BOOM
Noah did a fist pump as he saw a massive dust cloud and a couple of trees were torn down in the explosion. “Now that is an explosion! None of that dull thud sound that mana bomb makes, no sir.” He thought as he imagined decimating hordes of orcs with bombs. “Okay, with bombs out of the way, on to the explosive bullets. Wait. Can’t I just surround the firebomb with a bunch of earth bullets to imitate a fragmentation grenade?”
With that thought, he got to work. Making full-sized earth bullets though would require too much mana so instead, he made them smaller and more the size of a baby corn.
You have acquired the spell [Fragmentation Grenade]
After that, he immediately went on to make an explosive bullet which was basically a scaled-down version of the bomb. So it wasn’t a surprise when it only took a few seconds for him to get the notification.
You have acquired the spell [Explosive Bullet]
He danced around in celebration when he saw that. “Ehem…” “Oink…” Suddenly, he froze as he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat and oinks filled with derision from behind him. He turned around and saw Mark, along with the boars looking at him in contempt.
“Are you done wrecking nature then Mr. Avatar?” Mark asked as he forcefully wiped the contempt away from his face.
“Uhhh, yeah I’m done. Those orcs won’t know what hit them!” Noah said, trying to put on a brave front but the pink blush on his face betrayed his true emotions.
“Okay then, let’s get back to hunting before the sun goes down.”
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An hour of running later, Noah topped Mark and himself off with [Enhance] and finally got into the general area of the encampment. He pulsed his radar and found two groups of six orcs fairly close together. “Okay here’s the plan, I make a pitfall over in that clearing and put a bomb in, while you lure them toward it. Simple enough plan but those orcs aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed so it should work. There is a warrior or archer in both parties so that might complicate things. Let’s just hope they’re both warriors so the pitfalls still work. Sound good?”
“Yup! I’m excited to see your bombs at work.”
“Me too.”
Mark then ran off into the forest at three times the speed of the old-world’s fastest athletes. Noah couldn’t help but marvel and look on with envy at how fast his cousin ran. “Wonder how I can emulate that kind of speed with spells?” He thought for a moment but in the end, shook his head. “Not the time. Let’s get to making the trap.
Noah walked over to the clearing and got to work on digging a big enough hole for twelve huge orcs. He activated [Earth Manipulation] and started mentally lifting the earth for as much as his skill permitted which was around four hundred kilograms. It of course scaled with the level of his skill with a hundred kilograms added for every level.
A few minutes of heavy lifting later, he finished the hole. Well, you couldn’t really see the hole as he suspended a very thin layer of dirt on top of it, held up by nothing but mana. With the hole done, he activated his single most destructive skill and conjured a fragmentation bomb. It cost a whopping sixty mana but with how much damage it could deal, it was relatively cheap. So, he did what any guy would do and pumped forty more mana into the spell.
After admiring his masterpiece for a minute, he heard screaming in the distance. In fact, he heard his name.
“NOAAAAH! Where’s the fucking HOLE?!” He saw Mark running for dear life with an arrow sticking out of his right shoulder blade. “He’s actually running faster than earlier.” He immediately squashed the jealousy bubbling up inside him and manipulated the air to blow against the orcs in hot pursuit of Mark furiously. That somewhat worked to slow them down a little, it even managed to redirect some arrows flying at his cousin.
“OVER HERE! When I say jump, you JUMP!” Noah screamed back
A moment later, he saw that Mark was getting close and…
“READY?! JUMP!”
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Mark leaped off the ground with all his might as he didn’t know how big the hole was. But, in doing so, he couldn’t control where he was going to land, and with all the trees in the forest… “Right, trees. Well, at least it's not arrows.” With that thought, he accepted his fate and closed his eyes. “This is going to hurt in the morning…”
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Noah saw his cousin majestically leap higher and farther than those professional long jumpers and shifted his attention to the ten orcs that followed after him. They were running so fast that even if they had the thought that something was wrong, which they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to stop in time. So, down they went, into the pit.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
When all ten orcs fell into the trap, he excitedly threw down the pre-made hundred-mana-bomb and took a few steps back.
BOOOOOOOM
“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”
He took a peek into the pit and saw that all the orcs were dead, some were full of holes, some were on fire and trying to claw their way up the pit, and the others closest to the bomb were both burning and full of holes. But as he was celebrating the bomb’s effectiveness, two arrows came out of nowhere and hit him. One arrow hit his left arm, it passed through it as if it were paper, cleanly cutting his ulna in two. The other arrow however hit him in a more dangerous part, his left lung, immediately making it much harder to breathe.
He looked around and saw the pit, he jumped down, knowing that it was his only option. The moment he landed at the bottom with the orc corpses to break his fall, he lay flat on the ground and rushed to cover himself in dirt leaving only a small slit for his eyes. He waited and waited until a minute later he heard Mark yelling.
