“Baron Ric!” A Master Rogue fully dressed in black suppressed his voice.
“Good job, Tom. Is this group of Earthflies not moving?” Ric watched the small critters no bigger than a housecat.
“Their queen is one of those that didn’t find it necessary to move for some reason. Either unaware of the unknown threat like us or just confident that it doesn’t need to move. The other species with a strong queen in charge similarly seemed to be waiting things out. They are getting jittery though, the masses of lower levelled creatures that move in smaller groups or don’t have a similar entity like a queen of their own already evacuated their habitats.” Thomas reported.
“Any sign of the reason for the sudden explosion of movement?” A flying fire mage scared the similarly jittery Thomas when she appeared from above him.
“N--no. Greetings Grandmaster.” Thomas gave a salute of courtesy like the soldier he was.
Most of the Grandmasters showed themselves in Thomas’s cramped hiding spot.
Many of them took a step back when they saw what he was keeping an eye on.
After a short moment of silence, the huge warrior spoke up. “Any of you know that things’ level?”
One of the Grandmaster Rogues that was dressed not unlike Thomas raised his hand together with the fire mage. Thomas saw that Baron Ric reacted too, the man was clearly aware. After all, Thomas had reported that he was unable to Identify the queen Earthfly’s level but he was level 233 with Identify at level 11 so it wasn’t weird for him to be unable to Identify many of the monsters deeper into Vermin Paradise.
Even though they raised their hands, neither of them spoke up.
“Come on!” The impatient ones hurried.
“F..five hundred. But unevolved. The 3 stronger-looking ones around the queen are four-fifty.”
Gulps could be heard from many of them.
Thomas was thanking the Baron in his mind for making him keep so much distance from his target. He didn’t need to be very smart to realise that many of these Grandmasters were nowhere close to that level since they couldn’t Identify the queen either. He sneakily Identified them hoping their senses weren’t so good they could notice since it can often be seen as rude. Their overflowing essence was usually proof of their status as Grandmasters.
He saw an assortment from 310 to the highest of 367. His Identify skill was refined to check levels instead of a wider variety of classes or objects. The highest level was the Rogue that dressed like him and raised his hand. Fortunately, none of them said anything about him Identifying them but he didn’t like the looks of the situation.
What he didn’t expect were laughs of excitement.
The group of freelancers didn’t even take caution and broke out of his hiding spot, launching their attacks at the stuffed Earthfly nest.
“Tom, I have an important mission for you.”
“Yes Sir!” He straightened his back.
“Act as their guide and lead them to the others who are watching the other species' leaders. I will be backing up our guys back home, I’m quite worried to have left them without a leader at such important times.” Ric put both his hands on Thomas’s shoulders.
“Leave it to me sir Ric!” Thomas proudly said with a shaking fist.
Ric left immediately.
“Focus kiddo!”
‘W..what if they die instead, Baron Ric!!’ Thomas screamed internally as someone grabbed his collar and threw him out before his hiding spot was squashed into smithereens by one of the Earthflies he labelled as ‘royal guards’. They were very common amongst species with a queen.
He was regretting his bravado in front of his idol.
❅❅❅
Ric was moving solo now and couldn’t afford to draw the attention of anything too powerful. Luckily for him, other than the insect queens, there wasn’t much in these parts that he would consider too powerful. After he put some distance with the group, he began taking down those insects that were rushing out of Vermin Paradise and left those that didn’t escape alone.
His senses tingled as a shiver ran down his spine. He glanced back to where the outburst of overflowing essence was coming from.
“ELL!” He cursed, the true big guys within Vermin Paradise were moving towards him or rather, out of Vermin Paradise. As for the reason they were not going other directions it was because behind Vermin Paradise was Fragadal’s Sea and they didn’t like heat. There was a good chance that was where they were running from as well.
He could only hope there were no dungeon breaks from some unknown dungeon as his town was too close for comfort.
He wished the best for his scouts still out there. Afraid that Ebony and Scarlet were swallowed up by the Flood Totas and what the flood meant for his town.
