Jacky was a Slayer. Her job, at the end of the day, was to make sure there were fewer monsters alive that could harm people, and protect the city. She was also primarily a healer who had very few spells which could inflict lethal damage. On the surface this was a contradiction, but the Slayers of Grand Vale knew that Jacky was easily one of their most essential members.

  Slayers were almost never mages. The long time it could take for the most devastating spells to be cast precluded the fast-paced combat most slayers favored. At most, some would take a Historia or two that allowed them the ability to cast simple spells. Helen was an example, where one of the few spells she had mastered created arrows. It was quick, useful, and utilized very minute amounts of mana. Jacky, meanwhile, was a fully focused spellcaster. She was the fastest of the guildhall by default.

  The thing so many overlooked was that she was also a Dryad. Naturally high resilience and an unshakeable connection to nature magic from birth made Dryads the best Green knights in the sage lands, bar none. For a Shaman like Jacky, it covered her weakness while further amplifying her strengths.

  She and Helen had been sent out to hunt down a large group of boars, including a few spotted as Dire Beasts. Normally a more melee focused Slayer would be sent for boars, but Helen’s magical arrows and Jacky’s earth magic meant the two had a track record.

  For the week they’d been out, the two were catching up on what had been happening individually.

  “So, that charity hunt got you a level? You break 40 yet?” Helen asked her. Knowing the skill her friend had, she’d taken to calling Marc and Lloyd’s first hunt a charity. Jacky didn’t see it the same way, but neither did she argue the point.

  “Not quite yet, but this should put me over. It’ll definitely help me more than you.”

  “Yep. Pretty nice of me, helping out a low-level like you.” Helen joked back. Jacky wasn’t an expert in leveling up, but everyone, except maybe Marc, knew a few rules of thumb. Higher level equalled increased abilities, and each time an echelon increased it dramatically increased abilities. One, two, or even five levels difference was not that much in the grand scheme of things, but an echelon was a different story, giving an unknown number of ability increases and supposedly reforming a person’s boons around their decisions and expertises.

  Jacky was about to retort but stopped as Helen turned to face her, eyes hardened. The two knelt to the ground and began whispering an incantation.

  “Bones of the Earth, you have heard much. Speak now to me.”

  A Pulse of magic emanated from the two, bouncing off the small woodland creatures like an echo. When a full wave returned to them, they knew the direction to their prey, and approximately the distance to find them. Due south, only 200 feet away. The hunt was on.

  The two moved silently, another reason to keep them together. Jacky’s locomotion made foliage move around, while Helen was simply exceptionally skilled at stealth for a non-rogue. Pushing through the trees, each began preparing for the battle to come. Jacky whispered a spell and Helen felt a familiar buzz of insects, the sensation that came whenever the dryad cast a beneficial spell. Helen began resembling a Dryad herself, with her skin hardening and growing a layer of bark. Helen, meanwhile, cast her most favored spell to conjure arrows. One of her Boons would allow her to empower them further, but that wouldnt be useful until-

  She saw them. Close to 60 boars in total, a dozen of which were Dire. Dire beasts were not actual animals, but did generate around them. When mana grew too dense within an area, it would take on a form similar to something else nearby, and thus a Dire beast was formed. The more mana, the more, or larger, the beast. Unlike the local elementals, however, Dire beast meat, though tough and low quality, was edible and valued for its large quantity.

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  She ascended to the treetops, with Jacky right behind her, only a branch lower. Drawing a conjured arrow, she used her boon. The head spiraled into a corkscrew and grew impossibly sharp. She took aim for the largest. It had more tusks and horns than a normal Boar should, with a central horn protruding from between its eyes. They were dumb creatures, but dangerous and well armored.

  She drew the arrow back. Below her, Jacky began casting a spell, causing some of the boars to search for the noise. The largest wouldn’t get a chance to, with Helen loosing the arrow. As it collided with the oversized skull, the arrow bored deeper in, eventually shattering the bone. Whether it was alive or just paralyzed, it would not join the rest of the fight.

  Jacky’s spell went off, and the roots of the forest rose to pull the mass into the ground. Some of the normal boars were slain by the force of her magic alone, while the rest were hindered heavily. The dryad immediately began casting another spell, one Helen recognized but could likely never cast.

  Helen repeated the process of picking off another Dire, then another, before the remaining 9 broke free from Jacky’s bindings one after the other. Helen drew one of her non-conjured arrows from her quiver, and shot it into the ground. Thick thorns spread from the point of impact, climbing over some of the normal boars and skewering them. The Dires, meanwhile, saw their new target and were preparing to charge. After shooting one more briar arrow, they did. Though neither noticed at first, there was a shimmer in the air, just past the first boar Helen slew.

  The dire boars didn’t really care about their mundane cousins, trampling any that were in the way. The briars shredded them as they moved along, even felling one which charged into a thorn at just the wrong angle. Jacky was still chanting, and would need more time for her spell to be ready, as Helen used a new spell she’d only learned recently. Despite her occasional aggravation with him, Barry was exceptionally good when it came to finding spells.

  The arrowhead ignited with a candle’s flame. Loosing, the flame stayed ignited, until it hit into the closest charging monster. On impact, the scent of wood smoke filled the air and the monster burst into flame. Smoke quickly filled the area, and Helen knew that she had, slightly, miscast the spell. It was supposed to be more fire than smoke, but it seemed either had disoriented the charging boars enough to buy them the few seconds Jacky needed. The earth quaked as the two slayers were lifted even further into the air. The shimmer intensified, and Jacky started to notice a surge in raw mana, but brushed it off as part of her own spell.

  An elemental sprung from the ground, looking like a turtle made of stone and earth. As it stomped the ground, more vines, roots, and briars wrapped the boars up. The Dires that recovered and shook free charged the turtle, only to break horn and tusk against its stony scales. Helen, after recatching her balance, took more shots at the monsters, not bothering with using more magical arrow shots as merely maintaining her aim was difficult atop the elemental.

  Each time a boar gouged into her summoned elemental, Jacky’s healing spell was ready. Helen’s arrows struck with such force that destroyed any full charge. It was looking to be a total victory for the slayers. But, as Jacky looked up across the small battlefield in the woods, she fully noticed the shimmer. The dryad called to Helen.

  She pointed to the center, where some of the mundane boars were still trapped or slain. Like failing invisibility magic, something broke through in the shape of a snout. Then, tusks followed it. Helen cursed internally. This monster was to the Dire boars what they were to normal boars. Rare though they were, there were records of monsters like this in the Slayers’s Society catalogues. Called Primeval beasts, they only appeared during exceptionally bad floods, especially in the otherwise placid Sage Lands.

  It stood taller than the trees, its tusks thicker than their trunks, and its hooves were large enough around to eclipse a bear. The titanic boar looked at the two slayers. It stomped the ground, and the trees shook. It breathed out, and the fire extinguished. It stepped over its living and dead cousins with no regard, and with an uncanny intelligence in its eyes, it charged away into the forest, toppling trees with each footfall.

  Awe simmering down, the Slayers looked at their dead quarry. One dozen Dire beasts, and nearly 50 normal ones, all dead or dying. Their mission was complete, and the city was in even more danger than before. A danger they could not contend with. The Primeval Boar had to be stopped, but couldn’t be by them.

  They needed to get back to the city.