V stared at the small ball of fur. It stared back, its large eyes blinking every few seconds. As they stood there staring at each other, he got the distinct impression that it desired for him to follow it. He wondered if he was going crazy, but it almost felt like it was waving him over. He shook his head, it was a ball, it lacked arms. He really must be losing his mind. V opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Eika cut him off "Hay, Hay! Maybe we should follow it! When Eika gets close it jumps backwards! It must want something right? Why would it follow us! I doubt fairies follow people for no reason. Well, to be honest I don’t really know much about fairies but the stories say people almost never see them so I bet that-." V cut off her rambling with a hand gesture, "I was also thinking we should follow it" he attempted to get a view of the sun through the trees "However I can’t tell how late it is, I don’t want to be caught out here at night." Eika nodded "Ya nights real bad. We have something like four hours before nightfall we should be ok!!" She rolled back and forth on her heals, barely restraining her excitement. V sighed, "Then I suppose we can follow it, for a little while. Keep in mind however, for all we know it’s simply be fooling around, or something. We might not find anything." Eika nodded and moved toward the fairy before catching herself, she waited for V to approach it, and followed behind him.

It was a very strange experience for V, following a backward hopping, ball of fur. Despite continually looking at Eika and him, it never hit anything or jumped into any tree trunks. After a few minutes of this, it did seem to have a destination in mind, it was not simply hopping in one direction, but seemed to be making course corrections. Thirty minutes later the fairies jumping slowed down, and its hops were lower and quieter. Eika's ears twitched, angling forward. She sniffed the air a few times and slowed down, crouching low to the ground. V slowed down as well "Eika? Are you ok?" She whispered quietly as she listened to the forest "Something is close, a predator, not like the mantises. A real predator."  Her words gave V serious pause, he was unsure exactly what she meant by that, but if she did not consider the mantises "real predators" he was not extremely excited to find out what was around. For now, he switched back to Divine Champion class, it was baseline stronger than Swordsman after all.  "Can you locate it? Maybe we can find it before it sees, or senses, us." After a few moments she spoke again "Maybe directly ahead? The fairy might be trying to lead us to it..." Eika gave the fairy a disapproving look. She then crept forward through the underbrush. As they had followed the fairy, the forest had grown denser and more packed with plant life.

As they moved forward, she suddenly froze. V followed her gaze, moving to a better angle, he was able to witness what Eika spotted. Another monster. Despite being another gorilla mantis hybrid thing, even V could sense the difference. Something about it, beyond just its appearance, gave V the chills. It was the height of a man, perhaps slightly taller. It stood on two legs; its body was... difficult for V to really put into coherent thoughts. It was as if the mantis part had grown out of the top of a gorilla. Its thin insect body grew out of where the gorillas head should have been. Its arm situation made V recoil, it had so many arms. Way way too many arms. The gorilla section had six, two gorilla and four mantis, two of which sprouted out of its back. The upper part of its body, the mantis section, had another pair of gorilla arms and one mantis arm, one seemed to have been ripped off or otherwise destroyed. Its upper mantis body also seemed to have a spine, bones and muscle, rather than an exoskeleton; giving it way more flexibility and strength then it otherwise would have, as well as a warped appearance. The corpse of something that looked like it might have once been an elk laid nearby, it was unclear if the thing had eaten parts of it, or simply mutilated it.

Two of its gorilla arms scrabbled at a small hole in a nearby tree. The tree was a rather large example of its species. Five feet across, much wider than the rest of the trees in the area. Slash marks also covered the tree’s trunk, certainly created by the bladed arms. As V studied the situation, he got a few glimpses at the hole in the tree, in between the monsters slashes and punches. Mentally, he sighed to himself. He thought he saw more of the small fur fairies, or whatever they were, inside the hole. It made sense why the thing had led them here. It must have been looking for help. V silently wondered how long the monster had been trying to get into the hole / destroy the tree, and better question, how the tree had resisted its efforts.

Pulling back, he gently got Eika's attention, being sure not to scare her. The fairy followed them as he pulled far enough back that he was certain the monster was out of earshot. "That thing is horrible, although so were most of the others...." Eika nodded, clearly terrified. "It is level eight! It has an S in strength and constitution! Eika doesn't even know how that is possible, 'I’ve never heard of anything but legendary monsters having that sort of thing! Dragons and stuff! It had some abilities but I was not able to see what they did. That happens sometimes when a monster is near the maximum level limit, I can see..." She was absolutely freaking out, she was shaking and her voice kept cracking, V had to keep signaling to keep her voice down. V shook his head "Did you see in the tree? There was more of... those things" he gestured toward the fairy. "I think that monster is trying to eat them, or something." Eika shook her head "No I was uh, busy looking at the monster’s status." Eika took a second to collect herself "But don’t you think we should help them! The fairies take care of the forest! Eika thinks. There is no way a creature of the forest would ever attack them! Probably. And anyway, they are so cute and stuff! We can’t just leave them!" Despite her hastily muttered interjections to her own words, she pleaded with V as if she knew exactly what she was talking about.

