“Nigel,” Jason said. “There’s another category three almost a kilometre in that direction.” He pointed. “It looks like it’s approaching one of the harvest teams as they’re pulling back.”
“And how do you know that?” Nigel asked.
“It’s possible I have some friends looking around,” Jason said innocently.
Nigel frowned but ignored Jason’s behaviour for the moment to stay focused on the priority of keeping the harvest teams safe.
“How reliable is your information?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Alright. Section, move out, double time. Don’t think we won’t be having a conversation about this later, Mr Asano.”
As the team moved rapidly through the jungle, they saw a distress flare rise into the sky.
“Looks like the DE found them,” Nigel said, glancing at Jason to find that he wasn’t there. “Bloody hell, Asano.”
“Sorry,” Jason said over party chat. “I thought it was more important to move fast and I didn’t think asking you would facilitate that.”
The team came across a clearing where a toad the size and shape of a Volkswagen Beetle was belching out poison gas. It was adding to an already huge cloud of sickly green that filled the clearing and was now spreading further into the jungle.
Although it was silver rank, it was far less dangerous than even an individual troll, at least to the team. The monster’s only true threat was its breath, which failed to penetrate a shimmering screen manifested by Higgy. Orange again stripped the rank-disparity damage reduction and an onslaught of special attacks made relatively short work of it. Just as they were wondering how to find Asano and the harvest team in the lingering miasma, a big black ute came rolling out of the greenish cloud. It had no driver but stricken harvest team members were piled into the tray with Jason standing over them, holding out his hands.
“Feed me your sins.”
With the incantation, the red glow of life force tainted with green murk emerged from a member of the harvest team. The stain was extracted, rising up to be absorbed into Jason’s waiting hand.
While that was still being completed, Jason chanted the incantation again and a second person started to be cleaned alongside the first. Then a shadow hand emerged from Jason’s torso for a third simultaneous cleanse, followed by a another. As the fourth began, the first finished and Jason moved on to another harvest team member with his first hand.
With four going at once, the nine-person harvest team was cleansed of the silver-rank poison before it was able to finish them off. Many of them were a lot worse for wear, however, only being iron rank. If Jason hadn’t prioritised their cleansing over the bronze-rankers, then it would not have gone as well.
Jason hopped down off the ute as it pulled to a stop in front of the team. As several of the team started checking on the poison victims and feeding them potions, Nigel marched up to Jason.
“Mr Asano, I thought we had an understanding. Is this what you call observing?”
“I observed that these people were going to die,” Jason said. “If we’d had this conversation before instead of after, those people would be corpses, not survivors.”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission?” Nigel said. “We have standing operating procedures for a reason, Mr Asano. A silver-rank monster isn’t something you cavalierly take on.”
“No, Nigel. It’s something you don’t cavalierly take on. If I couldn’t take on monsters like that alone, I’d have died a dozen times over. Look, I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting much from your Network teams and you’ve really turned me around. Your tactics are perfect for sweeping through monster infestations this thick.”
Nigel opened his mouth to speak, but Jason fired off a harmless but startling burst of aura to silence him.
“While I have been impressed with your methods, I’ve already seen the problem and you should know what I’m about to say. Your teams are great at mopping up the trash, but this strategy won’t hold up against the really powerful stuff. If a monster is tough enough to withstand your hammer-blow tactics—and it’s a big hammer, I’ll grant you—then you’re going to get hit back hard. Am I wrong?”
“We’ve taken out four category threes just today,” Nigel said.
“I saw,” Jason said. “And I saw what it took to get there. You’re going to need people who can take on trolls solo, even at category two.”
“You’re saying you could have taken one of those trolls by yourself?”
“I could have taken all three by myself,” Jason said. “That’s not bragging; it’s just the kind of level you get to when you master all of your powers. I’m not saying every bronze-ranker—category two—should be able to take out every category three. I have powers to shut down regenerating creatures, but throw me up against a silver-rank rock monster and then I only have a chance because I have an arsenal of weapons and tools that the Network just can’t compete with.”
“We can’t match up to your gear,” Nigel said. “But we have training and discipline.”
“You were at that meeting on my houseboat. Your existing methods are reaching their limits as the monsters keep growing stronger. What happens when the category-three monsters aren’t on the weaker end of the spectrum?”
“We adapt our tactics.”
“Look, the Network has kept a lid on all this for centuries, which is incredibly impressive,” Jason acknowledged. “I thought I’d need to rebuild your whole tactical division from the ground up. That was na?ve, dismissive, and insulting, for which I apologise. Even if I had my team here, we couldn’t mow through monsters with the efficiency that yours does. What you need is a supplemental program. A smaller cadre of people who don’t fight like soldiers. Not regular soldiers anyway.”
“You’re talking about a special forces unit.”
“Sure,” Jason said. “A special forces unit with training and tactics built around hitting fewer but stronger targets. Powerful monsters require adaptable strategies that leverage every advantage from every team member. That’s how adventurers fight, and I’ll help you get there because you’re going to need it. Even if the monsters are getting stronger, the solution to your problem isn’t category-four personnel. In fact, I’ve heard that would be a bad idea. The Cabal’s category fours can’t survive on Earth without going into hibernation because the magic is too low-grade. I have to imagine that essence users would fare just as badly, if not worse.”
“You think that specially trained category threes are a viable alternative?”
“Yes. Right now, your team can take on a category three at category two. You need a team that can take on a category four at category three, which is a whole different scale.”
“We don’t have whole teams of category threes.”
“We can work on that too,” Jason said. “My big concern was not having enough monsters to go around, but that’s clearly not an issue.”
Woolzy walked over from where he had been checking on the harvest team.
“Boss, they’re going to pull through, but they’re not in much of a state to move. Either we need the healer support team or we move them on Jason’s…”