บท 144: First Shift
"Blue, toss that one to me," Kenny shouted.
Blue grabbed the chameleon by the tail and spun it around before throwing it towards the vanguard. Kenny used his sword like a bat and split the creature clean in half. While that happened, Hera was focusing on her spells. The monster rampage felt like an excellent way to increase her mastery. She joined the vanguard to hit with the poison needle as soon as possible.
It took her a few attempts before she found the sweet spot that would kill a monster before it reached the rest of the vanguard. If she hid, the spell would need 50 mana to become deadly enough, but the problem was not triggering the debuff. When any monster saw her, it would roar or make a noise to alert the others. When she used the spell without being hidden, it would take 75 mana to kill the monsters in time.
With her passive mana recovery, it was sustainable to use one spell every four minutes. Hera made a point of not letting her mana be at maximum capacity. If her recovery were not being used, it would be a waste.
"We have a lot of them incoming. Hera, fall back," Cass shouted from the ramparts.
Hera moved away from the vanguard, joining Alex in the back line once more. It was the fourth large wave they faced, and the monsters seemed to be getting stronger, although they were still weaker than the regular creatures that roamed the room.
"Did it work?" Alex asked as she returned from killing another crocodile.
"Maybe. It's hard to tell after just one round. I do feel like it's getting easier to make the spell," Hera flung a fire arrow towards an incoming frog.
"Weren't you practicing the poison needle?" Alex activated the wind cutter, slashing the legs of a toad that Blue was fighting.
"Yeah, but what's the point now? We need raw damage, not something that will kill them eventually," Hera said as she blocked a pangolin from passing by her.
"Ladies, focus on the monsters. Don't get distracted. We still have 10 minutes for this wave," Cass commanded from the rampart.
"Yes, Ma'am!" the duo replied and focused on the fight. It didn't take long for them to understand the leader's worries. The number of monsters was much more significant than it was previously. There were already 10 creatures engaged with the team, and another one would pop out of the forest every five seconds.
Instead of dealing with the creatures alone, the team now fought together. The vanguard would distract them, while the back line would help them finish off the beasts. The ones with long-range spells would aim at the monsters that had yet to cross the traps, thinning their numbers for the melee combatants. Runir's new spells were helping a lot, even with their low durations. He was mostly focused on the vanguards and the archer, but when Hera got surrounded by four frogs, she received the buff.
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Will of Power activated
10% increase in strength for the next minute
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Attributes diverge from the necessary conditions. The following skills have been deactivated:
Exponential Growth
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"What?" Hera's eyes went wide. Did she lose all her stats? Her heart started to beat faster. She was surrounded by monsters. How could she face them with her attributes at 1?
A frog sent out its tongue towards her, and Hera dodged to the side. She slashed a second frog, trying to create an opening to run away, but the monsters blocked her once more. Another tongue came lashing out, only to hit her armor and be flung back by the repulsion blast. She shoved her forearm in a frog's mouth and started to push it towards the city walls. At the same time, she kept hitting her chakram at the monster's head. By the time she reached the wooden barrier, the frog was already dead.
Hera spun around and saw the other three frogs being killed by the rest of the team and quickly opened her status.
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Hera Kingsley -- Role: Explorer Level: 5
Stats:
Strength: 19 (21) Endurance: 19
Agility: 19 Charisma: 19
Intelligence: 19 Luck: 19
Mana: 413/413
Remaining attribute points: 3
Skills:
Passive:
Exponential Growth (Inactive)
Observe
Treasure Map
Handaxe Combat, Chakram Combat, Wire Trap Style
Dodge, Run, Improved Stamina
Mana Recovery
Active:
All in
Inspect
Hide
Local Guide
Weapon Maintenance
Etching
Role Skills:
Explorer's Assassinate
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Hera let out a relieved sigh. Her stats were still there. Of course they were. The buff wouldn't affect her stat distribution. It was stupid to think otherwise. That was the first time she received a buff that would change a specific attribute. It was good to know that her [All In] wasn't affected by it.
"Are you ok?" Runir asked with a worried expression.
"Yeah, sorry. I had a weird notification and freaked out," Hera replied.
"Are you sure? Do you need a heal?"
"Nah, I'm good," she turned back to the monsters coming towards the entrance.
The fight kept going, and a minute after Hera received the buff, another notification popped.
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Attributes achieve the necessary conditions. The following skills have been activated:
Exponential Growth
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Hera just waved the notification off and kept fighting. That only meant that her buff had expired. The last bit of her worry about her stats vanished with the window. Hera cut the throat of another pangolin a few moments after the buff expired. She was restricted to using spells and close-range attacks during the fight. If she used the Wire Trap style, her team could be hit by the spinning chakram.
"Turtle incoming!" a voice rang from the ramparts.
