Chapter 733

A short time later they were stopping outside of the ‘little’ house the team was staying in for the night. Kat and Nixilei hopped down easily even with Lily in hand, and Gareth walked out with Green in a princess carry followed by Kress. “Are you going to stick around Kat?” asked Gareth, “Wait, that came out wrong. Apparently, my etiquette lessons didn’t stick all that well. What I meant to ask is if you wish to remain here for some length of time?”

“I plan to stick around till nightfall really. Either leave once everyone has gone to sleep or maybe just retired to their rooms. I didn’t want to just leave straight away or stick around too long. Lily really wants to check out this new book of hers,” Kat patted the spellbook held in place by her sash, “so I shouldn’t spend too long here. What about you all?”

The group continued walking up the path once Kat had confirmed her desire to stay, Gareth was leading the way and replied with, “For now it’s to rest up and then have something to eat. If we had enough food we might have stuck around for a while... but we didn’t want to stock up too much just in case the tournament went on for a while. We didn’t really have a timeline for it. So we have a little bit of good food to use and a bunch of rations just in case that went bad by the time we got back...

“So it’ll be something we discuss, probably tomorrow if I had to guess. It’s a good environment for training, maybe doing a bit of hunting or culling to test our skills in the terrain? I’m not totally sure at this point. We’re not required for anything, but we’ll be expected to at least inform our families of the results soon. That will probably require Green and I to do some formal events. Winning the second round of the Tournament is rather prestigious,”

*Doesn’t Nixilei have an artifact for making reports? Why are you making it seem like you need to tell them in person or... I don’t know hire a courier? Do they not know about that? Hmm, can’t be bothered checking if Nixilei mentioned that to me or not last time so I guess I’ll keep quiet about it.*

“So... any idea when the next round is?” asked Kat.

“Not really,” said Gareth, “We’re mostly just notified of the time and place and given about a week’s notice. It depends on how long the other rounds take and how long whoever, presumably still Thyme, will need to set up the round after this one.”

.....

“Fair. You all planning anything interesting?” asked Kat.

“Nope, just regular mission stuff I suppose. Well, maybe not truly regular. We’ll focus on the simpler stuff that’s closer to towns. Wouldn’t want a long exploration quest to be interrupted halfway or to just not be in contact at all,” replied Gareth.

“Actually, about that, you said earlier ‘culling or hunting’ what’s the difference?” asked Kat.

“Surely that’s self explanatory?” said Kress butting in, “The difference is all in the name!”

Kat rolled her eyes, “Yes I’d suppose it is, but I was asking for the full context. They are somewhat similar after all. You could clearly hear the difference when I asked the question back so it’s not a translation issue, you have the problem in your languages as well.”

Nixilei cut in, before an argument could really start, “Hunting is about finding either a specific type, or specific specimen for parts. They might want the pelt, or the stomach or the fur. Whatever it is, that’s a hunting mission. Culling missions are about eradicating monsters that have gotten too close to town, or are appearing in great numbers. Goblin culling is quite common because they don’t have any useful... parts I suppose.

“Their skin is weak, their eyeballs, tongues, other similar parts don’t really do anything useful for most alchemists. All they really do is breed fast and become a nuisance. So when we’re killing goblins, all we care about is killing as many as we can with no care given to the body. During hunts making sure the pelt is intact, or the horns are in good condition can sometimes take up the majority of the time and effort,”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Huh... actually... how DO monsters appear? Is it all breeding?” asked Kat.

“Doesn’t even know the basics,” grumbled Kress under his breath.

Kat and Nixilei ignored the interjection, “They certainly CAN. They also appear out of thin air in places that have sufficiently concentrated mana. Normally it’ll be a slime or a goblin, but occasionally it can be more deadly. The general rule is that the more powerful the monster the harder it is for it to spawn naturally. You won’t fine a dragon just appearing anywhere for example.

“The mana sort of... stabilises into a creature long before it would reach the strength most would require. Even in particularly mana dense areas... they tend to spawn multiple weaker monsters rather then just a single powerful one. I never studied it myself, but apparently it’s quite rare. Not every collection of mana spawns a goblin, it’s just that they’re weak enough that millions of pockets of mana capable of it every few minutes appear and SOME of them spawn goblins.”

“Huh. How come you don’t get monsters appearing in cities?” asked Kat.

“Well, the basic answer is that a monster can’t spawn in an area with a monster already in it. The same is true for the sentient races. We have a... a ‘presence’ of mana that disrupts monster spawns. Imagine... imagine that you need a completely clean patch of pavement. Natural mana acts as the rain, clearing things off and sending it to the sewers... but that can only get things so clean. Sometimes it’s enough, but it doesn’t always rain, and when it does, it’s not always enough.

“With enough people around though, they leave tracks on the pavement. Enough tracks and the pavement starts to have the dirt and muck caked on. If the layers build up too much, they become the new ‘floor’ and even if the rain washes away the top few layers, they don’t actually get back down to the clean pavement necessary. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah I guess that tracks... and it prevents other monsters from spawning?” asked Kat.

The group opened the door and Gareth headed for the stairs to put Green in one of the beds. Nixilei moved over to the chairs with Kress taking a look at the two and heading upstairs by himself, apparently not really willing to involve himself in the conversation anymore. Kat and Nixilei together were clearly too scary.

Nixilei made a wobbly thumbs up gesture, once she sat down “For the most part yes. Some monsters, and we don’t really understand why this is... sort of... keep the area around them ‘clean’ enough to spawn in reinforcements for a short time after they are created. A goblin will normally hole up wherever it comes into existence for about a day and get two or three more fully formed goblins for their troubles.

“They strange thing that nobody has really been able to work out is why they loose that ability, or if they do for sure. The mere act of observing this sort of thing can sometimes spread mana or ‘dirt’ over the area making it much harder to actually happen. Based on data from captive monsters we can make estimates that lead us to believe that they spawn. A few tests were conducted to prove monsters do spawn, involving a very heavily enchanted test chamber that was rather large in size and YEARS of waiting for it to actually work to prove monsters do spawn into thin air.

“It just isn’t something you SEE. If that makes sense. We have a lot of evidence, technically circumstantial, but everything we know about the process implies that it cannot be observed because it would introduce at least some outside mana into the process and disrupt the whole thing. Really, it’s one of the big research topics that comes up and dies down every few decades. It’s something we’d love to be able to control, or understand properly but is always just out of reach.

“I’m not sure if you have an equivalent, but researchers will show this ground-breaking new technique and say we’re just ‘five years from figuring monster spawning out’ but I’ve read the detailed history books on it. It was one of my research assignments in school actually. And it shows that people have been making those claims for at least 300 years, probably longer. The library only covered 500 years well, and the major events behind that somewhat poorly,”

“Hmm... I wonder if getting a demon to do the observations would work?” offered Kat.

“I don’t see why it would...?” said Nixilei clearly asking Kat for the answer with her tone.

“Well... we don’t have mana at all. I’m sure demonic energy does disrupt it somewhat but perhaps with the right setup they’d be able to see it from a distance?” explained Kat.

“Hmm... it certainly could work. You really I MUST suggest that to my employers. Even if it doesn’t work, if it hasn’t been tried before... this is the sort of thing I can’t just sit on you understand?” said Nixilei.

“Yeah no it’s cool go head,” said Kat, wondering if Lily would be mad she didn’t agree on the condition she also got to look over the data. Kat doubted Nixilei would agree, or be truthful about agreeing at least.