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It took me a bit longer as her own story brought back some feelings I still had about my parents but once I pushed through. "Well I guess I only have two questions left. Are there any specific insects I should look out for? And, well… got any more tips for me?" She gave a bright smile at that last question and we spent the next hour just going over what I should look out for.
I left that cafe with a lighter pocket but a semi firm plan on what to do next. And the first step was supplies, with everything I could learn from here I knew I was going to be staying a lot longer than I thought. Oh, I should let the master know as well, that way he won't worry and he can also tell anyone who asked where I am. Once I took out my communication lacrima and gave him a run down of my plan I spent the next hour going through all the shops my friend told me about.
Some of which I never would have even known about if she hadn't told me, I decided to go to the hardest shop first, The Last Farewell. After she escaped her flashback I was curious how she knew so many details about her loved one's death. But I was too nervous to ask, lucky I got my answer when this shop came up during her advice. When the town was first popped up they quickly realized how high the death toll would be, but worse than that a lot of the people who died just disappeared and families were left wondering what happened.
So a shop was set up to sell uniquely paired lacrimas, you would wear one lacrima anywhere on your body; as a necklace, bracelet, hairpin. The store would keep the second one safe in the town. If/when you died your lacrima would send a video of your last moments to its other half in case you had any last words you wished to voice.
When you purchased the lacrimas you would inform them where you wanted it sent if the worst were to happen. It was kind of intimidating that they needed to do this but at the same time it was a comfort to know that my guildmates wouldn't just be left wondering. But some of the other stuff I had to get put me in a better mood, first was a bag that would store everything I would need, literally.
It was bigger on the inside and I almost squealed when I saw that. I loved Doctor Who in my last life so being able to have something like this was a dream come true. Next was the supplies I would need, the quest I took was to hunt down a certain number of creatures in the Hive and bring back proof of your kills. It would only take about a week to complete. I would be able to come back to town and stay in the inn every night, but now that I was going to stay longer I needed to be able to stay in the Hive for longer periods of time.
Luckily they had a very handy all in one kit you could buy called The Camping Gear. It had everything I would need while staying in the wilderness, all packed in a container only twice the size of my pokedex. I was definitely going to take this home with me, the guy at the store also directed me to another place I would need to go if I wanted to sleep during my stay in the Hive.
It was something I worried about a little bit, how would I be able to sleep if I was worried about the different insects attacking me during the night? Well as it turns out someone thought of this a long time ago and came up with a special sort of repellent to keep them away. They had three levels of strength; regular, super, and max. The regular would keep the scouts away for about 12 hours, just spray it around the campsite and they won't come near.
The super would keep Captains away as well, and the Max would keep the Generals away. Usually people would get the repel they are most likely to need depending on how deep into the Hive they were going to go. There was always a chance of running into a stronger insect in an outer area but for the most part scouts were the only ones you ran into in the outer region. Captains would stick to the middle region and Generals wandered the inner regions.
Queens rarely strayed from their towers and no one had seen the High Queen in decades if ever. Most people believe that the first subjugation team from way back made it to the High Queen but a lot of people were sceptical. I got all this information from the chatty employee when I bought the repel. Ultimately I decided to get the regular, I could afford the super but it would have pretty much wiped me out. Better to be a little more frugal when I don't know what I might need in the future.
When the shop owner told me about no one seeing the High Queen in so long I had to ask, "If no one has seen it, then how do you know it even exists?" He shook his head, "It's mostly just rumor and speculation, there are mages that have bragged they made it into the central nest and laid eyes on the High Queen. They say it has so much magic power that you can see it manifesting outside the nest, that walking inside is like trying to walk through tar, the air being so thick with magic."
"There's also the fact that the other Queens must come from somewhere, so people have guessed that there must be a Queen that makes other Queens and we just call it the High Queen out of respect… or fear. Of course there are also the people whose ancestors survived the first subjugation, they'll swear up and down that they made it to the center of the Hive."
I guess that made sense but my friend from the cafe made it sound like it was a confirmed thing. The shopkeeper let out a last statement that sent chills down my spine, "Of course it might just be a regular queen with that specific ability but that means there might be another born just like it at any time."
