Author's Note: Apologies folks I had a doctor's appointment this morning in regards to a Covid Test. With that out of the way please, Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and stay safe!

Chapter 8: Maple's Guide to Monster Slaying

The monster resembled a T-Rex, but the armoured crest atop it's head was closer to a Carnotaurous while it's arms were longer like a Velociraptor and had four of them, how Maple wasn't sure but she was fairly certain that it's number of limbs wasn't their top priority right now.

"Oh this is bad." Maple stated looking at the monster that Rabier had just unleashed, and which had just stepped on him so that there wouldn't be anymore left lying around let off of their chain.

"RRRWWWAAARRR!"

"What do we do?" Raphtalia asked looking severely scared.

In yet another similarity to NWO Maple could see the levels and bars of monsters that she fights, and saw that this thing was in the seventies so the odds of them being able to put a scratch on it seemed unlikely. Course the same could be said about Maple, if she had to guess this thing's durability is to Maple what Maple's is to most people and monsters. So the real question here is how to hurt Maple.

"Why are you handing me a knife?" Maple asked lord Reichnott as he held out the implement in question to her.

"So that you can cut open your finger." Reichnott stated speaking like he was talking to a exceptionally slow child, which to be fair she kind of was. "We need to draw your blood to reassign miss Raphtalia to you."

Maple's reaction was immediate and honest.

"...I don't like pain, and I don't think that is going to work on me besides." Maple explained taking the knife anyway.

"Yes, that is why you have to be the one to do it, stats have no effect on self inflicted injuries." Maple sighed as she ran her finger along the sharp edge and bled into the bowl of slave ink.

"I got an idea!" Maple stated looking like she came to an epiphany. "We need him to step on me!"

"What?" Raphtalia asked not believing her ears.

Ignoring Raphtalia Maple ran forward changing over her shields from the ones she had been unlocking to the barbed spikes of the bee needle shield.

"Use your illusion magic to change where it's going to step!" Maple shouted as she ran up to the monster.

"How am I suppose to do that!?" Raphtalia asked but saw that Maple was ignoring her. "Huu. First Light!" Raphtalia shouted shooting out a mass of light to blind the dragon like monster wandering around the area. Maple ran underneath the lizard's foot and laid down underneath it, then it stepped on her. "MAPLE!" Raphtalia shouted not actually believing that Maple was going to do that.

"RRRWWWAAARRR!" The Dinosaur like monster's eyes went wide as he started to back pedal doing his best not to rely on or use too heavily the foot that Maple had lodged herself too.

"...I hate pain." If that was the only thing that he had to be concerned about then the dinosaur might be okay, but even though Maple rightfully felt like she had just been trampled by a T-Rex that didn't mean that she was without means of offence. Thus Maple made use of the pseudo devour skill to start sucking the dragon's blood directly into the shield armour's jewel through the spike that had managed to hit a vein. The dragon was visibly suffering the effects of anemia and startle to stumble around, which was rather unfortunate for Maple as that resulted in a few more foot stomps that she was now on the receiving end of until the thing finally fell over. "...I'm glad Mr. Reichnott suggested I feed a healing potion into my shield." Maple peeled herself off of the monster's foot as she slowly allowed her body to heal, before that is she noticed that she wasn't getting a XP notice for the monsters she just defeated. "Huu."

"RRRWWWAAARRR!" Maple spun around arms over her face while her shield absorbed the mass of red hot plasma that the dragon was blasting in her direction.

"First Hide!" Raphtalia's shout had Maple turn invisible even after the dragon had finished blasting her. Which while good for Maple had the monster looking around for where she went. The next spell would require a bit more effort. "I the source of thy power order thee! Decipher the laws of nature and cast a illusion on my target! Zweit Mirage!" Raphtalia cast Maple's image on top of a nearby steeple of a church dedicated to the three powers, the fact that the still woozy dinosaur monster was still looking for Maple coupled with the illusion going out of it's way to draw attention to itself got the monster's attention. Thus the monster tried it's damnedest to bite down on Maple taking a chunk of the building with her, considering she wasn't there it failed miserably. What it did bite down on however was a weather vein combining together several pointy objects in the form of a bow, spear and sword that was now sticking out of the top of it's snout.

"RRRWWWAAARRR!"

