Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Solo Leveling – Monica Furdel

[Monica Furdel] Lv. 29 Kitsune Gloom Mage

Status:

HP: 95 MP: 150

STR: 0 DEX: 29

MAG: 403 WIS: 193

VIT: 0 AGI: 87

LUC: 155

Skills:

Active – Shock, Sap, Blowback, Hazard Fumes, Taunt, Flash, Rising Sun, (Silkshot)

Passive – Tormentor, Sadist, Gloom Mastery II, Dancer’s Weave, Environmental Mastery, Gathering II, Crafting I, Survivalism, Scrounger, Bind Endurance IX, Fire Endurance VII, Blast Endurance XVI, Swimming V

“Haaa… another beautiful morning!~”

Squeaking as she stretched her back out, a fox rose from her peaceful napping spot under a particularly shady tree atop a tall hill as she logged in for the day, overlooking the main road a few hundred feet out.

Beside them, Silk followed suit, all eight limbs sprawled out flat against the ground as the arachnid woke themselves up along with her.

“Chhhk… chkchk.”

It was the fourth day since they’d officially established their guild, and since she’d begun her solo questing. It was a bit quieter than she was used to without the others around, but Silk at the very least had chewed her ear off enough to almost make up the difference.

She’d considered asking them both to join in when she first had the idea, but both of them had brought up things of their own they had planned to get ready for the event coming up soon.

And after all, neither of them could really join in on what she came out here for.

“Alright, morning calisthenics done, and we’re all ready to go!”

“Chk chkchk?”

“Okay, yes, I’m ready to go, fine. You’re going to just sit and watch from here like you always do.”

“Chk!”

“Yes yes, try not to strain yourself from working too hard-”

Her slow descent down the hit was suddenly sped up as a glob of webbing shot hard against her from behind, knocking her forward and sending her rolling downhill, as her attacker chittered in a way that sounded suspiciously like snickering.

Spitting up dirt and grass as she finally arrived at the bottom of the grassy rise, she shot a glare that could kill back at her “partner” before turning her eyes forward once more. Dealing with snippy spiders could wait until after her newly-established daily routine was finished.

“And here I thought familiars were supposed to be helpful… whatever, let’s get today started already.”

She dusted herself off and swapped into Arachnomancer armor once more before marching back towards her first stop: the flower-capped hill their party had visited a few days earlier.

Sure enough, the Wispwasp inhabitants had once more respawned to occupy their natural grazing area, zipping to and fro as they sampled every flower bloom the wild garden had to offer, not a single one of them turning away from their food to acknowledge the vastly above-their-level kitsune that had joined their midst.

“What, none of you even feel like fighting anymore? You could at least try and cooperate, c’mon!”

Her chitinous staff bonked one of them over the head, of course dealing no damage but at least pushing it away from its flower bud as it turned to look at her in clear annoyance, before they merely flew right back over to the next flower, unperturbed.

“Fine, I still have to do everything myself then. Taunt!”

Once more, a blue ring of light pulsed out from around her, washing over the decidedly peaceful swarm around her and getting them good and riled up as their eyes jerked around to face her.

The swarm gradually pulled themselves away from the breakfasts, puffs of pollen filling the air around them all as they slowly amassed around her again.

“There we go, much better! I really thought you’d all have this whole routine down at this point, honestly, we could really streamline this all. Hazard Fumes!”

Her viscous green cloud rolled forth out of her robes, spreading to engulf the entirety of the horde fluttering menacingly around her as they each fell to the ground, twitching and buzzing limply as the bevy of ailments overtook them all.

A single stray insect hovered just outside the cloud’s range, flitting back and forth hesitantly as it tried to retaliate, taking its sweet time before finally launching a pitifully tiny flame attack towards her.

Naturally, this went just as well for all parties involved as it had the last few times.

Flammable toxins ignited like a stove being lit, the picturesque hill once more being engulfed in flame as it detonated violently, scorching the earth and sending shards of burnt wood and clods of blasted dirt flying in every direction.

And from that still red-hot crater it left behind, a single survivor crawled out, coughing up soot as her menu dinged at her happily.

