The plan a success, Levi followed along with the group as they moved forward following Kelly’s directions. Their pace had even picked up a little, the knowledge they were moving towards a concrete goal adding a little spring to their step. Levi could feel his anticipation increasing along with the groups. He didn’t feel any tension from danger, but leveling up always carried its own shot of dopamine, even when it was a virtual avatar doing it. Now that he was leveling up himself the effect was even more pronounced.
Under Kelly’s instructions the group forged their way through the plains grasses until a scout signaled for a halt, the monster horde in sight.
“Did you get a good look at what type of monsters they are?” Kelly asked the scout. “I couldn’t be sure from the air.”
The scout, Layla, nodded. “More triceratops dogs. It should just be same old same old.”
“Great. Let’s get started then”
Kelly then turned to address the group, putting on her leader aura that she seemed to be able to take on and off at a moment’s notice.
“Alright you lot, it’s more triceratops dogs. This should be old hat by now, but remember not to get complacent. We still have nowhere near perfect information, and unlike a game, the mobs here could easily change without us knowing about it. Stay alert.”
Levi watched in fascination as the group started switching up their formation, everyone clearly knowing where they were supposed to go. It wasn’t quite the same clockwork precision that armies on Earth had achieved, but it was clear the people in the outpost were more than an unorganized mob. Levi wasn’t worried about their ability to protect him, but their skill did reinforce his decision to join the group. Even if he didn’t need protection, their ability to work together spoke volumes not just for the groups personality, as it was unlikely a group with internal conflict could work together so seamlessly, but also for their ability to pool information and work together to achieve a common goal, and likely use the resources of the many to achieve things no single person could do on their own. Humans weren’t meant to be solitary creature after all.
Kelly gave one final check to make sure everyone was in position before giving the signal to Layla to aggro the group. The monster hordes were normally aggressive, and it didn’t take much to have them chase you. The normal practice was for the rest of the group get into their combat positions while one person drew the aggression of the monster horde and brought them into Kelly’s range so she could slaughter them.
It had been decided that Levi would only watch for this battle, his job to stand next to Kelly and protect their backline from any unexpected dangers. Although from what he had heard, it was basically the Kelly show. The amount of times anyone else needed to be involved could be counted on one hand. He was actually looking forward to it. While he might technically have access to magic, who didn’t imagine being able to throw fireballs around as a child? Sure, from what he could glean from the System his power was actually more impressive, but his lack of traditional magic did make him kind of jealous. Part of having awesome magic powers involved showing them off to the adulation of the masses, and that was one department where Kelly had him beat.
But while he was jealous, Levi knew where his priorities lay. Even if he was given the chance to show off his ultimate move and shatter the sky, he wasn’t in a position to do so. It was called a trump card for a reason, and that reason wasn’t getting into a dick waving contest with people who he still wasn’t sure he could trust. Screaming “look at all my awesome magic that’s the best magic no one has as good magic as I do nyah nyah” while sticking his tongue out sounded like a sure way to get into a fight he wanted to avoid. Destroying half the outpost but getting killed in return didn’t sound like it was worth it just to soothe his ego. And besides, he liked to think that, as a whole, Humanity was made up of mostly good people, so he would much rather engage in peaceful relations. But it would only take one or two sour grapes to ruin the bunch, and he wasn’t taking any risks. At least, not any he didn’t have to, so for now he needed to stay low key.
Levi was brought out of his musings by Layla as she came running to join the group, the horde of triceratops dogs hot on her heels. Levi couldn’t see all of them, but he estimated there had to be more than a hundred, maybe even two hundred. It felt wrong to just stand there and let them come closer, but that was his job, so he calmed himself down with Concentrated Will and settled in to watch the show.
It wasn’t long before Kelly got started. After letting out a battle cry she started to let loose, rapidly shooting fireballs at the slobbering horde of approaching monsters. Levi had gotten the idea that Kelly was substantially more powerful than the surrounding monsters. He suspected that was in part to her level, which should be rather high after all the monsters she had killed. But still, to see how easily the horde crumbled under her fiery onslaught was a little demoralizing. But it was hard to take it seriously considering how Kelly was being carried on the shoulders of four people.
