DMS Chapter 33
DMS Chapter 33
Flinx thought that since he was flying while traveling through the forest, that should be an added safety net for the owl bear eggs' survival. He would just put the bag with the eggs in a safe place before engaging with the monsters.
For a moment, he thought of teleporting back to Beldor Town to store the eggs there, but he didn’t want to waste too much time. He wasn’t even sure what he could use the eggs for. Flinx had a thought that maybe he could have the owl bears as battle pets or something. He could imagine himself riding one of the owl bears. How cool would that be?
Once the owl bears eggs were safely ensconced inside the backpack, he commanded Pip to move ahead while he followed several meters behind.
Flinx felt that he was wasting a lot of time searching for monsters in the forest. When he first arrived in this world, he flew up he immediately noticed the huge number of monsters in the forest. His mistake was, the monsters that could tolerate living close to each other were low-level monsters. The high-level ones had territories.
What it all meant was, Flinx had to travel at least an hour between fights.
After about an hour, as expected, Pip found a bunch of giant crocodiles near a pond. The fact that the crocodiles had horns meant that they were not animals but monsters. He wouldn’t be averse to killing those off. Flinx didn’t know what he was thinking when he thought that there could be regular beasts in this forest. He knew that the only beings that could survive in here were monsters. He wondered, though, what would happen if somebody killed all the monsters.
What Flinx didn’t know was that it was impossible for something like a total genocide to happen. The fecundity of the monsters was truly great because their reproduction was not only dependent on the biological but also magical. Some monsters, using magic, could clone themselves, and some could produce multiple offspring using their magical abilities. Most of the monsters didn’t need much time from birth before reaching adulthood and becoming powerful enough to engage in battle.
If something like that was the only thing that the monsters did, maybe people and monsters could co-exist, but the problem was, monsters were homicidal maniacs, not only against humans, but other species, as well, including other monsters not of their race. Heck, they would even attack and eat their own kind.
There were about 8 crocodiles that he could see scattered in the pond, but Flinx didn’t know if there were any under the water. The pond where the giant crocodiles were looked stagnant, and it smelled. Flinx even thought of bypassing the crocodiles because of the stink of the water. He wondered if they were high-level monsters. The owl bears were, and they were only located an hour from this place.
Flinx was hoping that he had already entered the area where the high-level monsters were located. He cast a second Crown of Light spell, and once he was in range of the giant crocodiles, he didn’t waste any more time and sent the 14 motes of light towards the monsters.
All the crocodiles that he could see that were out of the water were hit with the motes of light at least once. Unfortunately for Flinx, it looked like the giant crocodiles' defenses were great. All the crocodiles that were hit received wounds from his spell, but they were not lethal wounds, and Flinx could see that the monsters were already regenerating.
Flinx thought that maybe he would have to concentrate on the crocodiles one at a time. He cast a magic missile spell slotted in one of his 3rd slots and targeted the head of a single crocodile. The five glowing bolts from the Magic Missile unerringly flew to the head of the monster he targeted, and that caused the head to explode.
The death of the crocodile comforted Flinx since that meant that he could kill the hardy monsters. He had also seen that he only needed around three bolts from the Magic Missile spell that was slotted in one of his 3rd-level slots to destroy. He realized that he would need to target the crocodile's vulnerable spot to kill them, and the head seemed to be one of its weaknesses. He knew that if the motes of light of his Crown of Light spell hit the giant crocodile's head, they would probably have died immediately.
Flinx targeted a second crocodile and cast another Magic Missile spell. The five bolts from the spell caused the second crocodile’s head to explode. Splitting the target of the bolts to target more than one monster was incredibly complicated. It could be done, but he didn’t want to bother, so he let all five bolts hit one crocodile. Besides, he had five 3rd-level slots. He also filled the 2nd-level slots with the Magic Missile spells, and he had six of those, so he would have enough spells to kill all eight monsters. Another thing was, his 3rd-level slots only had a 3-minute cooldown, and Flinx thought that he was safe since he was flying above the monsters.
He was greatly surprised, though, when two of the crocodiles suddenly emitted lightning from their horns and shot them at Flinx. Since it was unexpected, Flinx was hit by the lightning bolt. Thankfully, he cast the Mage Armor spell before he engaged the crocodile, but the hit caused him to be hurt considerably that he almost couldn’t control himself, and he almost fell. He immediately flew away from the location and hid behind some trees and stayed in one of the thicker branches of one of the bigger trees.
While he was flying away, he noticed that the crocodiles started running towards the pond and hid beneath it.
While resting on the branch, Flinx was cursing himself for a fool. Because of his overconfidence, he was almost killed. There were many ways to keep himself safe. He could have used the Stone Skin skill to protect himself. He could have researched more spells that would allow him to defend himself from magical attacks. He could have moved faster and cast several spells at once, but instead, he took his time casting spells to see the monster’s reaction. He could have used his most powerful spell to target the crocodile's head instead of just trying to hit the monsters on their body parts.
The fact that Flinx thought that he was ready to face high-level monsters now looked like a superbly unfunny joke to him. The problem was, he thought he was overpowered because he had killed two powerful owl bears without any issues.
At least Flinx had learned his lesson early enough, and it didn’t cost him too much. Once his 3rd-level slots were ready, he swapped one of the Magic Missile spells with the Healing Elixir spell and cast it. After he drank the elixir, all of his wounds disappeared. His shirt and jacket were scorched, though. He replaced his shirt with a new one from his 4th tab space and bought a new jacket from his system shopping site, causing all of his funds on the page to empty.
Flinx knew that he was a little traumatized by the encounter, so even though it was still very early, not even noon, he decided to return to Beldor town. He retrieved the bag that contained the owl bear's egg from its hiding place, then, without any further consideration, teleported back home. He knew, though, that the moment he decided to teleport back to the forest, he would appear in the last place he memorized, which was a few hours from here. It didn’t matter to Flinx. He wanted to rest immediately.