[Skill Upgrade: Blast Endurance XVI → Blast Endurance XVII]

“Eugh… that one took long enough… okay, next one’s waiting…!~”

With lungs full of ash, a heart full of determination, and a brain hardly full of anything at all, she crawled out, dusted herself off, and headed to the next of her many stops on her extreme training routine.

----------------------------------------

Traveling players tracing the main road back and forth past this nondescript rolling field would look on with concern and fear, hastening their trip past this stretch of the game’s overworld in a rush as massive pillars of flame detonated sporadically in this distance for days on end.

Some of them would even report that the mythical ‘Spider Queen’ herself that no one had been seen since the game’s second day of service had been spotted near the constant explosions, forums speculating it was some manner of endgame raid that others were undertaking. Though anyone that claimed such a thing conveniently decided against looking deeper into it themselves, not a soul daring to go anywhere near those constant earth-shaking explosions dotting the horizon, rightfully afraid of being vaporized on the spot.

After all, what kind of idiot would walk right into getting themselves blown up?

“Flash!”

Blissfully unaware of her status as a local cryptid, the one-and-only kitsune set the end of her staff aflame once again, detonating her own poison cloud with enough force to send chunks of wasp meat splattering in every direction.

Scraping herself out of her own craters became easier and easier with each detonation, slowly building her resistance higher and higher as she systematically eradicated every patch of enemies littering the wide grassy expanse, turning her resistance training into proper level grinding at the same time.

Eventually, panting and sweating, she imploded one last time, launching herself airborne as she soared gracelessly, thumping into the hillside and rolling down it, grunting the entire way until she hit against something large enough to stop her descent.

“Blegh… ok, ok, that’s probably enough for today. I don’t think there’s much left anyways, I’m pretty sure I killed every last-”

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She wiped her eyes and looked up at what had stopped her fall, being greeted by a massive, crimson wasp, an entire hive hanging from where it’s abdomen would be, mandibles clicking aggressively as it located the one responsible for wiping out most of its brood.

“-bug.”

The pair stared at one another for a long while, Monica slowly rising to her feet and easing backwards away from the hive queen as they inspected her intently.

“...don’t suppose you’d just accept an apology?”

It clicked down at her, giving a remarkably solid ‘no’ to her offer as every node of the open hive dangling under it ignited its own pilot light, revving up up as it prepared to deal with the invading threat to its territory.

The fox dove out of the way at the last moment, several dozen jets of fire streaming over where she’d stood just a moment ago as what little greenery remained was there was entirely incinerated.

She sped left and right wildly, zigzagging through the field as flames traced at her heels, cutting off every escape route she tried to reach as each of the hive cells aimed independently of the others, all of them focused on boxing her in from every side at once as she tried to make distance between them.

But even with speed as recklessly high as hers, there was only so much room to dodge the flamethrowers trailing her, slowly being caged to a tighter and tighter path, finally facing down a perfect wall of flame from all directions as they closed in on her.

All horizontal directions, at least.

“Rising Sun!~”

Her flame-kissed boots flashed under her, a sound like cracking lightning as her own jets of flame pushed into the poor, immolated countryside, launching her upwards like a rocket as the ground vanished underfoot.

Tails fluttering behind her as she ascended, rising higher than she ever expected the skill to carry her as the sun kissed her ears, rustling winds ruffling her unkempt hair.

The sun hung directly overhead and the world stretched in every direction before her, the awestruck mage briefly too enraptured by nature’s beauty to realize she was now falling from a height of several hundred feet, and she’d neglected to consider the concept of fall damage.

Oops.

Panic set in rapidly as her ascent became a descent, trying all manner of ways to slow her impending crash landing as she flapped her arms, spun her tails, kicked her legs, and prayed to whatever deities this world had that were listening in on her currently.

The ground quickly zoomed back in underneath her, a massive black splotch below marking the battlefield she’d leapt away from, a tiny red dot barely recognizable as the wasp queen themselves coming into focus.

With mere seconds left to try and find any means of not crashing to her death, and devoid of any better ideas, she turned to the only thing that had always been there for her.

“H-Hazard Fumes… Flash!”