"Nice one." Maple slowly limped back to Raphtalia because even if she was slowly healing she still needed time for the skill to work it's magic.

"I, the Shield Hero, as source of thy power order thee! Decipher the laws of nature and heal my target! Zweit Heal!" Maple didn't look like she lost a fight with a raging bull anymore so that was a improvement.

"Do you have any idea how reckless that was!?" Raphtalia snapped glaring at Maple angrily.

"To be fair that would normally work." Maple once again had to be reminded that this wasn't New World Online and she was not completely invulnerable do to constantly sinking points into her defence stat.

"So you're saying you've done this before?" Raphtalia was getting madder by the moment.

"Let's focus on him for now." Maple stated indicating the monster that was trying it's best to get the chunk of metal lodged in it's mouth out and by all accounts failing miserably. "Can you think of any other way of making it hurt itself?"

"We passed by a lake on the way over here." Raphtalia stated suggesting that they tried to drown their monstrous opponent.

"Alright, I'll try getting it's attention." Maple stated with a nod as she moved on for the offensive.

The monster was walking with a limp now, two of it's arms was broken when it fell on it's side, most of it's blood should be in Maple's shield and it's head had the steeple from the church rammed through it. In short it's health appeared to be in the red but that didn't mean that Maple had any intention of going easy on the poor bastard, for one thing it's stats still ludicrously outstripped her own half dead or not. So Maple broke into the nearest building and proceeded to run up two flights of stairs until she was roughly aligned with the thing's torso.

"Tie me to the stair case!" Maple instructed Raphtalia handing her the rope that she turned one of her waist shields into.

"At this point I think I should tie you to the chair." None the less Raphtalia secured Maple to the building and she proceeded to jump out of it grabbing onto the monster rampaging around the town's arm. Pressing the jeweled chest plate up to the dinosaur monster's arm Maple released the bastard's own attack at point black range blowing the arm off in the process.

"RRRWWWAAARRR!" Badly wounded and pissed beyond imagination the dinosaur monster took it's last good arm and tore through the building Raphtalia had been in. Of course by that point Raphtalia had already left the building and after swapping out her safety line Maple turned her armour into balloons and gave herself a soft landing. The two of them had no time to talk though, on account of the dinosaur trying to eat them and all that. Luckily it's injuries made it some what slow so the two girls could get away from it easily, provided Maple blocked the death beams.

"Well it's outside of the town anyway!" They hadn't seen any people, so maybe Reichnott's shadows and Rabier's men were able to evacuate them in time, they had their eyes on that thing since it woke up and it didn't look like it had time to kill anyone other than Rabier. Finally the dinosaur fell over passed out, producing several crunching noises when it hit the ground and spurting out more of it's blood. Maple climbed into the open wound she made when she blew the arm off and started to absorb the Dragon's body into her shield soon getting a notification for a frankly massive amount of XP as her shield ate some kind of a vital organ. After that the rest of the monster's corpse flowed into the shield. "I guess we're..." Maple turned to face Raphtalia who she saw was in the middle of a violent series of convulsions. "RAPHTALIA!"

It was a very panicked trip back to the safety of the Reichnott territory with Maple carrying Raphtalia along, joined and aided shortly there after by the rest of the Seatto refugees and the Shadows that had been escorting them. Maple alongside Rifana and Keel were currently outside of one of the maid's rooms for the Seatto manor which had been turned into a makeshift medical ward for Maple earlier when she had first been brought in. Reichnott's medic, a lizard woman, stopped by on her way out of the makeshift medical ward to give the three of them a explanation.

"Well?" Maple asked looking at the nurse woman overly concerned.

"She's fine. I'm having some food brought in for her so that she can finish her growth spurt." The doctor stated indicating a group of servants who were carrying in what suspiciously looked like three weeks worth of food.

"Growth spurt?" Maple asked clearly confused.

"Gods this child is ignorant." The doctor stated underneath her breath while holding her forehead. "Demi-humans mature at an accelerated rate as they level up. Most would be a fully grown adult by 20, but you and that little stunt you two pulled shot her up all the way to 40." Not to mention the fact that Maple had gone up to sixty with that same 'little stunt'. "What the hell did you kill?"

