The next day, before the slightly bluish morning fog can settle down, I can be seen sitting on a large, old tree stump, carving runes. No rocks taken out, I was trying different materials, such as tree bark, carving it with my knife. Made a magic missile rune on it, and found it dealt 10.9 damage when I checked the stats.
There's rarity to wood? Is it the same as with rocks? Game, how does the 'rarity to damage' increase work exactly?
[As you now know, not only rocks can be turned into runes, but any carvable material with a surface. All materials have one system, rarity is calculated by counting the number of molecules of said material on the planet you're on.]
What if I was on a planet without any dirt, and made a rune program out of dirt I bought with me? Wouldn't bringing world-specific minerals to other worlds be kind of over-powered?
[No, all materials have specific values, set at the beginning of time. If you bought dirt to a planet without dirt, its rune would still output the damage equivalent to its rarity in its place of origin, that's all Vingnish has told me.]
Thanks for explaining, though now I'm curious about the damage outputs of unaccessible materials...
{Have this}
That message disappeared as soon as I read it, it looked unusual. Why's that? What was it?
[That was Vingnish, he seems to have implemented something to the system.]
A new window appeared. There was a search bar, dozens categories to choose from, clicking one of them, hundereds of subcategories showed up, chose one at random.
[3.492 x 10^999^999^999^999^999^999^999^526 Results]
Well, now I know how necessary the search bar is, there are many individual materials in the world...
Typing in 'glass' resulted in so many options that I can't comprehend that number, so much higher than the last one, I clicked on the first available.
[Soda-lime glass]
[Soda–lime glass is the most prevalent type of glass across most verses, used for windowpanes, bottles and jars among other things.]
Material subcategory - glass - +4%
Late medieval world - glass relatively rare - +29%
Fantasy world - magical method used to create glass - -14%
Rune stat increase - [19%]
That's a nice alternative to testing materials, wasting them, pretty interesting. I can see myself browsing through this from time to time.
Hm, let me see, the gem from my quest should be here, right?
'Gem'
[9.548 x 10^999^999^999^999^999^999^999^453 Results]
That's also a large number, not as crazy as the glass one, but still. On the other side, just 'gem' isn't that specific, there may be many gems across the multiverse. As I read some of the names that came up, most are named, for example 'Gem of the Virisleti', 'Marusor's third Gem' or 'Reabandish Gem'.
This number can give me a sense of scale, let me estimate how many worlds there are in the multiverse, of course there are other things capable of giving a better estimate, like 'singularity of the largest black hole in the universe', but a few trillion off doesn't matter with such large numbers.
A few slider filter options appeared near the search bar, seems like game's updating this addon as I use it.
One of the options being 'Sort by:', after selecting it I scrolled through the available filters, stopping on 'Search radius - current world'
[43 Results]
Still a tad too many to guess, let me set the 'Type:' filter to 'Magic - infused', it's quite possible 'a gift of the gods' has this effect.
[1 Result]
This should be it.
[Jack_MrCutMeSomeSlack's Gacha Loot "Mirvulean Gem"]
[An item brought from the game Yggdrasil, a cash shop gacha token a player by the name of Jack_MrCutMeSomeSlack opened on this world, disappointed by the drop, he discarded it.]
Material subcategory - 'Gem' - +112%
Material attribute - Largest in the world - +523%
Material attribute - Magic infused - +34641%
Pre utopian world - Gem difficult to find - +249%
Rune stat increase - [35525%]
Ja'rmec'sme'slac, one of the six great gods I read about, his name is actually Jack_MrCutMeSomeSlack. This is hilarious.
Regarding the item itself, why is the magic infusion precentage so high? Is it relative to the actual strength of the infusion? Must be, wouldn't be balanced if any novice mage could make something so powerful. Or infusion is simply a rarity.
Also, if that sort of raw stat increase was disappointing to the player, what kind of items was he carrying? How damned powerful can one be to simply discard such an item?
