Tales Of A Killer Flower 19 The Enemy Arrives

War. War always changes. There are those who claim it never changes, but is that really true? There was a time war only happened over resources, but then wars began to be waged over territory. Then religion. Beliefs. How people rule themselves. The reasons for war changed over time. Which in turn changed war itself.

Then there was the way that war was fought that changed with time. First wars were waged with sticks. Then bows and spears. Next thing you know cold weapons like swords were being used along with armor. New strategies were made that changed how people fought. Weapons that allowed one man to kill dozes were invented further changing war.

The number of people changed too. From a couple hundred at most, it grew to involve thousands of people. Then tens of thousands. Next hundreds of thousands. All the way up till it impacted billions of people.

War always changes. Even now it changes. And that will hold true until war no longer exists. Which is something that's unlikely to ever happen. For things like a Utopia are a fool's tale. War is fought by all things. You can't make an ant give up its instincts to propagate just like you can't convince sentient species to put down their weapons and to seek an everlasting peace. There will be no end to war. It will only grow bigger. Bigger. And bigger. Until it consumes all.

-Excerpt from unknown from The War Engine System.

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I am awake! Well, I've been awake for the past five minutes marveling over the fact that there was no horrible pain from when I leveled up skills and mutations. Did reaching level 5 do something to me? Did I lose part of my humanity or something!? I didn't know for certain but whenever I tried to remember what it was like to have hands and walk on two legs, I found that I couldn't recall the feeling of it. This was alarming since pre level up I was able to remember it somewhat clearly.

Maybe with every level up my mind's senses got further and further away from being human? Does that mean my own morals will also start being affected from now on? Would I eventually lose my humanity and become a full-on monster in spirit from now on? I can't say for certain whether or not that's a possibility, but even if it was, I can take comfort in the fact that I could still maintain some semblance of intelligence based on Amelia and her sisters as my case examples.

Speaking of which I wonder how Amelia got her name? Did the other dryads have names? And how did they get names? Mine was from when I was a human but them. I don't think they are like me. Something I should ask later. For now, though preparations were needed. It seemed that unlike my previous level ups instead of the time I was unconscious getting shorter it grew longer. The day was already fading into night and I have no doubt the adventurers were making their way over here to take advantage of the lack of sunlight providing us extra strength.

I have no idea which direction the humans would come from so I couldn't exactly lay traps as I'd prefer, but the thing I could do is find some nice hiding places and get used to my new upgraded mana sense to prepare for my stealth attacks. Yes, I will be the great guerilla rose that shall carve terror into their hearts!

…..

Wow, that was a dark thought for someone like me. Maybe my new form really was having an impact on my personality?

Right now, I wasn't the only one busying themselves. With my mana senses lowlight capabilities, I was able to spot the shadow fairies swarming above their fairy ring. There looked to be easily 50-80 of them at the very least! And even the dryads were getting serious. All of them were testing their branches bending and twisting themselves this way and that way. I suppose they were waking up their branches since from what I've seen they don't use most of them.

{I'm going to go hide for an ambush.} I said to Amelia while walking by her.

{Stay safe Joe. You're not a strong monster so don't try to bite more than you can chew. My sisters and I will do the heavy lifting.}

{I'll be sure to keep that in mind.}

It's a bit embarra.s.sing to have her state that she and her sisters would do the heavy lifting. I'm supposed to be a man and be able to at least help do a fair amount of the work! Wait, would they even be counted as women when they're all monsters!? I suppose gender norms don't transfer over to monsters. Wait. What gender am I even? Do plants have genders!?

Whatever. Best not to think about something you're unlikely to get answers to. There is a battle to wage and I will earn me some sweet sweet XP from it!

