Hack, Slash & Burn 2: A LitRPG Fantasy, page 28
Peter rose, sliding the loot he had gained into his pouch. “I think that whole fight took like five minutes.”
“Less.” Graham raised four fingers. “Including harvesting and looting, the whole ordeal took only four minutes and three seconds.”
Calder glanced down at his Advanced Proximity Scanner, which showed a greater radius than the others’ would. There were still plenty of Darktouched on it, those that were farther up the mountain. Either they didn’t hear the Ice Yeti Alpha’s call, or they weren’t Ice Yetis at all, but rather something else.
“If things continue like that, we’ll be able to gain enough soulstones for several Weapon Stones today,” Yesna said. “We can start converting people into Touched the moment after the exodus and gather more soldiers.”
Calder looked at the priestess. A part of him was saddened that a woman who had devoted her life to peace was now in the thick of all this violence, talking of gathering more soldiers. Another part of him was simply glad she was onboard with his plan. The world has changed. There will be very few people who can spend their lives avoiding violence.
“And this loot!” Luceen pulled some Ice Yeti Alpha fangs out of her pouch of holding. “It’ll fetch a good price back in Baldor, that’s for sure.”
Two days until the exodus… They couldn’t let another moment go to waste. “Come on. We must keep moving. There are more enemies up the mountain.” Calder ran up the slope at a pace he knew the others could maintain. “Allocate your attribute points on the way. We won’t just be fighting today—we’ll be fighting through the night and into tomorrow. Right up until the exodus starts. I want us to be as powerful as possible when the time comes. Graham will notify Jonah to wait at the portal point outside the village and we’ll send the loot through every few hours so he has more stock to sell.”
“I will?” Graham asked. “I mean, yes. I will.” The ghost, which had been running backwards alongside Calder, keeping pace with him without any effort whatsoever, disappeared. Calder knew the ghost didn’t have to disappear to talk to Jonah, as he could appear to everyone he was connected to all at once, but he tended to disappear whenever he felt like it.
The others didn’t argue with his orders, he was glad to find. Even Yesna, who had been hesitant the last time they had trained, seemed eager to continue with things.
Maybe we can clear the whole mountain by the time of the exodus.
Calder thought for a moment about where he should put his attribute points. With Strike Advantage, he still saw Agility as perhaps his most important attribute, even though he had been throwing a lot of points into Magic lately. Still, he couldn’t help but want to throw more into Magic. The faster he enhanced that stat, the closer he came to teleporting more and more freely around the battlefield. Dream Step’s cooldown was at twenty-five seconds. What would combat feel like if it were at five seconds? One second?
What if the spell had no cooldown at all? He could Dream Step behind one enemy after the next, sending surprise attacks at all he came up against.
He was also getting better at creating portals. There was something more efficient about them, and he could make them even larger—both wider and taller—than before, which made it more difficult for enemies to avoid them. He wondered if one day he would be able to make a portal as large as a building, or maybe even a city.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to create portals that can connect two cities, ones large enough to send an entire army through… At the moment, he could only make the portals in places he could see, but he had to imagine that would change in time.
He also wondered if he had been neglecting his Strength. With his Strike Advantage, his normal strikes were becoming incredibly strong. But if he increased his Strength, wouldn’t that increase the power of those strikes even more?
Then there was Burning Devastation. That was an attack that would certainly come in handy the next time he fought something like an Orc Destroyer, but it was almost as though he was afraid to use it because of how much adrenaline—and mana, to a lesser extent—it used. To increase its damage, he would need to put points in either Magic or Strength. But to increase his ability to use it, he would need more Stamina as well.
He didn’t want it to feel like he was drained after using the spell. And he certainly didn’t want to feel the exhaustion of bottoming out his adrenaline again.
Calder sighed. He would have to compromise. After he applied the stats, he willed them to appear as his simplified, modified stats, and saw them with his equipment and the +10% modifier added.
Attributes – Simplified (Modified Values)
Strength: 143
Agility: 176
Magic: 180
Stamina: 164
Perception: 61
He knew his attributes were inflated here, but they would be inflated when he fought back in Halanor, too, assuming he was defending Berring or Kashan—or if one of the other cities still in the Light needed defending while its populace moved through portals to Kashan following the exodus. The only time he wouldn’t be receiving a boost would be when they laid siege to Dranador.
And at this rate? Who knew when they would be ready to do that?
Part of him wanted to drop in on the place and wreak havoc upon their forces. He might not be able to World Step to get out of danger if things got too much for him as he would likely be facing enemies of a higher level than himself, but he could Portal or Dream Step himself far enough away to escape.
But he knew the moment he appeared in their city, the human Darktouched, with their Proximity Scanners, would know he was there. If I could block myself from being seen, how much damage would I be able to do behind enemy lines? He shook that thought away. Perhaps it would be something to do later, but right now, there were more beasts to kill.
By the time he had finished applying his attributes, they had reached the next set of enemies.
