M. Tress Writes
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Summoned by Monster Girls - Chapter 102
🕑 Added 2025-01-04 09:00:03 +0000 UTCYeah, called it, I thought with a sigh as I stared across the arena at my last opponent for the day.
The break between rounds had been short enough that Rainfist had actually called for a recess to allow people to go and get food and relax a bit. Apparently, this particular season of fights had gone far quicker than they’d expected. I could see why, as the vast majority of the class had only a strong summons, rather than truly powerful ones. My fights had, on average, been the longest ones, as I’d been doing my best to not grievously injure my opponents.
That was not a stance held by most of the opponents, though.
The fight right after mine was the terrible trio and their deep hunter, and I could tell they were taking their anger out on their opponent. The creature that was summoned to fight the craggy beast looked like an eight-legged crocodile of rather prodigious size. And it was purely that size that gave me any hope the creature would survive its injuries.
The deep hunter had just charged the massive reptile, not caring one whit that its opponent was twice its size. A brief tussle later and the deep hunter had gotten hold of one of the crocodile’s legs and its sharp jaws had torn the limb right off at the torso while its thick claws tore furrows into the underside of the animal.
The deep hunter had again been enraged when its prey was taken from it; the summoner forfeited with that injury and sent its partner away. This time, though, the trio were quick to banish their summon as well, so it only got to take a single stomping step towards its next victim before it vanished as well.
The leader of the trio had turned to glare up at where we were seated pointedly, clearly making her threat known that I would be next. I ignored her, instead focusing on reassuring Shayla who was clearly shaken after that fight.
Another two fights occurred after this, but I honestly spent more of my time talking with the girls and promising them that I would be okay than I did watching the fights. It was clear that the wealthier students were dominating this competition just purely through their ability to throw mana at the problem and empower their summoned creature. That fact alone made me glad that Shayla and Jane had joined our team, as I doubted either would have been able to do much in this format.
After the recess, almost the entire class returned to the coliseum to see the last two fights of the day. The staff also remained behind, and I spotted more than one bloodthirsty expression on several of their faces, clearly enjoying the bloodsport put in front of them.
Now, to make sure none of my own blood is spilled for their sport, I thought wryly, rolling my head on my shoulders and stretching out.
“I still don’t like how they crammed so many fights into the first day,” Shayla was complaining behind me from her place along the wall. “It leaves nothing for tomorrow other than the final and also ensures that those competing in the later fights are tired.”
“I don’t know either, Shayla. That’s just the brackets that they announced,” Rieka said with a sigh. “I’m sure there was some political finagling done in the background. Either someone wanted to see specific match-ups or they wanted to tilt it in the favor of certain students whose creatures were more endurance-focused.”
“Liam’s definitely got the endurance,” giggled Kassandra, though her customary lewd comment didn’t have the same amount of energy that it normally did, telling me she was also worried.
“It’ll be fine, girls. I got this.” I tried to inject as much confidence into my words as possible, but I knew this was going to be a hard fight. Especially since, as I’d said, my suspicions were confirmed.
I was facing the deep hunter now, as my last fight of the day.
So far I’d done well, with only minor injuries to show for the three other fights I’d gone through. I did agree with Shayla’s annoyance at the way they’d scheduled things, as it barely gave time for the summoned creatures to recover between their fights. And even in spite of cramming most of the fights into today, we’d still had to take an additional recess to have a reasonable amount of time for fighters to catch their breath.
Poor management. Whatever, focus on the here and now. Live in the present tense, I reminded myself, and settled into a ready position.
“Fighters ready?” Rainfist called and got affirmatives from both summoner groups.
I might have imagined it, but the look he shot at me was concerned. I just nodded, though. There were still tricks I had up my sleeve, after all, and this would be an interesting fight.
Like jousting a rhino. The thought made me smirk, which apparently annoyed the wolf kin on the other side of the arena. I abruptly realized that I’d never even gotten any of their names. I’d just been thinking of them as ‘that annoying trio’ this entire time.
The blast of Rainfist’s horn pushed that thought out of my mind and I was forced to react already.
With a bellowing roar, the deep hunter charged me with its wedge-shaped head down, sending clouds of sand into the air with each ponderous step as it built up speed.
I immediately shifted so that it would angle away from the girls. The last thing I wanted was for it to miss me and charge towards them. To ensure that the bloodthirsty creature stayed fixed on me, I kicked at the sand underfoot and used my Manipulate Element to send a large chunk of compressed sand into the air to smash into the beast’s head.
The creature didn’t even react, other than to angle itself to keep its charge aimed directly at me. The hunk of stone burst on its armored forehead in a shower of smaller rocks. I was pretty sure I heard a distant, haughty laugh from one of the trio, but I ignored it in favor of keeping focused on my opponent.