Ric took a swig from one of his waterskins that he had hanging on his hip. It was his favourite alcohol.
“Puhah! That hits the spot.” The alcohol kept him calm and helped him destress.
He bit onto the mouth of his waterskin, flipped around mid jump and released 2 arrows that found its way onto his fingers and bowstring. In his spin, he readied the branches he pickled off-handedly and shot them seemingly randomly as he hadn't landed. Two huge birds dropped and landed before his feet touched the thick branch he jumped to.
The birds had a wooden stick poking out from in between their eyes, although they didn't look harmed their brains were mushed up. Their high Vitality let them spasm and attempt to stand or flap their wings to no avail, they died a couple minutes later. Ric didn’t have the time to pull his arrows out since he already vacated his previous location.
“Urh, I drank more than I wanted to.” Ric capped his waterskin tightly.
“Oh?! Lucky me, natural potential!” Ric heard the notification that those birds were actually level 340.
He had reached level 300 pretty recently and hadn’t had time to go hunting for Natural Potential.
Ric came to a gentle but sudden stop.
‘What?’
He rushed to meet the speeding figures.
❅❅❅
“Hey! You’re alright! What happened? Why did you come here?” Ric asked them.
“Mmm. We didn’t find anything left. I doubt anything escaped both our senses.” Ebony said. There might be a few that they didn’t find since the forest was so wide but he doubted those would be much of a problem. They really couldn’t find any more after they backtracked.
There was a large group of Masters that took care of those they let past so it wasn’t completely their efforts.
“What do you mean why? We’re continuing the extermination. Why are you back?” Ning Xin asked in a confused tone not too different from what he was feeling at the moment.
Ric was stunned but made a call to one of his soldiers or assistants back at the town.
“No..nothing reached yet? Not a single critter?”
“No sir, don’t worry, we’re keeping a proper lookout.”
“Are you going back?” Ebony asked as Ric ended his call.
“Haha, of course not. Extermination right?” Ric took his waterskin to drink from, Ebony could smell the alcohol.
He quickly dodged the spit from Ric’s mouth that came suddenly, Ning Xin shifted out of the way as well.
“What was that for? Did you choke?” Ebony questioned the wide mouthed Baron.
“Nothing nothing. The Flood Totas, exterminated huh?” Ric asked weird questions, he should’ve known the answer already.
“Hmm? Oh.” Ebony realised what Ric was shocked about.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Oh, yay! 208!” Ning Xin also just noticed
Ric watched the two of them excitedly high-fived a few times like a couple of flirts.
“Are you feeling okay?” Ebony asked. The speedy level-ups made them feel uncomfortable for some time. Bloated in a weird sense.
“Still good.” She replied before facing Ric, “Try to keep up.”.
The lightning mana near her belly pulsed, the wind got out of the way and propelled her.
Ebony enhanced himself further and chased like a constantly reappearing phantom.
“...You brats think you can get rid of me?” Ric burst after them.
Ebony looked ahead, the mana density had been growing as they dived deeper into Vermin Paradise.
“To the left.” Ric was beside him before he knew it.
‘He’s fast…for such a thin amount of mana enhancing himself. High Agility? Tier 3 movement skill? Speed or movement-related Fortifications?’ Ebony saw that Ric could keep up with him without getting out of breath.
He was currently using uncompressed Frostblaze Augmentation with regenerated mana but the Agility buff he got was extremely high now that his Intelligence increased while his base Constitution allowed him to withstand the strength of his mana. He could at least let his body fully fill with compressed mana without any pain or having his body break.
“Be careful, the freelancers are fighting the Earthfly Queen and her lackeys now. Apparently level 500, unevolved. With 3 royal guards at 450. Its lackeys are around 320 to 370. A lot of them. Can you two handle that?”
“The queen and royal guards, probably not.” Ebony did not expect to hear such numbers.
An evolution gap wasn’t that easy to overcome, the power difference was probably too large. They hadn’t had time to push their skill level much in the past two months or so. Their levels outgrew their skills too quickly.
