Mage And Wolf
Chapter 114

Chapter 114: Chapter 114

It is a short hop, the portal is almost inside the city, on the edge of an ocean front suburb. Just enough time to stow my robes and double check that my braids haven’t come loose. It’s been a while since I got to wear my leathers out on a trip, and the guys are suitably impressed.

"This explains why there’s so many monsters first thing in the morning. Dungeon reset." I say pointing at the portal on the water front.

Everyone shakes their heads in recognition of how great a blunder has been made.

A group has already cleared the entrance to this one today, or they all left, so we move on to the next location. It’s out in the dunes, south down the coast.

"That’s nearly as massive as the one dislodging giants was" Vinnie sounds a bit defeated.

"And there’s still plenty in the area, but manageable." I add. "You all know the drill. Kel’Mira is driving, I’ll take point. Oh, and here’s some radios The Guild dropped off before we left. Shout if there’s an issue."

The total outside the portal is about 15 huge Earth Elementals. At least they might not smell as bad as the fish people. Hui’Jin enchants the bullets with explosions though, so she’s at a disadvantage today, as are the lightning archers.

I dart straight ahead of the truck while Kel’Mira is getting buckled in, targeting the closest Elemental with the huge blade that once was a giant’s dagger.

They have no eyes, so I don’t bother to hide, making targeting easier for my allies, and leap up to plunge the sword into the center of its chest where the Poison Elementals core was in the dungeon back home.

No love. I have sliced a deep gouge out of the giant, but it’s unaffected. The truck must have topped the hill, as I hear the big gun bark and see explosions dance on the surface of a grassy looking elemental.

I try an energy infused kick to the giants head and it topples backwards in a cloud of dust. Again, they’re huge, but weaker than they look. Perhaps it’s a lingering effect of the world’s restriction, capping the monsters at category 3?

The kick had much more effect, leaving cracks all over the monster’s head and knocking chunks loose. I use the chance while it’s down to launch dozens more in rapid succession to its chest, dislodging the core and turning it to a pile of rubble.

"Core was somewhere in the chest" I report back, hoping it helps.

The grassy giant is in full flames now, even the rocks on its surface melting, so I grab a new target, one that looks to be solid white marble. We need some of these as Arcana City guards. They’re stylish.

"Hui’Jin, make a note to tell Karl we need giant, white marble Golems as city guards." I radio before pouring as much penetrating energy as I can into a kick from the Sacred Thunder Style.

The Elementals chest spiders with cracks, but it lashes out at me with a giant fist, making me duck and weave for a few moments until I can get behind it. A hard, clawed strike to the back has it looking in rough shape, but it starts trying to squash me with its giant feet.

The ground shaking from its own attacks is making it unstable, and I go for the kill, cracking the chest to boulders and grabbing the stone as it falls.

Vinnie and Paul have switched targets to a muddy looking one, and their lightning is having good effect, seeming to stun the elemental as the energy crackles over the surface. The grass type is down, burnt to ashes, and I grab the stone on my way by.

The giant sword takes both arms off a dirt pile type elemental in quick succession and it reforms much smaller. Taking the legs off before running to avoid a series of thrown boulders brings the size down to one I can cleave in half across the chest, freeing another fist sized stone.

That Boulder thrower needs to go. The gunfire is Sporadic, as the Toyota keeps moving to avoid being crushed.

I slash at the stone Elementals legs, hoping to take it down in size, but only manage a deep gouge. This one had pretty good defense. Now that it is distracted Hui’Jin is going all out, the explosions causing craters in its back and breaking it down in very little time.

Without their only ranged attacker, the rest are doomed. They fall one after another, Hui’Jin firing in short bursts as Karl instructed, maximizing barrel life while still going through a lot of ammo.

With Kel’Mira driving, she had to take one break to restock, but it was a much smoother fight than the valley. Short though this one was, finishing in under an hour.

"Do you have the power to close these dungeons yet? I was told they can be with enough effort" I ask Hui’Jin who shakes her head.

"But I can seal it quite well, keeping everything inside."

"Good call. We’ll do this one, then seal the first on our way back. There’s a lot of them underwater from what I can tell, and the City isn’t going to have any spare staff to clean these every morning."

"Third one tomorrow?"Paul asks, sounding drained.

"It’s best we wait. Plus the Guild needs to know in case there are more."

Kel’Mira guides the trusty Toyota back to the first dungeon, then to the parking garage at the Guild, where shouting reigns and fists are being thrown.

What are they up to this time?

Guy on the Left has stolen guy on the Rights Girlfriend for the third time since 8th grade, and guy on the Right isn’t going to take it anymore.

The girl in question is telling him to give it up, that guy on the Left is more man than he’ll ever be, but we all know those are fighting words, she’s just instigating a whooping.

And her ex is fit to deliver. He might not look like much, kind of pimply and scrawny, but he’s got 5 full levels of cultivation on his more handsome and muscular counterpart. Being Foundation 8 to his opponents Foundation 3.

He’s either really talented or met with great fortune to have gotten there so fast on his own.

Appearances are deceiving these days.

The end is predictably bloody and short, with the victor turning away his seemingly repentant ex once he has taken his dues in blood from the man who slighted him.

Didn’t even have time to place a bet.

We turn the video of the fight with the Elementals in as proof, sending it to the Guild email and showing them the cores. 75 silver later we’re all seated in the Guild Master’s office, explaining about dungeons and the need to clear or seal them.

They’re quite understanding when we’re not looting them dry and messing up the city budget. They agree to put a bounty on the location of portals that resist closing, in case there are more dungeons, and we agree to go find and seal the last one.

Unlike Arcana that farms theirs, underwater, uncontrolled portals have devastated this region, they don’t need more monsters.

The navy has been searching for them, using depth charges to collapse the ones they find, but there’s either a cluster somewhere or a huge one sending loads of giant monsters all through the gulf region that they still haven’t found.