The next morning, we were hard at work. Luckily, none of the 'mini-skeleton-hydras' had decided to fully form, something they said would take weeks, but given the age, I wasn't willing to take that at face value. They admitted it had been some time since someone had killed something of this level, but still, it shouldn't have been able to come back too quickly, given the way we'd trashed it.
Regardless, in addition to the three we'd started with, we added four more gem cores to the ones we'd acquired the previous day, and with a bit of size on their side, the three brothers waded into the deep lake, and the three together were able to pile up some rocks at the rear of it as a temporary barrier to entry for any monsters that might try to repeat the hydra's trick of sneaking into this place.
I asked Souka as she improved the sandals if she knew how to make, say, a giant grate or something, to put over it, to allow water to flow freely, but keep the monsters out. Sadly, she couldn't do that, as she was a master of the 'Traveling Forge'. She was, at best, able to improve existing gear, magical or otherwise, not able to make new things like that, not without a very specific recipe to work with.
Luckily, she could always use monster parts, as I'd found out, as she stuck some of the hydra's bone shards into the pot bit of the forge shortly afterwards, and then 'ground' them up into the shimmering pearls she used for her art. She'd even improved my own gear, to a +9 at that, giving me almost five times the old protection, as well as improving my overall mobility, something the original armor hadn't done.
Even better, with the seven core stones stored away, I decided to allow my Bow to have a good meal, and it absorbed the primary core of the hydra with some difficulty. Like with the chimera's goat head, I pointed it towards the thing, as the tool tip said, and it slowly began to create a vortex around the gem, the yellow gleam of it turning golden as it began to draw in the core before me.
The core, a boulder of a gem half my own size, began to break apart into motes of ruby red light as the gemstone on my Bow took it in, and I got dozens of new pop ups, but ignored them, not wanting to let go until the deed was done, and by the time it was, I had most of the group watching me, especially as I had to sit down afterward, feeling like the thing on my arm had nearly sextupled in mass during the process.
When I was finally able to read them, I stared at my screen, impressed with all the new toys I'd gained. aquatic enemy gear, up to a high grade of that, something to do with dragons, wyverns, and even part of the way to something to do with 'The Great Wyrm', which made me wonder if we'd get to kill that too. Even better, the skills that came with it, some having already been accessible, had their skill point costs go down.
Best of all, I'd unlocked not only (Stage 3) Bow, which promised even better boosts to my other bow forms, but also was most of the way to (Stage 4), though given it would need more boss material to finish I'd probably have to go hunting even worse prey. It was probably going to have to wait for the next Wave, honestly, but the bonuses to that one were actually making me drool.
Not that I could use either of them yet. (Stage 3) had a Level requirement of fifty, just like the (Portal Bow) and the associated skills, and the (Stage 4) was at seventy-five. Not terrible requirements, but far and away outside my current limits. Still, they would eventually unlock, and I'd be able to multiply my companions' DPS and other stats until I was fairly certain they could one shot a god…demi-god at least.
The other new thing was also locked to level fifty, but had some nice stats to it as well. The (Hydra-Line) Bow boasted that I could use it to fire seven shots, not only at different targets, but at the same target for multiplied effects, all for the cost of three normal shots. And they'd all be at full power. A direct doubling of all my boost effects, or just able to hit everyone in the party at once. A good deal in my eyes.
After sealing up the lake entrance, and piling the bones into stacks, along with a few marked stones that said these belonged to us, courtesy of Ray, we set out again. The morning had mostly passed us by, but it was still before noon as we set out from the gorge, me using one last bit of magic on it, and then setting out towards Thud. The trip would take almost a full day, but we were prepared for that, as we marched along the disused roadway, to the point where it joined with the main one.
From there, we mostly walked, trudging along, with oddly no hint of complaint in my body. A month ago, I'd have exhausted myself after a few minutes even at the steady pace we were moving, and while being here had improved my physicality at the start, now I was able to run for an hour without tiring…too much anyway. I even kept a lookout, turning on my (Void Gaze) and leaving it on, the world around me turning into washed out grey, dotted with yellow glowing civilians, my green glowing allies, and the occasional blip of red for monsters.
The last we tended to take a diversion for, slowing us down, but not nearly by as much as you might expect. Better, I got to try out a few new tactics and boost combinations. Growth was fun, but the boost itself was draining, so I was experimenting with what (Multishot) could mix together, various flavors of speed, attack, and defense, to see which one was optimum for each of my team, giving them the ability to one shot the basic mobs we ran into with ease.
