D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Kat ---

Two further days of searching yielded nothing, and now the group was heading towards the centre of the mist. Why? Mostly just to kill time and give them all something to do. At least until they ended up in a bubble with a lake in the middle. The plan changed quite quickly at that point. At that point the group spread out to decimate the localised ecosystem.

It was just a bubble, so no real concerns about over hunting, or even keeping the area looking all that nice were needed. It was a time to really let lose and just enjoy things for a bit. Perhaps the drake was still around, perhaps it wasn't. For now, it didn't matter and THAT was great.

Hunter was seemingly going for maximum body count. Her new ability to split up let her cover a massive amount of ground, and summon demonic fire around any of her little snakes with a good deal of control.

Sadly, that took extra energy, and the flames could only be accurately controlled around one snake at a time, but with practice Hunter knew it could be a massive power upgrade once she got some practice in.

Of course, even with this in mind Hunter didn't want to interrupt the others' fun, so she stuck to her own segment of the large lake for the most part, while finishing off monsters hiding away that the others mist.

Bower politely asked for some of the weaker explosives he now knew the girls had on them. He mostly amused himself with throwing sticks of not-dynamite into the lake at various points. At least he was careful to avoid messing with the other girls. His odd tactic meant that he cleared out an exceptionally large are with by far the least amount of effort simply due to the underwater shockwave.

Sure monsters were tougher then normal fish, but these explosives were the real deal and Bower had quite a lot of them.

Lily spent her time gliding over the lake and using her shadow to take out the few flying monsters. It was a bit hard because with the ground so far away her shadow didn't always want to behave in the most intuitive manner… but focusing instead on the shadows her wings cast upon her body cleared up a lot of issues.

Lily was thrilled Kat trusted her enough to hunt these monsters without supervision… and her instincts were thoroughly enjoying the hunt as well.

It is entirely possible, perhaps even likely that despite Lily's claims of only using shadow magic that a few long-necked monsters she encountered had their throats ripped out by tooth and claw, but no blood was present on Lily's beautiful coat. Lily made sure of that much after the urge struck her.

As for Kat and Kamiko? They were setting up the food for everyone. Kat had volunteered to do it herself but Kamiko had refused that, insisting on helping. They planned to do their own hunting of the local monster population a bit later, perhaps taking turns so one person could watch the food while the other helped clear out the monsters. First thing first was setting up an enclosed area.

They wanted to relax and this was a bubble filled with monsters.

Chopping down the nearby trees and stacking them around the large beach like area they'd gathered worked well. With their newfound strength simply slicing right through the trees was easy, and between the two of them they were able to work out how to make simple cutouts in the logs to fit everything together.

It wasn't pretty, and the area would've been devoid of trees for a long time… but it worked and things came together surprisingly fast. Kat supposed that's what happened when you were capable of taking down a tree in a single swing, catch the falling log with one arm, and then carry a whole bunch of them off back to camp.

Not much talking happened during this time, Kat and Kamiko were too far away for the conversation to go well…

But once the walls were up and they were laying down some tarps, chairs and beanbag? Things picked up. "This… um… this is nice," said Kamiko suddenly.

"Oh? What is?" asked Kat. "I can't imagine you're talking about the physical labour,"

"No… just having everyone together doing something fun. Even with Lily and Hunter out and about, you can still see them if you look and it just feels… cozy. I was bottling up a lot of concern over… well everything once Hunter pointed out we could be stuck here.

Not that I mind being stuck here per say… just that I know you've got Sylvie to go home too, and I'm sure my mother would be worried if that's the case…

"Of course, if she's worried then I do wonder why she didn't say anything, which is another source of worry and I can only assume it has to be part of her contract but really… I just didn't know. So I was sort of stewing in all that. This has been nice though. A bit of physical activity, a nice waterfront spot and just… a time to relax? It's… it's nice.

It makes me wonder if we can rope Hunter into our small growing friend group when we get back," said Kamiko with a soft smile as she put down a colourful beanbag chair.

Kat gave off a soft laugh. "I can't decide if they'd get on wonderfully, or horribly. There are so many ways it could go. Like, I could imagine Sue trying and failing to fluster Hunter with a number of insensitive jokes… or perhaps because Hunter isn't concerned with sex much at all, she might fire back.

I could also see Hunter have a good deal of respect for Sue, because Hunter's a hunter and Sue's… a different kind of hunter. Or perhaps Sue's newfound desire to be something MORE might shine through and Hunter could offer advice… though I'm not sure how likely it is we could rope Hunter into our group. She's… a lot older then us all,"

Kamiko nodded, "Yeah I can see all of those happening! It would be really interesting to see… and I'd sort of forgotten about the age difference. Hunter doesn't FEEL that much older then us a lot of the time. I… I'm not sure if we can rope her in. I'm sure plenty of other groups have tried… but I just want to be her friend. I wonder if that will make enough of a difference?"

"I can't say," said Kat with a shrug. "We've spent… honestly quite a lot of time with Hunter at this point. A lot of that time has only tangentially been working on the mission. It's probably been less formal then a lot of her other hunts… but that's just a guess. Then again… we could always bribe her with sufficient amount off food?"

Kamiko let out a snicker, "Hahaha, that just might work. I can see it now, 'Hey Hunter we're having a small get together with one other friend you don't know, want to come along?' and she'd respond, 'No, but thank you for the offer.

I am currently engaging in my regular training and do not have time' and we'd say 'Got a bunch of free soup available' and then we'd just have a snake turn up at our door. It'd be so funny to see. Though I'm not sure she's really THAT obsessed with the food. And doesn't her clan feed her?"

"I assume so. I also assume that she doesn't get that same quality of food while out on a Hunt normally… though I wonder why? Is it not standard to have time stop inside of storage rings?" asked Kat.

"Oh, um… I know that one! While it's not too much more expensive to have time stopped inside of them, a lot of rings aren't actually rated for proper food. It does something weird to the taste and while it's usually still edible the flavours go all wonky," answered Kamiko.

"Wait… what? I don't remember hearing anything about that from other people…" mumbled Kat.
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"I think it's a problem unique to demonic energy. Qi and Mana based storage rings don't have that same problem… or so I've heard," said Kamiko.

"Right… well I suppose if demonic energy was going to have an issue with anything I can see why 'food storage' would be on that list. Hmm… is it worth the extra money for something that keeps food good?" asked Kat.

"Um… I doubt Hunter thinks so, but from what my sisters tell me it's normal to have a smaller 'lunchbox' ring that only contains food, and runs at slower, but not stopped time, alongside a more normal storage ring. You can have one on each hand without any issue so it works out," explained Kamiko.

"Hmm… might need to look into this with you and Sue then. Make a proper shopping day out of it," said Kat with a nod.