"Incoming boosts, what do you need?" I shouted, as I ducked back behind the large rock I was using to shield myself from most of the ongoing fight. In front of me, my party, formally a tiny mage woman dressed like a witch, and three Beastmen who had only been, at most, half again her size earlier this week, and looking very scrawny thanks to their malnourished bodies, even with the healing I'd been able to give them.

In that week, the four had transformed, with the beastmen the most noticeable. The wolf, Strong, now came up to my shoulder, and barely had to lean his head back to look me in the eye. More, he was fifty pounds heavier, and where most of mine was still something only partially resembling non-fat, his was all muscles, with a broad frame that had him picking up the boar like monster, and tearing it in half.

"Heal me!" he shouted, and I looked at his status screen out of the corner of my eye, his HP bar was below half, likely a result of the large wound in his side from one of the tusks of that same boar monster he'd just opened like a pinata. I loaded a shot, while keeping my eye on the others, who gave their own orders.

"Speed me!" shouted Fast, the fox, who, only slightly shorter but a lot thinner than Strong, was dancing between the piggish foes, easily moving between them, even leaping over one, flipping upside down and doing a handspring off it, while raking it with his claws, which were now almost six inches long on one of his hands, and tore a whole chunk out of the monster's side, before he landed behind it, and turned to face the other.

"Mana boost!" cried Lucia, as she and her partner laid into them with spellcraft. The ninja hyena, Shadow, looked…odd. It was hard to see him, even when looking right at him. His body had this aura that made it easy to dismiss him. That was a powerful tool, as the pigs had barely come after him, as he made handsigns and sent out shots in a variety of flavors, from small bolts of lightning that caused the boar things to stumble, to seemingly physically manifested shadows that tore at their legs.

Beside him, the Witch…Sorceress rather, Lucia was doing her work as well. Where Shadow was, like his name, all about the small things, always doing tiny damage that added up, she was a nuker, and her attacks showed it. The majority of craters in this rocky canyon we were fighting in were her handiwork, either from fireballs she tossed from her hand, or bolts of lightning from her staff.

All the orders in, I loaded the attacks, and took aim, forcing myself to keep both eyes open as I did so, like Fast had told me to do. The fox had used bows before, and knew his stuff, as I shot out bolts of colored light. The green bolt struck Strong in his back, just below the left shoulder blade, and immediately, the wound in his side visibly began to mend itself, not going away completely, but enough that he could move more easily, as he chambered a kick, that sent one of the boar's heads flying.

The sparkling bolt that struck Fast was just as potent, as the effect caused him to blur for a moment, and then…well, he described it as the world slowing down around him, that everything took on an odd, blurring effect, and he heard a buzzing in his ear. To him, the boars, myself, and all our party might as well have been statues, as he became nothing but a red wind that dropped several of the boars in seconds.

The two mages got blue darts into them, and they perked up, as their MP meters climbed upwards, refilling after they'd spent the fight emptying them. Not to full, the skill didn't work quite like that, but it was enough that they were able to spin around each other, moving back to back as Shadow made handsigns silently, and Lucia mumbled some words, before they both spun to face their targets.

The end of Lucia's staff slammed into the ground, a pulse of purple energy moving through it, and soon, into the boars, who slowly began to float upwards climbing almost three meters into the sky, before Shadow began to fling…I have no idea. Purple bolts of light like from my Bow, but different, and they flew into the group of floating, struggling creatures, piercing their hides and causing them to squeal.

Not that they did that long, as the bolts seemed to increase their weight suddenly, and the things slammed back into the earth with such force that more than one was killed instantly, breaking their neck, while others broke only legs and ribs, necessitating that our warrior duo finish them off, while the casters pulled themselves back amongst the rocks with me, watching as the battle concluded.

"Excellent work, gentlemen and lady," I say as I come out from behind my hiding place…I felt no shame in calling it that either…not now anyway. It had, in fact, been Strong's suggestion. As he said, there was no shame in not fighting when you were not the one who could, and we'd seen several times since the balloons, with my stat spread, I was not the one for direct confrontation.

Luckily, I didn't have to be. My Skills had grown over the last week, my level as well, nearly doubling, while the three Beastmen had not only caught up to me, but gone farther. I was still at fifteen at the moment, the three of them were all almost twenty, and Lucia had already passed that, at twenty-three, revealing that she gained more MP and spell power at an astonishing rate, doubling at every tenth level, according to her, thanks to skills that came naturally to her chosen 'class'

The Beastmen were not quite so lucky to gain power like that, but their stat growth was nuts in compensation. The three of them were already more than three times hers in total, and still growing. Mind, as they came near me, 'letting go' of their fighting highs, the bodies of the three began to steam a little, visible smoke coming off them, in a small variety of colors, as their bodies changed.

For Lucia, my boosts were merely that, stat boosts that affected her character sheet. For the beastmen, each one had a different effect on them physically. Attack increased the size of Strong's body, buffing him into a mountain of muscle that could tear a wild boar in half. As he shrank down, not too badly, but into more of a normal physique, he looked somewhat disappointed, flexing a little.

