[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 94 – Sup Succa? (Patreon)

As soon as the black bolt whizzed through the air, Shrubley went into a flurry of motion. He whipped out his shield and sword, swiping through the air at the missile, but the Countess was much faster.

She stepped forward, her long legs propelling her out of Shrubley’s reach. With casual disregard, she snatched the bolt out of the air, snapped it in two, and pointed. “Case in point, my dears,” she said with a feral grin.

Shrubley didn’t need to be told what to do. He tucked into a ball, the [Morph Shield’s] plates sliding around him until he resembled a steel-plated armadillo.

Propelling himself forward, Shrubley shot like a cannonball into the rocky outcrops where the bolt had come from.

Meanwhile, Cal began casting an essence spell and Slyrox was hopping up and down on her large clown-like shoes, readying herself for a fight.

Shrubley heard one of the men shout “run!” and thought he had struck fear into their hearts as he barreled through the rough terrain, bouncing noisily off rocks and juts of stone in hot pursuit.

There was a dazzling display of light and sound behind him, but Shrubley trusted that his friends knew what they were doing. Bandits were not something Shrubley was entirely familiar with.

As a concept or as a reality, bandits had not featured in his education or life thus far. But he had heard of them and expected them to have yellowing teeth and cackle and sneer a great deal.

He did not expect them to run, set up a secondary ambush, and be waiting for him as he turned into a narrow clearing hidden from all sides.

“Fire!” the man in a ratty cloak shouted.

Three strings snapped in the sudden quiet that followed, but each of the bolts clanged harmlessly off Shrubley’s morphed form. He came up in the middle of the bandits, swinging his green glowing blade in a blurring series of strikes meant to disarm and disable.

[Budding Barrage (Nature)]

Cost: Low Stamina.

Cooldown: 5 seconds.

Mother Nature is the great equalizer.

Imprint: While using a weapon you possess proficiency with, initiate a multi-strike attack that reduces the defensive attributes of your target. The greater the difference between yourself and the target, the greater the reduction.

Shrubley did not realize his own strength.

In a short span of time, Shrubley had grown dramatically. The jump to Copper took practice adjusting to. Furthermore, he was used to threats from the mirror realm that possessed frighteningly effective poisons and powers.

The bandits were laid low with a single [Budding Barrage]. They were rolling on the ground, groaning. A few shivered and moaned piteously to the point that Shrubley felt bad for them despite the fact that they had just ambushed him not once, but twice.

[Death’s Grasp], he figured, had greater effects on the mental wellbeing of his foes than the simple recovery block that it possessed. His sword, [Death’s Razor], applied a single stack of the debilitating effect whenever he attacked somebody.

[Death’s Grasp]: A portion of the damage dealt absorbs all sources of healing and recovery magic or abilities. Repeated use creates additional stacks of [Death’s Grasp].

So far, Shrubley had only used [Death’s Grasp] on monsters. He did not know what to do with the moaning, blubbering, and crying grown men in front of him, begging for their lives.

Shrubley looked around himself in surprise at the bandits’ condition. “Do you yield?” he asked them, figuring they should at least see sense.

If they were hopelessly outclassed by Shrubley, what chance did they have against Miranda? Though, Shrubley did not thoroughly understand the effect sunlight had upon the vampyr.

However, Shrubley was not naïve enough to sheath the sword, and that was probably the only reason he managed to survive the third and final ambush.

A weaselly man had snuck up on his position and lifted a boulder several times the size of Shrubley’s small body. Gregor cackled and grinned with yellowing teeth as he infused it with Poison mana, giving the boulder a sickly bubbling aura.

Using all of his strength, the bandit threw the boulder at Shrubley.

After the serpentii, Shrubley was not only highly resistant to poison attacks, but incredibly sensitive to them. They reminded him of all the horrible things in the world, things that should not be.

Suddenly afraid, he called upon his bravery to master himself.

Sensing the Poison mana, Shrubley turned and flared his Copper aura to maximum. He did not wish to use [Lifelong Student] to copy that terrible essence.

Tiny pebbles on the ground rattled across the stone as Shrubley’s power skyrocketed momentarily and he took his [Death’s Razor] in two hands.

The boulder should have smashed him into a pulpy mess of broken branches and leaf juice, but Shrubley’s downward stroke cut the boulder clean in two.

The poisoned stone split around Shrubley’s small form and shattered on the ground, sending bits of shrapnel into the bandit’s former allies. Their response was a mixture of colorful swears that Shrubley had never heard the likes of before and further shouts of pain.

Before Gregor could ready his crossbow to fire again, Shrubley was there in his face. The dangerously strong Copper aura–nearly Bronze by his feeble senses–told the Low Copper bandit that he was sorely outmatched.

“But you’re just a monster!” he cried as Shrubley slammed his shield into the man’s face and, for good measure, did it once more until the brute went down like a sack full of laundry.

“Not a monster,” Shrubley intoned, then his leaves rustled fiercely. “I am an adventurer!”

