Baka imps, not like I want to beat you up or anything.

Spoiler:

---

Apparently there was a job that offered enough to fund Mei's little refrigerator expenses for quite a while, but at her current level she couldn't possibly hold out hope for being allowed to take it. It was then that she heard another guild member had already signed up for it, and well as usual Mei didn't think about it, and she just jumped onto the opportunity to get even more food for her stock. Perhaps this is why Mei always managed to get herself into trouble, she thought with her stomach over any kind of logical conclusion, most of the time. If it could get her some more food, how hard could it really be?

So it was that she set off towards the mysterious canyon, what lame name. What was so unknown about this place that they had to put it in the name? Perhaps no one knew exactly why the name was that way, so it became a mystery within a mystery that rested within a title? Maybe that sentence made no sense, or maybe Mei is just going crazy. In any case as she wandered through the canyon she was looking for the one who had, supposedly, already taken off for this job. If she did find them, then maybe Mei could get this food restoration project fully underway.

Seven thousand jewels. It wasn't the most she had made from a job, but the job was too interesting not to take up. Imps were pretty adorable in ever instance she had ever seen them, and if she took out the ones blocking out the trade route she could feasibly have Memory summon them one day to help in combat. Who knew, sometimes the summons were useful outside of combat as well! Tom Ato was great at trash talk, which had plenty of situational uses, and many of the summons could be used for fear tactics!

That wasn't the only reason she had come, though. She needed a chance to train and fighting the small, usually weak, creatures while holding back on her more powerful spells was the perfect chance to do so! To accomplish that, and keep herself from cheating, Aiyana put on the spell limiter item that Lamia Scale had given to her on her becoming a C rank mage. As the necklace's minimal weight was felt on her neck, the dark green Lamia Scale symbol pendant resting against her throat, she could feel her magic lessen as it absorbed power and made her weaker.

According to the job, the trade route had a cave that the imps live in and were attacking the caravans coming through with 100% profit loss to the company using the roads here. All she had to do was clear out the cave and she should be done here. ”Couldn't be easier, she thought to herself as she suddenly stopped moving. Was that footsteps she heard? Or was she growing crazy while on her own? Sure, she hated being alone, but she had Memory hiding in her shadow and could summon Tom Ato if she needed someone else to speak with on top of it.

”Is someone else out there?” She yelled it quite loudly, not worrying about anything coming out to attack her. Who would just outright attack a mage asking a simple question; barring a dark guild member? She stood still awaiting an answer, praying that she wasn't just hearing things at that moment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word Count: 353

The canyon seemed to stretch on for miles, you could say it was quite grand. Perhaps that was the one mistake that Mei had... mei'd. Underestimating the length of this canyon, she hadn't taken enough snacks with her, so sadly she had to ration, which was the most depressing part of this job, and to make it worse, it happened before the jobs had truly began. Still hope was not lost, perhaps with the proper application of a fire and spit, the imps would be tasty, in a gamy sort of way. Yes, Mei would have to hunt in order to fully enjoy her time working on this job, and gave her new purpose to complete this potential mistake of a job, after all it seemed like it might be hard, unless her partner for this job was well prepared.

It was then that Mei heard a voice call out in the canyon as she turned a small rock formation, and Mei immediately retreated back a bit. This wasn't due to her normal shy nature, though that certainly didn't help her any, no this was because she recognized the voice. Nice booty cutie, was all she remembered about it, it haunted her. To be to violated and in a cosplay outfit no less, Mei didn't know how to fully react to it. Perhaps like all things in life, she would have to take it on full force rather than simply run away from the fight. The fight to protect her butt from being grabbed by the most greedy and punny of hands.

As Mei swallowed her courage pills and turned around the corner, her face turned slightly red, this wouldn't be easy.

"Uh... um... hello, are you here for a job with... uh imps?"