Chapter 33
Calder, Yesna, Peter and Luceen tore through one pack of enemies to the next, collecting more soulstones than Calder had previously thought possible outside of a pitched battle against an army, or when destroying an entire battalion.
As Calder had expected, the Darktouched enemies they faced as they moved up the mountain only increased in level, which meant they only received ever more soulstones from them. Though the enemies didn’t only increase in level, they also became more difficult to kill, as well.
But that only helped them gain more levels as they ascended the mountain. Calder had gained three more since this all began, at a rate he hadn’t thought possible, reaching level 65.
Not only Ice Yetis dwelled in this place. There were other Beast Elementals, ones they had not encountered before. Rock Golems that had absurd Strength and Stamina that could create vicious rockslides and avalanches. Giant Eagles that rained fire upon them, breathing it from their very mouths.
Calder wondered how these beasts had come to exist. Wondered how they could be “corrupted” by the dark as the orcs and other races were. And if they had been corrupted… did that mean there were Beast Elementals that fought on the side of the Light?
Did that mean that these Beast Elementals could be… turned back to the Light?
Though turning enemies—even human enemies—from Dark to Light was no longer something on Calder’s agenda. He had been far too lenient when in Dranador. That bastard noble, Marcus, and his party… they had stood there and watched as the Orc Dominators not only attacked Calder, but their prince.
He should have ended them there and then, human or otherwise. He had known Marcus hadn’t intended to cooperate. It wasn’t as though he’d had any compulsion against killing humans back when he had been in the army. Just because he was an Avatar of Light, didn’t mean he couldn’t be ruthless.
He would have to be, to protect his world.
And how different would it be, killing a Darktouched human versus a Darktouched orc? They were both sentient beings that had turned to evil.
Darkness descended upon them, the twin suns falling behind the mountain they climbed. They fought through the night, showing no mercy to the beasts they came across, pausing after each battle only long enough to harvest and loot their fallen enemies. By the time their party reached the mountain’s highest peak, the twin suns had risen once more, casting a ruddy, bloody light upon the entire landscape. They stood on a large section of rock that jutted out the side of the mountain, taking a moment to take in their surroundings.
Calder had been this high before. Higher. But at the time, he had been plummeting to the ground through the air and hadn’t exactly had time to stop and see the sights—not that they had much time for it today.
“I wonder what this place was like before,” Yesna said.
Peter glanced over at her. “Before what?”
“Before the Darkness took it.”
“Perhaps we’ll find out,” Calder said, “When we take it back for the Light.” His words made him wonder. The Beast Elementals… the Nexuses… “Graham.”
“Hmm?” The ghost appeared, hovering in mid-air over the drop in front of the rock.
“The Nexuses… is that what has turned these Beast Elementals to the Dark?”
Graham frowned, putting a hand to his chin. He tilted his head to the side. “That… does sound familiar. It would make sense, that living near a Dark Nexus might corrupt the magical wildlife, as well as the sentient beings, in the area, though I can’t say I know for sure.”
Calder nodded, still gazing at the landscape beneath them, scanning the countryside.
His eyes fell on something a great distance away. He narrowed his gaze, but it was difficult to see from this far. Still, the smoke drifting into the sky above it was unmistakable.
“Peter.” Calder pointed in the direction of the smoke. “Tell me, what do you see?” The Hunter had the best Perception out of all of them.
The man stepped forward, until he was directly on the edge of the rock. His forehead creased as his eyes narrowed, then widened. “I think that’s a city.” He pointed. “That smoke, it’s not a single fire—it’s several. Maybe hundreds. They’re coming from chimneys.”
“Hundreds of chimneys?” Calder asked.
“Sounds like they’re more advanced than any of the other orcs we have encountered in this world.” Yesna had stepped up to the edge of the peak, right beside Peter. She glanced over at Calder. “Something tells me you’ll want to scout this place?”
Calder considered that for a moment, still squinting at the far-off city. With his Portal skill, it wouldn’t take them long to reach it. He wouldn’t risk making a portal straight outside of it. He could sense that would take far too much mana, making the Portal potentially unstable. He had seen what happened to beings passing through an unstable Portal before, and he didn’t fancy cutting any of them in half.
Still, with only portalling halfway, then running while he waited for his cooldown to end, the journey would be a quick one.
However, just because they could get there quickly didn’t mean they should. There were more things to consider. The exodus was a little over a day away. There were still plenty of things left to prepare. So far, they had been able to gather a considerable number of soulstones, not to mention gain a few levels on their way up the mountain. They had sent the normal loot off to Jonah, so he could continue trading in the Great Marketplace, having decided to hold onto the soulstones.
The soulstones, they had been sending back to Halanor. Calder had made Ellen, one of their potion makers, craft the Weapon Stones, having her instructed by Graham. Calder trusted her with the method of making Weapons Stones. She was one of their own, after all.
“Heading down there could be a waste of time,” Calder said. “Their defences might be too much for the four of us.”
Luceen raised her chin and smiled. “I reckon we could do some damage.”
Calder chuckled. “I’m sure we would be able to, but could we gain more staying up here?”