I didn’t want to test if the heavy monster could slam through the coliseum walls either, so I kept towards the center of the arena to avoid that particular activity. A quick tune-up to my legs and I leaped to avoid its charge, the increased musculature and bone density allowed for a truly powerful leap to one side.
The deep hunter slid to a stop, snarling in anger from a mouth wide enough it would likely bite me in half if it got hold of me. It stomped around in a broad circle until it spotted me, beady eyes flaring evilly, and charged again.
I evaded again, this time measuring my distance a bit more, so I didn’t evade by quite as far. I’d hit on the idea of using something akin to a grasshopper’s legs to avoid the creature’s charges during its last fight, but I didn’t want to go too far in that direction. The amount of power a grasshopper could put out for its body weight was crazy, and the last thing I wanted was to either plow into a wall, the seats, or end up so high in the air that I’d get a broken leg coming back down.
Need to work on flying, I reminded myself as I dodged a third charge, peering closer at the interlocking plates of the creature’s armor, looking for a weakness of some kind.
“Come on, coward! Fight!” shrieked the leader of the trio.
My evasions had driven me further towards their side of the arena, and while I knew that they couldn’t interfere, I didn’t want to take a chance one would try to be subtle. Admittedly, none of the three had seemed subtle to me before, but now would be a bad time for them to decide to learn it.
Shifting quickly to one side, I guided the next charge of the deep hunter to head in the direction of its summoners. I doubted that it would actually plow into them, but it was the closest I could do to sparing the time and energy to flip one of them the bird. From the squeals of surprise and laughter that came from my own set of girls, I’d succeeded for the moment. It was further confirmed by the laughter of the other students watching them scramble.
When the deep hunter wheeled about to charge me again, I slapped a hand down onto the ground and pushed with my Manipulate Element again, this time causing a forest of sandstone spikes to erupt from the ground in front of me in a spiny fan of foot-long quills that were several inches thick at the base.
The deep hunter hit them and rolled right over the top like a truck running over a pine-cone. The creature didn’t even bother to avoid them, instead just kicking the cluster with one large paw and sending it exploding into a shower of dust and pebbles.
Okay, scratch that idea, I thought with a grimace, throwing myself out of the way of yet another charge. Need to come up with something. That thing really is like a rhino, and here I am without a big game rifle.
I had my father’s old hunting rifle in my Dimensional Pocket at the moment, but I doubted that a 30-06 would be enough to punch through the creature’s armor. I’d read somewhere that while you could hunt a rhino with that caliber of rifle, it was not recommended. And the thick armor plates on the deep hunter looked even denser than a rhino’s hide.
How to bring down big game… without a rifle. I turned the thought over in my mind while I dodged another charge. I created a shallow hole in front of the deep hunter, but the sand was only a few inches down and it barely stumbled at the hole.
The deep hunter roared in anger, and its eyes flashed with malice. I felt a shifting in the ground under me and threw myself upwards in a straight leap that carried me almost ten feet into the air.
Sparing a glance down revealed that the ground where I’d been standing had been replaced with a large spike of stone that protruded a good four feet up. I’d only managed to clear the tip by a few feet, and as my momentum bled off and I began to fall back towards it, I kicked out with one foot to throw myself away from the spike of stone.
Okay, shit. So it does have some power beyond just being so damn big, I snarled inside my own mind.
I landed roughly, having to roll in order to avoid breaking something, and then kick off the ground to propel myself away from the danger I knew was coming. The deep hunter’s charge carried it past me once more, but this time I heard the whistle of its clawed paw go by as well.
Rolling to my feet, I decided to change tactics and lunged after the deep hunter as it skidded to a stop and stomped into a turn.
My right arm flowed and my fist shifted into a familiar knob of bone.
The punch I drove into the creature’s haunch made an ear-piercing crack as it impacted right where two armored plates met.
Bellowing in anger, the deep hunter lunged about, moving far faster than it had been earlier, and snapped at me with its scissor-like maw. I was already moving though, keeping as close to its backside as I could and powering several more of the rapid fire swings.
My shoulder ached from the blows, as a good amount of the force was being redirected back into me by the creature’s armored plates. And for all that the blows were landing, it wasn’t doing much beyond chipping at the plates.
I had to throw myself away again as another ripple in the ground heralded more of the stone spikes, which gave the creature a chance to finish its turn and lunge at me. I was able to avoid being impaled on the spike only barely and had to roll furiously to get away from the deep hunter. This time, I ended up having to use my punching club as a lever to launch myself up and away from the ground to get back onto my feet.
“Okay, not gonna work that way either,” I growled and shook the shift out of my right arm, letting the club fade away and return as my normal arm.
I needed to find a way to deal with this creature. The armor plates were too dense for me to avoid hitting them, and they seemed to be growing naturally out of the creature’s thick hide.