Gas rushed ahead of her as she flew, trying to outrace her, until the lighter flame activated it once again She was nearly crushed between the two conflicting directions of force as she was instead shot out sideways, her feet grazing a hillside as she skidded clumsily to safety, even managing to keep her footing as she stuck down, trails of fire outlining her landing runway.

Her knees shook from the impact, sore, scorched, and stunned all at once, but noticeably more alive than she’d expected to be, unable to hold back a coy little smirk at her own last-minute performance.

The massive insect she was faced with seemed decidedly unimpressed however, already charging her down again as it resumed its overheated barrage at her.

Not wanting to give it time to corner her in again, she leapt in directly towards it, her explosive cloud already prepared and waiting for it as sit slammed directly into countless fountains of flame ready and waiting, delivering an explosive flying kick directly to its thorax as she was sent sailing over top of it, already growing more accustomed to her constant air time.

Smoke engulfed it entirely, angered buzzing growing quieter as she landed once more, confidently dusting her hands off as she scoffed at her final slain foe.

“That’s what you get for trying your luck against the master of all things insectoid and flammable, big guy~”

Victory music rung in her daydreams, opening her map to find her way back to Silk and her belongings so she could move on for today… only to be met with a glaring red enemy marker still on it, and rushing towards her fast.

It struck her across the back hard, enough to lift her upwards with a loud crack, an assuredly alive insect queen tackling her bodily as the insect-melting detonation had barely even scratched their carapace.

The caster spat up blood, her paper-thin defenses doing nothing to lessen the impact of the tremendous monster crashing into her at full speed, being thrown bodily off of the hilltop and into the ground below as she was caught off guard.

“You sneaky little piece of…! R-Restore…”

Green light washed over her battered form, returning most of her depleted HP back, though leaving her pride still very much gone.

It confidently looked down at her, every spark of flame aiming down at her, preparing one final barrage for the downed Gloom Mage, armed and ready to avenge each and every one of the hundreds of dead Wispwasps.

She had no room to hesitate, already pushing back to her feet the instant before the inferno could reach her, once more rising on streams of sunlight as she returned to the skies over head once again, the only place out of reach of her attacker.

Her eyes burned even brighter than the sun above her, staff clutched almost tight enough to snap in half, not wasting a moment of the time she’d bought for herself.

“Hazard Fumes! Hazard Fumes! Hazard Fumes!!”

Casting again and again, each utterance of the spell adding another layer of viridian smog to her expanding cloud.

“Hazard Fumes!! Hazard Fumes!!! Hazard Fumes…!!!”

Unstopping, unyielding, unthinking, pouring even more and more fumes out.

“-zard Fumes! Hazard… Fumes! Hazard…!”

Her voice grew hoarse in her throat, patchy and uneven as she chanted.

“Hazard!!! Fumes!!! Hazard!!! Fumes!!!”

The opposing queen drew closer even faster than before, the fox almost encased in a perfect orb of poison now, unable to even see the world outside any more.

“HAZARD!! FUMES!!”

Her very last mote of mana was expended as the final layer of the venom capsule reached down, the orb of concentrated death landing squarely atop the monster themselves. The massive wasp reacted in the only way they knew how, as they met it head on with each and every stream of fire, setting every patch of noxious fog alight at once.

Players would spend the next several days sharing stories and legends of that day, as the entirety of the flame-bathed hills turned shades of red and orange, a mushroom cloud erupting from those peaceful plains as trees and travelers alike were blasted away.

Meanwhile, laughing hysterically to herself, a lone kitsune lay flattened against glassed earth at the point of impact, not so much as a single trace remaining of the utterly annihilated wasp queen after her reentry speed impact struck it directly.

And in the midst of her laughter, her menu once again dinged at her, displaying a message that could only make her cackle to herself louder, her lungs sore from both convulsive laughter and the sheer amount of smog and smoke she’d been breathing for the last several hours.

[Skill Upgrade: Blast Endurance XIX→ Blast Immunity]

- User cannot be damaged by explosions.

The ultimate goal of her training from hell finally accomplished, she could only roar with laughter until she eventually passed out and faded away, gracefully accepting her second proper death as payment for her newfound toy to abuse.

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