Though not all guild leaders took their duty as seriously as Meebur, each one was required to accept challenges from other tamers. Their position as guild leader was on the line if they lost, so some leaders had no issue making tamers wait until they felt like dealing with the challenge. But Meebur was much stricter. It was his policy that, if able, he responded to challenges as soon as they arrived.
In one of the empty enclosures outside the guild tower, Meebur stood opposite his challenger. The ground was flat stone, one of many areas perfectly made for what was about to occur: a battle. However, I barely took notice of the enclosure. From my spot on Meebur’s shoulders, my mind was hyper focused on the challenger. The sight of them made my eyes wide, and my fangs drip with venom. They were a cloaked figure.
Are they the same figure I saw when Frey and I explored the city? Or when I escaped the Harrowhawk in the forest of death?
Though they didn’t wear a mask, and didn’t have the same aura as the figure I had seen with the Harrowhawk, it still put me on edge to stand near them. Their presence was nothing like those Great Beasts I sensed when leveling up, but until I knew who that masked figure had been, every cloak I saw made me nervous.
Meebur held his mighty spear high, and for the first time I noticed the mark on the back of his right hand. It was the mark of the beast, the place where a tamer’s magic pooled. It glowed a pale orange, and when Meebur slammed his spear into the ground, that same color flowed outwards. It created an orange, glowing rectangle in the dirt, and both Meebur and the challenger stepped within.
Your tamer has erected a Monster Arena.
What’s a monster arena?
The Almanac has been updated with the entry for “Monster Arena”.
I quickly opened the new entry and began to read. Apparently, a monster arena represented a tamer’s battle focus, concentrating it all on their primary target, which had to be another tamer. It was a field that any tamer could create using the magic in their mark. The arenas were often large rectangles, but could grow and reshape themselves to accommodate battles from monsters of any size or shape. Within, tamers could battle their monsters against one another safely. Any damage done by a monster against another in the arena would instantly heal once the battle ended, but the exhaustion and loss of energy remained.
When I looked over at the challenger, they removed their cloak, and I got a good look at them for the first time. I immediately unlocked a memory from my past life. It was the first concrete memory I had unlocked since arriving at the Artemis Guild. It was a scene from a movie (I also remembered what the heck a movie was). It was of a character called an elf, and one who looked similar to the challenger. She had long blonde hair braided neatly and that hung down to her waist, passing over the bow and quiver of arrows slung across her back. She was wearing leather armor and looked more like a young soldier ready for war than a tamer.
Is she a monster? Because she looks ready to battle herself.
“I’m surprised to see you again.” Meebur said to the challenger.
“Nothing will keep me from defeating you. Not even your country’s strict rules.” She said, “The guard can try to keep me out of the city, but I will always find a way in to challenge you. Today, on behalf of the Country of the Elves and the mother tree, you will finally fall at my hands, Meebur!”
She must be the person the guard mentioned to Frey and I. The one who snuck into the city. Perhaps non-citizens of Olympia aren’t supposed to challenge guild leaders…but then why is she sneaking into Artemis to do exactly that?
Her own mark glowed a pale yellow but instead of using the magic to create an arena as Meebur had, an orb appeared in her hand. When the light faded, the orb revealed itself as…an egg.
The Almanac has been updated with the entry for “Arsenal Egg”.
I opened the entry.
An Arsenal Egg, unlike a Hatchling Egg, does not contain a newly created monster.
It instead stores within it a monster that has already been tamed.
The stored monster can be called upon at any time by the tamer.
The number of Arsenal Eggs a tamer can store at any given time increases as they gain experience.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“Go, Warden!” The challenger threw the arsenal egg into the monster arena and it cracked open. In its place, there was suddenly a massive…tree? No, not just a tree. A tree with a lizard’s face and eight writhing tentacle-like roots that it used to squirm around the arena. The Almanac revealed more info on the Monster:
Species - Warden, the Towering Tree
Type - Earth > Forest > Wood
Rank - C
Level - 14
Tamer - Leif
Status - Normal
Skills - ??