Are his true items still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found again, to be used to reach godhood like he did all those centuries ago?
This search addon thing is pretty neat.
Let me see.
I searched "Jack_MrCutMeSomeSlack's", and set the search radius to this world.
[1 Results]
The only result was the Gem.
The players were here, so their items should be somewhere...
Maybe, if I change the settings a bit, expand the radius to all the dimensions connected to this world...
[23 Results]
Success!
I looked at one of the things.
[Jack_MrCutMeSomeSlack's Christmas Event Ring]
[An item brought from the game Yggdrasil, a ring obtainable in a christmas event. A player by the name of Jack_MrCutMeSomeSlack wore it on this world, it now sits in a treasury within a forgotten realm.]
Material subcategory - 'Heavenly Clouds' - +21612%
Material attribute - Blessed - +15239%
Material attribute - Magic infused - +876491%
In a separate realm - Ring difficult to find - +11249%
Rune stat increase - [924591%]
Damn, I was right about that, this stuff would be a dream to get my hands on.
Not gonna be able to do that if I stay here and wonder though.
I got up, stretched a bit, been sitting here for at least a good two hours. I lazily walked to where Naela most likely is.
Outside of the village's borders, there she was, holding a stone in an outstretched hand.
She's been attempting to copy my magic missile. This is surprisingly cute to look at, she's trying with all her might to conjure it.
"Hey," I waved, "what are you doing?"
"I'm blessed by you now, so it should be much easier to cast magic, especially nature magic, right?" Here she dropped the rock, "that's what I've been struggling to do all the morning." She sighed, "but no results."
"Well, I've been studying magic for a while, being a dryad may make it easier to learn magic, but I'm half dryad, the only boon my heritage gave me was the ability to learn nature magic, it wasn't increased learning capacity, not mentioning you're blessed by me, which is even weaker than not being a full dryad."
She saddened as I said that, I patted her on the shoulder,
"A single morning, a few hours of training is simply not enough to even start to grasping, you can still learn it though" I smiled.
Game? Can you give her a mana pool with regeneration half as good as mine, as well as the ability to draw working runes, after preforming the rituals I did, but witout the system pop-ups?
[Done.]
...And will other people be able to learn runecrafting if she passes down the knowledge I'll be giving her?
[No. Your class magic is unique to the System, there may be very similar ways to use magic in many worlds, but they're only similar, no matter how close they may seem.]
That's good.
"If you really want to learn magic, I can teach you a few tricks"
Naela brightened up at that.
"Though, you'll have to go through several rituals to be able to cast it, some of them may prove difficult to complete. " I paused here, then reassured her. "But, if you're determined enough, I'm sure you can finish all of them, I managed, they aren't undoable, just hard."
"Thank you!" She brought me in a quick hug, "I've always wanted to be a mage, been fascinated in reading about the studies of magic, the many secrets this branch of science holds... Thank you for making it possible for me to study it directly." We separated.
That brought me a wonderful mood, didn't know how much I actually needed that. Here, and on the old world I didn't have much physical contact, really thought I just wasn't a person to enjoy it.
Seems I was wrong.
"Though, you did have the book about awakening magic laying there."
"What?" She appeared confused.
"This one." I took out the book in question from my inventory.
"I have no idea what that is, and I checked every book in the shop, there's no way I missed something so on-point."
Interesting...?
Ah, I remember, Vingnish planted it so I can get magic and beat that dungeon boss.
Well, nevermind. Though it's now decided that Naela will be my companion for decades to come, the magic she'll be learning is the same as mine, as well as she has the other few System boons.
"We should get going soon, all the rituals are doable in the forest, and I'd bet they work much better in there as well." I said. I'm worrying about the prusuers, I may be able to escape easily, hop into a dungeon as they try to capture me, get out hours later once they're long gone, but Naela will most certainly get captured, killed or worse. If I want to avoid that, I need to act as if there was no Game. Naela doesn't have dungeons, and no matter how close to her I am, I won't grant her the ability. She might die to the zombies, which is the least of what I desire. If there's an option to take her with me into one of them to make her stronger, sure, but only then.
