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

— Kat —

Kat dished out the spaghetti and meatballs she’d done up for dinner. On the one hand, it seemed like a good compromise between Hunter and Kamiko. Sure noodles weren’t anything like jelly, but they were soft and the mince was the same. For Hunter, the mince provided at least some meat.

Of course, after Kat had started cooking she realised that perhaps making this the day after she’d done lasagna for similar reasons was a poor decision but it was too late now. At least nobody seemed upset. Kat even decided to have her own bowl of food.

Everyone sat around eating for a bit. Kat had the smallest amount, followed by Lily and then Kamiko. Kat had to smile at Hunter going back for seconds, and then thirds. “I’m glad you’re enjoying the food. I was a bit worried I should’ve picked something after thinking about it for a bit… but yeah glad you liked it,”

Hunter nodded though didn’t actually say anything because her mouth was currently full. In the end, Hunter finished the entire plate before she spoke. “It was a good meal and while mince is not usually a favourite of mine perhaps I simply need more practice cooking it. I suspect I am not giving it the proper time after watching your attempt.

Of course, I shall save any such attempts for when we are not on a contract. A missed meal due to burnt cooking would be an issue. Perhaps a minor one, but easily avoidable all the same.

Kat shrugged and put away the meal once everyone was done. Kamiko pulled out a little bit of jelly after that, but nobody said anything about it as it was rather expected at this point. Hunter brought out a pitcher full of juice and poured herself a glass before speaking. “I take it you wish to hear of my final adventure in a high tech society?”

“Yup,” said Kat and Lily at the same time.

Hunter gave a nod towards the table before beginning her tale. “As expected. In this case I took a slightly non-standard contract… or perhaps it is more accurate to say that while it is work my clan can do, it is not work we receive as consistently as hunting monsters. In this case, I was tasked with finding tracking down a criminal. Both alive and dead were acceptable.

The summoners did specify they would prefer she be taken alive, but they did not put it in the contract and were more concerned with ensuring she was taken ‘off of the board’ so to speak.

“Now you may be wondering why they hired me for this. It is mostly simple to explain. They did not need to scour the galaxy for the individual in question, they knew she remained trapped on one of the capital city-planets. The issue was that the culprit had been seen fleeing into the depths of the planet.

“The city itself had been built up, layer by layer around the planet in question. The area that was in use was built over the ruins of multiple districts that had come before it. It seemed that during the planets history, whenever they wished to add space, they built up.

Over time people would attempt to leave the lowest levels and succeed somewhat… only for the richest amongst them to bribe the government into building yet another layer. As they continued this, the lowest layers were mostly abandoned due to lack of sunlight and for falling apart.

“The criminal in question, one ‘Pennworth Ali Arabina’ also known as ‘Dark Mask’ in more public settings, had intentionally fled deeper into the superstructure that made up most of the planet. They had guards and cameras covering all the known exits… but they were unwilling to go down and find her themselves.

I was initially unsure of why that might be but with the benefit of hindsight I can see the easy answer is that they did not trust many of the pathways.

“To briefly skip ahead, during my expedition in the lower levels I had to avoid several pitfalls, collapsing structures, and multiple animals that posed a decent threat to lifeforms. Mostly because they all seemed to have tried to develop the deadliest toxin possible.

Some leaned more biological, becoming almost a living plague while others went for neurotoxin that didn’t just attack the nerves, but used them to fuel its growth to attack the rest of the body.

“Even with my own training to resist some toxins the beasts down there possessed the ability to take me out if they could bite a vulnerable location. I did have some generic antidotes offered to me, but if I did not have the ability to fight off so much of the toxin myself the antidotes likely wouldn’t have been able to finish the job. Still, I am getting ahead of myself.

“I was told to go down and find her. They had no maps, but they did manage to acquire a large amount of Pennworth’s clothes for me to track her by scent. Once I had it memorised I spent some time trying and failing to find proper information about the threats down below so I packed some food and water, then headed downwards.

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I was given a guide for the somewhat known levels, and they pointed out what they could. Her name was Staunch, and her race was never identified to me. Her job was to guide me to the stairwell Pennworth had taken so that I could follow her scent from there. Sadly too much time had passed, but luckily she left other tracks.

“Staunch nearly came with me you know? Down into the dark. Made the offer a few times before making it to the door. I turned her down, not just because she eventually admitted that it would cause her trouble for going down there with me, but because her stealth skills were simply not up to acceptable levels. Additionally, I was hoping to rely mostly on other senses once I was by myself.

I did not wish to be constantly using a flashlight.

“I know now that was a silly fear. Most of the animals down there did not even have eyes anymore. They had adapted them away due to the lack of light down there. Of course, I was not without a flashlight despite this. The few animals that DID have eyes were completely unprepared for a beam of light to shine into them, blinding them completely and allowing for me to easily take them out.

“It was in fact how I got through my first few fights down there, and examining their corpses lead to me realise just how deadly things were down there.

I did not know the true extent of the toxins yet, but I could tell that things were not going to be easy because one of the things I defeated, a sort of… cross between a rat, a dog and an armadillo had venom sacks that could melt threw the nearby steel. I was not keen to test my resistance against the things further down.

“I think the best descriptor for my time on that hunt was tense. I could not rely on my eyes essentially at all. I had to constantly have my ears, tongue and nose ready. I was on the lookout for the slightest hint at wildlife as I chased after what clues I could. While I did not find a proper ‘scent trail’ for some time, there were a number of times I caught something.

Pennworth needing to use the bathroom. Animals clearly shot to death instead of mauled. Evidence of a camp. Things like that.

“I do not know how many of the specifics you wish to hear from me. It was a lot of guesswork based on the actions I suspected Pennworth might take based on what information I had combined with combing an exceptionally large district for clues. I did know that her goal was to eventually reach the surface somewhere else, but how deep she would go on her journey was more uncertain.

“Luckily for me, she made camp just outside one of the other major stairwells. She stayed there longer then the others, so perhaps she needed to recover from injuries or feared to travel further. Whatever the case, it meant her scent was fresh enough to properly follow. I was able to swiftly follow that trail, thought it did still take me two days to catch up to her after that.

“Catching her was almost distressingly simple. I waited for her to put down a device designed to keep the animals away… and then she went to sleep. No traps. No tents. Just completely out on the open pressed into a corner. I simply moved around until I was above her and then jabbed a paralytic into her neck.

From there I tied her up and waited till enough had left her system for it to be safe to inject her with something to force her to sleep and I was essentially done. The trip back with her wasn’t much more dangerous, though I did need to take a detour at one point because the fastest path up included a stairwell that must’ve been destroyed after the map was made,”