Chapter 374: Chapter 358 – Creepy Crawlies (Part 2)

“The now-endangered Stone-Shelled Mawcrab most commonly found in the prairie region around Alfheim is a clear example of evolution. These beasts likely evolved from some sort of river crab that inhabited the many waterways of the region, but were driven out to the land for one reason or another. This change in its environment resulted in many changes to the creature over many generations.

 

Its legs elongated to better accommodate movement on the ground, while its carapace hardened to better defend itself from the larger predators it had to contend with. Its pincers and claw developed into lethal weapons that allowed it to hunt down larger prey more effectively over time, though the development of Alfheim and its sister cities in the region had caused the monsters to be hunted down to near-extinction.

 

Amongst my family’s collection one could see a typical large-maw crab, a beast that was often found in the rivers and lakes of the region, and believed to be the ancestor of the monster we knew. The resemblance between them were beyond uncanny, and a few samples that showed the creature’s gradual changes over time further highlighted the evolution it had undergone, collected by many generations of my family line.” - Lomis Ednoia Kveisy, 17th Generation researcher of monsters and their evolution, from the Kingdom Down Under, circa 694 FP.

Aideen reached the fighting on the east side soon after she departed from the wagon. She knew that she had no need to worry about Celia. The younger girl was stronger than she thought she was, after all the decades of hard training. It was only because Celia regularly sparred with Aideen that she probably thought she was still weak.

 

As such, Aideen felt it would be a good opportunity for the younger unliving woman to gain some self-confidence in herself.

 

The moment Aideen arrived, she thrust with her staff and struck the middle of a large pincer that was about to take the head off a distracted guard. Just that blow alone caused a spider web of cracks to form on the monster’s carapace, and the beast withdrew its appendage in surprise. As for Aideen, she swiftly recovered her staff, slid it through her hands so that she now held the tip she struck with in her front hand and flipped her grip into a full-force vertical swing.

 

Her staff’s tip struck the Stone-shelled Mawcrab right in the center of its oval-ish carapace and smashed the creature flat to the ground, where it was splayed and flattened from the force. The monster’s gooey innards splattered all around the area as the blow nearly caused the beast to shatter into pieces, and the nearby guards – including the one Aideen had saved – could only stare with bewilderment at the blow.

 

Before the nearby guards even recovered from their temporary bewilderment, Aideen had already darted off, her long staff swinging hard against the lower side of another of the creatures. The blow seemed to have disabled the creature’s legs on the struck side, which caused it to topple over sideways, and Aideen followed up with another blow that shattered half the creature’s arms.

 

She circled around the crippled creature and touched a pair of injured guards briefly, allowing her healing magic to work its wonders through that brief moment of contact. The two guards got up to their feet just as she left with bafflement in their faces, one still clutching her abdomen where she had been trying to keep her innards from spilling out.

 

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Both guards were fortunately smart enough to shake themselves out of their bafflement and pick their weapons up as they returned to the fight to finish off the crippled monster Aideen left behind, though.

 

Aideen herself continued on her trek, dispensing crushing blows with her staff – the weight of the adamant it was made out of lending more momentum to her strikes – while she dispensed healing to any injured she ran into. Rather than try to kill every beast on her own, she left many of them crippled with quick blows, and allowed the guards to finish them off instead.

 

If anything, Aideen healed far more than she killed along her trek. She focused on disabling the deadly pincer-claws and scythe-arms of the monsters, sometimes also crippling their legs, which left them easy prey for the healed guards to finish off. A couple of monsters that stubbornly got in her way found themselves on the receiving end of a full-power swing from her adamant staff, which left them broken on the ground.

 

Meanwhile, the hired guards were emboldened by both her prowess and the healing she freely gave, and took down the beasts she left behind her. Her actions sent a ripple through the encirclement, as the guards she freed up went over to help their still-fighting compatriots and lent their aid. As a result, the hard, nearly hopeless fight was turned around shortly after Aideen’s arrival in the field.

 

She even caught up to Celia after a while, by which point only a few of the monsters still stubbornly remained. More than twenty of the beasts already laid dead, while others fled for their lives, with only the most stubborn of their kind persisting regardless. From there it had not taken too long for the collective of the guards with Aideen and Celia’s aid to kill or drive the beasts away.

 

They returned to the wagons to the cheers of the merchants and other passengers. Out of the hired guards, other than the few who were taken by the beasts early in the fight, no other lives were lost thanks to Aideen’s intervention. Even as they walked back towards the caravan she administered more aid to those who were injured after she had gone past them, returning them to perfect health.

 

The only signs that they were ever injured at all were the tears and bloodstains on their clothing and armor.

 

As for the dead beasts, some of the guards dragged their carcasses behind them, and Aideen could see the shine in the eyes of the merchants. These beasts must be quite valuable, considering the obvious look of happiness and no slight amount of greed she could see in their looks. She could care less either way, though she would indeed prefer it if the creatures could provide some compensation for those who lost their lives.

 

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