Although, can she even level up? I believe I haven't given her the growth speed of someone with a System.
Might as well.
Game? Can you give Naela stats, and half as fast leveling speed as me? Without the windows and popups of course, and make it automated, so that stat points allocate themselves where they'd be most beneficial for what she wants and needs to become.
[Done.]
Even if we're such good companions, I'm not going to make her as powerful of a Gamer as myself, there's still the faint possibility she'll turn on me at some point.
Horrible, I really hope it doesn't come true...
"That's true, don't want to keep the adventures waiting, do you?" She beamed.
"Yeah." Glad to be off that train of thought.
Ancient, super powerful weapons, talismans, gold, monsters to kill, and the goal of obtaining the Gem, it all waits along the way.
"You want to start the rituals now?" I asked.
"Better be deep within nature for that, right?"
"Then I'm gonna be at the front bench of Rael's house, waiting for you, ready to come, I'm always packed." Thanks to the gift the Inventory is.
"Coming with you."
-x-
When there, we said goodbye to the owner, and went to do the same with the other villagers we've met, got to know yesterday.
We left when it was still morning, the sun having not had the time to yet rise as high as the peaks of distant mountain ranges, near which the city's located.
I was saddened to have to leave, having seen the way of life of the people, but it was necessary for us, guess that's the bad side of being chased.
Ahh, if I could take on an army on my own, and win... Then, then, and only then would I be able to stop being forced to travel from place to place, be able to adventure because I want, not because I have to.
This means training Naela to that kind of strength as well, magical or otherwise.
She'll be leveling up at half the speed as me, but with the automatic stat point management, her stat distribution will be perfect, much better than mine for sure. Won't be enough to match me, but it still is a grand 'blessing'. With this, she'll have almost as much potential as me.
More time would be needed than with my System, but I believe it's possible the scraps of the System I've given her can make her omnipotent.
Is it, Game?
[Every Game System, no matter how weak, leads to becoming all-powerful, at least within this omniverse, this Narrative. It's a matter of how long it takes. The parts of the System Naela possesses are enough for it to count as a kind of rough System, therefore enough to carry infinite potential, enough for her to be able to use the same methods as you.]
Good. So she can be my companion for all time.
No monster from the sea, no threat from above, no maniacal mage, no furious god will be capable of keeping us from rising, for what is a Gamer against two Gamers?
Of course, other Players can have companions as well, but that just means I have to make something much more numreable than just a fellowship; an army.
An army that won't ever betray me, scales up to my own power, and is easy to manage.
Humans, or any other creatures with free will, are out for obvious reasons. Robots, such as terminators, aren't a good option as well, no matter how strong they may be, it's just electronics. No machine, even in fiction, save for very few exceptions, can reach the level of gods.
It's extremely doubtful that in the span of two hundered years I'll be able to reach a world where there's someone capable of making such wonders of technology, and even less likely that I'll be able to get a class that allows me to construct them, especially with the crazy low leveling speed of my class.
Even if I got lucky and was able to construct an army consisting of planet-busting bots, they wouldn't be scaling along with me, 'level of gods' is still far below the limit of a Gamer's power, what is control over an ant colony in the midst of a nuclear war?
Then what?
Game, can you tell me if there's a way to do that? To create an army?
[I have updated your Gem quest, take a look.]
[Objective] -
Find the Gem, and take it.
[Rewards] -
The Mirvulean Gem
The answer to your question about creating an army.
Ten random runes.
A random perk.
A gacha token.
200 levels to allocate into anything levelable.
Oh damn. This quest only had 400K EXP as the reward last time, what happened?
[You haven't bothered to check, it updated itself some time ago, the cause was that the location of the orb changed, now it's somewhere even this world's deities wouldn't dare to go.]