Hmm, if Warden is a Forest type, then that means it’s a subtype for Earth.
That is correct.
In this world, Monsters are categorized based on the Major types of terrain:
Earth, Sky, Water, and Void.
Earth, Sky, and Water each have three Minor types.
For example, Earth rules over Mountain, Forest, and Volcano.
These then have countless Exact types based on a monster’s precise hatching zone-
I closed the text box. There was already an overwhelming amount of information to digest, and I had read a bunch of it already during the trek to Artemis. Basically, there were a lot of monster types. For now, I wanted to analyze the formerly cloaked challenger. Their aura was intense, but they felt nothing like the person I had seen in the forest of death. Whoever that masked figure was, it wasn’t this elf warrior.
“Hmm, an interesting choice of monster,” Meebur said. “Did you hatch it or tame it in the wild?”
“Warden has been with me since I hatched him from an egg myself. I had hoped to avoid using him, but after being defeated by you before…I have no choice but to rely on him. Together, we will defeat you and take over as the guild leader of Artemis!”
“We shall see,” and Meebur smiled as he stood in the arena. His mark began to glow as he used
And with that, Meebur wrapped his thick fingers around my small body…and tossed me into the arena in front of the giant tree monster.
“Leader!” Gregory yelled out. “You can’t be serious. Please don’t risk your position by using that monster! Regardless of what rank it may have, it is untested in battle.”
“That’s true. But I have a feeling a demonstration of its power is needed,” Meebur turned to see that the other six guild leaders were watching the arena very intensely. It wasn’t often that a challenge was to be witnessed by so many other leaders. Most of them watched intently, but pretended to act uninterested. As though this were just any other battle. But clearly, getting the chance to see someone as skilled as Meebur fight appealed even to them.
Only one of them seemed truly uninterested in the battle: the mysterious Shiv. From what little I could see of their face, they looked distracted. But I didn’t have time to think about that. Not while I was standing in front of the most menacing tree I had ever seen before.
“I don’t care which monster you choose. My name is Leif, once a great warrior of the Druidic Order, and I will win no matter what to reclaim my honor!” Leif yelled, and immediately took action. Whatever hope I had of fleeing the arena disappeared. “Warden, use
The tree monster’s tentacle-like limbs buried into the ground, and twice as many vines and roots burst out. They wriggled and writhed in the air, but soon flung themselves at me. I was about to dodge, but I found myself stopped in my tracks by a text box popping up.
You have successfully learned the skill
Remaining empty skill slots: 48
Huh? Why did I learn a new skill?
As the Deity of Earth, you have a small chance to learn any skill used by an Earth monster you are in battle with.
Oh, that’s right! I remember reading that before.
As I started to daydream about my new skill and about what other Earth skills I could learn, Warden’s attack continued. However, as the root tendrils moved towards me through the earth as easily as a fish moves through water, I realized something.
I wasn’t actually afraid.
Perhaps it was a part of my old life to be afraid of everything, but when I cleared my mind and listened to my body, the fear just disappeared.
This creature is absolutely no threat, my body told me. And I trusted it.
I had nearly destroyed a forest already, by accident. How difficult could one tree be to defeat, on purpose?
The entangling roots and vines surrounded my small form, and I felt them try to squeeze me tight. Each one wrapped around me over and over, desperate to completely encircle me.
But just as Meebur’s cottage had crumbled when confronted by my size, so too did the roots rip apart when I revealed my true form.
* * * *
Those present within the Artemis Guild would forever remember that this was the day they looked within their walls, only to be greeted by a giant snake monster. One that towered over their enclosures, and who was nearly the size of their famed guild tower. Its scales shimmered in the setting suns as though the starry night was already upon them. Steam lifted out of its open maw and evaporated what little clouds hung over the guild, like an acidic fog. Its eyes were two pools of gold, and no matter where you were, it felt like they were staring directly at you. No tamer in the Artemis Guild felt safe, but every single one of them was too afraid to move.
Many believed that the end of the world had come.
But the only thing that ended…was a battle with a tree.