"How's this!? And this!? And how about some of THIS!?" - Garami

  I rained punches and kicks at the Glashtyns, but they barely reacted to my made-up martial arts moves. Damn it. If I had known something like this would happen, I would have added some unarmed Combat Arts to my [Assassination Arts] skill!

  The horse goblin looked as if it wanted to clobber me in return, but the screams from the Hot Spring owner guy caused it to turn its attention back to Noire, who was chasing that bottled rat.

  "Bloom! Are we making any progress here!?" - Garami

  "Ehm...barely. These creatuers seems resistant against status reduction ailments, so your Magic Eyes have barely any effects." - Bloom

  "Just my luck!" - Garami

  Seriously, these horse fae beasts are the worst! They're like my mortal enemy! Sealing off my best abilities, then being tough enough to withstand the rest? That's a complete meta build! Down with the meta! Banzai for casual players!!

  "*Wheeze, wheeze*, B-Boss! How much more do we have to...to do this?" - Lily

  "Until either those guys are beaten, or the reinforcement finds us!" - Garami

  Saying that, I took out a new flare gun and fired another signal. This chase has been leading us all over the hot spring area, so much so that I needed to fire new flares to show the other adventurers where we were moving. This is the third gun already, and I only brought five of them with me to this exploration trip to the Underwoods...

  "Dammit! It's times like these that I wish I had some [Call Ally] skill!" - Garami

  "Sorry, master, but that is a privilege only weak monsters can have." - Bloom

  "So I skipped it back then! Great!" - Garami

  But my days as a Grey Demon were also my days of loneliness, so the skill wouldn't have helped me anyway. I've certainly grown a lot since then. But now's not the time to be sentimental.

  "Okay, how many horsies are left?" I questioned while doing a quick count. One, two... eight. Should I consider ourselves lucky that we managed to defeat 2 despite these horrible conditions, or should I be annoyed that these guys are so tough that only 2 were defeated when Lily and I tag-teamed on one of them at a time? And that was because I could stuff their mouths with [Poison Balls]!

  After the first few lucky shots, the horse goblins learned their lessons and are now keeping their mouths shut. Which means we have to rely on stuff like [Spider's Bite] right now. And my teeth are hurting...

  Man, I now know how nice it is to have so many skills on your skill list. Having a backup plan in case your best moves get sealed is perfect! Except most people would probably forget their skills unless they could see their skill list with [Identification]. I had completely forgotten about [Spider's Bite], not to mention about [Hardlight Claw], which is currently my best means of attack in this fight, along with [Demon's Claw]!

  As I watched the Glashtyns return to their chase after the cat-ified Noire, who herself was busy chasing after this Hidden Hideout's master, the goon-turned-rat stuck in a jar, I started to feverishly look through my skills. [Demon Spider's Thread] is also sealed, and even with the stupid Seal-user being one of the two dead horse goblins, the seal is still alive and kicking. Meaning I don't have any good moves to stop the Glashtyns in their tracks! ...Wait, I had these two.

  "Summon! Ghast Spider!" - Garami

  A huge, ghostly spider appeared in front of me and released a large blast of ectoplasm-like webbing on the eight Glashtyns. I had completely forgotten I had this Calling-type skill, [Summon Phantom: Ghast Spiders]! The ghostly giant spider was summoned only for 1 attack, but boy, that ghostly webbing is worth its weight in gold in this scenario!

  Since the undead I created before were of no help (the ghosts and skeletons were smashed, while the Deadflesh Golems were too slow to act as delays), relying on Calling-type summons is the perfect alternative. Why didn't I remember these guys before?! Damn, I hate this overbloated skill list of mine sometimes.

  But hating what I have won't help, so after the Ghast Spider had done its thing and been de-summoned, I summoned it yet again to lay another layer of ghostly webbing on the trapped Glashtyns. We're running a ghost sweatshop here, baby~!

  I also used [Summon Phantom: Undead Spiders]. In case anyone forgot (like me), this Calling-type skill summons token-like beings under one's command, and one can summon as many as one wants if one has the LP and a Leadership Skill-created group to place them in. The undead spiders were pretty weak, due to my not having raised the skill's level too high, but they worked as a distraction while the Ghast Spider trapped the remaining Glashtyns.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Boss Lady, you're awesome! You summoned so many creepies at once!" - Lily

  Should I be happy about that comment or mad? When six Glashtyns were properly webbed up to become a threat to Noire, I started to relax a bit. A bad decision, since one of the two still-free Glashtyns decided to hit me instead of chasing after Noire or helping his brothers!

  That's a practical attitude I can come to respect. As long as it doesn't mean getting a club to the stomach when I'm too tired after repeatedly summoning a giant ghost spider and a swarm of tiny undead spiders so much that my head's starting to hurt from the rapid mana drain!

  Now, where was I? Oh, right. The club.

  *SMACK!*

  ---

  *CRASH!*

  Ouch! Okay, that smarts! Despite my tired brain, I managed to jump back when the club came smashing at me, which did reduce the damage a bit, but not enough to stop me from being sent flying into one of the buildings nearby. Thank god I crashed through an old window instead of being smashed into a wall. Again, ouch. It's a miracle that blow didn't break any of my ribs...