Are the deities other people from doomed earth, or something completely different?
...No answer?
There are a few places that come to mind at first, but none of them are actually that scary for deities to avoid.
The entities are probably just the six 'great gods' I've read about, powerful, but not enough to be above everything the world has to offer.
That would imply the gods, all the while believing an item such as the Gem is worthless, find themselves too terrified of some place to go there.
This world has dangers.
Threats possibly on the scale of total planetary annihilation.
Planetary...
It's difficult to imagine that destroying planets will become a meagre accomplishment in a few decades of continuing my every-day routine. The Game is a fucking broken ability.
-x-
We were walking for a few hours on an actual road, though not one that's been frequently used. Now a few dozen meters off the track, I was instructing Naela how to preform the first ritual.
I stabbed a nearby tree, some bark coming off, before telling her to sit down next to it and stay in roughly that position for the next hour.
"Will it really work...?" She seemed unconvinced
"The rituals may seem strange, but I know they have an effect, doing them unlocked my magic, so it should be able to unlock yours." I reassured Naela, who was laying down, her back resting on the stabbed tree.
"You don't have to meditate, you just have to be in close proximity to the tree." I said after noticing her closing her eyes. "Here, have something to read." I gave her a book which is a compendium of the myths of a long gone religion, mythology, one of the most interesting things I've read on this world.
"Ah, that's great, I was don't know how I would survive being still for that long..."
"Yeah, no worries. Think of this as just a break on the road." I sent her a light smile.
"Thanks"
A moment later, I heard something in the bushes, I didn't know if it even was a real sound, but some feeling was telling me there's something in there.
That instant, five men jumped in front of us, with swords drawn. Naela hastily got up, disoriented. They were wearing worn down leather armor, one had a belt with some pouches.
Bandits.
I summoned my heavy shooter, this one was made recently, a smooth black stone with 18.1 damage per Magic Bolt, and it had enough flat surface to store 11 continuous shots. Much stronger than my first 'machinegun' rune program. A single missile doesn't kill in most cases, but with a good shot it may cast fourth degree burns and break bones.
I activated it as I quickly moved my arm, making an arc to shower all of the attackers in a barrage of magic.
Some bolts didn't hit, flying past and shredding the bushes and branches behind the attackers. The ones that did, caused three of the bandits to fall to the ground, screaming in pain, clutching where the bolts had landed, another one was unmoving, a hole on his forehead, exposing bone and grey matter. There was only one unharmed, he looked at me in a shocked expression frozen for a second, then started running away, almost stumbling. I swapped the stone to my new single shot rune, 21.4 damage, pointed it in his direction and fired.
The bolt soared through, hitting him on the shoulder, making him collapse, sharing the same fate as the other three unlucky men.
Before they can bottle up the pain, if they are even capable of that, I took out my knife, ending their suffering through stabbing them through the eye, directly to the brain, the least painful way, I hoped.
I have become more evil than I expected in such an amount of time.
Naela stood there, in the place still near that tree.
She looked ready to run.
"I'm not gonna kill you, you're my friend." I said "those were bandits, I was defending myself, what was I supposed to do otherwise?" After pointing my knife to each of the fallen, I flicked the blood off of it, putting it back in my inventory.
"Yeah..." She said weakly.
No, I'm not evil yet. She's my friend, I won't kill her. I guess she's terrified of the gore?
"... I" she paused, "this is the life of an adventurer... Isn't it?" She looked like she was trying to smile, but with her feelings it seemed impossible to accomplish.
"It's not just adventure, uncovering the secrets of ancient civilizations, 'harmless fun'. I thought I knew there were dangers, I thought I knew killing would happen," she paused once again, " what... What is this?"
"This is nature, the strong survive, the weak die. It's how it is." I wasn't completely convinced by my own words, is this the drayd, or the path to evil talking? "We should go." As far away from this as possible.
