Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 15 - Hunter’s Call (Patreon)

[Darkvision] didn’t work very well underwater.

The sudden plunge into the underground river took Elania by surprise, sharp rock biting into her skin as she was swallowed by the violent current. The vortex whirled her around without mercy, and her chaotic flailing was useless.

Her lungs screamed for air as they filled with water instead of the much-desired oxygen. A primal panic gripped her, and she instinctively curled up into a ball and tried to cover her head. Each painful collision knocked her senses awry until she realized she wasn’t passing out from the lack of oxygen—it was the violent impacts hurting her the most.

Suddenly something hard struck her head, and everything went black.

The first sensation that registered when she regained consciousness was a coldness in her core. It made it hard for her to react. She opened her eyes and realized that she was floating face down in a pool of water.

She wasn’t breathing. Her lungs were full of water, and her entire body ached with exhaustion.

Reaching out, her fingertips found purchase on a stone, and she pulled herself out of the pool and onto the rocky bank. Multiple [System] messages popped up, vying for her attention, but her mind swam with a fogginess that made it hard to think.

When she tried to breathe, her entire body tensed up, and then she vomited and choked out a copious amount of water. It took several minutes for the coughing spree to end, and that left her feeling exhausted. Instead of trying to stand, she rolled over onto her pack and spread her arms out, lazily looking up at the ceiling.

The familiar glow moss of the previous cavern was gone. The chamber she had ended up in was devoid of its ambient light. Faint colored shimmers of red, blue, and yellow contrasted heavily against the near pitch blackness. Apparently, her [Darkvision] had stopped working, and that left her nearly blind in the dark.

As she settled, she finally pulled up her full [Status] screen and discarded messages.

[Your power is low. Your toggleable skills have been deactivated automatically.]

Well, that explained the darkness.

It was nice to know there was an auto-shutoff when she was unconscious that would prevent her from draining herself to death. Although since she’d healed from the impacts in her water-slide down to wherever-the-hells-she-was-now it was obvious that it didn’t apply to [Regeneration].

Or maybe the [System] was smart enough to know what to turn on and off? Probably not, and definitely something to count on.

[Status: Elania Reyes]

[Level 11 Lesser Demon (Summoned Potency 9999+)]

[Karma: 12345]

[Power: 26/152]

[Perks: (Summoned from Another World!) (Regeneration)]

[Class: Survivor]

[Skill Slots: 3]

[Slotted Skills: Improvised Combat (Rank A), Stealth (Rank D), Survival Crafting (Rank E)]

[Affinities: (Demonic), (Mana)]

[Magical: Demonic Aura (Rank B) (Deactivated), Mana Manipulation (Rank B)]

[Physical: Darkvision (Rank B) (Deactivated)]

[Mundane: Identify (Rank D), Universal Speech (Rank S), Reading (Rank A), Writing (Rank B), Crisis Management (Rank E)]

Elania stared at the small amount of [Power] she was left with. No wonder she felt like shit. Flicking her [Darkvision] back to brighten the chamber into clarity.

She needed to rest and recover her power. It was a miracle that her dagger hadn’t jabbed her to death during the chase and fighting. Reaching into her pockets for her mana shard, her heart stopped.

They were empty. No dagger. No mana shard.

She looked around; the shard gave off its own light so should have been easy to spot. She flicked her [Darkvision] off and on several times to look for anything, giving off a bright white light, but she didn’t see anything nearby.

An unwelcome “Glua-Glaa!” froze her in place. Crouching down behind a rock she hid, while a group of Mushroohums passed by. They didn’t see, smell, or seem to sense her, so she remained hidden.

[You have gained a rank in Stealth!]

Another Mushroohum came from the other direction and met the group. It held up a glowing stone.

No. A mana shard.

Her mana shard!

Anger licked at her as the Mushroohums pawed at her mana shard eagerly. The noises they made grew louder, and it seemed they were having an argument. About who would get to keep the stone, probably. At least that was what she got from the gestures flying between the one who looked like the leader and the one who had found it.

Not only had they chased her from their cavern and tried to murder her violently, now they were stealing the one thing she really, really needed to stay alive!

Panic followed quickly as the group seemed to come to a consensus. The leader pocketed the shard, and they all turned to leave.

She followed them from a distance, doing her best to stay silent and unnoticed. The caverns were completely unfamiliar to her, and the flora and fauna had changed shape and color. The ever-present presence of the glow moss was gone, replaced by sharper looking ceiling rocks and smaller patches of mushrooms that glowed with a red light.

Several times there was evidence of bones and long dead-creatures, but she ignored them. It took most of her focus to keep her thieves in sight without losing them. Eventually, they came to a larger chamber. One of the walls had a large gate cut in it. The ancient stone was propped up by a massive fungal growth that sealed it off, tendrils growing in long roots in every direction.

