already? And she’s bringing him here? Excellent!” A heartbeat later “He tried to flirt with her didn’t he?”
“Hehe, yeah, that almost turned bad, he thought she was trying to scam him when she started to piece together that he was my dad. I didn’t realize he was so paranoid.”
“Well, he never had to be when visiting us dear,” Akahana replied, then smirked. “Besides, I was good at making him relax.”
Kazue made a face. “I don’t wanna know and insist on believing you are talking about making him an herbal tea.”
Mordecai decided that was a good time to intercede. “Since you will be staying for a while, why don’t you bring your cart inside and we’ll put it someplace safe until the caravan is here? And I’d like to show you what we’ve done with the place.” He delayed the adventuring group so that the three of them, four including Casey the cassowary, could get a head start before the fighting began.
Akahana was amused at some of the changes. “Making sure I can’t do a repeat performance I see.”
“In part, but it reminded me to ward against other specialists as well. I never ran into someone at your strength when my dungeon was this small, so by the time I had to deal with powerful casters I simply had more levels and stronger creatures at the bottom.”
The druid eyed the fungal floor in front of them. “A specialist would have a field day here though.”
“Perhaps, but only on a single floor, and there’s plenty of non-fungi about.”
“Well, show me what you got then. Also, the lighting is kind of evil, I like it.” Mordecai and Kazue escorted her through the floor and gave her a chance to explore for a while and meet both factions before they reached the boss room, where she got to meet both their mushroom boss and their slime. “Nice. Hmm, I think if I was cautious, and took my time between floors, I would still be able to solo it, if everything is running as normal. It would be tougher, but still possible, if you coordinated big attacks. It would become really dicey if I had to deal with everything at once in coordinated waves that gave me no downtime. Though I don’t know how much you would add to the equation.”
Mordecai didn’t feel particularly surprised. “In depth of power, I’m closer to a four-tail really, though my breadth of combat ability probably makes me about a five-tail in actual effectiveness in most circumstances; higher if I go all out against large numbers of opponents.” That was the problem with quality vs quantity, it took more and more quantity for each step of quality, and, if the gap is too large, you will never be able to apply the numbers to overcome raw power unless you can trap the individual in a situation that slowly exhausts them.
And then there are the creatures that don’t get tired or need food or sleep. Numbers will rarely help you there. And Mordecai’s avatar had a lot of endurance.
Akahana tapped her chin. “Honestly, still doable, but it would be a pain and not guaranteed in the least. And judging by the strength demonstrated, I’d say no later than your tenth floor it would be a suicide mission to try and run everything alone. It’s good to have a measure, I haven’t had a chance to delve into the southern dungeon, and the eastern one is even further away. Though from what I’ve heard the southern dungeon is harder to evaluate since it’s an environmental dungeon. Its tiers are supposed to be harder to identify.”
Kazue perked up with curiosity at that. “How’s an environmental dungeon different?”
Mordecai answered that question. “They are somewhat rare, even for a dungeon, but basically they have most or all of their ‘levels’ be the environment, roughly in rings with the strongest level in the center. They grow outward or upward with the new territory being the weakest, instead of the new territory being the strongest.”
“Oh, could we do that too? Grow out instead of down?”
“I – huh.” Mordecai considered the idea. “I don’t recall ever trying. I think I just assumed that it was different for them. And maybe I was just used to growing deeper because that was what I had always done. So… maybe? But I think we need those maps Moriko is bringing to even try it since we have a treaty now. We need to make sure to not take any of their territory.”
He frowned slightly in thought. “I can’t guide you in trying, since I’ve never done it and growing new floors is the one function that is entirely yours. I am not sure how it affects growing from there either. I can see some advantages, it would be nice to be able to make existing, experienced bosses stronger and it would be nice to have an outdoor area, but I don’t know what to do to make an exterior area a ‘complete’ level. So it will be a learning experience for both of us if we do that, but I am willing to give it a shot if you want to try.”
Honestly, growing ‘down’ was simply easier and part of him wanted to stick with what he knew worked, but he was also conscious of the fact that he could exert undue pressure on Kazue. This had to be her dungeon primarily, so they were going to do it the way she decided she wanted to do it.
This set Kazue off on ideas on what they could do with an outdoor area, and it became the primary topic for the rest of the trip down to their private chambers and well into the evening. Akahana got to enjoy the boat trip down the incomplete sixth level while her daughter spun through a growing list of ideas.