Wardi thrust his rapier into the slug repeatedly. Squelching noises loudly rang out after each piercing stab at the thing. Lucy, noting his frustrations, cast a Gorthen Art, ending the thing for good. She began to feel the effects of lùth running out, with tiredness kicking in along with the cold sweats, and activated her lùth core trait to restore some of the lost power.

"We haven't even started with the main thing over here yet. I hope my lùth will still be enough...though it would be nice if it were weaker to physical attacks; I could have a nice sleep then, hee-hee," Lucy cheekily cackled to herself, drawing the humoured ire of her companions.

"HA! She's on double time now; I'm going for my break instead."

Dancing around Lucy while trying to defend her against multiple incoming attacks was certainly tiring for Rhua and Wardi. Lucy's quick thinking had helped the fighting in some ways, giving them the opportunity to earn assistance from her Arts.

Schloop, grunk

Gah, this bloody ground is muddy as hell as the fights go on. I can barely keep my balance. Rhua groaned in her head angrily, sighing quietly to herself as she slid across the leaf-filled floor of the Widdlewans.

"Ugh, my foot keeps getting stuck. This is my worst nightmare; I can't even 'Shadow Step' without risking falling on my arse." Wardi swung upwards, intending to attack the last remaining petritram, missing by several feet in the wrong direction as he found himself on his back.

This day just keeps getting better and better. He cried internally. Lucy earned herself a stern telling-off from frustration.

"Probably would have been, clang, clang, better if we had just burned the bloody place to the ground at this rate. At least I could DIE WITHOUT THIS OVERHANGING EMBARRASSMENT."

Smirking and feeling proud of herself, Lucy responded, "You've been through worse. Up you get now, chop chop!" Her smiles soon faded as Munching Mikey made his way into the vicinity.

The trio all looked at it, trying to defend themselves in their peripheral vision.

Clang, schunk, bang

Mikey bounced onto Rhua's shield with a huge CRACK. The sound rang through the area, and Rhua could feel the force of the hit through her arms, responding in turn, "For a little thing like that, it's sure got some power. That's gone right through me."

Soreness rushed from her hands to her shoulder. A heavy build-up of fatigue made her drop her shield in turn, only for her to have to raise it again for an incoming bounce.

'Frenentic Firium', a blast of fire, pelted the Sau into a tree with a BOOM.

Its big blue eyes gave it a cute addition to its milky-coloured cloudy fur body. At first the Rhua thought it was moving on all fours, but it was moving upright like a person.

Darting from the trees, using them as if they were springboards for it to move from.

Crunch, crunch, swoosh,

Its movement was unpredictable, and they were still trying to contend with the regular trash mobs lingering about the place. One or two were taken out by the Igni mines that Lucy had put out beforehand.

BOOM BANG, signalling something unfortunately met its timely end.

"A Petritram and a single proud fly remain. So how are we going to do this?" Rhua asked the trio readying her tired, aching arms for a surprise foot blasting of Mikey.

"I'll deal with the Sau for now. You two take care of the last two, then we'll regroup. It's a good practice run for me." Wardi replied.

"Are you sure? It hits much harder than you would expect. "It's no pusher, Wardi." Uncertainty and questioning tones in her voice didn't deter Wardi.

I'd rather I figure out its attack patterns without any distractions. They'd only get in the way.

Nodding at her and pushing his way forward, Wardi wanted to get right to it. "Yeah, not a problem. Don't take too long over here."

Charging into the shadow, he tried to meet the bouncing Sau mid-air, his blade connected with Mikey's toughened skin, and he muttered to himself, "I've got a cocktail sausage."

"Hmm, that took a while to come out."

The Sau stared at him, with big, beady blue eyes and adorable little "baa~" sounds that Wardi could tell were how it tried to get its target's guard down. "Yeah, that's not going to work, you little shit," he said, throwing his other rapier towards it, slicing its ear.

The spare rapier hit the trunk of the tree with a thud and dropped down to the floor into a pile of leaves. Mikey began to steam and turn red. Oh, ok then; this just got interesting. Wardi thought as he began to charge at him using the same bounding techniques it used against the trio.

Meanwhile, Rhua and Lucy were quickly trying to finish off the remaining mobs. Rhua's clone had already met its untimely end, piled on by multiple dung slugs without her noticing.

Hmph, at least it took them out before disappearing; that helped a whole bunch.