  "M-Master! Are you alright?" - Bloom

  The little fairy came teleporting with a poof into the room, finding me collapsed in the remains of some...crates, I guess.

  "Just perky... Go back and tell Lily to delay the last two Glashtyns." - Garami

  "Y-yes, ma'am!" - Bloom

  And there she goes. She's actually pretty handy like that. I bet there aren't many people who have a poofing messenger ready at any time.

  After getting myself up from the wooden remains of whatever I crashed into, I popped open a health potion for recovery and took the time needed to drink up that sucker to look around in the room I was in. It seems to be some sort of storage? Knowing that this is the Chaos Church, I have doubts that they have anything legal stored here. Still, curiosity is a curse, so I took a peek...

  "Holy jalapeno!" - Garami

  Boogeybomb Peppers! And they're un-stewed! There were tons of them stored in these crates, so I took as many as I could, probably more than enough to hand over to Mr. Jumbo. And luck continued to smile, as I also found a bunch of Fairy Heart Roses AND some Changeling Rainbow pollen! Bottled up properly this time.

  I helped myself to everything I needed here. All that remains now is those damn 88 liters of Nucklav Water, then we have collected everything we needed for that Life Champion's potion ingredient list! Speaking of potions, mine had finally finished its work, and my poor belly was in...not top shape after that heavy blow, but it's good enough to not slow me down.

  "*Ooook*??"

  But just as I was about to leave, an annoying bastard decided to put a brake on my escape plans. It's one of those damn monkeys again! This time, I made sure to use [Identification] on him before attacking.

  "HUH?! Lesser Child Nue!?" - Garami

  Ain't Nues some kind of youkai!? Why is something like that in a fairy-themed forest Haunt?!

  It seems the Nue didn't like my loud voice, as he tried to shout back in anger. Or maybe he thought I was trying to assert my dominance over him, and he didn't like it. I don't know how a monkey's brain, fae or youkai, works.

  Feeling that this would spiral into another battle with these exploding-poop-throwing bastards, I used [Hardlight Claw] to generate the shiny claws on my hands again and went for the kill. The monkey was easy to slash, but its shout must have attracted more mini Nues to this storage room... SO YOU GUYS ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE [Call Ally], BUT NOT ME?!

  Ignoring the unfairness of the world, I started to flee deeper into the storage room as multiple exploding poop bombs were flung in my direction from the army of monkeys sitting on the roofs around the building I had been smacked into. Before fleeing, I saw that the six Glashtyns I had caught were still stuck in the ghostly web. Hopefully, that's enough to let Lily help Noire escape unscathed. But now, back to the monkeys.

  Right after I had managed to jump behind some of the larger crates, it sounded like New Year's Eve behind me. Why are those mini Nues so good with the Gunpowder attribute? Is it a racial thing, or do they just love stuff that goes boom?

  The monkeys must have noticed that their poop bombs didn't hit the target, so they came swarming into the building from the broken windows. Plural now, thanks to that round of stinky fireworks. And how many dozens of monkeys are there here? I should be glad the first set of monkeys I fought while sneaking through the hot spring inn didn't have [Call Ally], but there's no time for me to feel gratitude for my good luck back then right now!

  I summoned the Ghast Spider again to try to make a monkey web carpet, but the damn monkeys are way faster than the Glashtyns. At least when it comes to dodging, because I lost more than half of the monkeys I aimed for with that Ghast Spider summon. I still got a few, but that's a drop in a bucket-type of situation here!

  While I wanted to summon another Ghast Spider, the monkeys threw their "homemade" bombs at me before I got the chance to complete the summoning. The monkey assault is also preventing me from using [Nature's Webbing] too, which makes this the second time I couldn't use this skill since [Demon Spider's Thread] is still off-limits to me!

  To explain, the Glashtyns had some sort of shaman or druid or whatever who disrupted me when I tried to use the skill to create webs from the floor or the buildings. Damn that guy, along with the Seal-user.

  Things started to end up as a game of tag, with all the monkeys acting as the unfair "it" group. Their bombs would be difficult to evade with so many obstacles in the storage room, at least for the common demon, but I am an expert when it comes to 3D-movement, threads or no threads. I used the boxes as shields, and even managed to topple some on top of the monkeys, squashing them and causing their bombs to misfire while they were still buried in the crates.

  Seeing this, I fired some [Darkness Trick Bullets], which had evolved from the [Dark Bullet] skill to become easier to make trick shots with, and choosing this skill evolution paid off big-time today. The poop that had been turned into bombs emitted a heat signature, which I could see thanks to [Infrared Vision], so I aimed for them, discouraging the remaining monkeys from creating new bombs to throw at me, lest they wanted their faces blown up. Man, I'm speed-running through my list of "not commonly used skills" today.

  As for my more used skills...they're failing me big time. I tried to hide with my stealth skill [Dark Espionage], but the damn monkeys found me anyway! Or, some monkeys managed to see me and pointed at me so the other guys could throw their poop at me. Those partypoopers! For some reason, [Flash] worked extremely well against those guys, so I'm starting to wonder if I somehow ended up in a "backward country" or something.

  Still, crushing monkeys isn't on my schedule today! I gotta finish this fight and get back to Lily and Noire post-haste! So get outta my way, you stupid primates! Spider demons rule here!

  Call Ally]