‘Vermin Paradise is more dangerous than I thought.’
He shot forward when he sensed a familiar pulse.
Ning Xin used her ridiculous Core Skill.
That was a sign that there was something that required her to do so.
It didn’t take long for him to see 3 bloody warriors fighting a brown fly the size of a small cabin. It had thin brown wings of earth protecting itself from every one of the warriors’ attacks.
The short, probably Dwarven warrior blocked the pillar of earth sent at them.
[Knight Earthfly Lvl ???]
He was going to assume it was one of those royal guards or a high-level lackey; otherwise, the 3 Grandmasters shouldn’t be having such a hard time. Ning Xin was raining thrusts at it but it didn’t even react to it.
That would obviously anger her. She cranked it up with another earth-shaking pulse of her heart that caused the Grandmaster warriors' attention to break for a moment. ‘Earthshaking’ was literal as the floor cracked when her heart beat. The heat coming from her meant she didn’t hold back on her magical enhancement either.
He did the same and dipped into his compressed mana pool.
All of them didn’t talk, merely exchanging glances when the Earthfly were at a standstill, as if they were waiting before making another rash move. The Grandmasters weren’t the only ones injured, the house-sized fly was missing a leg, it stopped its bleeding with earth.
Its feelers twitched and all of them moved.
The Dwarf handled the fly’s earth magic but he wasn’t able to occupy it completely. It flapped its large wings that sent tiny particles of condensed earth at all of them.
The axe-wielding human swung hard, shouting “Gust slash!”
It wasn’t everyday that he heard people shouting skill names.
The wind managed to weaken the cloud of small earth particles that peppered onto their bodies, injuring no one. The slash of wind had a wide area of effect and blew onto the Earthfly like a splash of water but it achieved its purpose.
The sword and shield wielding human got close and personal and managed to stab into the Earthfly’s eye when the Dwarf and Ebony locked its feet down with ice and earth magic. A few arrows found their way into its other eye and even under its wings which looked softer but the arrows bounced off the body. It didn’t have eyelids but it knocked the warrior stabbing its eye while its feelers plucked the arrows out.
The warrior managed to block the casual strike from the Earthfly with his shield, letting his body redirect as much of the force as possible without much thought. He trusted his body to move in a way that receives the least damage. Most warriors who clocked in enough time in real battle did.
They continued to draw blood against the Earthfly, Ning Xin being able to barely keep up with them while he had to lower his enhancement output so that he doesn’t affect the other warriors who didn’t have that much of a resistance to cold. They complained about it even though the heat from Ning Xin was combating his cold, it made them very uncomfortable to be in between such extreme temperatures.
Since Ning Xin couldn’t afford to take a single hit, she had been cautious despite her initial outburst. He was glad she had greater control over her actions in her enhanced state.
“He’s try’na go down!” The Dwarf warned. He slammed his war axe on the ground as it rippled violently.
Ebony stepped forward to freeze the entire Earthfly to help slow it down as the Dwarf looked as if he was unable to stop the Earthfly.
It had been a feint and they all fell for it.
All of its remaining legs were rooted as its wing fluttered very quickly but they appeared as if they barely moved.
“Boy!” Someone shouted from behind him, it should be the Dwarf.
The front of the Earthfly was peppered with uncountable tiny holes that dug hundreds of metres deep, he faced the full brunt of the tiny earth projectiles.
The Grandmasters, Ning Xin and Ric were all able to get away in time but he had been right in front of the Earthfly when it decided to attack with the earth mana it gathered under its wings. The Dwarf probably sensed it too late.
The Earthfly didn’t have much intelligence for a monster at whatever level it was at. It didn’t even check for the results of its attack, removing itself from the ground to fend itself from the many slashes going after it.
Ebony was covered by a thick dust cloud, he conveniently thrust into the thinnest spot he found from his angle since the Earthfly had been forced to stay where it was. It had been surprisingly easy to dig into because the Earthfly lost a thick layer of earth mana protecting it.