Wait, no, they may have something on them.
"Let me check for valuables real quick." I sighed at her apparent uncertainty, "All of this will prove beneficial to us in the long run, I dislike doing it just as much as you, but isn't this exactly what adventuring's about? Robbing dead people? What are ancient crypts, but graves of long gone kings? Those bandits are dead, they're not gonna be needing those things, better take it than for earth to consume it." I have no idea if I was convincing Naela or myself.
[Status effect added]
[The divines are gazing upon thee]
I bet they're having a great time seeing me become more and more corrupt.
So what is this effect exactly?
[The divines are gazing upon thee]
The Author wants you to know that not only outerversal entities, the Readers, but also a few interversal entities, such as the Void are observing you.
+2% chance of a Legendary Gacha drop
Wouldn't that mean that for every adventurer there are a few eldritch horrors? My life isn't that interesting at the moment.
[You're an anomaly, the fate of this world was decided, that was before you appeared, any true seer will pass out if they try to predict your future.]
Ah, that's kind of what I thought.
Looting the bodies, I find a few silver and one gold coin, obviously the swords, their clothing is too filthy to even consider taking, though the armor isn't that bad, even if it did nothing to protect them against my bolts, which again, are capable of cracking rock.
The tunics should be capable of tanking most light cutting weapons if the attacker's not stabbing, that's much better than nothing.
I wonder, can I equip it instantly from my inventory to my body?
Taking the only one without visible damage, of the bandit shot to the head, and testing, I discover it is doable.
It's possible to swap my armor in less than a second, I could get some super heavy and thick chestplate, when someone swings at me with a warhammer, I would swap to it for a moment, reverting instantly once the hit landed, for freedom of movement. That's to say if I find something good enough to function as protection before myself becoming more durable than steel.
I wouldn't be capable of doing this if the item in question was supposed to appear even a meter from me, distance really inhibits my power of inventory pocketing, the max distance I can influence with this ability is about ten meters, and even then, the only thing I'm capable of summoning instantly at that range is a sand particle, at five meters it's a small pebble, two meters a branch about as long as my arm, and the limit of one meter is eight thick books, an exponential increase. I'd bet this armor is near the limit of on my body.
My current END makes me as difficult to chop through as wood, but with the elastic properties of a human body. Tested it a few days ago with the knife, comparing it to various materials.
If I catch whispers of some magical relic armor, I'll try to find and take it, but I won't actively search if there's nothing to base it on.
Another thing I find on one of them is what seems to be an official document, worn down by time and indelicate handling.
The mark of a taken off wax seal can be seen, it's clearly something important, let me see here...
I opened it.
'Slane Theocracy'.
I remember that name, wasn't it the mages who attacked the city a month ago? And how could lowly bandits ever get a hand on anything of this kind?
'Copies of this message are to be forwarded to all listed mercenary groups. You are to kill anyone you find on roads leading to and from E-Rantel city. The reward for doing so for five months is a hundred gold. Twice that, if you act like simple bandits. Destroy this message after reading it.
Signed, Nigun Grid Luin'
Oh, they're mercenaries? Well, not good ones. My spell was only high first tier, many low first tier bolts, and they almost got one-shot by it, as well as they didn't completely comply with the instructions, missing the arguably most important part.
Why would they recruit mercs? They're an organisation, they have their own men...
...
I think I know why, they were trying to weaken the city's morale for a coming attack, and didn't want the wrong people to know it was them.
...Or not, there are better ways to do that.
Those are operations with dozens of layers I bet, better not think about it, not gonna understand it regardless. The only thing this paper is, is a warning about more 'bandits' around here.
I don't know how to feel about this, they were people, but scum that only wanted to kill many more. Did I, by ending their existence, statistically save lives?
On one side, killing is plainly wrong, on the other letting them kill others is just as bad, as well as their EXP was fucking glorious. Game, you're trying your hardest to make me evil, aren't you?