For all that it was extremely violent, I didn’t want to outright kill the creature either. I still had the entropic attacks I’d been practicing, but I wasn’t confident enough to use them yet. It would only take one missed blow and I could dissolve part of my own leg.
I need to stun or paralyze it. I can’t keep counting on dodging it, and the armor around its head is even thicker than the rest of its body, I thought furiously as the shouting and cheering of different students continued to rain down on the arena.
“You’ve got this, Liam!” Kassandra’s voice cut through the crowd, and I spared a glance to one side to check on my girls.
Rieka was doing her best to stand resolutely, one hand on the hilt of her spell rod, but I could see that my wolf princess was gritting her teeth and her brow was furrowed in worry.
Shayla stood behind Rieka, her hands clasped in front of her full chest, her wings tucked tight to her back.
Jane was right next to the princess, wringing her tail in anxiety while bouncing slightly on her heels.
But Kassandra, my sweet, loving little noodle, was ahead of the other three. Her mass of red curls bounced energetically as she pumped her arms and shouted my name, pride shining in her slitted eyes even as the overhead sun glinted off her silver spectacles and glowed on her pale skin. There was nothing but confidence in my silly little snake, confidence that I’d figure this out as she wiggled back and forth on her thick tail.
Tail… snake… venom… the thoughts cascaded through my mind and the idea that struck a moment later brought a grin to my face.
Turning back to my opponent, who had just taken its first stomping step to start another charge, I shook out my arms again. This was going to be difficult, but I could do it.
My shirt had been shredded and burned in the previous fights, and I hadn’t bothered to try to replace it. I’d instead just shifted my skin into overlapping scales, and I would harden them with iron like the volcano snail if I needed to. Now, though, I let that shift fall away, as I was going to need everything I could.
“What is he doing?” I heard someone shout from above, but I didn’t catch the response as I was already moving to meet the charge of the deep hunter as my arms flowed and elongated, gaining segmentation and a large, bulbous head on either side to replace my hands.
The deep hunter roared, clearly happy I was meeting it head on, and left its mouth open to snap me up. Which, while threatening, actually worked out better for me.
My first strikes came in from either side of the creature, burying into the thin line of flesh where the top and bottom plates of its facial armor came together. With the mouth wide open like that, I was able to bury both stingers into the thick, leathery flesh and confirm that the spur I had replaced the tip of the stinger with would penetrate.
Kicking off with my shifted legs, I leaped up and over the creature and yanked the spurs out, striking several more times at the distinct cracks in its armor that I could see as I passed over. Half of the stings missed their mark and scraped over the hard plates, but the others managed to penetrate the deep hunter’s hide.
Check, that’ll do it. Now for the fun part, I thought with a growl, landing on the other side and leaping away again. As I moved, I pushed on the glands tucked just behind the tips of the long, weaving scorpion tails that had replaced my hands.
Scorpion venom is a potent cocktail of a number of different types of chemicals. Ultimately, it’s purpose is to kill or incapacitate, by either overloading the body’s pain receptors, shutting down the heart and lungs, or in some rare cases causing necrosis in the tissues. Which was great for a fight where I wanted to kill my opponent. But that was not what I was after today.
Instead, I had something even better.
During my research on different animals and their unique bits that I might be able to utilize, I’d stumbled on more than a few fascinating specimens in the realm of zoology in relation to Earth. While I’d confirmed that I could assume the form of creatures from Cortha too, I’d not had as much time to study them either. This was how I’d come up with the idea of the mantis shrimp’s arm club, the volcano snail’s iron reinforcements, and even a few other tricks. And it was one of those tricks that I was using to fill the venom glands that I’d shifted my hands into.
The deep hunter let out a furious roar of anger at the tiny pinpricks I’d given it, sliding to a stop and charging after me. I didn’t need long to ensure I had enough of my surprise, since I was actively pushing the glands with Shape-Shifting to fill themselves as quickly as possible. It took less than a minute of dodging, weaving, bobbing, and bouncing to buy the time I needed.
The third stone spike the deep hunter sent at me was the signal I needed to turn the tide. I felt the mana surge through the ground and saw the shifting in the sand ahead of me, so I threw myself to one side in time to avoid the spike that would have taken me in the guts.
Rolling to bleed off momentum, I clambered to my feet as the deep hunter continued its headlong charge at me. This time, the creature didn’t open its mouth and block off its vision, but that was fine. I didn’t need to do more than dodge the charge, and I’d already proved I could do that.
Springing to its right side, I lashed out with both of my stinger-arms. One strike skittered off the thigh plate on its front leg, but my left-hand strike drove into the joint in the armor, sinking beneath the plate and injecting the venomous payload.
The reaction was immediate, and the deep hunter stumbled, bellowing in pain as it kicked out with the back-right leg in a furious attempt to dislodge my strike. I pulled my stingers back and kept circling even as the creature stumbled, screeching angrily as it limped after me, kicking up vast clouds of dust with its enormous feet. But it was already favoring the injured leg, so I was easily able to keep ahead of it now.