Mei didn't need to ask that question, it was already known as true. Clearly Aiyana was here to deal with the imps. While Mei felt embarrassed about the whole butt grabbing incident, she did feel slightly relaxed knowing that someone possibly competent was her back up in this most notable endeavor. Perhaps this would be easier than she originally thought, or it might be that she is now in a canyon with a strange butt grabbing pervert with no witnesses. Oh she hoped it wasn't the latter because she could only handle so much embarrassment before dying of it.

In response to her call-out, a girl walked out from a rock formation. After a few moments of looking over the girl, she realized it was the maid from their job at the Cosplay Cafe! 'It's Lobster Girl,' she thought excitedly! With a hug grin on her face she started to walk up to her as the girl, whose name she had yet to be given still, asked if she was doing the job involving the imps on the trade route paths.

"Yup! That's the one!" Her response was as energetic as she felt today. All the things she was looking forward to on this job, and now another mage had decided to join her! "What's your name cutie? I never got it on our first date at the cafe job," she jokingly said the last sentence, the first being quite serious.

After asking this, there was a rustle in the bushed ahead of where she had been originally. 'Seems like a woke something up with the yelling and loud speech,' she thought to herself as something, or some things, began to move around in the bushes and start heading out towards them. Not waiting to see what it was, Aiyana had Memory summon her a being to help the two of them with the job. For once it wasn't Tom Ato, that glorious red shining bastard of a creature! Instead of that trash-talking demon, Aiyana had summoned a standard pack wolf to fight with them.

"All right, the wolf can help you take care of these things," she said as she turned to the other girl. "Think of it as a kind of warm up for when we get to the cave the imps have made their home on!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word Count: 290

The member 'Aiyana' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Wait, date!? it was just a cosplay cafe, it wasn't a date or anything. Why did this girl think it was a date, that didn't make sense. Then again she had... oh boy Mei couldn't think about it, without risking the same amount of redness that she experienced back then, instead she would change her mind to focus on... well the job, and answering the part of the question, that wouldn't cause Mei to become a... Tom Ato.

"Uh... names Mei."

Before Mei could think of another thing to say, Aiyana's apparent loudness has driven out a few of them from hiding. Normally Mei would wonder where they came from in the first place, or why they were even sleeping or hanging around here, but she supposed it didn't matter they were here suddenly and ready to fight by the looks of it.

Noticing Aiyana summon up a wolf, Mei was intrigued, was this her magic? It was interesting to say the least but was that it? Oh well, Mei wouldn't voice any kind of complaints about it after all Mei wasn't perfect, and frankly Mei's magic was probably even less impressive. Instead of focusing on this any longer, however, Mei noticed one of the imps, and a starving one by the looks of it. How could Mei tell it was starving, why because she was an expert with this sort of thing.

As the Imp moved to attack her, Mei noticed its target wasn't simply the removal of her organs from her body, but... marshmallows. She had learned to master the art of such trajectory after her crash course lesson with bandage mic no clothes, who just so happened to be on this mission with her right now. Turning invisible to all but the most meta gamed of abilities, Mei dodged to the side and swiftly smacked the creature on the back of the head, and would leave the other two, to her partner, who hopefully had already dealt with them.

Still all of the random nonsense didn't stop Mei from reappearing and making a stupid comment.

"Not too imp-ressive are you?"

She muttered it as to avoid the embarrassment of someone else hearing her terrible way with words, but you never know, sometimes people just might be listening at all the right wrong times.

From the bushes popped out three imps! One was a, simply adorable, chibi imp. While adorable, it still had large claws that would cause some pain if they got someone with them. There was also an imp that looked pretty thin, as if it hadn't eaten in quite a while. The third was a standard imp, in all it's impish glory.

Without wasting much time, the three imps were on the attack! The feral one charged at Mei, whose name she had just learned moments before, while the other two came straight for her. The miniature imp didn't last long at all, which wasn't surprising, as the pack wolf tore into it like a fresh bowl of Kibble n Impbits. The other one would last just a few seconds later, charging in at Aiyana with and imp-ossibly large amount of courage. That courage proved it's bane, however, as a single, downward, swing of her now drawn Khopesh took it out of this life.