Another gust of wind blew the dust cloud away to show them that he was well and dandy. The Earthfly had its neck cut halfway through.
He hadn’t been able to drive it all the way before the Earthfly had more earth mana reinforcing itself.
As if it was out of steam, the battle went smoothly and it was dead by the end of the minute.
‘Ting’ ‘You have killed [Knight Earthfly Lvl 382], enemy 170 levels above your own. Partial experience gained. Experience concentration too high to dilute completely, additional experience is gained.’
He also gained a level to reach 209 for all three of his Classes along with a couple of skill levels. It wasn’t rare but a few of his levels were gained mid-spar and once, even while he was fighting monsters. It confirmed that he didn’t need to kill anything to gain experience but the bulk of it came from kills and final hits.
Ebony was assaulted by a pair of burning gloved hands touching his body and robe to check for injuries. The glowing pair of softened eyes shot up to meet his own. He patted her head.
“I’m okay. That wasn’t enough to hurt me.”
She pinched his side and he let out an ‘ow’ because he really felt it.
“You’re a tough cookie!”
“As interested as I am in knowing how you survived that, we need to back the others up. We took almost 3 whole minutes for this one.”
“How many more are there?” Ebony asked.
“The queen and her guards are being held by some impressive guy together with our leader and some fire mage chick. This guy was the toughest of the group, the rest are closer to 330. We took down a couple hundred in the initial clash but there should be a couple thousand more. It's a small nest, insect types considered.” The sword and shield wielder looked over his weapon to check for chips.
They didn’t need any guide since they could hear the clash of steel and flesh. Together with some loud spells.
The small group didn’t dally or collect any monster parts, they left to reinforce the others. Ebony finally saw the same group of people that passed them earlier. He counted the same number, minus three. He didn’t see any monster that looked like it would be a queen or royal guard either. The fight was really messy but he liked what he saw.
Not all of them were acquainted with each other but they didn’t complain or have any infighting, helping to block an attack for someone from a different party or a solo freelancer or giving support whenever they could.
All of them knew they needed as many hands alive on deck if they wanted to increase their chances of getting out of this alive. A moment of carelessness was enough for one of them to lose their lives and they might fall like dominoes if the balance was broken.
To be fair, there wasn’t much of a balance. People were doing what they do pretty well, exterminating pests.
He didn’t see many interesting skills but all of them were solid fighters.
He couldn’t help but notice Ric though, he was a close-ranged archer that focused on speed and accuracy rather than range and power. Ric would get close and personal flitting in between Earthflies while giving each of those that he passed a couple of arrows in their joints or eyes. Most of their vitals were protected pretty well.
The nobleman gave support that allowed the Grandmaster to finish off the Earthflies in the next attack or two.
'The size difference of these flies is big...' Ebony notice the cat-sized monsters and mentally compared with the previous cabin-sized one.
“Deserters!” A feminine voice yelled.
Some of the Earthflies appeared to have decided to escape rather than fight to the death.
Ebony and Ning Xin moved at the same time. Neither of them liked to fight in a group that was susceptible to heat and cold. Even if they could withstand extreme temperatures, it would ultimately hinder the others in some way. Eating into their stamina or mana was a likely outcome, depending on how they protected themselves against harsh conditions.
“Masters?”
“Leave them be. Xeng.”
“Oooo!”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“I’ve been to Xienor, there aren’t many people left. Apparently, they're only in Xienor as some sort of holiday. No one really stays there anymore.”
“No wonder we haven’t heard any news about them for some time.”
“Ell! What was that?”
“Their overflowing essence.” Ric cut into their conversation. He was familiar with ridiculous overflow.
The feelers of the Earthflies all shook violently in reaction.
“They got agitated.”
“Go!”
Ebony and Ning Xin took the momentary lapse of attention to decapitate a few Earthflies each.
They were having an easier time with the couple dozen of Earthflies compared to one of the dungeons’ level 250 guardians. It was unknown if it was due to the inherent weakness of insect types, their weak resistance to extreme temperatures or that the dungeon guardian they fought was tougher than the average beast.