{The Path to Evil is a group of hidden traits and perks - a sprinkle of all sins, their strength randomized, progressing sociopathy, and a perk that makes killing sentients from two to ten times more profitable than what they would normally be, based on how 'good' they are, judged by a Neutral-Good human empathy system.}
Game...? No, I recognize this kind of window, Vingnish?
{Yeah that's me.}
Why tell me this?
{Why not?}
{Also, some of the beings above me may find it interesting.}
Writers and Readers?
{Yep.}
...
I almost thought 'a shame there really aren't that many people I can kill for EXP that I can justify for Naela'.
...And I thought it.
I can only hope that more bandits will show up.
I can only hope that noone shows up.
I just discovered that killing fellow human beings is much, much easier than anticipated, both in the moral and physical meanings.
And once again, my two sides are conflicting.
This is not a problem, I know the Evil path will win no matter what, it's just that it'd be great if it slowed down.
There were supposed to be strong emotions, immense psychic pain over my acts, I only feel guilt at the level of stealing a few apples from a stand.
Must be the progressing sociopathy from the Path to Evil.
For the sake of Naela, and my own fading good side, I buried the bodies under piles of rocks from my inventory, and so we continued on our journey.
-x-
We've been walking for about half a day when we noticed a village some kilometers away, standing on a high hill, this one was clearly more well kept, with most buildings out of stone, some kind of gray filling making the walls look almost modern, and the roofs were all reddish-brown, guessing some mage assisted the process of building it.
From the distance, the people also looked well clothed. Maybe that river village was just poor?
-x-
Once within, some guy asked us who we were.
"We're adventurers", I responded. Unofficial ones, but still.
"Ya certainly don't look like ones, where's yer men?" Ah, the medieval way of precieving life. There was nothing of this sort in the smaller village, I almost forgot it existed, travelling with someone of an almost modern worldview makes it so.
"Malts, quit pestering the newcomers!" I heard someone shout from a distance, the guy looked over, scowled, and left.
An older man, not elderly, but past his prime, took his place after walking over to us, he was likely the one who shouted.
"Evening, hope he didn't trouble you too much, he's the one guy most of us dislike, though he's had a rough life."
"Everyone has a story" I said, "it's easy to hate people based on the things they believe in, I don't blame you. And no, he didn't trouble us that much, just made a rude comment."
"Alright."
"If I may, is there any place we can spend the night at? We've got money." It's starting to get dark, it's much better to just stay here, even if we don't need sleep, some comfiness is always welcomed. Also it's better to be within the calming warmth of a house at night, not wandering the area.
"Larse should have something." he outstretched his hand, pointing to a nearby building.
"Thank you" I bowed lightly after memorizing the house's location, walking away, Naela beside me.
For the next hours we were doing the same stuff as in the wooden village, familiarizing ourselves with the scenery, learning of the local culture, buying a few useful items, that sort of thing. We went to the house after it got dark, me doing my usual routine, and Naela reading with the magical light.
-x-
I leveled up that night, both my throwing skill and regular level. It was a productive session.
The following morning, while Naela was doing a ritual on the edges of the forest, I was conversing with some old woman about the meaning of life, her view was strictly medieval in nature, mostly religion and some wisdom of ancestors, that kind of stuff. It's been an interesting talk regardless.
"So you're saying striving to be as close to him as possible is the true answer to everything?" Here, simple people view gods as perfection, being as close to perfection as possible is the goal of all life, of all existence. Balance is the final form of everything, and achieving complete balance is equivalent to perfection.
Heat death of the universe, flawless energy exchange with life, the utopia for humanity, the golden spiral and the equation. everything leads to balance, but complete balance may never be reached, no matter how close it all may seem, at least by how humanity precieves time.
Or maybe it can, I have no idea, I'm not omniscient yet.
-x-
We're sitting here, near the edge of the village, on a bench enjoying the warm, but not unpleasantly hot spring sun.