It was recognizable: the same sort of thing had been what blocked her path back in the Bone Demon area when she had tried to escape. When the Mushroohums reached the portal, she realized what the fungal growth was. It was a door, or well, a gate!

The flesh parted on its own as they approached and allowed them in, before sealing itself shut.

Sealed shut with her mana shard inside!

At least she knew where their lair was now. Apparently, she had been sleeping and staying right beside it. Things made a bit more sense to her now; she’d been sleeping in a cavern right beside their base. That didn’t explain the Bone Demon, or its nest packed full of Ralfot and Elnat bones. Maybe it just stayed hidden and struck periodically?

Elania shook her head and stopped worrying about it. The Bone Demon was dead; she’d eaten it. Now she needed to come up with a plan to get back her mana shard. Creeping at the edge of the Mushroohum’s base wasn’t going to do that, so she turned and sneaked away.

She wasn’t sure where she was in relation to the cave before, anyway. Although she figured it was likely close, considering how close the pool was to the Mushroohums and how fast they’d showed up to look for her. If she was lucky, they probably thought she was long gone or dead and wouldn’t be searching for her anymore.

The thought put a bit of spring into her step. She didn’t want to get cornered by the Mushroom Mob again, at least not until she was ready…but…

Her hopes died a little. How was she going to get ready? She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to get more [Power] without the stone, or finding and killing another demon. That wasn’t happening when she was on her last leg.

She couldn’t let the defeatist thoughts determine what she did. First thing’s first: she needed to hunt something down, like a Ralfot or Elnant, and see if she could absorb it. That meant she needed a weapon.

On the ground nearby, she noticed a rock that was a good shape for throwing. She picked it up and pocketed it.

She needed something sharp that she could use to cut the fungal trees with. Their wood was very soft, so she figured a sharp rock would work. Finding one of those was much more challenging. At first she searched near the stream bank, but she realized everything there was smooth from the water. That was the opposite of her intentions, but she gathered a few more throwing stones.

Elania set off deeper into the caverns, searching for something that would work. The stream led to a new chamber, a mix of the two environments that she’d become familiar with, although this one didn’t have any Elnats or Ralfots. [Jelly] floated near the glow moss covered ceiling, though.

Picking her way across the chamber, she spotted a side of the cavern that looked sharp and jagged and homed in on it. When she got closer, the cause of the jaggedness became apparent. It looked like some massive creature had raked its claws into the stone.

She knew from reading some random internet articles that what she really wanted was flint. That was supposed to be the caveman material of choice. The only problem was she had no idea what flint looked like, if there would be any present underground in caves like she was in, and there was a skill to using it called knapping that she did not know how to do.

Eying the rock, she decided to just go with the first thing that looked good. There was a vertical sheet of rock that was relatively thin and ended in a wedge. It was attached to a bigger rock, though. She pulled on it and tried to snap it off; that failed miserably. She didn’t want to burn [Power] to force it, so she pulled out the throwing rock in her pocket and smacked it.

That seemed more promising, so she repeated. A lot.

The pounding echoed through the cavern, giving away her position. That made her nervous and encouraged her to go faster, and when it finally broke and went flying, she felt excited relief. Snatching up her new rock wedge, she went straight to the nearest fungal growth tree.

The wedge left a lot to be desired. It was much harder to use than the steel dagger had been, but she got a sizable length of the wood from the trunk that would be shaped into a spear shaft. One wasn’t going to be enough; she gathered five more then bundled them all under her arm.

Working out in the open was not an appealing prospect, so she decided to search for a more sheltered alcove. There were tons of them in the cavern, but she decided to go to the next chamber further away from Mushroom land.

In one of the darker caverns she found a spot with a raised outcropping cut into the side, with a nifty chamber further back that was hidden from view. Even better, it didn’t really have any fungus or other stuff. It was bare stone. The darkness didn’t bother her, and not having to worry about unknown plant rashes was a major bonus.

She got to work as soon as she sat down, using the rock wedge to carve one of the fungal shafts. It was not easy; she deeply regretted the loss of her dagger as a carving tool.

The first one was mangled, but she was rewarded anyway with a [System] rank-up message, and a snarky line from [Identify].

[Very Crude Makeshift Spear]

[You have gained a Rank in Survival Crafting!]

The next spear was marginally better. At least it had a pointy end. So did the third, which netted her Rank C.

[You have gained a Rank in Survival Crafting!]

The next two actually looked good. Even [Identify] recognized her efforts.

[Makeshift Spear]

At least a little. They were about the same quality as the nice one she’d made with the steel dagger, despite having far inferior tools. Whether that was just her getting practice in making them and using the stone wedge, or if it was the awesome [Survival Crafting] skill at play, who knew?

One thing that had been bothering her was the ‘skill slotting’ that the three skills she’d picked up had. It seemed fairly straightforward that ‘slotting’ did something to the skill, although exactly what wasn’t clear.