'Wow, these things are devilishly easy to kill, she thought to herself as she looked over to see if Mei had taken out the feral one on her own. She turned in time to see may reappear, and let loose a silly pun that made her giggle a bit.

Well, that imp-ressed me though, let's move on and see if we can find their den and get the real party started.

She started making her way down the trade route road, scouring the sides of it with her vision to make sure they didn't pass it up. This job seemed like it was going to be pretty easy to finish, even with the limiter necklace on her right now.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word Count: 282

Oh boy, Aiyana had heard that comment, Mei now had a blush on her face, as the imp lay in the ground defeated by the swing of her mighty hand. She had to hand it to the imp, he certainly didn't finger his way out of that encounter. Still to have her comment heard by Aiyana was pretty bad, especially since Mei could have simply thought it instead, but no she had to try and let the imp hear it, like he could even understand human speech. It probably all sounded like some kind of dribble, or maybe for the ones that had to fight the wolf, kibble.

Still Mei wasn't going to just stick around this place all day, Ai had the right idea to keep moving forward and hopefully reach the monsters lair. Following not too far behind, Mei looked at the canyon and started to get a bad feeling about all of it. Surely enough at the entrance to some odd cave, Mei began to spot something appearing from within. She didn't want to think it, but it was probably more of the little imp buggers coming out to play, and that meant that Mei would have to at least get somewhat serious.

"We've got company..."

The member 'That Adopted Kid' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

OOC about dice rolls:

It wasn't long before the two girls found their intended goal, the Imp den. It wasn't a very large cave, just tall enough for the two of them to fit in without ducking, nor was it very wide, maybe enough room for the two to fight side by side. It wasn't long before they could see more imps approaching them from inside of the cave. She turned her head to look at Mei, her long green hair whipping lightly to the side as she did so, to listen to the quiet girls mentioning of company.

”Yeah, quite the welcoming party these imps are throwing us, huh?” She asked this as a large group of creatures flooded out and towards them.

If her counting was right, there were four chibi imps, three of the feral and roughed up imps, as well as two of the standard imps charging forth to do battle with the young woman encroaching on their beloved territory.

”All right Mei, fight whatever you want and let's get this done with quick. The faster we finish this, the quicker we get those jewels....and I can buy myself a light snack.” With that said she charged into the fray, her pack wolf running along side her as it huffed and growled. A sharp downward swing with her weapon would take out the first of the three feral imps, the poor creature too weak from hunger to be able to handle anymore. The second feral imp jumped onto her wolf, the creature taking a long claw across it's back before Aiyana kick it off of the beast under her ownership.

”Stay off my wolf, monster!” With a downward thrust, the blunt weapon struck the head of the imp with a loud crack; the creature not even letting out a final breath as it expired. In  a rage at being injured, the wolf jumped onto the final of the feral imps before loud chewing and a short scream were heard.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word Count: 329

Aiyana didn't really have to say anything, Mei was already on the case. These imps, they seemed awfully suicidal, and it almost made Mei wonder why they were doing this in the first place. Why were the imps this messed up and willing to throw their lives away? It didn't make that much sense, even a starving animal had some reason left and knew that it needed to still survive. None of this sat well with Mei, in fact if it wasn't for the job and Aiyana being here, Mei would have tried to figure out what exactly was happening to them, via some recon.

Sadly this was a job, and Mei needed to finish it for both her guild and her clients, and now for her partner in crime Aiyana. So it was that she would attempt to do what had been done to the previous imps, simply knock them out. She'd come back a little later and relocate them anyway since that was while a more challenging option, the best option for everyone not overcome by revenge or bloodlust.

Turning invisible once more, the three normal imps and a couple of chibi ones watched as their attacks hit nothing but the empty air. Then one by one they were knocked unconscious onto the ground with a few smacks, their swinging into the air randomly to try and fight back a futile, but admired attempt to fight back. Unlike Aiyana however, Mei wasn't going to finish them off, but at the same time Mei also didn't care if Aiyana did since that was Aiyana's choice in the matter.

