D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

A bit of time had passed. Kat had recovered completely and even had time to make a back rest so that she could lean against it. Lily was happily sprawled out over Kat in her human form and was currently allowing her instincts mostly free rain. She was rubbing as much of her scent on Kat as possible. Lily didn't really notice the exact nature of what she was doing, but it helped calm her down after seeing Kat get eaten and she just wasn't in the mood to fight herself over it. Kat kept up slow circles on Lily's back throughout the entire process as well, so that was nice.

The problem… well the problem was Xiang and Yang. They were arguing and hadn't taken a break from it since Kat had gotten back. "I'm telling you, we should have had larger storage rings!" hissed Yang.

"Well it's not like we had money to buy bigger ones. Besides, we didn't need anything larger, as I said the last three times.. Our current storage is enough for all of our supplies twice over. It is completely unreasonable to expect that we'd need more. Most worthwhile treasures are much smaller in size. It's not like I could have known," insisted Xiang.

"But you're the one with the map!" growled Yang. "You should have known what we were likely to encounter!"

"Ok, before I address the whole map thing… this was not a 'likely' encounter. That snake probably eats a massive amount of food, even if it is a snake. I don't imagine the environment could support many of them. This is probably the only one in the area, especially of this size. Maybe it has a mate, or some young at most but this one has to be a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand years old. They don't just grow on trees Yang. If I thought we had a chance of finding something like this we wouldn't need to rush out by ourselves. We could just bring the clan along and then use a communication crystal to message the Icey Ass sect and try to trade!

"Then on to the map thing. I might be holding the map but might I remind you it's YOUR family's map? So really, if anything you should be responsible for the lack of details. It's not like this thing comes with a full report on the local wildlife?" returned Xiang.

"Well you could have asked! We're not so far away from home that the area is a mystery! I bet my parents would know, and if they don't, the quartermaster probably would!" snapped Yang.

Xiang sighed exaggeratedly which only seemed to annoy Yang more. She looked about ready to throw her club at him when Xiang actually gave an answer, "Need I remind you that together, we agreed it just wasn't worth it? We want plausible deniability for your family and Xuena's? We left one vague note that will hint towards what we're doing and that's it. We agreed to that. So why now is it my responsibility to ask questions we agreed not to?"

978

"So what? We're just going to leave it all here? It's enough to feed a family for a decade!" whined Yang.

"Yang. A rank 2 spirit beast is enough to feed a family for a decade, let alone this monster of a Rank 3," said Xiang.

"That's not the point!" complained Yang. "What about a raft? Can we dig up enough trees and stuff to put something together? I'm sure we're strong enough to cut down some trees with our hands."

"Yang. A normal person without any cultivation could do the same here. The trees are brittle messes that haven't properly adapted to the poisonous waters yet. They would be worse than useless and building a raft would be a waste of time. That's not even getting into the chance at further poisoning while we were working," insisted Xiang.

Yang kicked at the 'ground' annoyed only to hear a chunk of ice chip off. She looked down at her feet and came to a realisation. Her eyes lit up, literally for a fraction of a second, "We can make an ice raft! Kat can freeze a big ice raft and we can push that out!" exclaimed Yang.

Xiang glanced over to Kat, who had been keeping one ear on the conversation voiced her opinion. "Nope, sadly I can't. The snake is just too large. I don't really have the energy to keep it frozen consistently. I'd need to spend at least half my energy, probably more, making the ice bed for it and then more for the upkeep. That's not even taking into account the energy I'd need to push it. For as much as having a raft would make it easier, having a few extra tonnes of weight in ice wouldn't help and the snake isn't light either. Well, now that I think of it, that's all just assuming I could get the snake to float on the ice. The water level isn't exactly high,"

"At least I'm coming up with ideas instead of just getting frisky with my girlfriend," huffed Yang.

Lily's head whipped over to glare at Yang, cheeks red and a pout on her face. Kat just gave Lily's head a quick pat before saying, "I can listen and hug my girlfriend thank you very much. Additionally, it's pretty clear we're going to have to leave it in the end. It's just too large. As much as it seems to hurt you, there just isn't any way to take it with us."

"Look demon. I don't think you can comprehend just how much money this is. The idea of just leaving it is ridiculous. Heck, if the scales turn out to be good enough you could probably equip an elite platoon with it, a few transcriptions to link them together and help them all return to ideal form and you have a nearly invincible army. Sure it might take a few extra steps… but I know entire sects that would bankrupt themselves for this sort of thing!" extoled Yang.

Kat looked over the snake again. It looked a lot less impressive when it wasn't moving. Sure it was large, and the black scales were nice looking but it just looked like an oversized snake laying their in the muck. The idea that sects, whole sects would bankrupt themselves for this just seemed silly to Kat. "If you say so," said Kat aloud.

*Really though… I don't know what she thinks we can do about this. Either we can take it with us or we can't and based on what Xiang's told us. We can't. At this point really all we're doing is wasting time, unless this break is also for recovering from the fight, which could be true enough certainly. I just… I guess I don't have a proper concept of what this is worth but at the same time… if we can't take it, who cares what it's worth?*

[Perhaps it's different for us Kat, not being from here. Sure we know in an intellectual way that it must be worth a fortune but from a purely sociological perspective we haven't been here long enough to understand. A giant snake is worth basically nothing on Earth, well, maybe it's skeleton might be worth something to a museum but that's not my point. On Earth, no random animal carcass would be worth anything more than a thousand dollars. Our currency system is a lot… flatter I suppose.]

*I guess. Just… is this arguing really going to help? We established early on that there's no good way to go about this. I think in the end we'll maybe get the head. In fact, if we can cut through the scales fine what I think is most likely to happen is we cut off the head and I carry that along with everyone else using it as a platform instead of the ice.*

[Huh… that actually sounds like a pretty good idea Kat. Why not suggest it?]

*And get properly in the middle of that shitshow?* While Lily and Kat had been communicating mentally the argument with Xiang and Yang had restarted. The demonic aligned pair weren't really paying attention anymore. *No thank you. The last thing I want to do is get into an argument at this point. I'm perfectly content with my cuddles thank you very much.*

[I suppose I can agree with that… the question is though… just how much time are they willing to spend on this? For all the talk about trying to get to Xuena fast we sure have had a lot of stuff to side track us and it hasn't even been that many days yet. If we keep this up… a month here might not be out of the question.]

*Ugh. I really don't look forward to dealing with those two for a month. Even if Xiang has improved quite a lot, Yang really does make up for his improving attitude and then some. Hmm… I wonder if Yang would've been happy if we could move the snake? Or is that just wishful thinking?*

[Wishful thinking for sure.]