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He had still found it hard to imagine Kelly’s idea of power leveling would work, and seeing it in action only made him more incredulous. On the one hand, you had dozens of fireballs raining down on the approaching beasts, each one taking out handfuls of them, rapidly reducing their numbers. And on the other, you had the one shooting those balls of flame sitting on the shoulders of four people as if she was on a palanquin, some sort of warrior princess too lazy to even stand as she mowed down small fry.
It didn’t quite fit Levi’s idea of how battle should be, especially considering his own experiences. But it made sense to grind experience on weaker mobs rather than risk your life fighting higher leveled monsters. Even in games people often spent their time grinding rather than try and engage in truly dangerous fights. After all, why fight the boss now when you could just level up, get a few more magic items, and then steamroll them later on? And there was no save button in real life, so perhaps it was an erroneous assumption to think everyone would have his experiences.
But as Levi looked around at the group he realized that while he had no desire to relive his life and death battles, they had instilled in him a certain sense of danger awareness. One that was lacking from the group around him, everyone lazily watching as Kelly demolished the threat before it ever really materialized. It made him think; what would they do if something happened to Kelly? If they suddenly lost their most powerful lifeline and safety blanket? He was sure some of them would fight, but how many was the question, and Levi thought they wouldn’t like the answer.
He could still feel those emotions, the desperation he had as he bashed in his first goblin head, snuffing out a living being like one would stomp on a used cigarette. He wasn’t sure he could describe it. The rush of power was like nothing else, but so was the dread. Because if he could kill something so easily, it wasn’t hard to picture how he could be killed in turn. If you stare into the void it stares back at you. Just because he had survived and was tempered by the experience didn’t mean he was happy with it, but it did show him how far he could go. That was valuable knowledge in this new world, and perhaps not as common as he thought it would be.
Under Kelly’s blanket fire the monsters soon perished, continuing their charge until the very end. It reminded Levi of his time fighting the goblins. They had kept coming, oblivious to their fate. There was a period when he was little when Levi was interested in medieval battles, absorbing book after book on the subject with a voracious appetite. The phase didn’t last long, and he now forgot most of what he read but he did remember a tidbit from the book his dad had given him. The book was a clear cut above the others, and the contents had been hard to understand. One of the things that stuck with him from it was a fact about battles and morale.
The triceratops dogs had continued to charge, refusing to break and retreat. According to what he remembered from the book, this was almost the exact opposite of human armies. Battle between armies before the widespread use of gunpower mostly consisted of people running at each other, and, contrary to popular portrayal, they only fought for a very brief time before one side broke, running away while their enemies gave chase. If he recalled correctly, the armies usually broke at around ten percent casualties, or sometimes even less. Compared to that, fighting monsters that wouldn’t retreat had a much higher danger level.
After finishing off the final survivors, Kelly ordered some people to go check if anything was salvageable from the corpses before walking over to Levi.
“How’s that?” she said. “These monsters don’t stand a chance once I open fire. Although it’s a shame that my attacks are so powerful that it’s hard to harvest meat from the corpses.”
“I’m not sure that’s something to complain about,” Levi said.
Kelly shrugged. “Of course I’d rather have more firepower, but it’s annoying to listen to David complaining about food this and resources that. He should have more appreciation for my awesomeness. Anyway, get ready to throw me up into the air again. I want to try and find at least another big group like this one before we head back for the day.”
Kelly wasn’t able to spot anything from the current location, but she remained undeterred, urging the group onwards, confident they would be able to find more monsters to fight. Her perseverance was rewarded, as a few hours and multiple scouting acrobatics later she spotted another group. They moved closer, sending Layla out to scout the enemy.
“This group is smaller,” Layla said after she came back from her scouting mission. “Only fifteen monsters or so. They’re those large boar-like things though, you know, the ones that tasted really good?”
Kelly spend a moment in thought pondering the situation before turning to Levi.
“You still need to hit level twenty-five, right?” She said. “Do you think you can take out this group of monsters? If I kill them the meat would go to waste. How about it, can you take them on?”
“I should be able to,” He said, nodding.
“Great! I’m salivating just thinking about roast pork chops. Just give me a shout if you need help though. David would yell at me if you died.”
“Got it.”
Levi wasn’t worried about the group of monsters. His rewards for clearing the dungeon made such a small group trivial. It was time to let loose, level up, and have some fun.