Adrian POV
The darkness that surrounded them despite it being near midday made the whole place quite eerie, the occasional howls and loud screeches did not help matters, the fact that the forest swallowed up the sound of their footsteps made it even worse.
Adrian loved it. He had always liked being in the wilds, but normally the preparations and caution he had been forced to take had prevented him from fully enjoying himself, but here with his enhanced physical and sensory capabilities thanks to the Sword and the levels he had gained, he could see in the dark effortlessly and easily navigate the relatively difficult terrain. It was amazing and was probably the first unequivocally positive thing that had occurred since he had arrived in this world.
Not even the monsters could disrupt his joy, mainly because they were weak enough that using a skill or two was more than enough to defeat them, but also because they were the source of power that let him enjoy his environment. Truthfully Adrian still found it very, very odd that killing a monster and absorbing it somehow allowed him to enhance himself, but it worked and worked spectacularly at that and as it was his only means of survival in this world he would have to embrace it whole-heartedly. No matter his doubts or concerns.
Adrian currently had a small handful of skills active. Blade Projection for attack and defence and Blindsight for a sensory boost. Both powers were ones that he had gained during his first day in the fields and were incredibly useful ones.
Blade Projection was the ability to create copies of his swords that he had mastered and control them telekinetically, it had limits in that the copies were fragile, cost a fair bit of SP, and didn't have any of the special abilities of the original sword. But it was useful in that it had the attack rating of the original and he could control up to four of them effortlessly as if they were his limbs. This power was the main one he had been using to defeat his enemies for the past three days, it let him attack from range with finesse to test out an opponent and the cost wasn't so high as to be prohibitive.
Blindsight, on the other hand, was without question the most useful power he had obtained, it allowed him the ability to perceive everything made out of matter or magic in a large radius around him and process the information flawlessly. He could expand and reduce the range and even get some fine details about the target, he had other extrasensory powers, one that boosted his sense of smell, another that let him see in the ultraviolet range and even a mana sight power, but they all had significant drawbacks, Blindsight had no such thing, save for the SP consumption.
With these two powers, he had dominated everything in the forest. Blindsight let him navigate towards enemies with no effort and hundred per cent accuracy and Blade Projection let him test their defences from safety, and in most cases kill them. Even as they tracked his current prey, he was occasionally killing a monster or two that he wished to absorb. It was a little difficult to describe just how easy it was, but Adrian was beginning to understand why the original Sword, Spear and Bow Heroes had been convinced that this was all a game, it was becoming increasingly effortless for him to fight his enemies, for those three who had intelligence on their enemies and the world, it must truly have felt game-like. Real-life was never easy after all and certainly did not have Exp, levels or magic.
Adrian's party had been mostly useless, to be certain Adrian had taken some risks he would not normally have taken without their presence but in the end, nothing would have changed beyond the level of caution and the number of SP potions he would have consumed. It was the first time that he had realized just how weak his party members were, no doubt he had been impressed by them initially because he was using his world as a standard. Naturally, someone pathetic in a world where it is possible to enhance themselves by merely killing monsters would be far more powerful than even the best in a world where such a mechanic didn't exist. Adrian was starting to rethink his initial idea of them being assassins, they were probably just people who were here to use him to get stronger or gain influence, or feed information about him to the various factions of Melromarc.
Currently, he was using a combination of his Blindsight and Mana Sense to keep track of an Insect Drone, the same type of monster that had sent Andrea into flashbacks before.
Adrian and his party had found a small force of about fifteen insects and had crushed most of them, leaving a few to retreat. They had then had followed them. His goal? To test Andrea, possibly help her should she prove trustworthy and useful and if not then to potentially find an excuse to remove her from the party at his convenience.
It was quite cruel to throw a teenager face-first into her recent trauma, and there was a part of him that felt immensely guilty about it. He had seen traumatized people never recover from the horrors they faced and here he was potentially making it worse. Plus the trauma had been during the First Wave, so it had been about fifteen days or so since then, a very recent event, which was probably even worse.
He was definitely going to hell for this, but he had few other options, he couldn't trust her or her backers, and he was not willing to condemn himself for a girl that was almost certainly spying on him or using him for some purpose or the other and getting her emotional could be very helpful in uncovering one of the reasons for her to join him.
She had made him very suspicious when she had mentioned that she wanted to join the party with the least number of people, the most obvious interpretation was that she wanted to level up faster, but as far as he could tell she had not known about the Exp boost, so he wasn't certain about the precise reasoning she followed. This trauma she had could be the first chink in her armour for Adrian to exploit until he either knew enough to trust her or remove her from the picture.