"Umm. It looked kind of like a dinosaur, but it had four arms..." Getting any information out of Maple was like pulling out teeth, mostly because she kept using creatures none of them had ever heard of as reference points. Eventually she just asked for writing implements and paper which resulted in a rather finely detailed sketch of a two legged monster out of the locals worst nightmare.

"The Tyrant Dragon." Lord Reichnott commented looking down at Maple's sketch.

"You know about it?" Maple asked looking at the lord of the territory confused. "If there was something that dangerous running around why did no one deal with it before now?"

"It was, in a manner of speaking. It might surprise you to know that Rabier is the direct descendant of a hero of the past." Reichnott stated as he cracked his neck.

"That guy?" Maple recalled the fat man Raphtalia threw out a window.

"Yes. His ancestor sealed away the Dragon years ago and left instructions to his descendants on how to unseal it for when the Waves eventually comes." Reichnott explained indicating the documents taken from the Rabier estate.

"That monster I killed has something to do with the waves?" Maple looked like she was regretting her life choices now.

"Rabier was a fool, he unleashed monster that he couldn't control into his own territory which ultimately died at the hands of the people he meant for it to put down." Reichnott stated letting out a sigh.

"For now all that we can really do is salvage the situation. Luckily we have enough evidence of his illegal actions to prevent the crown from taking action against us." Reichnott explained chin in his hand. Sacking and enslaving a territory that had been hit by the waves. Unleashing a dangerous monster into his own territory. The sheer amount of other criminal activity that he had been up to. Sufficient to say that Rabier was not someone that anyone was going to miss any time soon. "In the mean time you should consider going to see your friend Raphtalia."

"Any specific reason why?" Maple asked looking at Rabier with blatant suspicion.

"You know what you're like on your period? She's getting that but ten years worth." Reichnott explained amused.

Food is not the only thing Raphtalia needed, if you do nothing but stay in bed and eat for your entire developmental period then your body is going to be nothing but flabby, so she had also been working off her meals with exercise too. Also she nearly tore Maple's head off for her reckless plan against the Tyrant Dragon and then apologised sobbing about it a few moments later.

"A support group?" Maple eventually settled Raphtalia down for the night which Reichnott took as a opportunity to talk to her.

"Personally speaking I believe that it's something that would be good for all four of you." Because exposure therapy or no, Maple, Raphtalia, Rifana and Keel were all still deeply traumatised victims that needed all the love, care and support that they could give each other. "Do you disagree?"

"No, no. I... guess I don't." Maple had disproved the stereotype that the shield hero has no offensive power today, Violently, so no party members to kill on her behalf was not her biggest concern. No that went to the fact that she still considers herself too dangerous to be around, which killing a monster 60 levels above her own didn't necessarily disprove.

"In any case I've made arrangements for the four of you to acquire a therapy animal." To Reichnott's statement a short little man in a ringmaster's uniform walked in from around the corner lips pressed together in a smile. Maple immediately felt the need to hide from him.

"Good evening young Hero." The short Ringmaster took off his top hat and gave Maple a bow. "I am Beloukas Von Toble, of Zeltoble."

"Um good evening." Maple paused waiting for the man to continue and was mildly unsettled to see that he hadn't. "Why are you here?"

"To conduct business of course young lady." Beloukas swung over a suitcase and unfolded table legs, clicked the suitcase open and turned it around to reveal several eggs with some kind of magic circle drawn on them. "Among other services, I deal in the buying, breeding and selling of monsters. The lord here has contacted me to sell to you a animal to help you with therapy for your recent trauma." Well that interested her a little bit and Maple approached the suitcase to have a look.

"What's this?" Maple asked looking concerned.

"Our Monster Gacha game. You are not native to this world but when monsters level up they mature at an accelerated rate, one of these hatchlings should go from a new born to a adult after a couple days of level grinding. And with our patented egg incubator they should hatch after a fortnight." Maple nodded her head to the merchant's statement as she looked around at the eggs.

"I can't tell them apart." Maple stated looking at the eggs.

"Hence the Gacha part." Maple leaned her head to the side to conceded his point. "If there's a specific monster that you wish to purchase I can take you over to our caravan outside." The Merchant explained sensing the opportunity to make a sale.

"Do you have a turtle?"

