With the responses of his pets, Karl began to realize how much their way of thinking was influencing his own. He should be horrified by the situation. But the calmness of his pets affected him just as much as their excitement did, and he just couldn’t bring himself to be suitably agitated about the situation as Hawk searched for the site of the original battle by following the beetle’s trail through the woods.
[I have found it. It didn’t finish eating, it just took the good bits and then chased the others. I think I can fit it all in this bag they brought.] Hawk informed him helpfully.
That was a disturbing thought.
[Pack him up and bring him to the Beast Space, we will make sure that he makes it to a proper burial. No, wait, I will ask the clerics if he should be buried right there first.] Karl replied.
“What is the burial ritual for High Priests? Should I have Hawk preserve the remains of the body, or should he be buried on the land?” Karl asked.
The older of the two clerics took out a small book and began to flip through it.
“I’m not sure, that isn’t supposed to happen. I mean, this is a safe zone, there shouldn’t be anything stronger than a weak Awakened beast here.” He mumbled as he flipped through the pages.
“Oh, here it is. Yes, he should be brought back to the church for a burial in state, thanks to his high station. There will be three days of mourning for the clergy surrounding the funeral, and some other things that don’t really involve you, but please preserve the remains.” The student replied.
Karl relayed the message, and Hawk did his best to get all the bits into the large herb gathering bag that they had brought, and began the flight back to Karl. Once he was close, Hawk shifted the bag into his beast space, while Rae claimed the beetle body, leaving the area strangely empty.
“What just happened?” One of the Elite class students asked.
“My beasts have a separate space where they can store food for later. Rae put the beetle away, and we will strip the good parts of chitin for trade to the Academy. They pay for monster parts, since they can be used in armour and weapons, as well as some magical items.” Karl explained.
“Oh, that’s right. Will you ask Rae if I can have one of the horns? Beetle horn is on my list of ingredients, but I never thought about keeping it from the giant beetle.”
Rae broke the horn off with some effort, and ejected it from her space. It was just a solid lump of chitin, and completely inedible. Therefore, it was worthless to her.
The student stared at the horn in reverence. “You know, it died so fast that it never really sunk in. That was an Ascended Rank beast, wasn’t it? I can feel the power in the chitin, but it died so easily.”
Karl smiled. “That’s partially thanks to Rae’s specialty. She’s excellent at finding ways through chitin. Plus, my attack power is high, and with its wings lifted, the less armoured sides were exposed.”
The students were making mental notes, in case they had to fight something like that again. The shell that covered the wings was the strongest part of the giant beetle’s body, so normally you wouldn’t attack its back. But with the wings lifted by the spider silk, that left it vulnerable to attack, and Karl’s ability had left an open wound for them to target.
“Now, we’re near the next herb that we came here for, so let’s keep going. My apologies to our new friends, but we still have a mission to complete. I will make sure that you make it back safely, though if your pickup point is further afield than we’re going, I will bring you back to the train tracks instead.” Karl added.
“That’s good enough for us. I don’t know where we were supposed to be picked up, The High Priest was responsible for that. But there are other groups from the Seminary School out here somewhere. The train dropped us all off only a few minutes apart, so we might find one of them before you go.” The young cleric replied.
One of the warriors smiled at the boy. “But in the meantime, we’re counting on you and your Holy Magic.”
The boy nodded, and the shy girl gave them a thumbs up. Holy Magic was the one thing that they were confident in. They had been out with the High Priest mostly to serve as pack mules as he picked herbs, and not as much for training as the warriors of the Elite Academy were. To the Church, obedience and subservience were more important than combat skills, and serving the High Priest on his mission was good training for their future works of service to the community.
“What is next? Didn’t Hawk say that there was something nearby before the emergency happened?” Dana asked.
“Just this way. Hawk is already back up in the air looking for more threats, so we will just follow his path toward the next set of herbs, and then we will move on to the third marked location.” Karl agreed.
Technically, he would be skipping the third location marked on the map, since it was either at or very close to the battle site, but if they couldn’t find that resource elsewhere he might lead them there at the end of the trip.
The way that he had planned to bring them would go right past the battle, but with Hawk’s discovery, he could change the route to make a big loop around it and end up back near the tracks as they finished. If that covered everything that the group needed, then they could skip a few potential resources and head back satisfied.
Though, if the clerics needed some of the others, he would gladly bring them around to help gather. They had enough trauma for one trip, so putting a good memory on top might help.
Karl seemed to recall hearing that somewhere as a kid, perhaps from the school counsellor after one of the many incidents down below in the pit.