V shook his head "What are we supposed to do? That thing will destroy me, and you, and maybe the whole town and anyone else. If it has two S ranks, and is level eight, with multiple abilities. I’m not sure we could defeat it even if every single person in the entire town attacked it at once. Tears started to appear at the edges of Eika's eyes. "But, but if that’s true then what chance do the fairies have?!" V shrugged "None I would guess. The tree seemed weirdly durable, perhaps it will hold out long enough for it to get bored." Although he was not willing to call Eika's "Information" about fairies reliable, if he assumed she was correct, that the fairies were some form of forest guardians. The mantis gorillas were clearly some sort of horrid crime against nature. He wondered if it was coincidence that the creature was so intent on getting to them... There was clearly other prey to hunt if it was about hunger. A worrying thought crossed his mind, what if the mantis gorilla monsters were trying to wipe out the natural order of the forest, that would imply some form of organized plan. Or perhaps it was simply that, as clearly unnatural beings, their instinct was to kill what was natural? That also couldn’t be right, the normal animals and trees would be considered "Natural" as well... As he was lost in thought, the small ball of fur bounced against his legs gently before hopping slightly in the direction of the monster. The fairy stared at him.

Eika started to cry "See. He... she... the fairy wants you to save its friends! We can’t just run away!" V shook his head again "I’m not going to die a pointless death for them and I cannot let you do so either. I am responsible for your physical wellbeing. Frankly I cannot afford you sacrificing yourself in a vain attempt to save the fairies. I'm going to have to order you to return to town with me." A sort of tingling feeling emanated from Vs fingertips on the hand he had cut to make his thumbprint with. She began to nod "Yes sir, Eika will return to tow-" She stomped her small foot, and Vs finger tips stung slightly. "NO! EIKA WILL NOT!" her voice echoed slightly off the trees, her defiance aside, both Eika and V froze, listening for any sign of the monster mantis gorilla. After a few seconds of silence, V gave Eika a harsh look and rubbed his fingers, he was honestly surprised she had the willpower to defy not only an order, but one enforced by slavery magic. On the other hand, she seemed willing to die over the matter, he supposed if anything was a sign of willpower, it was that. "You know, its illegal to defy an order. Even if you save them and manage to return to town, things are not going to go well for you." Eika's expression turned angry, her ears standing ridged, even so, tears flowed from her eyes. "Eika will not abandon them! I will just have to die this time! Eika will not obey. I will not run away!" V sighed, this was getting out of hand. However, realistically, he could absolutely not afford to pay for Eika's death. He might be turned into a slave to pay off the debt. He wished he had asked if he was liable if she died disobeying an order. Between the realistic possibility of becoming a debt slave, and Eika's despair and determination, which V admitted to himself had affected him slightly, it seemed as if he was going to have to deal with that monster.

"Fine. We will do something about the situation." Eika was about to yell again when she realized he has given in. "Eika knew she could count on you! A Divine Champion would not leave something like the fairies to die!" Perhaps getting the exact motivations wrong, Eika nonetheless switched moods fairly quickly. "Then how do we save them!" V shook his head yet again "I was sort of hoping you had an idea, because frankly I think the best I can manage is "Get torn in half after it chases me a little bit."" Eika thought for a few seconds "Well... maybe chasing you would work? It worked with the one that tried to drag Eika away. I don't know what that one’s Agility was, but this one has a C. Oh, and its awareness was an F, just like the one that almost crushed you. Maybe it will be bad at chasing you!" V considered. He really did not want to bank on the whole "call it names and run away" thing working again, but it MIGHT work. He was unsure what exactly a higher level meant when it came to attribute ranks. Everyone called it "Attribute scaling" so he assumed that a higher level would be faster or stronger, even with a lower rank. However, he was able to acquire an A in agility using his ability. It might work...

"I don't really want to do this, but it might be the only option." V hated running away. Well, that was not true. He loved running away, it was a quick way to solve all sorts of problems. He hated plans that were based on "running away" if the plan is to "run away" you probably should not be getting involved in the first place. Yet he had been doing that quite a lot recently. He swore to himself that he would become stronger as quickly as he could, to put a stop to the whole "The best plan is running" thing. "Eika, I’m going to simply try to bait it, then outrun it. The fairy things should be able to flee the tree, and then as long as I can lose it in the forest, the problem is solved. I’m going to need you to scout a route for me to take. Somewhere along it needs to be flat, even ground. I’m going to use an ability I acquired to increase my agility midflight, hopefully that will give me a sudden burst of speed that the monster will not be expecting, and I will be able to lose it then, I’ve never tried to use the ability in the middle of running, so I might not be able to concentrate on footing for a few seconds. Eika nodded and disappeared. 

