Chapter 56 – Extreme Defoliation

Racing back towards the tree with the three remaining cannisters of napalm. I noticed that tree was burned quite heavily and leaking black sap. I pulled the pin on the cannister in my right paw and spat the pin out of my mouth. I waited and then threw it.

This time I had aimed much higher towards a gap in the leaves. The cannister entered the canopy and then detonated. The second cannister was right behind it, detonating as well, allowing burning gel to rain down onto the tree and some of the lower branches.

The tree’s trashing was much less, since it was clearly taking an extreme amount of damage from the napalm. The last cannister, I pulled the pin and aimed high. The cannister soared into the air and I rushed forward. The cannister of napalm exploded above the tree, raining burning gel onto its leaves and branches.

I dodged past the sluggish and burnt roots and made it to the base of the tree. I began to circle the tree, counter clockwise while my left paw dug into the tree as I ran around it, jumping over or on top of the roots. I could feel the heat from the burning occurring above me.

I made one circuit around the tree and kept going, my claws cutting through the hardening black sap that tried to form over the wound. The burning was slowly snuffed out, but nowhere as quickly as before. Using this period of time, I made five laps around the tree, black sap was dribbling out of the circular gouge I had left in the trunk.

A left shot came flying at me, but I was aware of them already and dodged one after the other as I kept making my laps around the tree, doing continual damage. Sap began to touch my digits as I dug deeper into the tree with each lap, avoiding the razor-sharp leaves. Dodging, let the gouge uneven, which was why I pushed my paw in deeper to dig it out.

I changed directions to my right paw once I felt my left one growing numb and continued to gouge out the tree trunk with my claws. I finally leapt away front the trunk the moment I heard a crack. I quickly retreated back towards the car where Mousethief had rigged up a can of gasoline, which he handed to me.

Taking the can from him, I raced back and began to pour the gasoline into the wound I had given at the base of the trunk. The gas mixing in with the black sap. The roots had gone mostly still. I raced back to Mousethief, who handed me a lit roll of newspaper. Going back to the trunk, I lit the gasoline. It wasn’t as hot as the napalm, but it still burned.

The fire quickly began to spread and this time the tree wasn’t able to put it. Retreating back to Mousethief we both watched it burn. I was breathing a bit heavily and looked at my paws. “Water to wash them?” I asked him.

He nodded and pulled out a water bottle. I carefully used it to try and rinse some of the black sap off. It help a little bit. I then used three more water bottles and a rag, which got rid of most of the sap thankfully. My paws were quite numb and it was getting harder to move them. I tossed the rag into the bonfire, watching it burn along with the leaves.

“Mission completed,” I replied.

“Yes. A monster tree. That is a new one,” Mousethief muttered.

“Hopefully the last. I am going to need some sort of weapon for big monsters like this. My claws weren’t enough,” I replied.

“Celestial ore isn’t cheap as you know. Anything from the cultists?” Mousethief asked.

“Anything they might have had was lost when the tree churned up the ground and they got buried. The clean up crew will have to dig them out,” I replied. Mousethief chuckled.

“They won’t like that. Alright, let’s get going. It’s a drive back to the container,” he said.

“The mouse from earlier?” I asked.

“The local priest who had reported the group and the tree. Good job, taking it out at the end. I was worried for a moment,” Mousethief told me as I buckled myself in.

“It is my job. Let’s hurry onto the next mission,” I replied.

“Well, you won’t hear this Mousethief complaining!” Mousethief gunned the engine, spinning the car around and then out of the cemetery. We hit the road as the cart bounced on its suspension. We then took off at Mousethief level speed down the road. That was the new level of speed, above maximum. Since the only creature I knew who drove this fast without dying was Mousethief.

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“Should get back around noon. We fill out reports, rest up, and then I will grab another mission,” he replied. I nodded numbly at this.

“Yeah. This day just seems to go on forever,” I replied tiredly. My paws were hurting, and my stomach wasn’t feeling great. I knew my body was fighting against the poison. I could feel the skill working, clenching various muscles in my body to filter and purge the poison out of my body. There was blood leaking out from around my claws.

“You okay?” Mousethief asked me.

“Mostly, I should be fine in time. But will need tomorrow, to fully recover.” It still hadn’t gone past midnight.

“That is fine. We need to file paperwork on both missions. Get clean up crews out to both of them. Get a new mission lined up. Tomorrow you can rest, I will handle the rest.”