"Um... no I'm afraid not." The Merchant sheepishly admitted. "People tend to purchase monsters for one of three reasons." Beloukas held up one of his fingers. "1. They want to raise a strong monster to fight for them." Which was useful for someone like Maple who wasn't suppose to have much offensive power, and also kind of pointless in regards to a monster famous for it's defensive power. "2. They want a fast monster that they can use as a mode of transportation." Which again made sense for Maple who was, and still is, infamously slow, and also rather pointless to seek in a turtle. "3. They want a monster that they can butcher for their meat." Which led to Maple to shut her eyes in horror as she hoped no one raised turtles for that purpose.

"I'll try the monster gacha." Maple stated letting out a sigh and so randomly picked up a egg.

The Gacha itself was fifty silvers, the reusable egg incubator was another fifty silvers, the cost of transferring ownership of the egg to Maple was another silver. Thus after parting with 101 silvers Maple was now the proud owner of... something, they weren't sure what. Thus together with newly acquired party members/newly expanded support group in the form of Keel and Rifana Maple set to work.

"We're not going to Siltvelt?" Rifana asked almost looking disappointed.

"The Siltvelt representatives managed to recruit Kuro to help them, or kidnap her I'm not sure which one." Maple explained strapping the egg incubator around her waist. "Either way they have help, and you two along with this little girl are still too weak to help fight."

"Listen to Maple guys." A tall woman stepped forward hands on her hips. She cut a nice figure with more muscle than fat in her limbs, but with enough fat left on her to leave little about her figure to the imagination, even with Maple's old chain mail tunic and new leather armour made from the skin of two headed dogs. The cute round fuzzy ears and medium length bushy tail only added to the charm. "You don't want to get caught in another wave like we were in Seatto right?" The two children stared at Raphtalia like she grew two extra heads instead of two feet in height. "What do I have something on my face?" The object of their attention in question rubbed a hand over her face trying to figure out what they were looking at and by all accounts failing miserably.

"Let's get our level up too!" Keel finally snapped out of his stupor and raised a fist into the air.

"Have you two forgotten what happened to Raphtalia?" Maple asked tone scolding.

"She grew up so fast that she nearly got herself torn in two! A slower pace is needed to properly grind for levels." Maple stated her tone of voice displeased. "Besides I need material for my shield if we're going to upgrade this thing."

"If it's food that we need then maybe we should try two for one and hunt something tasty to eat." Keel suggestion having started to drool a little bit.

"Should we ask Mr. Reichnott if there's any nearby nests that he needs cleared?" Rifana asked looking at Maple curiously.

As it turns out, yes there was a nest of monsters less than a day's march away from the Reichnott manor, and thanks to Maple's shield armour she had all the growth bonuses hashed out for Rifana and Keel. In fact she had so much time that she was able to feed something to her shield that as the Shield Hero she so desperately needed.

'Monster Bait Shield. Equip Bonus: Provoke.'

"So does anyone know what kind of monster we're looking for?" Maple asked hands behind her head.

"There're slimes and spiders in this area, according to what big sis Sadeena told us." Raphtalia explained walking with her arms behind her head.

"I remember that too. You guys remember that one summer she boiled all those spiders like lobster for us?" Keel asked imagining about happier times while rubbing her belly.

"Slime jelly makes for pretty good refreshments too." Rifana stated smiling happily.

"Whose Sadeena?" Maple asked legit curiosity on her features.

"She was a fisherman who lived in our village." Raphtalia stated smiling while looking at Maple.

"She's definitely the strongest! If she had been there those stupid dogs would never have stood a chance!" Keel stated fist pumping through the air in cheer.

"Speaking of which..." Globs of blue jelly soon appeared wandering around the area idly, if that was all it wouldn't have been expected. But suspended in the trees had been the desiccated corpse of what could have been a wolf, were it not for the second head, it didn't get there by itself.

"Are these slimes dangerous?" Maple asked legitimate concern on her features.

"To you and Raphtalia? No." Rifana stated recalling that Sadeena had banned them from joining her on her hunts.

"We'll rest here and resume when we're refreshed in the morning. By then this fellow should be hatched." Maple stated indicating the egg incubator.