Hera looked towards the forest. A massive turtle, about four meters tall, had just broken through the treeline. The monster's head was large enough to swallow a person whole. As if it was showing its power, the turtle bit a nearby tree and ripped it from the ground, throwing the trunk towards the team. The projectile met a fire spell mid-air, creating a massive explosion. The force was enough the send the blazing tree back towards the monster who just stomped in the trunk, breaking it apart.
A rain of arrows and spells went towards the turtle. The entire team understood that if the beast got too close, they would be in trouble. Hera charged a poison needle with half the mana from her poison mana stone. It took a lot of time to recharge it, but it was for this type of situation that she saved the mana. The turtle kept walking even with the barrage of attacks, almost as if they were having no effect, but just as it crossed the traps, it felt to the ground, motionless.
The team cheered the death of the monster, but their celebration was short-lived. The turtle's body was now serving as a bridge for the other creatures to avoid the traps. It has been around half an hour since most of the pitfalls were filled with bodies, reducing the damage it dealt to monsters by a tenfold. Now, the creatures would only be stalled by them. Yet, those few seconds that the team was gaining were more than welcomed. With the turtle's body there, they lost even that small edge.
"Cass, how long?" Kenny tumbled away from a toad that attempted to crush it.
"Five more minutes!" Cass kept flinging her spells, "Bolton, your group is resting first. Don't hold back."
"You got it, captain," the man replied as he started to move his hands, almost as if he was practicing tai chi, "May the flames block the path and keep my enemies at bay!" Bolton said, and a few moments later a large wall of fire covered the path that led to the city.
The fire began just behind the turtle's corpse, reducing the area that the team could use. The monsters kept charging, but the flames destroyed most of them. The few that crossed the barrier were heavily wounded, and it took only a few attacks to finish them off. Hera looked back at Bolton, the man who had created the impressive spell. He was with both hands up and looked to be in deep concentration, not moving a muscle. A spell that large seemed to take a lot out of him.
"How long can you keep it?" Cass asked from the other side of the ramparts.
"If I don't mess up. Five minutes."
"Keep your ears peeled, the fire is too high, and we can't see the other side. If the spell drops before the end, we won't know what's coming," Cass commanded.
The tension grew during the next minutes. No one was sure if Bolton would be able to keep the spell until the end of the wave. With only 20 seconds remaining, the fire wall disappeared, and they could see another thirty monsters running towards them. Luckily, they were mostly frogs and chameleons, the easiest monsters to deal with.
The monsters died, and the bodies disappeared, signaling the end of the wave. Hera's group rushed to grab some loot and headed back to camp. They would take the first 40 minutes of rest.
The group arrived at the camp, dropping the loot inside a large wooden box. Cass came with them since she was the only one who had the key for the crate. They had gotten a lot of loot already. The box was close to full with both gold and materials that dropped from the monsters. The one issue was the large jawbone that the giant snapping turtle dropped. There was no way that it could fit inside the box, so they just let it rest on top of it.
"Do these materials have anything special? Or are they just like the ones we harvest normally?" Blue asked.
"A bit of both, mostly ordinary materials, but we can get lucky and get something special. But the drop rate is very low. At least during the first day, the longer the rampage lasts, the better the drops become," Cass said as she waited for everyone to place the loot inside it.
Blue immediately went towards one of the beds while Alex sat in one of the chairs. Everyone was tired after fighting for close to 8 hours. Thomas was the only one that still had a pep in his step, while Burton needed help even to walk around. Holding the fire wall for such a long time took more than just mana from him. He lay down in one of the beds, and before anyone was back with water, he was already sleeping.
"Don't worry. He's just sleeping," Runir said after checking in on the mage.
"I guess his spell drained his energy," Hera said.
"Can that happen?" Blue's muffled voice came from a tent.
"I guess so. My relic did the same with me once. I guess spells can work like that," Hera started getting the stew ready once more. The ingredients were in a bag provided by the guild.
"Let me take care of our supper, brave warrior. You have fought valiantly and deserve some rest," Tom said as he grabbed the ingredients.
"How are you barely sweating?" Alex asked.
"It is but a skill, one that I'm sure you also possess. My Improved Stamina is at rank 5," Tom replied.
"Rank 5?! Isn't that a lot for a year?" Runir gasped.
"Mayhap my noble squire. The Rampage in the Carpon Caverns helped me increase my skill by a rank. I expect that all of you, my brethren, will have the skill increased by one or two ranks by the end of this one," Tom said.
The group rested for 40 minutes. There wasn't much talk at first, but even Bolton jolted up after a large explosion came from the entrance. When the time came, they relieved the other team so they could rest. This low wave wasn't that much different from the first one they fought. Monsters would come in a single file, and the team could deal with them with ease. After fifteen minutes, Cass arrived with another 18 people who came to relieve the team. Their shift was over. Now they could head back to the guild and rest.
They headed back, carrying all the loot that they had gathered. Hera was excited to see Helena. It felt like a week since the two had seen each other.
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