As Mei steadily reappeared she looked around to see if any were left, but she doubted it, after all Aiyana seemed pretty competent at combat, and not just at being a waitress.

The last two enemies to come after her were just chibi imps, two of them to be precise. 'These things are really weak, even in numbers. I could see them being a problem if you were alone and were not a mage that could fight back.' During that thought, a blunt hit to the face of one with her weapon as she punched the other pretty hard in the face in the same motion put both out of combat.

Turning to Mei, whom had done her part of the work by taking out a good chunk of the imps on her own, the bandaged mage spoke up to give the other mage a head up. "Let's head into the cave and find the leader of all these imps. If we can find the main one they should scatter pretty quickly." At least, Aiyana hoped they would scatter once their leader was taken out. She didn't know what it looked like, but it would probably be different from the others in some way.

Without further ado, the girl walked into the cave so the two of them could find the rest of what seemed to be a swarm of the little imp demons.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word Count: 202

All of this mindless destruction against these creatures didn't sit well with Mei as expressed many times before. It was contradictory to what her magics nature was, which involved slowly torturing and taking out through alternate methods, resulting in a permanent death of the victim, or so her master had taught her. Now all it seemed like was a torturous grind to understand the entire purpose of her magic, and how she could use it while still maintaining her attitude about the world. Would she one day be the one who was doing all of the killing and not just of imps but people? Time and her raw determination could only tell.

"Right... but that cave doesn't look easy to move around in, are we shouldn't just..."

Aaannndddd like that Aiyana had entered the cave, fantastic... Mei could either stand out here now and let Aiyana fight them by herself, or she could go into the small cave and have a terrible time fighting against the imps. She supposed that fighting against the imps in there was better than doing nothing in here, and so Mei followed behind Aiyana into the tiny and annoying cave. Hopefully, this wouldn't limit them too much.

It sounded as if Mei had said something earlier, but Aiyana wasn't sure so she just slowed down until the other girl was beside her as they walked. The cave turned out to be pretty linear, only have small twists and turns as they went. All in all the trip went silently, the only sounds being the light footsteps of the pair of women tread softly along. The bandaged mage started humming after a few minutes, a song with a heavy beat from the sounds of it, out of boredom.

It wasn't long before the sounds of imps could be heard up ahead, and as they turned on the sharp right the cave took, they found the mother load of Impville. As far as the eye could see, there were imps. Hundreds of them by the looks of it. If she didn't know any better, she would have said there was an infinite supply of the little demons inside the cave for them to fight.

”Uh...Mei,” the young woman spoke as she looked at her guild partner. ”I believe we've Mei'd a pretty imp-ressive discovery.” With that, the imps all turned to look at them, some coming towards them out of territorial protection instincts!

The member 'Aiyana' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Mei wasn't very amused at this point. The pun that caught her ear, while very hilarious normally, was drowned out by the annoying horde of little buggers. She had done nothing but care for their well being up to this point, but sadly reality turned grimdark. She couldn't possibly just knock them out at this point, and would need to fight them for real, due to the cramped conditions. Which meant that Aiyana might see a different side of Mei today... a side Mei didn't enjoy showing often, or at all.

"Aiyana, these imps are mine... I don't feel like fighting them in this small a space while holding back. You can handle the next group."

using her Miasma works spell, with the miasma she naturally produced serving as the catalyst, she created four swords, and though sadly they weren't master swords. Slashing into the imps with abandon, she swiftly cut them down without any type of care in the world, in fact one might have called it cold, especially since her swords weren't visible to them. They fell swiftly one by one, and within but a few moments they fell down to the ground lifeless, and now cluttering the cave floor with their remains.

"There, you can handle the next batch if you so choose."

---

MP: 88%

'Well....that escalated quickly...' She hadn't expected Mei to do what she had, not with how she had acted outside of the cave. 'Maybe she's just doesn’t like the cramped space.' Looking around where they were, it looked like the Imp-ocalypse now. Pieces of the scrawny creatures were littered about, but surely there were more around somewhere.