That got tested when I noticed there was a cloud in the sky that was both too low, and marked red by my vision. That caused the others to tense when I mentioned it, and they looked up, just in time for the cloud to start descending, along with hundreds of voices within its confines. They identified the monster as a 'Balloon Legion' a kind of amalgamation of balloons that spawned more of the things.
Apparently, they were normally not ones for battle, but the temptation of my weapon, or perhaps just me pointing them out, brought them down, and by the Gods did they live up to their name. Legion meant one thousand, and there were chomping orange balloons, red balloons that were hot to the touch and breathed fire, the blue ones with the resen like stuff, which was apparently some form of water, and even yellow ones that spewed out lightning.
Individually, they were no threat at all, but their numbers seemed beyond counting, as they spilled off the main body, which seemed to spew out attacks in all sorts of ways. They forced me to teleport away several times, and boost everyone up as far as I could with defenses just to give us a chance, as they rained the battlefield, a small clearing just off the main road known for balloons.
It was a much battered and bruised party that finally saw us start to win, as Shadow's stripes proved the most able to do damage, and with a speed boost, he turned into a blender, literally rushing amongst them, and shredding the foul balls. When there was only the legion itself left, it 'inhaled' the seemingly separate pieces around it, including the remains of the other balloon, and grew into a purple one, that swelled to gargantuan proportions.
It roared at us, being larger than our whole party put together, and we soon found ourselves fighting against something that seemed to shrug off every attack we threw its way. Not invulnerable, but with an HP bar that probably would have gone off into the distance if we could see it. Still, it was just a balloon, and slow as it was, we could dodge its attacks with ease, allowing us to keep the fight going for almost half an hour.
Finally, Lucia got the killing blow, as she drove her staff into the ground, and with a rumble and then a crash, a huge boulder came up right under it, one that shaped itself into a spike, and then spawned several smaller spikes from it. She then started it rotating, as it rose up, and slammed into the balloon legion's underside, causing the foul thing to cry out in pain, as its flesh tore from its form, and it finally let out one terrible cry of death.
It had, unfortunately, not counted as a 'Boss Monster' enough for my Bow to count it towards (Stage 4) form. It did, however, drop enough scraps that we were going to make bank regardless of anything else. Heck, according to Ray, we were probably about to become rich, even without the hydra's defeat, as balloon legions came with a reward of fifty gold a pop all on their own, on top of what the scraps would sell for.
With all the monster slaying action, we were leveling pretty quickly. Souka had almost hit level cap, the brothers hit fifty, Lucia had finally gotten past forty-five, and Ray was…still fifty-six, but well on her way to the next one. And we'd cleaned out a dozen monster dens, and several other groups of them. All in all, it was a good day, as the sun finally started to sink into the horizon.
That sun should have seen us to Thud, had we been doing our best to reach it, but today had taken us all over, and so we were forced to eventually sleep out under the stars one last time. Only once, however, as the moment the sun was up after that, we started out and got to Thud before the morning mist had even fully cleared from the valleys around the village…mostly because we found no monsters to hunt closer to the city, given we'd cleaned them out a week back.
We arrived with only ourselves, and a few sacks worth of monster parts, which saw us through the village gate immediately. Oddly, I didn't see the patrol leader who'd accosted us on our earlier visit…or much of any guards, beyond the two at the gate, who looked overworked, underpaid, and very likely underappreciated for their efforts. A shame, really, but it wasn't something I could fix, as I made my way into town with my party.
It took us a few minutes to pass some opening shops, a few of which looked at my party with some concern, given we had two openly armed demi-humans, two humans, and three beastmen without visible seals, and who walked with the air of freedom about them. You could actually see a few of the merchants staring at them with first fear, then a bit of interest, like they were wondering how much they might cost.
Luckily, no one was stupid enough to make any offers as we reached the Adventurer's Hall, and then stepped inside. Here it was far less hectic than last time, or any of the times at the Capital. In fact, the only ones here were staff, who were away from the counter towards the back of the room, chatting about something as we came in, and one of them, the bunny eared man, rushed to greet us.
"Ah, the Bow He…RAY?!" he shouted the last, and the three other Hall workers suddenly started from whatever they were doing. Ray, for her part, smiled at the bunny demi-human, and patted the hilts of her blades.
"Happy to see me, or are your ears always straight up like that?" she asked with a smirk, and the man pulled at them, before shaking his head, and looking her up and down.
"You're in full kit…in Melromarc…so that rumor about the Hero inviting you to join his party was true…damn," he swore as he rummaged around in a pouch on his belt, and then pulled out a silver coin, tossing it to one of the other workers, a human woman, who snatched it out of the air, while the other two slapping down their own, which she pocketed, before the man turned back to us.