The shopkeeper gave me a creepy smile before walking off and I wasn't sure if I should just brush it off or take him more seriously. He seemed like an old man that got his kicks from scaring kids, in fact he looked like he was one step away from yelling at kids to get off his lawn. After giving it some thought I decided to forget it for now, it wasn't like I could actually do anything about it anyway.
Next on my list was food, I'll skip the boring stuff and just let you know there was a lot of forever food. This world's version of nonperishables, which were actually a lot better than the canned stuff we had. Will the miracles of magic never end? Once I got all that I went and bought a few more things that would come in handy, an explorer kit, which was actually sold near the exit leading to the Hive.
It held a couple of tools that would be useful that weren't included in the camping gear, like rope, tools and storage for separating the regents from the insects and a map. I didn't even think of getting a map, and it turns out this palace was pretty well explored, I mean the hives and the area directly around them weren't completely mapped out. But the other areas not only had landmarks identified it also had the known insect routes marked down.
The shopkeeper warned me that they weren't completely accurate but more like guidelines on what you might run into in each area. That way I could see if I could find something specific if I needed to, the guy who sold it to me also told me that they were always looking for more information. I could sell information I gathered to them and once it was corroborated I would get a finders fee.
He was a pretty good salesman as even as I walked away he was trying to hawk the other wares I turned down. I mean I got the idea of a dowsing machine that would tell me where regents were but that wasn't really what I was here for. I was here to hunt a few insects to complete my job and then once I was done with that I would see if I could learn anything about them to improve my pokemon. But I bought the machine anyway, a little extra pocket money never hurt.
There was also a fishing rod and something called go-goggles but I might have miss heard that as I had gotten pretty far away by that point. Once I got away I gave the guild master a call and told him I would be staying longer than I thought he gave a sigh when I told him, "I knew you would see the benefit of staying there, it is why I was so hesitant in letting you go. But that is a dangerous place Alex, I don't want you biting off more than you can chew."
I smiled and nodded, I had been at Fairy Tail for a while now and I really understood that he truly felt like all the guild members were his children. "I will master. Wish me luck." he sighed again before answering, "Good luck, I hope you find what you are looking for. Oh and call me every night if you can to let me know you are still alright. I know they have that repel stuff so you should be able to set up a safe area to do so every night." I nodded before putting away the communication lacrima and then I stared straight ahead of me.
The forest didn't look that scary but I knew this would put any other job I had been on to shame with the amount of danger I was going to be walking towards. Oh well, I wouldn't be a very good member of Fairy Tail if I let a little danger stand in my way. So without further adieu I took my first step into the forest, it was time to start making some real progress in my magic.
Apparently real progress took a lot of time because it took me two hours of walking before I ran across my first bug. I was making my way through the forest, moving a branch so I could duck under it when I heard a twig snapping and a few leaves rustling. It was coming from in front of me so I duck back behind the tree I just passed and took out a couple of my Pokeballs.
I wasn't sure what kind of insect was going to show up so I grabbed my Fighting type and Psychic type. I waited for the bug to make its way into the clearing before I called out my pokemon as they weren't exactly stealthy whenever I summoned them. I was glad I did because the bug that came out had a very obvious weakness I could take advantage of. There was a small snowstorm swirling around its body, that meant if I used a fire type I could melt that snow and hopefully that would weaken it.
So I put away my Psychic ball and took out my fire one then I threw both of them from behind the tree. While my pokemon were very strong I was still relatively squishy, using magic would strengthen a mage's body but that was only compared to normal humans. Magical beasts, even insects, took that to a whole nother level. The balls flew through the air glowed red before a streak of red energy shot out and hit the ground before forming into two distinct forms.
One was a three foot tall orange monkey with a long tail that had a large flame burning on the end, the other one was much larger. He had grey skin and stood almost as tall as me at five feet tall, however he was much more muscular than I was. The monkey raised its arms in the air and gave its battle cry before shouting out a gout of flame, "Monferno!" The flame was supposed to be a wheel of flame but all I had managed to do was make a bigger version of Ember, aptly named by some guildmates as Fireball.
The larger pokemon rushed in with its own battlecry as well and raised a fist to hit the insect, "Machoke!" Fighting moves were much easier to program because most of them were just moving the energy to enhance a specific part of the body. Like the Mach punch he is using right now. I was still working on Close Combat but the energy control required would probably need me to complete my work on my third evolutions before it actually worked.