The Countess whistled when she came upon the scene with Shrubley. “You know,” she said, using the toe of her boot to lift a man’s head to face her, “if they weren’t poisoned, I could have had a little snack.”

Shrubley wasn’t about to suggest that he could easily create an antidote. Not unless she truly needed to eat. While there were many social nuances that regularly went above Shrubley’s head, he suspected that perhaps his teacher was intimidating the bandits.

“A vampyr!” one of the men cried. “Please don’t eat us, miss!”

“Well, I don’t think that’s any of your business, really,” the Countess answered. “You attacked us, remember? Monsters eat people, everybody knows that. You were defeated. What do you expect to happen?”

None of them said anything.

“Shrubley!” Cal said, rounding the corner into the tiny encampment. “I got one–oh. Wow.” He looked around at the 4 men that Shrubley had taken down while he was excited to have taken a single one out with a spell.

Shrubley waved with his sword, feeling more at ease with his fellow adventurers in present company. He did not entirely know how to feel about the bandits.

They were people. Why did they try to attack his group? A sad part of him wondered if it was once again because they were mistaken for mere monsters.

The rest of Shrubley’s party arrived, with Slyrox dragging the fifth unconscious bandit by his ankle. She made sure to drag him over every rough patch and lumpy rock she could find before depositing him with the rest.

“What shall we do with them?” Shrubley asked. He knew that, as an adventurer, it was his duty to safeguard the realm… but these were also people. A monster was a rabid thing that, unless Awakened, could not be reasoned with.

Feral monsters did not repent or mend their ways. Most of them were not more than a few years old. They were born from mana, rarely ever from a family or parent.

But these men… they had mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. People who might care for them. Histories. How was it right that Shrubley should end that because they attacked him?

The Countess paid very close attention to Shrubley, trying her best to sense his shifting moods. What would the little hero do? Would he kill them to stop them from hurting more people?

I certainly would. And yet, she did not know if she would feel pleased if Shrubley acted as she would.

“How many have they hurt before?” Cal asked, though more to himself. He understood bandits significantly better than Shrubley, but much of the human world was still a dizzyingly complex thing for the undead skeleton to navigate.

Slyrox’s lenses gleamed in the daylight. “Muchly big reward for turning thieves in?”

“I have not heard of them from the Adventurers Guild in Taamra,” Shrubley said. “I think it stands to reason that they are not known on our side of the mountains.”

Slyrox was already on her knees, rolling the bandits around and stripping them of anything remotely shiny or valuable. She whistled tunelessly through her mask as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Somehow, the little koblin was able to find every hidey-hole, every stash that the bandits had with remarkable alacrity. In the few minutes it took the group to discuss what to do, the bandits were relieved of every valuable they once owned.

Smudge chewed on a chunk of poison oozing boulder. The virulent green toxin bubbled within his gelatinous body, slowly and easily being consumed by his Hunger essence at work.

The slime burped. He smiled with contentment.

“Killing them would be the easiest solution,” the Countess said. “You wouldn’t get a reward for it, probably. Not unless you want to collect–well, never mind. The point is, if we take them in, it’ll have to be in the next town over. We’re more than halfway through the pass. It will be much harder if we have to carry 5 grown men with us and keep a guard on them.”

Shrubley sheathed his sword and put away his shield, pacing around the place in thought. He eased his Copper aura back down, already feeling the strain such a sudden and powerful burst of its use caused him.

As he did, he took in the environment.

Slyrox had done well to relieve them of their possessions and Shrubley could see far more things within the items than their value. He saw their histories, and how very disparate they were.

These were items that belonged to other people. Had they killed them or merely robbed them? Was it right to kill somebody just because they had committed murder?

The little shrub did not know and did not wish to become a judge and executioner.

He would defend himself if he needed to, but killing was unnecessary unless there was no other alternative.

In Shrubley’s mind, it wasn’t an option to leave these bandits behind as they were. They would continue to hurt and steal from people. The bandits would have done the very same to Shrubley and his friends if they weren’t strong enough to protect their own lives.

However, neither was he a ruler to sentence them to some grim fate. He was an adventurer, through and through.

“We will take them with us,” Shrubley said, finally.

What finally changed his mind was the sorry state of the camp. He expected bandits to be poorly equipped, and these definitely were, but they were poor.

Even their loot was significantly worse than anything Shrubley would have expected. It was a tiny, pathetic little pile. Clearly, the banditry business was not booming.

He surmised that these people did not turn to thievery entirely out of choice. There were more than a few flags, tattered by the elements, but strangely cleaner than anything else.

Shrubley did not understand what a flag was very well, but he knew that people liked to proudly display them. And more importantly, he understood symbols and sentimentality.

They told a sadder story by far than simple bandits looking for an easy score.

That did not excuse their behavior, however.

Using his Nature mana, Shrubley encouraged a few scrubby plants to grow. Once they were long enough, the shrub braided their pliable strands together and created bonds.

“They will slow us down,” the Countess pointed out once all the men were tied up.

Shrubley looked at the downcast men, then back at the Countess. “Then that will give us more time for your valuable lessons.”