D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1359 Chapter 1359 In the Distance…

--- Lily ---

Further exploration had landed Lily nothing, and she was now edging into a different section of the treasure hunt. It seemed to be a coral forest. *I suppose that's a good thing to have bordering your kelp forest. I wonder what keeps the crabs out though. As far as I can see the coral forest just has a bit of fish in it. The crabs could completely ignore those and still be fine. Is this just something Thyme set up?

I know they wouldn't bother with the coral spires because there really isn't enough space for them to move around, and they don't seem to have any vertical mobility… but this is all fairly level. Hmm… I just can't decide if I'm overthinking this or not. Are they just not bothering with it because they have all they need in the kelp forest? But the king crab seemed so curious about things and went out of its way to acquire exotic samples of things.

Unless they've already gotten samples? It's not as if the coral trees look much like the kelp trees the crabs have set up closer to the centre of their home… but I could see them possibly being based on the coral trees once upon a time. Perhaps I'm just worried about nothing.*

With that settled Lily started to make her way towards the coral… when she spotted movement of something else. Something that clearly wasn't a fish. Quickly swimming over to the nearest coral stalk Lily peaked just her head around and hoped whatever it was hadn't seen her. It was still quite far away so Lily was quite certain she was safe…

Until she realised what that was. It was a humanoid figure on the smaller side covered in metal. *Romilda!* It couldn't be anyone else. It was a bit hard to tell the figures exact height from a distance but it, no SHE was obviously shorter than average and of all the contestants it had to be Romilda. Unless someone had found some treasure that changed their size temporarily, but that was silly. It was far more likely the person she was seeing was Romilda.

*What do I do? She's heading this way at a decent pace. I could get the drop on her… but she's covered head to toe in metal! I don't know if I can compete with that while I have almost no mana. Should I hide away my treasures in my expanded bag and try to fight her anyway? If I get the drop on her… would it even matter? I can't tell anything about how thick the metal is from her and she seems to be in decent health if she can move so swiftly through the coral…

Unless that's wasting mana? Could she be running from something? Then again… if she's running from something that requires her to expend a bunch of her mana then I really don't want to get caught in a fight with her, win, and then have to deal with whatever it is that's chasing her. I'd be exhausted, probably injured, and still out of mana.

So does that mean I just have to let her go? This seems like such a good opportunity to DO something… but I just don't know what. I can't ready a bunch of spells for her, even though she's running towards me. I can't just attack her because as sharp as my fangs and claws are, I don't know if they can get through that metal…

I suppose I do have that lightning rod treasure but I'd need to transform to use it, likely giving away my position and I don't actually know what it does. Sure it looks like a steampunk magical staff, or perhaps an industrial one… but I don't know how it works. Is it DnD rules? Do I get a certain number of free casts a day? Is it just a wand that makes lightning spells better? I haven't really seen the other mages using them but I assume they exist…

So what the heck am I supposed to do? Even as I spent time worrying about the right course of action Romilda is getting closer and if she gets lucky I can see her picking my row of kelp to run down. Unless one of the crabs comes over and scares her off, she might run into me and then I'll HAVE to fight her.

So should I be looking for a place to hide? It's all 'open' fields for the most part. The kelp is good cover from a distance but up close I'm not sure it'll do enough. Should I start digging then? It's pretty soft ground here, mostly sand and stuff. I can dig out a small hole and perhaps cover it? The collar should let me breathe… but then I'd have know way to know if she's left or not.

Oh so many choices but all of them seem bad. If I had a good way to hide I think I'd go for that in a heartbeat but I just don't know that I can manage it… perhaps I could use some shadows to do something? No I can't because I haven't recovered enough of my fucking mana!

Gah I need to calm down. I can't get angry at this, I need a plan. A good, working plan that I can quickly implement because all of this worrying is not giving me any extra ideas. I just don't know what to do. I don't like it but I wish Kat was here. She could open up so many more options for me…

But she's not. So think Lily think. You've got no powerful attack artifacts except for a staff that you don't understand. Essentially no mana. A transformation ring that gives you a bad transformation. Almost no mana, and you feel quite fine physically speaking. So what can you use?*

Lily run through her options again, trying to think of how she could use any of them. The problem was the required mana to test and or use the staff. Her mind just kept getting dragged back to the damned thing even though she didn't know how to use it. Just the fact that it had potential made it seem like an appealing option. Eventually Lily had to forcibly discard any idea of using it. She could just tell it wasn't going to work out due to blind luck.

So what else did she have? Bracelets that wouldn't protect her, a necklace that didn't have a proper charge, a fancy gem that could, at best, be thrown at Romilda to perhaps overheat her, and a useless transformation.

Lily paused. *Hmm… perhaps it's not so useless? Romilda can probably recognise me as a Memphis, not like I've hidden this form… so would she just run past me if I looked like a bird? Perhaps? It'd be really weird to have some random bird underwater though. Perhaps I need to backtrack a bit and sit in the kelp trees? That might work. The trees are strange enough that perhaps seeing a bird underwater won't be strange…

Unless I want to try and sit on one of the crabs? I'm not sure if they'd let me, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable enough with the form that I could stay on top of the crabs without falling off or sliding… but if I can pull it off, and the crabs don't attack me I'm pretty sure they'd defend me if Romilda attacked. Plus it's not like the crabs are everywhere, so if just one has a bird she might not even notice for a long time.

So what's the play? Run back to the kelp trees, or pick one of the crabs? I can see one that's… close enough… probably. I might be pushing my time limit, especially if Romilda is paying attention but the kelp forest here is slightly raised compared to the coral one so as long as she's not looking at me I should be able to get away with it…

But is it worth the gamble? Backtracking to the trees would be a big time waste but it's probably safer… do I really want to just go for the safest option though? Yes. What am I talking about yes I really want to go for the safest option I'm just not sure if I SHOULD or not. Dammit, let's just go for it. The transformation seems to be a one time cost to change into the bird form, and I can just sit in the tree and not have to worry about it moving too much. *

So Lily booked it, staying low to the ground and using her wings to keep her mostly on the sandy ground as she sort of half ran half swam back towards the tree. With her choosing to forgo stealth, at least from the crabs, it didn't take her long to reach the trees. Once From there it was a simple matter to swim up to one of the branches and transform. Lily made sure to pick one on the side furthest from Romilda, right near the trunk so she Lily wasn't spotted as a human for a moment. She could only hope the plan would work.

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