Maple had taken the first, last and only watch. She learned this the hard way back in the Reichnott manor but whenever she sleeps she ends up thinking about the people who died at the castle town. Perhaps waking up screaming was something okay to do in a sound proofed room where no one could hear her but not in the middle of monster territory. Of course Maple learned the hard way that she wasn't the only one who had that problem.

"WWWAAAHHH!"

"HAAA!"

"GUUHH!"

Raphtalia, Keel and Rifana all demonstrated that trauma was not a easy thing to move past. Support group remember?

"Huu. Well, I guess none of us are getting any sleep tonight." Maple stated as she let out a sigh before being greeted by the sound of a cracking egg shell. "Ah you look so cute!" Maple stated as she picked up the newly hatched chick and held her in the palm of her hands.

"Huu. At least one of us should try to get to sleep tonight." Raphtalia stated and the others nodded. "Maple we'll take the watch you go to..."

"That's not going to be possible Raphtalia." Maple stated in a sad tone of voice. "You see those dogs in your sleep, but I see the castle guards, and the monster looming over them." Maple stated before she got up and put the chick on her shoulder. Right now what all four of them needed was to not think about it. "So are we going to get some XP or are we going to stand around moping?" Maple learned how to change the position of the shield's jewel on her body, moving it to her arm which she transformed into a black tower shield, the meteor shield it was apparently called. "Right. You hold them in position and we'll-"

"Provoke." Maple's skill immediately drew the ire of all of the slimes who then turned around and all simultaneously piled onto her trying to eat her, and for their efforts any who came into contact with the shield jewel got sucked inside, which considering their habit of getting stuck to each other turned out to be a lot.

"...this is cheating isn't it?" Keel asked noting that his level was steadily starting to rise, then his and Rifana's stomach's started to growl.

"Here you go." Maple made two clay pitchers using the loot function of her shield and filled them both with the nostalgic blue drink refined from slime. "Remember to squeeze some exercise in too if you don't want to get messed up down the line."

The two children downed the makeshift nutritional supplement and went off to do some light exercise with Raphtalia as Maple continued to deposit slimes into her shield. The fact that almost none of the blue globs were in sight by the time the others came back demonstrated that she was finished with them, with exception to the ones she had released back into the wild to restore their numbers. Rifana and Keel looked roughly teenage years right now, Keel especially looked a little uncomfortable with how his body was growing shifting around his clothes but luckily Maple came up with a solution for them both.

"Here you go!" Maple gave both Keel and Rifana armour made using the shield's loot function to process more of the dog leather and sent them off to get change.

"Kwei! Kwei!" The chick piped up sitting on the edge of a pot of slime Maple had done up for her and began drinking down it's contents, slowly growing bigger over time.

"In any case we should probably go after the spiders next." Maple was looking forward to the taste of boiled lobster, or rather boiled spider that tastes like boiled lobster.

"How do we do that?" Raphtalia asked while noting that Rifana and Keel had finished getting changed.

"A thought occurs." Maple stated looking up at the corpse in the tree. "A monster was drained of fluids, preserved for all intents and purposes, and then left in a highly visible location." As Maple explained this she reached up and pressed the jewel of her shield up to the mummified corpse. Broken bones signalled the monster being sucked inside of the shield, however the silver thread it had been tied to tightened and strained against the next tree over.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Raphtalia asked as the line continued to make strangling noises.

"It'll be find." Suddenly the trees the line had been connected to snapped or were ripped out of the ground under the strain as the line went straight, the ones tied to the sticky part of the line were dragged over and sucked inside of the shield along with the line. "Well this is efficient, I'll have to remember this trick down the line." Speaking of which a ungodly screeching noise echoed out indicating the other of the web their were ripping out was coming to protest the destruction of it's work. Violently. Eventually a black mass appeared from what was left of the woods which then unceremoniously severed the line with a sickle like leg. The army of spiders appeared in order to address the grievances made against them. "Alright." Maple cracked her neck as if indicating that she was about to get down to business. "Let's do this."

Author's Note:

RonaldM40196867: True. Yes.

drmcgraw186: I like tolly too. That does seem to be the kind of thing Kuro would be proud of. Well if people are going to make comparisons between the two anyway. Sorry about that.

REiNozomi: I don't understand the reference. Yes Katarina will learn dark magic after the Curse Series but she will have to actually learn it.

setokayba2n: Nope Maple just bought her.