Adrian signalled for caution when he observed the target finally stop near a massive honeycomb-like structure that was embedded into a tree, nearly five meters off the forest floor. It was truly massive and looked like it was infesting the whole tree, he could see nearly 300 insects of various types and more than a thousand eggs and a huge insect with a swollen abdomen that was currently in the process of making another ten or so eggs. It was quite a disgusting sight even though the lens of his Blindsight.
Their number was a bit of a surprise but not too much of one. It would simply take him more SP to kill them in comparison to most of the monsters in the forest.
He stopped and turned towards his party members after they got into visual range of the hive, Bellamy and Malty looked quite normal, with the fanatic turning his full attention to Adrian and Malty giving him a smile which was offset by her clear fatigue, but Andrea was tense, she was shaking a little and gripping her sword tightly enough that he could see that her knuckles had gone white.
His guilt made a resurgence here, and for a moment he was tempted to just call this off, but he killed that feeling, now was not the time for sentiment. He would try to help her after this if she proved somewhat trustworthy but he could allow pity to shape his actions.
" I have noted a fairly large hive of the insects about five hundred or so meters from here." he said, "I think you can all see it well enough. It seems to have an estimated 300 or so drones and a significantly larger insect that I suspect is the Queen of the hive that is laying eggs. The Queen doesn't seem to have any combat capabilities but to avoid any surprises that thing is going to be my first target." he stopped her for a moment but when he received no reaction beyond Andrea getting even tenser, he went on.
"Malty, your role here is critical. I need you to use your strongest fire spell on the hive first to thin their numbers as much as possible. Your spell will likely determine if we shall succeed or fail here, I shall have a skill prepared to support you if need be, but the main role is yours."
She smiled widely at that," I shall not fail you Sir Adrian, rest assured my Hellfire Storm shall be more than enough for these pests."
Adrian immediately noted to have hisSword Beams ready in case she was making an empty boast, but just said," I shall look forward to it then." with a small smile, before turning to Bellamy.
"Your duty shall be primarily to protect myself and Andrea who shall be on the front line and ensure that if a second casting is needed from Malty, she has the time to do so."
"Yes, Sir!" he exclaimed," It shall be done." Adrian nodded in response, feeling a little exhausted and wondering just how the man had this much energy after nearly three days of hunting with limited rest.
"Andrea, frontline as usual. I shall back up you up as much as possible but this is your fight first."
Andrea nodded stiffly, a determined expression appearing on her face, as she relaxed just a little. Adrian was a little shocked by her sudden change and couldn't help but feel a burst of admiration for this girl, she was truly facing up to her trauma, he didn't know for certain if this head-on charge was wise but her bravery was making him feel like scum. He crushed the feeling swiftly.
"Excellent. Let's begin," he said with a smile and shifted his sword from the one he was working on mastering to a more useful form for this assault.
Pyramid Tortoise Sword (Mastered)(7/40): Lv 7 5.83%
Energy Level 7/100
Rarity: Uncommon
Enchantments: Flying enemies +65% Damage
Status Enchantments : -30% SP Cost
Status Rating
Attack: 75
Magic Attack:121
Defence: 30
Magic Defence: 60
Speed: 20
SP : +32
MP: +67
Stamina: 40
Damage Increase: +65% to Flying Type Enemies
Equip Boosts : Attack +7; Defense +3; Magic Power +10
Equip Skills: Sword Beam (medium); Sword Beam Barrage;
Special Ability: SP Drain(medium)
The sword was an odd-looking one, it was like the shell of the Pyramid Tortoise had been twisted into a helical structure, flattened and then attached to a hilt that looked like the head of the tortoise but the weird looks did not detract from the fact that it was easily one of the best swords he could use and the SP drain power combined with the SP preservation status effect made it perfect for using theSword Beam skill.
Adrian prepared himself. He had his Blade Projections floating and ready, his Sword was in the correct form, he had the Magic Water and SP potions ready for himself and his party and the enemy was unaware of the imminent attack as verified by his Blindsight. Adrian walked forward keeping a swift and steady pace, using his Blindsight to make sure nothing else was in the area and that the insects were still unaware.
Once they reached within the range of Malty's spell and had a clear shot at the hive, she tugged on his arm, and he and Andrea moved forward weapons at the ready while Malty and Bellamy prepared their spells and began to chant.