Another strike scored a hit on the backside of the thigh on that same leg, right behind where the armor plate was, and the limb promptly gave out on the creature. It bellowed even louder now.
“Call the fight, Instructor,” I shouted in between the creature’s bellows, still circling.
“What?! No! He’s not finished yet! Keep fighting you great idiot!” screamed the leader of the trio.
“Liam?” Rainfist had to shout himself to be heard over the creature’s bellows.
“It’s not getting up. I can keep hitting it with the venom, but it’s just going to make it hurt more,” I shouted to Rainfist, proving this by making three more rapid strikes but not injecting more of the venom. All three hits landed in sections of the creature’s hide, which was thick, but the power behind the spurs still drove the blows deep enough to draw beads of blood to the surface.
“What did you do, you monster!” screamed one of the deep hunter’s summoners.
I wasn’t sure which spoke, due to how much my ears were ringing from the creature’s pained bellows. I did want to call her out on being a ‘monster’ given how much their summon had savaged the others it fought, but I held that thought back.
The longer the venom had to take effect, the more frantic its sounds and attempts to get at me. But with the leg being unresponsive, it wasn’t able to balance its immense weight enough to pursue me at anything more than a hobble. A pained hobble at that, which I could avoid by walking slightly faster than normal.
When I didn’t respond to the summoner’s question, Rainfist just shook his head, studied the creature for a moment before raising his horn to his lips and blowing the signal for the end of the match. He then had to shout for the opposing team to dismiss their summon, as the creature continued to try to chase me across the sands while screeching its pain to the blue sky with the fury of a thousand teachers dragging nails on a chalkboard.
In the echoing silence that fell when they complied, I let the Shape-Shift ability fall away and returned my hands to normal.
Which was fortunate because Kassandra slammed into me from behind and knocked me right off my feet and into the sand with a giggling hug.
“Liam! That was so awesome! What did you do? How did you do that?” Kassandra’s happy questions were music to my sore ears after the creature’s bellows of pain, though I couldn’t really answer as she had me pinned face-first in the sand with her tits resting on top of my head. It was a pleasant weight, but still a weight.
“Get off him, Kass!” Rieka barked from behind us. “If you want answers to your questions, then you are going to have to actually let him up so he can talk!”
“Awwww,” Kassandra’s voice was filled with the offended pouting of a master at the technique. I was glad that I wasn’t looking at her, because I knew I’d cave for whatever she was asking for, and Kassandra didn’t need any more power over me.
Thankfully, my mischief macaroni didn’t drag it out and slithered off of her perch on top of me. The girls were quick to help me up and dust me off, with Shayla fussing over the scrapes I’d gotten in the near misses and from landing on the ground. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d taken more injuries from Kassandra’s energetic greeting than I had from the Deep Hunter.
I’d barely gotten to my feet when the flashes at the edge of my vision confirmed my win and the completion of the mission the System had seen fit to assign me earlier.
Defeat the Deep Hunter and return to your contracted companions safely.
Reward - 800 SP
COMPLETED
“Well then, that’s that,” I said with a chuckle, allowing Kassandra and Shayla to take one hand each and tow me away from the sands.
Rainfist intercepted us before we made it to the exit for the arena.
“Liam,” the cat kin man calling my name brought us to a stop, and I glanced back as he trotted to a halt a short distance away. “You move on to the finals tomorrow. You can either hang around for the last fight to witness your opponent, or you can head out and rest.”
I glanced at the girls and got shrugs, though Shayla clung tighter to my arm in clear telegraphing that she wasn’t going to be letting me go anytime soon. While I’d gotten out of the fight unscathed, apparently I’d scared the large moth woman more than once.
“We’ll hang around. Can’t hurt to see what’s going on and who we face,” I said and got a nod from the cat featured man.
“What did you do to that creature, Liam?” Rainfist asked after another long moment. “I’ve never seen a venom act that fast.”
“Well… I am not surprised. The venom of the animal known as ‘God’s Tinkertoy’ is fairly unique, after all.” The confused look from the instructor just made me laugh, so I decided to add on to it. “It may look ridiculous, but no sane creature goes back to fuck with a platypus more than once if it stings you. The venom won’t kill you, but damn does it hurt!”
Comments
Tetsu-nii
Ouch! Platypus venom is wicked! >_<
Zabree D
I love all the weird animal features
Freya
Tyftc
M. Tress
Yep! Did a bunch of research and apparently the platypus has some of the fastest acting and painful venom's out there that is also non lethal
Danielle Warvel
Hahaha!! Animals are amazing.
M. Tress
God's tinker toy strikes again!
MDMcVay
A Platypus? LIAM THE PLATYPUS?