For Fast, attack boost took the form of his claws, which receded until they were at least no longer dagger like. They were still sharp, true, but they wouldn't be cutting throats without effort now, and his 'blurriness' faded too, leaving him looking positively fluffy thanks to the effect on his fur, and I honestly always had to make a saving throw against petting him, something he said he hated…I could force the issue, obviously, they had Slave Seals, but I refused to do that, both on principle and because it was far too petty a reason.

Shadow lost his own 'shadowy'-ness as well, returning to visibility in full. That was what a defense boost did for him. Where the other two grew in muscle tone, to the point where a large rock tossed at Strong did nothing to him, Shadow became harder to land a solid hit on, every blow that touched him seeming to 'slide' off his body. Deflection rather than taking the damage. With him guarding Lucia, while also throwing out his own spells, the four of them had turned into quite the monster slaying team.

"Resource check. Auto-loot, or do you want to do the honors?" I asked, and Fast took a moment to look back over the battlefield, inspecting one or two of the corpses, before shaking his head.

"Even if I wanted to, there's too much on these guys to make it worth it, and the infection goes too deep. Take them with your skill, and then clean up, and we'll move on," he said, and I nodded, quickly scrolling through my menu as Lucia and Strong ran back down the canyon. A few moments later, Strong, hauling a cart behind him, ran up, and then Lucia used her magic to lay out a large tarp, Shadow and her setting rock down on the edges to weigh it down.

That done, I tapped the tarp with my foot, making it glow for a moment as it was set as my (Loot-Cache), and then turned on (Auto-Loot). The next second heard the sound of tearing meat and breaking bones as the various bits and bobs of the boars were torn free. Two levels of dissection had given my skill at least some idea of what to go for, but it was still not gentle with it.

Soon, tusks as well as crystals were laying on the tarp, which had spots of blood and gore on it. No meat this time, which meant my (Auto-Loot) agreed with Fast on that part. These things were too far gone with Wave infection to be useful as anything other than ingredients and building tools in adventuring supplies, not good for eating at all, and as the others began to tie up the tarp, turning it into a nice leather sack, I walked up to the now horrid looking corpses.

You could smell the rot already from them. It hadn't been more than a quarter of an hour since the first one died, and they were already becoming problems. Luckily, without their gemstones that were the core of the infection, they would have simply poisoned this place, rather than rising again as some kind of revenant things. That was still bad, but not nearly as bad as becoming even stronger monsters.

I didn't give them the chance, however, as I shifted my Bow from the form I'd had it in for the battle, that being the (Precision) form, which took firing speed away like (Beast Bane Bow) but lessened the cost of my shots. I'd unlocked it from some bits of some bird creatures we'd faced three days earlier, and compared to the other forms I'd unlocked, it was the only one with a bonus that synergized with my build.

For this duty, however, I had to have it in base, and a moment later, the thing was back to being the same silver make, with yellow gem it had started as. That form, giving me no bonuses, was not one I kept it in anymore, after exploring the (Mastery) mechanic a bit, but as it was the only one able to do this, it was what I had to use, as I held out my wrist, and focused on the corpses before me.

Originally, I'd given a verbal command for this, even though it wasn't necessary, but now, I'd gotten bored of it, and simply allowed the weapon to do its duty, the yellow stone beginning to glow in the presence of the corruption, sending out shimmering shafts of light that brushed over the bodies, causing them to glow with purple smoke, the sign of the Wave's infection on these things.

A moment later, I was nearly knocked back, as a burst of force shot from the thing, turning into a wave itself, one that crashed into the corpses of the pig monsters, washing over them, and battling, briefly, against the dark energy inside them. It resisted only for a moment, before being swept away, and the wave passing over each body in turn, leaving them…still looking nasty, but no longer going to render the local area a wasteland.

With that done, I saw the others were ready to go, and shifted my Bow back to (Precision) and fired a bolt at Strong, giving him a boost to his strength, not a potent one for battle, but one that made the carrying of the cart easy for him, as we proceed out of the canyon. None of us were in the best of shape at the moment, and I was soon going over the stat sheets to check our progress, and what we had left to spend for the day.

Thanks to (Precision)'s cost down buff, I still had about a quarter of my Stamina bar left, which was good. A week ago, I'd have drained it many times over doing some of the things I did, as my Boost Arrows were rather costly, but I'd been buffing the Stamina bar itself to make that less of an issue, along with unlocked the various buffs and even a few combat skills to make my party stronger and more effective.

And man were they ever. Those boars, a group of about eighteen, would have forced us to avoid them at the beginning of the week. Even a few days ago honestly, but with proper planning and buffs, my Party had slain every one of them in under a quarter of an hour, leaving us free to continue on towards the small town that Lucia knew of in the nearby hills, a place to cash in all our bounty material.

That had been why we'd been going along the backroads and wild areas, rather than taking the more traveled routes. So we could hunt things that had been missed by the Adventurers and guards, and make a pretty penny, while also giving me fodder for my weapon, which sucked the stuff in like it was nothing, and unlocked new forms for me to play with…I mean factor into my strategies.