If slotting improved the skill, then what she really wanted was one of her better skills in there. It was sort of clear that even with [Survival Crafting] whatever she made was a bit… garbage compared to say, having better [Mana Manipulation] or maybe even [Demonic Aura], especially offensively.

Ideally, she’d be able to swap them out when needed, but something told her that there was probably some sort of restriction on moving the skills in and out, otherwise why bother having the slots at all?

Elania closed her eyes and tried to think ‘Unslot!’ really hard at her [Survival Crafting] skill. It made her feel stupid when nothing happened. Frustrated, she tried again using different wordings. She even tried pulling up her [Status] screen and pulling the skill off the hologram. It was ethereal and she couldn’t touch it, though.

She reached her maximum threshold and cursed at it. “Fucking unslot, you piece of shit! Put [Mana Manipulation] there!”

[Survival Crafting has been unslotted. Mana Manipulation has filled the slot.]

[You have two slot replacements remaining. Slot cooldown has 23 hours remaining.]

Her jaw dropped.

It worked!

All it took was to specify what skill was replacing the unslotted one! She guessed that might be so you couldn’t have any empty slots, for some reason. She wasn’t sure why it mattered. Either way, it was time to test it somehow. She looked over to the last remaining [Fungal Wood] shaft that she hadn’t crafted into a spear yet.

She went to work.

[Crude Makeshift Spear]

Elania winced. It was worse than her last two products, but better than the first ones. So, the skill had definitely had some effect… or was it a placebo? Had she just not focused hard enough on it?

Fuck, she hated this world. Where were all the hard numbers? Definitive stats that she could use to determine the optimal thing to do?

Not that she was good at math.

But she was pretty good at following build guides in whatever MMORPG was recent.

She started to set down her spear when she suddenly froze. Two sparkling yellow eyes shined at her from a dozen feet away. The owner stopped creeping closer when it noticed her jerk.

[Darkwalker]

The thing resembled a panther; an oversized one. Color was hard to determine without natural light, but the second she locked eyes with it, the predator pounced. Elania pulled her spear up to place it between them. Somehow, she got it in place before the feline shape landed on her.

There was a squelch as the point jabbed into the creature’s torso; the shaft braced against the stone she’d been leaning against and bending dangerously. The weapon dug home and finally found a soft point between one of the darkwalker’s ribs. A vicious, hateful snarl exploded in her face, splattering her with spittle.

Its claws raked her side, but she grabbed it by the throat.

It slammed her against the rock wall, scraping her back. A heavy swat tried to bash her away, but she shoved [Power] into her arms. It wasn’t much because she was so low on it… but it was enough.

Her fingers dug into the animal’s flesh and then a sick sounding crunch echoed in the cave. Her opponent went limp.

She’d crushed its spine.

Blood pooled all over her, half of it hers. She shoved the beast off of her and her wounds burned as they slowly stopped bleeding and knitted back together. It wasn’t like the instant healing she’d had before.

When the darkwalker’s eyes glazed over, a new message appeared.

[Do you wish to absorb the darkwalker Essence? Y/N]

Her entire body tensed up. That was not the same message as when she’d absorbed the Bone Demon’s ‘lingering power’ or whatever. If demons were the only way to recharge, and she couldn’t get her mana shard back or find a new one…

She accepted the message. Half the blood spattered on her began to glow and disintegrate along with the corpse. Little gold motes floated into the air before gathering and then flying into her chest. It was pretty, but nothing was more beautiful or relieving that the message that appeared before her.

[You have absorbed 15 Power!]

[You have gained a level in Stealth!]

[You have gained darkwalker Affinity!]

[Consume more darkwalker Essence to enable darkwalker Transformation!]

Losing the materials from the carcass wasn’t ideal; maybe she’d eventually need some hides for making something. Except she had no fucking clue how to go about it, really. She had a vague idea that you needed brains or something to tan it, but she suspected there was a level of nuance and knowledge she simply lacked for attempting it.

Actually, having the thing dissolve into nothing while boosting her power was probably ideal for her current abilities. That she’d gained a rank in a skill from it… was a pretty nice bonus. More stealth seemed like a great thing to pick up.

She wasn’t sure what Affinity meant, but the transformation bit was worrying. It was a different term from the previously offered ‘evolutions’ and it didn’t sound as permanent.

Her sides pinched as they quickly began to heal with the sudden extra [Power] she’d gained. Still slower than when she’d been overloaded, however. It just meant she needed to hunt more creatures. It seemed her transformation into a Lesser Demon meant she was on a carnivore diet now.

She fixed up her robe, which had grown a bit more tattered; it was torn in a dozen places now, but it was the best she had.

If she wanted to survive, she knew what she needed to do now.

She gathered up her spears and held them under her left arm. The best one went in her right hand. She could use it as a walking stick…and a weapon to hunt with.

It was time to hunt.