In the meantime, Monferno's Fireball had hit the surprised monster and exploded, melting all the snow, dazing it and causing slight burn marks to appear on its exoskeleton. I frowned, if that was all the damage it did this would be harder than I thought, but I guess I'll see if I need to summon another pokemon in the next couple of moments.
Machoke had used the moment of weakness as an opportunity to get a hit in and this time it did much more damage. His fist hit with the sound of two pieces of stone smashing together. I was a little worried for a second but let a breath of relief out when the bug went flying into the canopy. It fell a second later and when it hit the ground I noticed that its armor had cracks spreading out from the point of impact.
I wanted to jump into the air in excitement but I knew the battle wasn't over yet, and my pokemon knew it too. Monferno had seen that his attack hadn't done much damage but snow was starting to swirl around the bug again. So he started to send out little embers whenever the snow started to accumulate. It worked as the insect wasn't able to resist the beating it took from Machoke and after a couple of minutes it stopped struggling entirely. Once I was sure it was dead I stepped out from behind the tree and reached into my backpack.
I took out the Dowsing Machine. It was a rather strange looking thing, it looked like a pair of headphones with two bulbs sticking out of it like the things angler fish have sticking out of their heads. Supposedly it lets you see where the magic is concentrated in magical beasts, that way it is harder to miss things and easier to harvest them for newbies like me. I motioned for my pokemon to keep watch while I got to work and with only a slight amount of embarrassment I put on the headgear before taking a look at the insect on the ground.
It looked kind of gross as Machoke had to really lay on the beating before it was finally out for the count, but luckily it was still in one piece. And now that I knew which parts of the insect were regents I grabbed the rest of the tools I needed and got to work. First I separated the wings from the body, they probably gave it the ability to conjure snow as most of the magic was concentrated in that area.
They were quite beautiful to look at, almost like stained glass, and when the light passed through them they threw a blue glow onto the ground. I hadn't noticed it before as I was too busy with my first fight in the Hive. After finishing and trying not to throw up I put them in one of the containers, which by the way had the same sort of magic as my new bigger on the inside bag. That way that would be able to store more regents and any person would need to spend less time traveling back and forth, and more time making money.
Next I moved onto the only other part of the body that had a concentration of magic, two crystals embedded in its front limbs. If I had to guess it had some sort of ability to use the snow its wings conjured, an interesting two part attacking strategy. It was a bit harder to dig out the crystals but after some minor swearing and one incident where I almost cut my finger off I managed to pop them both out.
I would need to separate the parts depending on the type of magic but I should have more than enough containers to store quite a bit of regents before I need to go back. But since all these regents came from the same type they should be fine if I store them together. Judging from the battle, even with the advantage I had and the disadvantage I managed to give the monster, the insect was an Elemental Scout.
A good start, but I was still glad I didn't run into anything stronger, that way I could get used to fighting here first. There had been no surprises so far but I was still on the outskirts, not dying here was not that impressive. If I had died that would have been really embarrassing. I whipped my hands on my pants to get rid of the blood and dirt before returning my pokemon to their balls.
I wanted to keep them out for safety purposes but the magic drain would be too much. Currently I had used about a quarter of my magic for this fight, my pokemon using magic drained my own magic much faster than just having them wandering around. I might be eager to find my next fight, but better safe than sorry. This battle might have been a good practice for my first fight but it was kind of boring.
As I started to walk away I dreamed about how much easier my life would be if I didn't need to make my own magic artifacts every time I wanted to do a different kind of magic. Being a holder mage is hard when you live in a world where the people have no imagination. I don't really blame them, why make up stories when real life is already so interesting. But it sucks that carried into their magic item crafting as well, oh well guess I'll have to drag them onto the path of progress kicking and screaming. I'm sure they won't mind, Cana didn't protest… much.
The current advanced chapters are:
Haven Ch1
Who is a Zoo? Ch1
God of Games Ch6
Breathe Ch1
Another Wayne Ch1
Salvation Ch1
Guide Ch1
Growth Ch1
I Wanted a Real Gamer System Ch5-8
Ark Ch2-5
A Real Gamer System Ch3-5
Tinker Ch1
Further Ch2
Puzzle Maker Ch3
A Thousand Words Ch1-2
Free Range Ch1