After about twenty minutes had passed, Eika returned. "Eika is sorry for being so slow. There are some monsters is the area. I think the noises and the other monster have attracted them. I had to be careful. I found a place for you to run, but I will have to try to stay ahead of you as best I can, I will try to make noise or a signal if there is a monster in your way. Eika gave him directions, using what she considered to be "landmarks." V hoped he could tell what “Turn left at the especially ripped up tree" meant, but if the place was filling up with monsters, he really did not have the time to have a test run.

He stepped out into view of the mantis gorillas back. "Hay! Come and get some!" he shouted toward the monster. It completely ignored him. "Hello? Horrible monster?" Again, the thing reacted as if he was not even there. Great, the plan was already going poorly, V sighed. Picking up a few broken sticks, he threw them toward the monster. They hit the two bladed arms jutting out of its back, again, the monster either did not care, or did not notice. Either it was entirely unconcerned with him, or did not notice him. "You know, that thing looks sort of unbalanced..." V had a dangerous thought... Normally he would never take a risk like this, then again, normally he would not be doing this in the first place. The next time it bent over to look inside the hole, V ran up and kicked it as hard as he could, it fell forward rather easily, crashing into the tree. The bladed back arms caught V in the shoulder, but only caused a small scratch. Well, it certainly noticed him now. It made an indescribable noise that was a cross between a roar and chittering as V took off running. Jump over the rock, right at the red berry bush, left at the -. His thoughts were interrupted by two things, first, behind him the monster was simply running in a straight line toward him. Trees just turning into splinters as it collided with them, it was also throwing pieces of the forest at V. Tree bits, rocks, a bush. Anything its arms picked up while running. Secondly, he heard Eika let out a scream from a few yards in front of him, where the flat part of the rout was supposed to start.

As he dodged forest bits, he broke out into the small clearing Eika had found. Near the other side, where the underbrush started again, Eika was trying to avoid the slashes of a normal, albeit very large, mantis. She was trying to stay out of range of its slashes. He could not afford this right now. Ignoring her, he concentrated on activating Jack of All Trades, switching to agility. His various wounds from the day started hurting again, but he was ready for that. If Eika stayed there she was going to die. With his burst of speed, he ran toward her, however, he had no time to slow down to help. He shoved her with his shoulder as hard as he could into the underbrush, Eika tumbled out of the path of him and the monster. He had managed to pull away from the monster some, but due to the slowdown of knocking Eika out of the way, not enough. He was hoping to distance himself in the clearing, and break its line of sight within the trees, but he doubted he was far enough away now. Damn damn damn. As he tried to formulate a new plan, he heard a sort of crunchy soft noise of the mantis that had been attacking Eika, getting obliterated by the charging horror.

V did not immediately see a way out of this. However, directly in his path stood a one-foot tall, fluffy creature. It sort of looked like a fluffy radish with arms and legs. It waved its arm at V, and then pointed it forward, the way V was already running. Not having any better ideas, V decided to trust the thing that looked like the fairies he was trying to save. As he ran past, it gave him a strange sort of salute like gesture with its arm. V looked behind him, the thing was about to get absolutely brutalized by the gorilla mantis’s foot. At the last moment, it jumped several feet in the air, and sort of just...exploded. It looked sort of like how a dandelion does when you blow on the seeds. V quickly learned the effect that the white... fur... dust... had was his ticket to escape. It seemed to be having an almost allergic reaction to it. One of its gorilla arms rubbed its eyes, it started sneezing and coughing, hardly able to see, and unable to run at full speed due to the difficult breathing, it was unable to continue chasing V, he quickly doubled back toward Eika, hoping to grab her and get out of here. Sure, he might get some good XP for killing that thing, but it had a S in constitution, he was not even sure his sword swings would pierce its hide, the only viable option was to get out of here.

He found Eika cowering under a bush, right where he had pushed her. "I think one of the… adult fairies or something helped me. We need to get out of here though, I’m sure the noise of a ton of trees getting crushed to splinters will only attract even more attention." Eika nodded silently. He asked if she knew the quickest way out of the forest from here, she pointed in a directly and weakly said "East, that way. A bit of a walk." Eika seemed unsteady on her feet. Maybe it was the adrenaline draining from her system. Maybe she got hurt when he pushed her, or maybe this is even some sort of backlash from defying the slave magic. Whatever the case, if he wanted to make any progress, he was going to have to carry her. With his damaged back this was sure to hurt. He switched his ability back to Con, he told Eika to climb onto his back, it would be faster for both of them if she rode piggyback. Shortly after climbing up onto him, she passed out.

Eika did not wake up again till they were at the towns edge. "Eika is happy we are back, I’m very sleepy" V nodded. "I’m exhausted, and in more pain than I would like to be." He put Eika down and they both limped back to the Lanced Luskit.