'Frenetic Firium!' Lucy shouted once again.

The petritram burst into a crispy charred husk of its former self as a fireball met it. Booms and explosions as the ball connected. It growled loudly before the voice slowly faded into the wind.

"Just that annoying proud fly left now. Where's it gone, though? I can't see it anywhere."

The pair looked around, trying to see if they caught any movements. They could hear it before they could see it. which wasn't a good thing considering what it was. Munching Mikey was starting to look far less suited to its name and was becoming more and more feral by the second. The baby blue eyes started to turn milky white.

A swooshing and buzzing aftersound flew around the duo trying to swipe and blast at the proud fly. As long as they could land a blow, it was easily manageable, but that was the problem; they couldn't do that at all.

"Bleh, it's so fast, it's managing to avoid all my traps. I wish we had the others here too, maybe to get its attention or something." Lucy's frustrations were starting to rub off on her companions in the wrong way; a scowl from Rhua went her direction, and Lucy began to sweat harder from the pressure. *I'll try not to upset Rhua for a while. 'I don't want to die,' Lucy thought, fearing she was on her way to a clean punch in the face.

Wardi, meanwhile, was having to contend with the ever-increasing insanity of Munching Mikey, the not-so-cute sow. His tiny little legs began to extend and whip out when attacking. Despite the size of its limbs, its power was impossible to scoff at. Whipping legs split trees in half and tore giant chunks of the ground up as the blows landed against it.

I'll try not to eat too many of those. They'll take me out in less than a handful.

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He ducked and dived while trying to wait for his cooldowns to return; it was much tougher than he expected.

Rhua and Lucy were trying desperately to deal with the proud fly running rings around them. Rhua's controlled strikes continued to meet thin air. The fly's ultra-quick reactions gave it an edge at the last second, as it swooshes away, zipping around her, Lucy and the trees.

"Rhua, try to bait it; they seem drawn to barriers," Lucy asked of her.

'Phalanx', 'prism mail', Rhua muttered quietly.

Energy emitted from Rhua caught the attention of her foe.

"See, I told you so."

"Good shout, Lucy," said Rhua, bracing herself for a charging-in attack.

Shooting up high and charging down at her with missile-like ferocity, this proud fly was coming in hard for Rhua. She began to swing her sword back, ready, bracing her shield tightly in turn.

Do it, you little shit. I dare you. Screeching downwards, the fly was moments away.

'Torche,' Rhua mumbled behind her shield. A blinding flash came forth; disorientated, it tumbled to the floor, and Rhua slammed her shield down on it, crushing it with furious passion.

Lucy, in turn, bombarded the thing with Gorthen attacks; conjured fists pummelled at it up close.

A critical strike connected with its head, taking it clean off, its body still twitching from strong energies powering it.

Rhua and Lucy took a moment to breathe.

gasp "My god, those were tricky. I don't think we've dealt with foes like that for a long time." Deep, filling breaths filled up Lucy's lungs as she tried to recover.

A bead of sweat trickled down Rhua's forehead; her fringe was soaked through as she removed her helmet to cool off.

"Yeah...I'm going to kill him at some point. This is just wasting time. What if we get too far ahead compared to others?"

She has a point there. The thought filled Lucy with concern.

"We just have to keep trying until we can get through to the other three somehow...or meet up with them by chance."

"Stop standing *sching* crash around and help me BANG OUT, YOU TWO!" Wardi interjected, barely parrying the vicious Mikey fully engaged in the fight.

***

Munching Mikey was proving to be a formidable foe. The first realistic wilderness challenge the group should have faced, had they been together. The re-joining of Rhua and Lucy into this fight began to shift fortune towards their favour; Rhua was able to focus purely on defensive measures whilst the other two could strike more freely, at least when Mikey was in a downtime position.

Rhua backed it into an open space, repeatedly hitting it with a shield bash. It tried to meet her attacks with whipping limbs smashing against the shields; bangs and clangs filled the area with noise and sparks as the attacks met each other. "Let's try to fight and finish it here," she ordered to the others. "Well, we can now that the three of us are fighting it." Wardi replied.

The trio's attacks were connecting easier than they were against the proud flies, but Mikey was no pushover, and it was quick to adapt to the situation it faced. Turning all of its attacks into AoE swings in a perfect circle, the trio had to duck and jump more, making it harder to engage it.