"Okay, so other than making me lose a bet, what are you people here…ah more sacks," he said, not resignedly either, like I would have expected. In fact, he sounded rather excited as he rummaged under the counter, and pulled out the monocle thing.
"Do you have more outside again, or is this it today?" he asked, and I was about to respond, but Ray cut me off.
"We have just these, but our business is more than parts. We have some bounties to claim…the kind that need us to go back into the office," she told him, and the rabbit man looked at her, stared into her face, then tapped the monocle to make it shimmer, before looking at the sacks Strong, Fast, Shadow, and Souka were hauling about, and he had a twitch in one of his eyes.
"Yeah…I bet you do. Comeon then," he said, motioning for us to follow him, and in a few moments, we were in an office. Not the one from before, this one was more like a boardroom, with a large table built into the floor, that he told the ones with the sacks to set them onto, as he did something against one of the walls. A moment later, I could feel a bit of magic in the air, as runes briefly flashed along the ceiling, floor, and walls.
"Okay, that should keep this private, now, before we begin, what happened to the three beastmen you had with you, if I might ask? I mean, these three look stronger, to be fair, but I thought you were happy with the others?" he asked, and I smiled, before motioning towards the three.
"These are the same three you saw last time. Apparently, they can change species, if they're part of a Legendary Hero's party, and Class Up," I explained, and he seemed to take a moment to process that, the three we were talking about smiling at him, and he just gave a curt nod, before taking a seat at the table, and motioning for use to do that same.
"Now that I've made an ass of myself, I suppose this discussion can begin. First off, I see purple balloon parts in your bags. That's legion type scrap, which means you people took down a balloon legion…the Waves take it, I don't have that much right now, not for the bounty and the scraps," he said, swearing obviously, in a way that almost made me feel bad about this next part.
"I don't think that's your only expense at this time," I said, and nodded towards Souka, who walked up to the table, and then untied one of the bags from her waist, setting it down on the thing, and then flicking to knock it over. Instantly, a few stray pearls fell from the lip, and I saw the rabbit's eyes narrow, and then go wide as he picked one up, and even licked it, jolting backwards.
"These are…that's fifty silver a…how many?" he stammered through, and with a casual air, she began to untie the other bags from her waist, ending up tossing eleven full ones, and one partially full in total onto the tabletop. She was keeping only one full bag, to modify any gear we had made, or acquired in some way.
"That's…I don't have that much. But we can't turn that down. Not now. That many pearls could increase the entire Guild's gear," he said, and quickly pulled a piece of paper out of some slot on his side of the table. I noticed he was scratching things on it, and my interface helpfully translated it into words and numbers, as he worked out both how many pearls on average it took to modify something, and how fast they could be shipped out.
"And we killed the hydra of the Hydra Gorge," said Ray, again casually, as the rabbit nodded, only half listening. It seemed he had heard it, though, as the quill in his hand stopped. It stood still for a moment, before, with a crack, the thing snapped in his fingers, a gush of ink running down his hand, as it shook, and spilled all over the paper, and he looked up towards us, his mouth moving, but no words coming out.
"I think you broke Ben, Ray. That's not nice of you," chided Lucia, as the rabbit…as Ben obviously began to shake, and she walked over to his side, and placed a hand on his shoulder. He jumped once, but when it was over, he looked down at his hands, cleared his throat, and then quickly reached under the table, grabbing another quill, and one of those metal bar things like what Ray used when writing my adventurer profile thing back on day two.
"We also left a few tons of material behind in the gorge, mostly hydra bones. We figured those would be good for making gear, and we didn't want to try and carry them back," she said, but Ben, after raising a finger towards her to make her shut her mouth, quickly wrote something down. A letter of documentation, noting the death of the hydra. He then tapped the metal bar, which rang with a silvery note, and I now noticed it had a seal of the Guild on it.
When he was done, Ben leaned back in the chair he was in, put his hands over his eyes, and looked for a moment like he was trying to crush them against his face using his palms. He took in a deep breath, and then let it out in one long sigh, before finally leaning forward again. When he did, he looked over my group, and nodded at each, looking us up and down, before finally pulling out another sheet of paper.
"Okay, I need details. I just submitted the preliminary report for a large bounty, and it will be processed in a few minutes, but they're going to want information. How did you kill it, how long ago, what sort of loot was still there, the works. Then we'll discuss the rest of this stuff, and start working out some payments from the Guild, to the party of the Bow Hero," he said, and I smiled, as we began to battle the most heinous foe of all, bureaucracy.