”Well, I guess I can take the next batch. These things really are easy to take care of.” With that said the two walked through the large cave, stepping around and over the bodies littering the ground. The cave went back to small, twisting, paths where they could only fit side by side with each other. This went on for ages, the young woman bored to death with this mission. Why had they needed someone to do this job for them? A few men with swords could have simply cleared the place without issue if they moved slowly and made sure to watch their backs. Oh well, at least they would get paid for doing it for them instead.

She was also curious about what was in the shipments, as they were morally 'questionable' and she wanted to see what they were. ”Mei, what do you think is in those crates these imps have stopping delivery of?”

What was within the crates? Mei didn't think about that, right now all she thought about was getting rid of this stupid pest nuisance that was grating on her nerves, but Mei supposed that she could lend her ideas to the conversation. What else was there to do before another wave of them shows up?

"I don't know what's in them, probably something like money or whatever."

Mei could care less what was within the crates right now, she was too busy thinking about where the head imp could possibly be. He had to be within the labyrinth and when she found him, she'd just stop him for good. It didn't register within Mei's mind that such thoughts weren't normal for her, and sadly that was causing her to become a little more violent as time was going on within this place.

It didn't help that more shadows crept around the corner, and that there were apparently more of the little buggers to deal with now... Almost ready to throw the weapons she could barely maintain anymore at them, she remembered that Aiyana was promised these ones... how odd, Mei was a little sad about that. Perhaps the entire trip was a mistake, and not just for the lack of snacks, since her mind was slowly being affected by her magic. Actually scratch the lack of snacks, that was the main crisis as Mei needed a Snickers right now.

---

MP: 88%

Miasma works on cooldown.

The member 'That Adopted Kid' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

It appeared that Mei didn't really care what was in the crates. 'I guess not everyone is curious about what the job is all about,' she thought as they continued to walk in silence. It bothered her not knowing what they were helping the company transport. What if it was actually illegal? They could get in trouble for it with their guild! She let the thought slip away as she noticed shadows from around the corner. Remembering Mei's words from earlier, the young woman ran ahead so that she could take care of the imps while giving the two girls some space as she did so.

Turning the corner, the bandaged woman would come almost face to face with a large amount of standard imps, one chibi imp in the mix seeming really out of place. She didn't really give them much time to react to her presence. She ran into the midst of them before throwing her arms out in a single, rapid, movement. Bandages burst out in all directions, hitting many of the imps and sending them flying into each other as well. The poor chibi creature became a ballistic imp-jectile that tore through a few of the others, leaving four out of the fight in a single spell. Before the others could have a chance to get back onto their feet, having been knocked over each other, the young woman proceeded to use the blunt object across their skulls one after another. Loud cracks would reach Mei's ears as she turned the corner to see the ten enemies taken care of.

”Yeah, let's hope there's not too many more of these stupid things. Really tired of having to fight them already.”

Approaching up behind Aiyana, Mei simply sighed as she held a little ball of Miasma in front of her. Entranced by it, Mei was effectively distracting herself, due to how easy all of this was, though she could have sworn that she was doing something else here that was a bit more important than simply admiring her own abilities. Oh yes, it was something to do with a shipment or the like, she didn't really remember, but whatever maybe Aiyana did.

"I'd agree with you Aiyana, except for the word fight, this isn't a proper fight, just a morning work up that can't even get me partially excited."

Yeah, Mei was kind of in her own little world right now, so much so that the possible appearance of the little pests known as imp's wouldn't even grab her attention. Only the leader of this little rag-tag group could get her to become happy at all. Mei highly doubted that the leader would even show up at this point, he was probably too busy running away, or if he was anything like his subjects simply getting into line to become the next victim of this little rag-tag group of two heroines. Regardless more of the buggers were already coming towards them, hopefully at least one of the group included the leader if not then well... things would just stay boring and static.

---

88% MP

Miasma works on cooldown.