“Noah! Are you okay?!” Noah smiled and was about to yell back that he was fine but he suddenly saw Mark dive into the hole as arrows whizzed past him. Thankfully, the corpses broke his fall.
“Hey Mr. Healer, how are you doing on this fine day?” Noah sarcastically said as Mark landed in the pit.
Mark looked around and noticed an unnatural mound of dirt and immediately understood what his cousin had done. He hurriedly laid down and said “Hurry and cover me with dirt too before those archers come!”
“Okay”
And so, both covered in dirt, they waited. Waited for the archers to peek into the pit so that Noah could kill them with his spells.
“So, are you going with the old earth spike up their asses or are you trying out your other new spell?” Mark asked
“New spell. Definitely the new spell.” Noah said, eager for the archers to take a peek. “Peek me bitches, I dare you.” He mumbled to himself. He felt like he was playing CS:GO again but this time in real life and with live ugly targets out to get them.
It took half an hour of waiting but they finally heard grunting from two distinct voices. A second later, two heads peaked into the pit and Noah immediately cast his new bullet spell *bang bang* and killed them both at the same time.
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After Mark got to healing both of them, Noah put the bodies and gear of the orcs away in his artifact and made a winding staircase along the walls of the pit with [Earth Manipulation]. They went up the stairs and came up to the sight of two headless orcs with bows in their hands.
“Should we give one to Talal?” Noah asked, wondering if their friend could even use bows seeing as he fought in his original form most of the time.
“Certainly wouldn’t hurt to. He does have a human form after all.” Mark said and observed the dimming sky “Let’s get back to the building, I’m starting to miss the reinpiglets.”
“You’re really enjoying yourself huh papa boar.” Noah had a stupid grin look on his face as he teased his cousin.
“I’ve always liked pets and I don’t know if it’s because they’re boars or because of mana but those boars are definitely smarter than the dog I used to have. And well, they’re adorable.”
“That they are.” After saying that, Noah cast [Enhance] on Mark and himself, eager to just lie down and sleep.
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An hour of running later, they finally arrived at the building and were greeted by the oink patrol. Mark hurriedly ran into their midst and basked in the adorable oinks and kisses that he received. Soon after, mama Emeri came and broke up the party oinking at the piglets and making them follow her into their makeshift room. The piglets dejectedly oinked at Mark as if they were sad to leave him so soon after their reunion, but, they had to obey their mama.
So, Mark looked on longingly at the retreating furry little piglets and let out a sigh. “Let’s do the nightly tally thing we’ve been doing and get to sleep… Sigh…” Mark sighed again like an old man.
“Come on, it’s not like you’re never going to see them again. Tell you what, we can do the tally in their room.”
Mark’s eyes lit up “That’s a great idea! Let’s go!”
And so they went to the boars’ room and sat on the floor, surrounded by curious piglets oinking at them. Mark seemed to be in his element as he put one piglet on his lap and another on his head.
“Sigh” Mark sighed again, but this time, in contentment.
Noah saw this and couldn’t help but smile. He picked one of the piglets up and put it on his head “Oink!” but it oinked in revolt as it shimmied its way down his head.
“Oh, Prancer doesn’t like that. He kind of likes wandering around and being free. Emeri always has to keep an eye on him every time they go out just to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.” Mark said matter-of-factly
“How do you even tell them apart?” Noah looked at the seven identical piglets. they had brown fur with brown stripes all over and frowned. “They all look identical to me.”
“I honestly don’t know, they look identical to me too but I just get this feeling when I look at them, you know?”
“I don’t, but anyway, let’s get to the tally!” Noah said excitedly as he brought out all the corpses of the orcs along with their gear. He examined the bodies riddled with holes first as he already knew the prices of the gear. The bodies on the other hand had so much of it missing that he wouldn’t be surprised if they were worth nothing.
Orc – lvl 8(Dead)
[Cannot be sold]
“I figured.” He sighed as he looked at the ten worthless bodies on the floor “Now what do we do with you?”
It was then that Emeri came over and sniffed the orcs’ bodies. She looked at him expectantly and oinked as if to tell him that she wanted the bodies.
He looked at her slightly weirded out. Although the orcs weren’t technically human, they were humanoid enough that he’d feel weird to see them being eaten right in front of them.
“Give them to the pigs, the invaders’ corpses have special effects on animals when eaten” Talal suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said
Noah and Mark’s hearts skipped a beat when Talal spoke but immediately calmed down when they recognized his voice. Some of the piglets even jumped like surprised cats.
“They are worthless to you but they might change the lives of your little pets here” Tala continued “Besides, you already saw me eat that scout from before, what’s the difference in feeding them to the literal pigs?”