“Really?” I asked.

“It is my job. You do the fighting. I can slay the paperwork and support stuff easily enough. But rushing into a crazy monster tree, nope. I want my island retirement to not have any drama. Keep it nice and simple. Just need to get some good missions and not this garbage. Snakes and Apostates,” he replied.

“We aren’t going to get paid much for this, are we?” I asked as I realized this threat wasn’t big.

“Not what it should really be priced at. It isn’t bad, but we are talking thousands of credits instead of millions. Even though a tree like that would do a lot of damage or those terrorist dogs. We will get paid more for the dogs. Sure, the tree was harder to kill, but the overall threat was less. It was a tree. It wasn’t about to get up and walk away,” Mousethief said with a chuckle.

“That…that seems unfair,” I replied tiredly.

“Welcome to the real world. Where the Covenant Church screws us little creatures. They will pay out, but things aren’t a big as a disaster as they seem. Like the Quackening. That was mid-level pay, these missions are low level pay. Thousands, then millions. To get high level pay or billions, requires you kill a snake at the very least.”

“You can’t pick a mission like that out?” I asked.

“I pick the ones with action. Sure there may be some with an Apostate, but they will scurry away quickly. And snakes are rare. Getting them across the ocean, isn’t simple. We have dominance on the ocean, which makes it tricky for the snakes to launch an invasion.” I nodded at this.

“So, we are losing ground on their continent?” I asked.

“It is a back and forth. Highwater Bastion is the only point we hold, so it is back and forth. We won’t ever lose the city itself, but the land outside is a hellscape from the constant fighting, rituals, corpses, and everything else. That is why no one wants to be forced to serve in the military, you are shipped there to die,” Mousethief explained.

“No one talks about that,” I muttered.

“Since it is suppressed and the good creatures that you went to school with don’t know or don’t talk about it. But there are rumors that float around and creatures know. But you probably got some nonsense like, ‘fighting the forces of evil and hordes of dark creatures.’”

“That sounds about right. More ancient history than current events,” I replied.

“And the radio only puts out music. Any news is filtered heavily. All the news organizations are owned and licensed by the Covenant Church,” Mousethief added.

“What, even Whiskers Investigations?” I asked, thinking about the true crime magazine I had read occasionally.

“Even that. It all requires approval. Well, there are some things out there, that slip through the cracks,” Mousethief said.

“How did you learn so much?” I asked.

“Talking to creatures and keeping my ears open. Some of it is part of training as a Technician to know how much we can leverage various institutions. Also, the Nine Tail Syndicate has a lot of information as well, since they operate in a gray area,” Mousethief explained. The more I learned the more confusing the world really was.

Before it everything seemed to fit into nice boxes. Now there were rebellions, monster trees, and the Covenant Church had lost a lot of the shine it had gained in my eyes previously. I looked at my bleeding claws and winced as the blackish blood dried around the end of them.

“Thanks for the help and explaining all of this,” I told Mousethief. While he was annoying, he was a big help.

“Its my job. You can count on Mousethief,” he replied. I looked out the window as we sped onto the highway, without slowing down in the slightest. Mousethief flooring the accelerator and ignoring the break as we raced back to our mobile home.

I really wish he had brought the truck and the container along. I wanted a shower and to sleep in a bed, not in the seat of a car. But if wishes were fishes, I would be a fat cat. Mousethief weaved in and out of traffic without slowing down in the slightest.

Other creatures often blared their horns. It just felt weird, to be fighting a tree and then getting on the highway and everything being so normal. All these creatures driving were just going around, not knowing how everything truly was.

For a moment I wanted to scream at them to wake up. To pay attention to the world. And not just mindlessly follow the Covenant Church. But that ship had long sailed. It was too big, too powerful, and had won too many times in the past.

I hoped the dogs I had let go, made it somewhere safely. I didn’t like guns. Even though the tree had been a harder fight, I had liked it a lot more than killing all those creatures. Also, the guns were incredibly dangerous. While I knew how to handle them and handle creatures using them, it was stressful.

Also, they were less EXP. I had no doubt the tree was worth a lot. I was forcing myself to hold back from opening my interface until after I had rested and could think through everything, I looked over properly. The EXP wasn’t going anywhere. Depending on how much I earned, I might make a purchase or two. I just didn’t have the mental energy to process everything properly at the moment.