I went and climbed up a tree bordering the grove and hid myself in the foliage. Now all I had to do was keep an eye out for the adventurers and ambush them when I get the chance. Here's to me not dying oh dear system of mine!

~~~~~~~~

Its been a few hours since nightfall. My upgrades were already proving their worth. Had it not been for the upgrade to my mana sense I'm sure everything would have been pitch black to me.

The rustle of leaves drew my attention towards the ground, and I got my first close look at a human. At least it looked human. They had gambeson armor with a similar pattern as two of the scouts from yesterday with the light grey color and hound emblem on them. This one though also had iron shoulder pads, gauntlets, and a heater s.h.i.+eld bearing the hound emblem on it. Her weapon was a longsword held in one hand.

She had an iron helmet that only left her face open to view. Her hair was either cut short or tucked into her helmet since I couldn't see it. But something about her didn't seem… human. She was lithe and had a delicate chin. Her skin was also very pale. Paler than I'd ever seen on most people. Not an ugly pale either, but the type that made a person's skin look beautiful. and in stark contrast to her pale her eyes were a vibrant green.

She wasn't the only one approaching the grove though. The scouts I saw during the day were present along with seven other people. Three of them stuck out to me because they all had gambeson armor with the same uniform look as the two scouts and the pretty lady with the sword. My guess is that they've had enough experience as a team that they eventually decided to have their own uniform to make their team more eye-catching. Which they certainly were! One of their members, a male who looked to be in his late 30's, had a large round s.h.i.+eld like that the Vikings used along with a one-handed war ax.

I won't bother going over the rest since there's so many of them. But the others weren't so impressive as them. They had various weapons and armor and weren't matching at all. Possibly even a newbie team. But they were still a threat I couldn't turn a blind eye to.

Instead of attacking right away I decided to let them pa.s.s me that way I could attack them from their blind spots. The last person to pa.s.s by me ended up being the so-called fool of a scout from when I first discovered the adventurer's presence. Perfect since they had no helmet on allowing me to see their short glossy black hair clearly. Your hair shall soon lose that glossiness foolish human!

With that final mental comment, I dropped from my branch whilst launching a couple dozen of my vines to wrap around his mouth and throat to silence them. Before he had the chance to struggle, I dug the thorns from all of my vines into his throat opening up a large hole in his throat from which blood gushed out like a raging crimson river eliciting a pained grunt from the scout. To further pile on the damage I dug my th.o.r.n.y teeth into the spot and shredded it further with my chainsaw teeth before scurrying back to my hiding spot in the trees.

The moment he was released from my grasp he raised up his hands to his throat to stem the bleeding and opened his mouth in a silent scream. He then collapsed to the ground without any further resistance. It seems I wrecked his throat far more than I thought if he wasn't even able to scream.

[Human scout slain. 3 XP gained. Additional 3 XP awarded. Scout role entry unlocked. 2 skill points earned. 2 mutation points earned.]

…..

The hunt is so on now.

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(Esmeraldas POV)

A thud of a body hitting the ground behind her alerted her to possible danger. When she turned around heater s.h.i.+eld raised, and sword held in front of her at the ready she saw a body at the back of the group. One of the hunters from the other team went to check the body's ident.i.ty.
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"Its Falcor. Looks like something tore open his throat." He told us.

"The h.e.l.l? He was alive just a minute ago. How'd something tear his throat out in that time without us noticing?" One of her teammates Rorker exclaimed in disbelief.

Esmeraldas couldn't blame him for his disbelief. She could hardly believe it herself. With her elven senses, she should be only topped by a ranger cla.s.s in detection capabilities. And they had a ranger in their group.

"Rumelia did you detect anything?" She asked their ranger.

"Nothing. My senses aren't as good at nighttime and if it's something that doesn't generate body heat my thermal vision will be useless. We are fighting hamadryads so I wouldn't be surprised if they had some type of plant monster helping them. My skills aren't well suited to detecting plant-type monsters." Her voice was laced with frustration when she replied.

"…. Let's keep moving, we have a mission to complete. But make sure to keep an eye out for whatever did that. We can't risk any more deaths before we even arrive where the dryads are at. I don't want my team to be made a fool of in front of the other teams." Esmeralda declared.

"But Falcors body! We can't just leave it out here to rot!" One of the rookies protested only to be silenced by a withering glare from her vibrant green eyes.

"The mission comes first. We'll come for his belongings later when we have a chance." She told them.

She could tell that they were disgruntled by this but all that mattered right now was the mission. Stopping for the body would mean exposing themselves to any traps the monster that did this may have prepared. Not only that if they didn't arrive at the dryad's territory at the right time, but they could also put the other teams in a dangerous situation. Something that she wouldn't allow.

The group began to continue towards the grove the scouts found during the day. They would soon arrive at the grove. Unfortunately, their teams had no mages, unlike the others which would mean they'd be forced to engage the dryads in a melee. A very disadvantageous fight for her side. The most they'd be able to do with their tiers and skills is lop off branches to weaken the dryads defense. But they'd win. She was sure of it.