Then the insects were suddenly moving, he didn't know exactly why they were suddenly agitated; perhaps they had some detection ability, but Adrian didn't hesitate, he took aim and fired a massive blast.
His Sword Beam was an interestingly variable ability. Adrian could choose the diameter of the blast, if he had Blade Projections active then he could use them to fire a barrage of beams, and he could even control how long he kept the beam active for and he could move the sword to target a wide area effortlessly given that the beam seemed to have no inertia of its own. All of this resulted in what was easily his best AOE attack, the only drawback? A massive SP cost, which was precisely why he needed to use the Pyramid Tortoise Sword despite its mediocre attack rating, the SP drain skill was simply too useful in combination with the Beam.
Without his SP mitigation Status Enchant and the SP drain, a single 5-second blast consumed about 60% of his SP. With both of these, he could reduce it to about 30 % if he was lucky. The difference was truly substantial but hopefully after a few levels and the right equip bonuses he would no longer need to be concerned with the SP loss.
The SP he lost was well worth it, the massive hive and the Queen were both struck hard by the beam, and he could see a massive swell in his Exp points along with the wonderful sight of the hive and the tree it was collapsing on itself. The loud sound was rather jarring but Adrian ignored it as he moved the beam slightly, just by a few degrees, and the exp continued coming in, it was truly convenient to have an auto-kill confirmation ability in this world.
He stopped the blast after five seconds, feeling an odd sort of tiredness that was not quite the same as normal fatigue, a familiar feeling after a few days of combat that signalled a large, swift loss of SP. The damage was done. The Queen was dead, and the remnants were in chaos.
But the insects did not stop there, most of the swarm was dead or crippled as they had yet to leave the hive before he had fired on them. However, nearly a third of them still lived. Adrian used his Blindsight to focus on Malty and Bellamy and noted that they were not yet ready. He considered the enemy numbers for a moment and the fact that dozens of the fastest ones were already coming closer to them and then used his Sword Beam again.
This time he used a beam with a larger diameter and lesser SP, it would do less damage per unit area, but he was not targeting a hive or a tree anymore but insects out in the open air with nothing to stop the blast, thus as he swept the beam through the closest insects they died without any difficulty and the enemy number was slashed in half again.
Exp notifications filled his status screen once more. Adrian winced slightly as he noted that his SP was at about fifty per cent, the lowest he had ever allowed it to fall, but choose to ignore it for the moment. He still had enough to use his more efficient moves dozens of times and even a full-powered Sword Beam once more. It should be enough.
Malty finally finished her chant here, and a massive burst of fire that surprised everyone in his party, even Malty, erupted at the location of the embedded remnants of the hive. The fire blast was large enough and hot enough that Adrian could feel the heat from nearly a hundred meters away, it was quite impressive, but he doubted the insects shared his opinion, as most of their crippled brethren who had been injured when he had launched his first strike ended up getting roasted.
The exp was enough to get him to level up again but he ignored the notifications and instead focused on his Blade Projections and got ready to Dash into battle.
Adrian felt the world around him slow down as his SP began to vanish. He triggered his Dash skill and felt himself move through a corridor of altered space. It was a difficult phenomenon to describe but it was the same feeling he got when his perception and speed stats went up, amplified nearly a hundredfold. But the result was simple, he had suddenly moved from nearly a hundred meters away to 80 meters, then 60 and then 40 and then he was close enough for him to use the projections.
Adrian shredded his foes effortlessly. His telekinetically controlled swords meant that he didn't even have to move from his new location and Dash had allowed him to close the distance before the monsters had time to react, some of the insects that were closer to him originally had gotten through to his party, but that had been deliberate as he wanted to see how Andrea reacted to them. After all, the whole point of this exercise was to see how she dealt with them, if his goal was to simply kill them all, a third Sword Beam would have been a better solution.
His Blindsight allowed him to see Andrea pale rapidly, but then she moved forward, her expression shifting into a combination of fury and determination. Unfortunately, her fight lacked the skill and control that he was used to seeing from her. She managed to kill the first three but then charged towards the ones that were arriving. Andrea killed them easily enough but it moved her out of position, and Bellamy had to participate for the first time in this battle, using his prepared Light Lances to kill the insects that got past Andrea.
Andrea didn't even notice. Instead, she killed the insects near her, her rage blinding her to the ones that were about the flank her.