"How do I cast anything if it won't let me stand still long enough!?" It was inappropriate for Rhua to joke at a time like this, saying, "Skill diff, hun." Wardi was shocked and tickled by the line, causing him to take a mighty thwack as a whip to the gut landed. He was sent tumbling into a tree that broke in half with a CRACK & THUD as it landed. "I'll be feeling that for a few hours, fuck."

"Hail! Dost thou require a fair hand of encouragement in this noble strife? The wandering troupe shall assist!"

Distracted by the sudden arrival of five newcomers, a clang rang against her armour and a blow rattled through her side. The armour absorbed it, but it gave Rhua a fright. 'Fucking arseholes, who does that in the middle of a fight!?'

Lucy spoke up on the trio's behalf, "Either join in or clear off; your timing here was utterly terrible!" Wardi noted the man speaking on behalf of those around him; he seemed to dress as if re-enacting a medieval nobleman of sorts, with a rainbow-coloured frilly shirt, doublet and tights and a wildly shaking spear. Why does this person seem familiar? I think someone enjoys history a little bit more than they really should.

"WHAT!? Ye denieth our help!? Then I shall write tales of this day! Unpleasant peasant SCUM!" He barked at Lucy. His companions joined in the chorus, shouting, "BOO. Non-performer" A dirty, barely dressed man hacked and coughed, and "DOWN WITH THE NON-PERFORMERS!" came the jeers of a jester, wearing more leather than the bicycle fanatics that frequent Chapless Charlie's bicycle bar on Canal Street.

Mikey realised he was outnumbered by the sheer number of adventurers in the area and was able to bounce away gleefully, ending the arduous battles abruptly with a cute little "Baa-Baa Baawoo!"

The trio's scowling faces turned to the wandering troupe, who met the stares with dramatic body posing.

Twirling his weapon around and kneeling honourably. The spearman spoke the words in a poetic manner:

"Such shame Hath befallen The WiddleWans this day,"

Rhua was fuming and stomped over, glaring him dead in the eyes. "No, just your unwarranted interruption, pal. Piss off, before I kick your arse."

"I cannot, milady, for I have gazed upon thy beauty. I shall write and defend thee to the ends of this world and back."

"I'll break your bloody neck if you try." Staring him down, she only fuelled Willieth's lunacy, as he tried with open arms, hugging the fair maiden. Helping Wardi stand back up, he waved her away with his hands, and Lucy took it upon herself to blast at the feet of the troupe afterwards with a quick bolt.

Bang!

"We were at this for hours… You better clear off. I am not a happy Hankae right now. 'Blitz Bolle', she yelled, casting towards them. They quickly scarpered away, breaking character. "I don't want to die, boss!" "I don't get paid enough for this, Willieth."

As he hobbled over to his companions, Wardi spoke up, "Is it me, or is this world going stir crazy?" A system window popped up, giving Wardi information about Mikey.

Weird… We didn't even beat it. Why's this message popping up? "Did anyone else receive a system window just now?" he asked, looking around.

The others shook their heads. Lucy responded by asking what he meant.

Wardi read the screen aloud for the others.

Munching Mikey

Age

???

Class

Sau Fu Adept

Strength

150

Vitality

150

Wisdom

69

Agility

130

Traits

Wool Absorption: Can't be critically hit in woolly areas. Surface Shot: Bounce off surfaces increases attack speed and damage dealt by 20%

Abilities

Clouding Carnage [enrage]: Deal and receive 25% more damage. Confuddling Charm: distract foes by being kawaii desu ne~ and then smash 'em in the nards.

Actions

Limb Whipping

"That explains a lot of Mikey's actions. Named monsters really are named for a reason…"

"You can say that again, Luce. Still though, why did the message appear?"

"It's probably nothing, Wardi. Come on, let's go."

***

Watching from the heavenly realm, a barely sober Serilia drooled over the controls in the CCTV room. Cherubs desperately tried to lift her off, accidentally failing and pressing menu commands in the process.

"By the gods… and goddess! I thought she quit Ambrosia? I can barely lift her finger, Cherub 110." "HA. Oh, Cherub 88. Did it not occur to you that she never stopped?" Together they continued straining to lift her gargantuan fingers from the control panel.

"MARK… zzz, you, WHY DID YOU LEAVEEEEE zzz?"

Cherub 101 whispered, "Let's just leave her here, 88. Before we suffer the snap..."

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