"One of the reasons why I love adventuring is moments like these," said Naela, "albeit it's only been a few days, the times of this atmosphere, this calm feeling taking out all the stress, all the worries of life" she sighed. "Now I feel at peace with the fact that killing someone evil may be necessary, you're right, it's the rule of nature, the stronger survive, and we're both in some small part dryads, forms of conscious nature." She smiled at me, her face brightened by the light of the sun coming from behind me.
"As well as killing someone who's intending to kill more people would actually save them." She added.
Oh god, is she becoming evil as well? I really hope not.
I looked at her status, there was no 'Path to Evil' next to her name.
It may actually be the moment.
It may be her convincing herself I'm not evil.
And it may be something entirely different, or a combination of those reasons.
"Think for yourself, I'm not some all-knowing god. I may be wrong in many subjects, including moral ones." I responded solemnly.
She was looking into the distance, lost in thought, an unorthodox expression crossing her face.
I joined her, looking at the slow-moving clouds, this kind of moment is calming, I have to give her that.
A barely hearable sound made itself known, getting a tad louder, it was a deep rumble.
"Do you hear that?" I asked Naela.
"Yeah." She stood up, walking to where the sound was coming from.
I followed her, we stopped at the edge of the village, there were a few random intrigued people along with us, the rumble getting louder and louder.
Then they appeared, many knights on horseback revealed themselves from behind a hill, about half a kilometer away, galloping directly at us.
Two hundred meters.
As they were getting closer, I noticed some details, their polished armor shining, reflecting the sun, blue robes underneath it.
They unsheathed swords, a collective noise, their intention was now clear.
A hundred meters.
A few of the villagers started backing off, one ran, I noticed the crest they wore, the Baharuth Empire.
Fifty meters.
I take out my strongest rune.
Thirty meters.
Shooting a barrage of magic, I take out a few horses at the front, felling them, and making some of the unhit ones directly behind them crash, the rest scattering.
I ran, taking a frozen Naela by her hand.
Magic will allow me for a few more shots of single missiles, I need to conserve them.
I started looking for a safer place, any house to be inside, every single one I tried was locked.
The attackers caught up, one of them was in the alley with me and Naela. His sick grin was visible through the visor of the helmet. Still on his horse, he charged us. I quickly shot it with a missile, as the horse was falling, the man tumbled off, but he got up faster than I expected.
I blasted him with a bolt, right on his chest.
He got knocked back, slamming into a wall. A small dent was visible in the center of his chestplate as he got up, gritting his teeth.
"Fucking mage..." He cursed in a raspy, quiet voice.
I was shocked at first, but then realized this is a trained warrior, he's wearing steel armor and I hit him where it's the thickest.
Even if, there should be at least second degree burns on his chest, metal is a good heat conductor, and my missiles produce a lot of it.
He attacked once again, and I shot another bolt, hitting him in the neck, one of the uncovered vital points. It was behind thick fabric, but something like that can do nothing to protect against the missile.
The momentum of his armor pushed his fall forward, his death, choking on his own spit and blood, lasted a few good seconds. Two more men showed up, I had just enough mana to take them off their horses.
Now that my mana ran out, I was almost helpless, for what will my physical stats, wooden skin, and athlete level physique do against steel armor, almost athlete level physique, much better melee weapon skill, years of training and experience, on top of the numerical advantage and being on horseback?
It didn't take long for the knights to catch up to me and Naela, and take us to the open space in the center of the village, along with a few hundred locals.
A few dozen of them were around us, one looked us over, presumably the leader, and started saying something, only to be interrupted by a deep roar, a rumble shaking everyone to the core, a powerful earthquake spelling doom to all the chosen.
Death is coming.
[A/N]
This chapter was checked and posted at 3 AM, so idk if it's good or bad.
Shorter than the last, but now I have a schedule, so the chapters should become much more consistent, one per 30 days.
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