Adrian took care of these, he aimed and activated Dash, not to speed towards her but to get the perception enhancement, and then triggered a Sword Beam that lasted for less than a tenth of a second and was barely a few centimetres in diameter. It missed his target initially but a small sweep killed the insect that had been about to strike her.
Andrea didn't notice the insect nor his interference.
Adrian made eye-contact with Bellamy, who tersely nodded when Adrian indicated Andrea. Leaving her protection to Bellamy, Adrian instead focused on the remnants of the hive. By the time he was done slaughtering them, he found that the battle was over and the whole area of the forest was full of insect corpses with the distinct and horrible smell of burned bugs.
Adrian flared his Blindsight again, and after a moment of verifying that there were no nearby enemies, he focused on Andrea. He could see that her battle frenzy had passed and that she was feeling wretched, he felt a little bad as he considered that he may have very well traumatized the teenager in a different way. What an amazing achievement.
He walked up to her, noting that Bellamy had done his job quite well, she didn't have a single wound on her, then he used his sword and drew out a Stamina potion from its storage. She didn't turn to him when he offered her the potion, nor did she react in any way for a long moment before saying, "I failed."
"I dare say you did far better than the first time you faced them." he said, after considering Andrea for a moment," Immediate and complete improvement was not the goal remember? It was to see how you performed against the insects with some warning and preparation, and you did well."
"I lost control," she said, more strength in her voice this time, but more self-loathing as well," You were right Hero, I am a liability. What is the point of a defender that cannot defend well enough to protect anyone?!" by the end of her sentence she was shouting.
For a moment he wondered what the hell she was talking about, she had certainly not needed to protect anyone here. Then he slowly began to piece the puzzle together. Andrea had been more than strong enough to crush the bugs the very first time they had met, in fact, he would go as far as to say that with her skill and defences she could probably kill twenty to thirty of them with no backup at all, but if she had failed to save someone else during the wave then her behaviour made perfect sense.
"You did lose control." he admitted, trying to keep his voice as calm and matter-of-fact as possible."But that is not some sort of irredeemable sin. You improved compared to before, and in the future, you shall continue to improve as long as you are willing to be as brave as you were today."
"I will not pretend to know what you lost," he continued, torn between the two impulses to help this girl or to test her," but I have seen people recover from their losses, it is never easy, and in a way, you will never be the same as you were. Time, effort and support from others can help but the void is never filled but you learn how to recover with experience."
It was a bitter lesson that he had shoved down his throat by his mother and Edward. His best friend had been the one who had pulled him out of his depression after his father's death, Adrian had no doubt he would have been far worse off without the man's intervention. Adrian felt ashamed of using his friend's words for himself to manipulate this girl, and worse he felt ashamed for realising that he felt only shame because he was wielding his friend's words not because he was trying to shape this traumatized teen to his will.
For a moment after he spoke, he wondered if she would scream at him, but it seemed that something he had said reached her. For she just looked at him carefully, looking just a shade more relaxed than she had been a moment ago.
"Who?" she asked, and he didn't need any elaboration. He still hesitated to answer but gave it up in the end. It was a trivial fact in the grand scheme of things.
"My father," he said, trying to keep his voice level, and failing.
She nodded, and for a moment said nothing, then," I was near the Seaetto Region when the wave started. My team and I had just escorted a Merchant there." she took a deep breath and then continued," the wave just started...there was no warning. My team fought to protect the villagers, and I helped them get to a shelter while my team held the monsters off. It didn't work. The shelters were overrun before we got there and by the time I returned to my team after finding a safe place for the villagers, they were already dead." she looked at one of the dead bugs tiredly," these things were eating them."
Adrian found that all thought of manipulating the girl had faded from his mind by the time she had finished her sentence, instead, he felt his guilt multiply as her statement of the Seatto Region struck his mind. There had been another girl who was traumatized by the wave and had lived in the same place, a girl who was currently a slave, either in a cage waiting to die or being tortured by a nobleman. A girl whom he had disregarded utterly.
"I don't know if I'll be able to fight well enough Sir Adrian," Andrea said," but I'll try if you'll have me."
She sounded resigned as if her removal from the party was obvious, and perhaps it was what he should have done but there was only one answer he could give Andrea.
"You are part of my team, Andrea," he said," that has not changed and it will not. I have no intention of removing someone willing to fight the waves despite what you have gone through."
It was only after Adrian had spoken that he realized that his final sentence to Andrea had not been a lie.
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