At first we'd been collecting bits of monsters at Lucia's direction, but after a few encounters we'd had so much that it was impossible to carry it all with any kind of ease. Luck, as it happened, smiled on us, and less than a kilometer from where we'd been at that point was a farm. While they refused to sell their wagon at any price, given they would need it soon for a harvest, they had had a cart that was just this side of dilapidated.

Fortunately, I had just enough engineering skill in me from my old life to know what could be patched to make the thing work for us, until we could get to the city, and Strong, without prompting, had offered to be the beast of burden hauling it around, at first able to do so via his own strength, though considering how many sacks of loot were piled up on it I'd taken, despite his objections, to giving him a boost to make his job easier.

Over the same period I'd pried a little bit of backstory from everyone in the party, and given them a little of my own. Not that any of it was interesting. I was not the most exciting person myself. A graduate of a tech school, I did software engineering, and even simplified and trying to find analogous things in this world, it had gone over their heads, which I suppose I should just accept was going to happen.

Lucia, as it turned out, had no tragedy or horror in her backstory either. She'd been a member of a village, and had wanted something more, having seen a martial artist(again that should not be within several genres of european fantasy) take down a large beast, she'd gone to take the exam, mostly reading and writing, and been allowed to touch the Dragon Hourglass in Melromarc's capital, her chosen class, Sorceress, not Witch, as she very vehemently would remind me if I got it wrong.

The brothers could provide little more on their village than what I knew already. They'd been attacked after the first Wave some months ago by some monsters. That said, they were quick to point out that the laws of the Kingdom of Melromac were that they would be defended from such things by their local lord and their knights, and the fact that instead they'd been enslaved by said knights was a travesty, and one that needed to be brought to justice.

Lucia…was not pleased to find that out either. As she noted, slavery was only technically legal at the moment, and due in part to shortages in labor in some cities. It was a royal decree only a few years old. Before then, the beastmen and demi-humans had been rare sights in the cities. Since then, they'd become far more common, seen as laborers and the like, some covered in marks and seals.

But to hear that the knights themselves had taken them? That was a gross violation of the Kingdom's laws, though she admitted, even if we reported it, the noble who did so would face little in the way of repercussions during the best of times. At the moment? Inter arma enim silent lēgēs, in times of war, the law falls silent. Anyone trying to disrupt things right now, with the Waves crashing at their shore, would likely be put to death, regardless of what the noble had done.

That…I was tempted to turn aside from our current venture, but we didn't have the time. I'd checked the time til the Wave before we'd left the capital, and at best, we'd have a few days when we were done with our current journey. Toppling a noble even if all we did was rock up and murder the fat bastard, was not a short sidequest sort of thing, especially since we needed to make sure the replacement was ready and waiting to go, either a good heir, or have the King appoint someone.

I also learned a bit about how beastmen operated. Turns out, they weren't kidding about not needing equipment. Oh, they COULD use the stuff just fine, but to a beastman from their village, it was important to push yourself against the world, to carve out your place in it. So they used little in the way of it, beyond some construction methods, as they had homes about on par, construction-wise, with most villages of humans of the area.

The big difference was they tend to be hunters and gathers, trading for a few niceties from time to time with a wandering peddler, but otherwise living off the land itself. It sounded…quaint to me, I'll admit. Not the sort of life I'd have enjoyed, especially since they admitted, life could be hard, but for that harshness, they were stronger, and could survive in smaller groups better than humans, who needed to band together to protect themselves from even simple bandits.

Any bandit who tried that with their village tended to wind up dead. Not eaten, they assured Lucia, they didn't eat humans anymore than humans ate beastmen. It was taboo, and likely for a reason. The way they explained it, the biology was similar enough to trigger neuron degeneration disease from eating the brains of each other…not that I told them that, they just said it made you crazy to consume the flesh of the other, so obviously some already insane nobles did it regularly.

More than that, the three brothers WERE brothers, they shared the same mother, though apparently Shadow was from a different father. Beastmen did not 'crossbreed' or create hybrids when they did, instead each beastman was a specific type of animal, so while they're mother had been a wolf, and the father of Strong and Fast a deer, while Shadow's was a snake of some kind, they did not carry those traits with them.

I was curious about that, why species were made that way, and even reptiles, amphibians, and birds were live births, and operated in the same biospheres as humans, with little difference in dietary needs beyond favoring meat or plants for carnivores and herbivores respectively. No bugs or fish either, which meant some carnivores favored them over other meat sources just to be polite, though few enough herbivore beastmen cared…or so my three carnivore companions said, I might want to get a second opinion there.

All in all, our journey was a good one, and looking into the distance, I saw a break in the trees ahead, and small plumes of smoke rising within it. The village, at last. We could see to our treasure trove of junk, buy or possibly hire a real wagon if I thought it was worth it, and maybe see about getting some more party members while we were at it. Then…well, a few more days of grinding and I'd get to see what a Wave was like with my own eyes.