Kabelu Woods pt 3

I left before the guards that morning. I had issued them a command to be stationed in various sections of the woods.

If all is well I'll be able to handle things and by the time arrive they can just haul back the materials.

Problem solved!

I can already hear your bitching, pipe down!

I know this isn't gonna be easy, alright?!

But this is my trial. I refuse to be a useless daughter that piggy backs off the competence of her family. It's sickening!

I ventured through the entrance this time. My ankle had healed but still not by much. As one infiltrated the forest they'd soon come across the deep slopes where an earthquake caused deep folds. I fished into my bag.

Here seems good enough. Along the slope inbetween the trees I planted a few pinwheels as I descended.

They began to spin, it was always windy up here during the mornings. Let's hope everything goes according to plan and I won't have to be here longer than I needed. I hid behind a tree and waited.

Unlike before I could hear buzzing before I sensed it.

The wasps were out.

Today's prey was a family of boars, giant rats, and...was that an alligator? This place had a swamp? Since when?

Their squealing and growling was really disturbing to listen to in a chorus.

I left my position behind one of the trees to fish into my bag and deploy my paper planes using a finger slingshot.

The wind guided them to the wasps, I was very pleased to see the wasps explode from impact. Their limbs, head and butt shot out of their sockets, leaving their torso to fall.

I had a feeling that the 'stun' rune could be combined with the 'eject' rune, the arrows pointing outward in each fold of the plane charged by my mana imbued by the "pulling" gravity prompt and "paste on target." Which resulted in a strong pulling force on the limbs of anyone near once activated. Too much for a vessel to take and splat!

It didn't matter that I had only sent three.

So long as they were close together they would die together from being within the radius of my planes.

What I hadn't anticipated was for the wasps farther away to halt at the falling of their kin and to fly back down to investigate.

I hid behind a tree knowing full well I had been seen.

I closed my eyes as their flapping drew near.

The spinning pinwheels began to glow and unravel. They were three sets of wheels on one pin, fashioned to look like a rose, they spun in opposite directions from each other.

Splat!

I heard the sound of its guts first before I looked up and saw another wasp lunging at me with its stinger.

The faulty thing about the pin wheels is that some of them tore from one use. It's a prototype after all so it's to be expected.

I ran to my next post. My ankle holding me back more than I thought. I had to dive to narrowly avoid the trees that exploded from the lightning shooting out the stingers of the wasps.

The scent of smoke burned my nostrils and left me dizzy as I tried to hold my breath.

I fished in my bag, clumsily retrieving a shoddy paper fan. I flipped it out and sweeped at the air.

The wasp and smoke was blown away by a torrent of wind but once that fan ripped it immediately resumed chase. Not as strong as the paper fans from the Hachisuka clan but it'd do.

It barely bought me enough time to make it back to my other safety nets.

I spotted my own handiwork- the rest of the pinwheels lined up in a neat row and dived over them, I could feel the wind from its wings on the back of my spine.

This time I turned around to witness the pin in action, a vortex of wind unfurling from the pin wheels, peeling off the giant wasps limbs into spiraling straps, keeping the wasp from getting any closer to me as it tried to fly over them. A blast of wind finally emitted from the pinwheel, forcing it back and drilling through its abdomen.

I got lucky this time as there was another wasp behind it that got impaled as well.

My heart was pounding.

That...was a bit too close for comfort.

Let's see how many man-sized wasps does that make? 6? ah 9 if you count the three up here.

I peered over the slope to see that the prey the other wasp had been carrying died from the height of the fall.

Which meant more materials. Lucky!

My heart was pounding just as much as my ankle. I wanted to hunt a bit more but for now this is okay. I think I'd seriously die if I did.

The guards arrived as expected. As they brought the corpses up the hill they eventually spotted me sitting with my legs tucked to the side.

"Milady!"

"What are you doing here by yourself?"

"...Could someone give me a piggy back home?"

I had been running out of ideas as to what to make my savior but towards the end, I got lucky huh?

They had fuzz that nullified thunder attacks, and their monster cores could channel thunder attacks into pure mana, also their fuzz kept them afloat in water for some reason, their needles...

I stared death in the face and survived today. I felt bad for killing the wasps but also not because they came at me first. (No they didn't )

These past couple of days I tried to rack my brain for some kind of good thing I could do for my benefactor, but aside from making them a coat and a sword, I didn't know what else.

If you think I went home after that and simply rested you're mistaken.

I sent the wasp materials to the black smith and got to work.