Mei was right. This job had sounded like a fun way to train herself, even if using a limiter, but it had ended up being so easy that she was temped to take the limiter off and just destroy everything in the cave at one time. The other girl was in her own little world now, probably to keep herself from getting bored to death as they tried to complete the mission. She couldn't blame the other Lamia Scale mage for this, she wished she had something she could distract herself with. All she had was Memory and her weapon with her. 'That's right! I could have memory summon Tom or some other creature to distract myself!'

With that said Aiyana looked back at her shadow as she began to speak. "Hey Memory, bring out Tom Ato so we have an oddball to distract us while we try to finish this stupid job." With that said, the shadow fairy came out of the bandaged mage's shadow and, with a bright light on the ground, brought the master of trash talk into the cave with them.

"Yo! What we mashing into find paste today?" The tomato demon came out already eager for battle, knowing his duty automatically upon getting there.

"Just some wimpy impys." Aiyana said this as she turned the corner, looking up and eyes getting wide. On the far end of the cave, which was now open into quite a large field, stood a goblin of a different color. Instead of being a green or brown color, this one was a deep black.  "Well Mei, looks like our wish came true. There's the big guy himself!"

[277]

The member 'Aiyana' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

"Flanked by the weaklings that he has thrown at us repeatedly like fodder no less. He disappoints me, his power feels almost no stronger than the ones who surround him. Such a shame he seems like a charismatic leader rather than a strong one."

Mei was less than Impressed right now, this leader seemed like a waste of space, did she really have to fight this weakling right now? Perhaps Aiyana would wish to finish him off while Mei went to find what was important about the cargo. Mei hadn't told Aiyana that she secretly cared about what was within the crates. Mei didn't want to seem like the type of person who got interested in that sort of thing, but in reality she was curious both out of her growing anger and natural curiosity.

"You can finish off the leader, I'll go and find the crates."

Going invisible Mei snuck around towards the group and within a few swift strikes took down the three of the leader bodyguards leaving him all alone to AIayan own devices. Mei had something more important to find now, the place where the crates were and what was inside of them. Hopefully, it wouldn't take nearly as long as locating the weakling of a leader, that dared to try and slow Mei's progress any further.

Mei's disappointment in the leader of the imps was acceptable. He was not bigger than the others, seeming to stick to charisma rather than brute force or some other reason it should be in charge. Ah well, at least this mission was considerably easy compared to every other one she had ever done. Some of her non-combat related jobs she had done were easier than this one, even the cosplay cafe where she had been accidentally groped by the poor girl who was now telling her she could handle the boss.

'Well, at least she took out the imps with him before she left. That makes this a pretty simple one on one fight now!'

With that thought finished she charged at the imp, which was now charging back at the bandaged girl. Once the two were close enough Aiyana put her whole body into a swing with her khopesh. The attack, which could cleave any of the other imps in half with ease, simply reflected off of the lead imps body. She leapt back in surprise, recovering her weapon hand in the process, as the imp let loose a fireball at where she had just stood.

”Oh! So that's what makes you so special! Looks like I won't be using my weapon then!” Her weapon was quickly placed in it's holster as she did a jumping kick forward, planting a foot into the creatures face as it tried to move closer to attack her. The force of the kick drove the creature back, knocking the creature to the ground in the process.

”Yeah! Take this you imp-squeak!” The scream came from behind her as a rock flew past her head and directly into the groin of the imp laying on the ground. The scene before her was comical. The rock struck HARD, and the creature's pride harder, as the dark colored imp brought both it's hands to hold it's groin in agony as it rolled around. The howl was ear piercing as Aiyana walked up to it, to end it's suffering. In an open handed strike downward Aiyana stabbed the creature with her sharpened claws. The strike hit just below the base of it's skull, directly into area where the neck and it met. With the spinal cord snapped the boss lay still, the brain shut down and staying that way.

Tom Ato began his victory dancing, the crazy demon starting to river dance, just before Memory desummoned him. With no combat left to do here, the other imps around the area scattering with their boss dead, the young woman went to find Mei and see if she had found the crates yet.

[444]