Peter stepped back from the peak. “What if it… wasn’t just the four of us?”
Calder raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“Those of our Touched that aren’t guarding Berring or the settlement are out training, except for Jonah and Karla.” The prince bit his lip. “I know it’s close to the exodus, and this would be a risk…”
Calder saw where he was going with this. “You want to call them all in for a full-on assault against an enemy city a day before half of Halanor is evacuated to different worlds, and we try and bring those who remain together in one place?”
Peter shrugged, looking a bit sheepish. He rubbed the back of his neck. “No risk, no reward. The Battle of Berring brought all our levels up a massive amount—including yours. If we were able to do that again…”
Yesna let out a sigh. “We have no idea what we would be up against. We wouldn’t be able to create a portal in the area, either, as they would no doubt be blocking them.”
Luceen rubbed her hands together. “We would make a lot of gold, though. Taking and plundering an entire city…”
Calder glanced at the Mage. She had certainly taken hold of this new life after being a merchant for so long.
Peter raised a finger. “Not to mention the Proficiency we would gain. Raising everyone up can only work in our benefit in the weeks to come, and claiming another settlement here would only help solidify our currently tenuous hold on this Dark World, a Dark World that will be very helpful in training the influx of new Touched we’re about to gain.”
Calder started nodding at Peter’s words, though Yesna’s concerns were, admittedly, warranted. “Yesna is right, we don’t know what we might be facing there. Laying siege to a city the day before the exodus…” He shook his head. “It seems rather dangerous.”
Yesna looked at him with approval in her eyes, then gave Luceen and Peter a stern look.
“However…”
Yesna’s stern look turned on Calder. He only grinned at her.
“However, Peter is right. Risks like these are what have benefitted us the most. Taking that Nexus. Taking on an entire orc army. Then Peter and I protecting the Nexus from that battalion, and Yesna and I taking the orc settlement—”
“—something I was against—” Yesna butted in.
“—this is yet another risk.”
“And how many people have we lost with these risks?” Yesna placed her hands on her hips. “We had thirty-two Touched when this all began. We lost five people at the Nexus, and you know who we lost when the army attacked Berring…”
Calder dipped his head, felt an emptiness in his gut. “I know we lost people…” He frowned. His thoughts had gone back and forth on this a lot as of late. Part of him felt horrible, sending his people into dangerous situations. Their training in this world was, for the most part, safe.
But safe didn’t cut it. Safe wasn’t enough to advance through the levels quickly. He hated that they had lost people. Hated that they had lost Dodger. But he knew all about loss.
He had wanted to protect the people of Berring. Wanted them never to lose another soul. He wanted to protect the entire world… but it would be naive to think there would be no casualties.
He needed to change his thinking on this. “It’s a hard fact, but they knew the risks they were walking into. If we hadn’t taken that Nexus, we never would have been able to defend Berring. And if we hadn’t defended Berring, we wouldn’t be in a position to defend those in Halanor that will be left behind after the damned Protectorate abandons us.”
Yesna raised her chin. “So you’ll just send them to their deaths?”
He shook his head. “We aren’t assaulting the orc city to die, Yesna. We are assaulting it to become stronger. I won’t order our people to do it. They can volunteer. I will do everything I can not to lose anyone, but…” He sighed. “We are at war. Bad things happen in war. We all know that.”
Calder turned from her then, a part of him hating how he sounded. He shut his eyes and communicated with Graham. The Spirit Construct had been listening into their conversation, so knew what he was about to ask.
He also seemed to offer a little bit of advice. I know what it is like to lead others, Calder. You’re right that people will be lost. You need to know that whoever you send into battle may never return. Just remember, don’t drown out voices like Yesna’s just because you disagree with her—ask her for her opinion on every step. Becoming a leader can make one jaded. It can make you do things you never would have considered doing before your world was at risk, and for good reason. But people like Yesna will help you from losing the part of yourself who you used to be, if that’s at all possible. Trust me, I wish I’d had someone like her around when…”
The ghost had trailed off. Calder didn’t bother prompting him with questions. The man was prone to disappearing, sometimes. Graham must have accidentally touched on something he didn’t wish to discuss. Something too close to his heart.
One day, Calder wanted to know exactly what the man’s life had been like. Though he imagined it would be a long while until the Spirit Construct trusted him with that—assuming he could even remember it at all…
They all volunteered. Even Jonah, who was supposed to be trading, and Karla, who was travelling to the remaining cities in Halanor still defended by the Soldiers of Light.
I always knew they would volunteer.
Yesna’s stern expression remained upon her face, but she didn’t offer any further arguments. She may not like risks like these—she had advocated for them evacuating Berring and letting the army pass them by—but when she knew something was going to happen, she made sure she was in the thick of things whether she agreed with Calder’s decisions or not.
He greatly admired that.
Calder sent the rest of his party back to Berring to help organise the others near the portal checkpoint outside the town. He had decided it would be faster to travel to the city alone and briefly scout it out before getting the others here.
