When Karl’s morning shift came, he found that the patrols were still circling past the large tree, and that they were more numerous than the patrols the first night that they had been here had been.
They also had a Church Guard with some of the patrols, and Karl could see the sour looks on the soldiers’ faces at the fact. The Guards were higher ranking than their team leaders, so they had taken over and had eliminated any chance of slacking on the night shift.
[Rae, did we see anything good tonight?] Karl asked, as Hawk wasn’t awake yet.
[Nothing much. There were a few wandering Goblins, but the scouts got them.]
Tessa started cooking an hour into their shift, earlier than she usually would, and then set up the partition for the shower.
“The church hearings always start entirely too early in the morning, so we should be cleaned up and fed before they show up to tell us to head into camp to give our version of events.” She explained quietly, not wanting to forcibly wake the others early.
There was no shower bag today, just a bowl of water with a washcloth and a bar of unscented soap. It would do the job, but the hot water was always comforting on the muscles.
Once he was ready, they switched positions, and Karl stirred the morning’s stew.
It didn’t take long for the scent to wake everyone else up, and Rae switched shifts with Hawk.
She had a theory that she wanted to test. Offensive Adaptation was a versatile skill, and it even enhanced Karl’s Rend and Shred attacks, so it should start enhancing her Golems soon, she assumed.
That meant extra Stabby tree spiders, but also the chance that she could teach them other skills.
She didn’t actually know any other skills to teach them. But in her mind, that was a Karl problem. Once she knew that they could learn the basics, she would convince him to teach the Golems more skills. That vine whip that the big tree golems knew would be nice.
It wasn’t part of the basic Golem spell, it was an additional spell that Donni knew, but cast on the Golems.
The whole point of having a human around was to make them make you stronger, Rae was certain, and that meant she would have to convince him to find more good skills for her.
Hawk agreed with Rae on that last point. They needed to find new skills, or good things. They were all reaching maximum growth, and even with his new fire skills, Hawk was convinced that he could do better.
What they really needed was a shiny thing. Karl got shiny things, and now he had the strength to fist fight an Ogre. Some of that had even spilled over to the team, and Hawk’s wings were stronger than ever when Karl was wearing the Bestial Strength gloves.
Having [Skill Master] active all the time without a defined target was helping, but they weren’t seeing new skills. Everyone they met all knew the same basic set of Academy Skills. They needed to find cooler monsters and people that knew other stuff.
[We can go look for cooler monsters after we finish with the ones here. There might still be some shiny gems or other things on them, and you haven’t fully mastered teaching Offensive Adaptation to the Golems yet.
Don’t worry, once we get a chance I will find a way to teach everyone more skills, or even try to find a way to help them Evolve, like Hawk did when he got that potion.] Karl assured her.
[Oh, that would be good too. Maybe I could become invisible, or like super durable.] Rae agreed.
Thor laughed silently at the thought of an armoured Rae. But the thought of new skills was fun. He just hadn’t found any that he liked yet.
He didn’t even know what sort of skill he would like. Better Lightning wasn’t really a new skill, was it? That was all he really wanted. But Rae said that ideas to make you stronger were what humans were for, so Thor decided that he could just wait for Karl to come up with something.
Their discussion of the best ways to get stronger, and how they should just sneak away to go look for really good things, was interrupted by the food being served, and then by the Church Guard coming to call all of them to make their official report on the conditions in the field.
As far as Karl could tell, it was exactly what he had been facing since he arrived at his second deployment, but according to whoever did the deployments, it was not supposed to be that way.
They took a minute to wash all the dishes and pack their gear to head out after the hearing, then followed the Church Guard back into the camp, where a large church tent had been set up in the middle of what would normally be the assembly ground.
“The High Priest will see you right away. He wants to get the outside reports filed before he starts with the involved parties.” The Guard announced.
Karl looked around and noticed that there were more Command tents here than he remembered. There should have been one for the base commander, and perhaps one for the transient units, but most of those were camped outside the base as it was being renovated and upgraded.
But there were at least four of them marked with senior officer’s emblems, plus the one for the High Priest.
They must have arrived yesterday while the group was out on patrol, but Karl hadn’t noticed them.
That meant that this was likely going to be more annoying for their Captain than just a simple church inquiry into a dispute between Ascended Rank officers, who were both Captains in the army.
“Karl, come with us first. You are the unit’s scout, so you have the most details of the situation.” The Guard insisted.
[Hawk, I hope your memory is good because I haven’t been taking any notes.] Karl informed his partner.
[Talk to Thor, he remembers everything in order.]
Karl was definitely using his notepad, starting today. He should have borrowed Tessa’s notes before coming inside.
But now he was in the tent, facing a group of four Colonels and a High Priest, who were sat behind a table with an emblem that said JAG, the acronym for the Judge Advocate General’s department, the military’s legal authority. It was too late to turn back.
“Ascended Elite Karl, class designation is Beast Master, a new designation for a previously unseen mark. It says here that you are serving the role of attached scout for the military unit, is that correct?” The aging Colonel on Karl’s far left asked as Karl walked up to the speaker’s booth.
“That is correct.”
“And can you give us an overview of the situation in this region, in your professional opinion as an Elite?” The man asked.
“I would say that the Common Rank monsters are somewhat less frequent, though we have come across large packs of Goblins. More frequent are the Awakened Rank Ogres and Hobgoblins, with about a third of our encounters consisting solely of the Ascended Rank varieties.
That is what my team is along with the patrol for, the stronger groups, but we have also come across a total of twelve Commander Rank monsters in the last two days. The heads collected yesterday were brought back to the camp as evidence, at the request of the Church.
The situation appears to be under control, as the number of stronger monsters is not increasing on a daily basis, but neither is it noticeably decreasing in the limited time since I arrived from a deployment between here and the Regional Command location.”
The Colonel nodded. “Are you privy to the official threat assessment for the region?”
Karl shook his head. “No, sir. But I am privy to the official scouting reports, though they are somewhat limited in their scope, as they do not extend to the edges of the zone.”
The officers flipped pages, while the High Priest made notes, and then the man second from the right pointed at a page and asked Karl a question.
“It says here in the official report that there are no threats above low Awakened Rank found by the forward observation post’s scouts. Would you say that this is accurate?”
Karl frowned. “In a way. That scouting report only covers a one-kilometre distance from the camp. In that distance, the monster density is indeed made up of only Common Rank and low Awakened Rank Goblins and Hobgoblins. But once you move past the distance that is within the hourly patrol route, the smarter monsters become more common.”
They all made more notes, and then the High Priest asked his question.
“From your elevated position last night, what did your team identify as potential threats to be dealt with today?”
“There are two groups of Ascended Ogres camped respectively five and seven kilometres from the camp. There are four groups of roving Hobgoblins of unknown strength, with numbers in the single digits and low teens, and one pair of Giants, possibly a mated pair. Oh, plus a Warbear den, but that isn’t on the list to eliminate, as they naturally control monster populations.” Karl replied.
A clerk brought him a map of the zone and Karl filled in everything that they had located and hadn’t had time to eliminate, plus what they had found last night during the daily spawn. With the help of Thor, who really did remember where all of them were seen last, Karl managed to put over twenty spots on the map before turning it back over to the clerk.
“Thank you, Elite. Your information has been recorded.” The High Priest announced, dismissing Karl, and sending the clerks to bring in another witness.
