Chapter 34: Siege
Alois was extremely annoyed as he swung his [Flexible Vine], a type of saber with an enchantment that let him temporarily extend the blade. The extra length made it easier for him to reach the flying enemies that came to attack him. They weren’t very strong, which was the only good thing about the second dungeon descent. They were between Lv.10 and Lv.15, weak enough to not pose a challenge to the weakened Alois.
The issue was his endurance.
It hadn’t even been five minutes since the second dungeon had broken. In the few minutes it took all the flying monsters to arrive, Alois had Rhea bring him [Flexible Vine] from his display cabinet, and everyone else hid inside. He had also let out three long, slow howls, warning of danger. He then followed it with a series of shorter howls to indicate the direction of the new danger. Most of the wolfkin that had been left behind were watching the dungeon break their leader was dealing with, so everyone was outside to hear his cry.
Those who could fight were readying themselves - those who couldn’t fight started barricading themselves in the dens in the mountain. The chief had taken everyone Lv.30 and above to fight the dungeon break. It was a common practice to strengthen members of the community. However, that meant the most impactful portion of their fighting force was gone. With that portion gone, it only left wolfkin fighters who were ‘evenly’ matched with the monsters. Even 10 levels above these monsters would still be a difficult matchup for most wolfkins.
The issue was hitting said monsters, flying enemies are a bane of melee [Classes].
Alois had high enough stats that he could stand still and let himself be hit without taking damage. The issue was his low endurance, which meant that even this short five-minute period - a period when he hadn’t been fighting the full time - had exhausted almost all of his strength. He was struggling to stand.
He stood there, near the edge of the cliff by his den, and tried to catch his breath while ignoring the monsters that attempted to hurt him. They had long destroyed the railing with their most common method of attack, a coordinated charge. They had high INT and high WIS, so they worked well together, and they were using a form of persistent wind magic to move around and attack. They had almost comically straightforward attacks for how intelligent they should be.
The other thing to note about the monsters - which took the form of pink and fleshy birds with extremely robust beaks - was that their STR, CON, and VIT were all low, but their AGI was high, meaning that even a glancing blow would be enough for Alois to finish them. If only his gods accursed stamina wasn’t an issue!
“I’ll give you a break, go sit down.” Said a familiar young voice. A familiar young voice that belonged to a person who didn’t have a [Class]!
He whirled to roar at Crimson to get back inside, but his warning came too late as one of the monsters charged at the boy. Unlike the assault on Alois, it had deemed coordination unnecessary to kill the weak kid.
Crimson, who was holding a large Claymore, started to get blown back by the wind magic the monster was casting. Alois had been hit by the same spell many times, and it was used to open up the target to a lethal blow. Unlike Crimson, he had been completely unaffected by those spells - he had plenty of passive [Skills] that increased his stability - and even if it had worked, a lethal blow to Crimson would have felt like a gentle touch to Alois.
Horror changing to confusion, Alois watched as Crimson suddenly came to a stop. It was like the wind had completely stopped buffeting him, and he stooped into a defensive stance and caught the beak of the incoming monster on his sword. The monster had enough force to push him back a few feet, but his stance didn’t completely break, and he managed to completely kill the momentum of the monster’s charge.
Crimson pushed the monster away, just far enough to get a clean swing at it, and made a mighty swing that slammed the monster into the ground. The monster didn’t take much damage and immediately started to get up. Crimson attempted to attack it again, but another monster charged at him from the side, forcing his attention to switch, and he managed to block the second charge.
It was a dance right on the edge of death. These monsters did have low STR, so even a few hits probably wouldn’t kill Crimson, but that was only because the wind magic had stopped working on him. They used it to increase the damage they could do normally.
Alois could only guess that he had some kind of [Magic Resistance Skill].
Reluctantly, he accepted Crimson’s invitation and walked over to the Den, ignoring the monsters that lunged at his back and attempted to peck his eyes out. He then leaned on the wall by the entrance to watch Crimson and recover.
—————
It was a dumb thing he did. He didn’t have a [Class], he didn’t have any combat [Skills], and all he had to do was watch Alois slowly wear down the wave of enemies. They couldn’t hurt the wolfkin, but he could kill them instantly. It was a once-sided, but slow, fight.
Crimson didn’t feel like his decision was that dumb though. He’d been watching Alois fight the monsters and analyzed their attack patterns and their stats as best he could. He could tell that they were objectively stronger than he was, but his guess put them at Lv.5, which was a doable difference. He could fight combat [Classes] humans up to 10 Levels above him under the right circumstances - he specialized in single combat against a stronger foe after all his training with Mars, so while he would lose nine out of ten times in a fight against another, he still had a chance.
Under that consideration, these monsters had pretty straightforward attack patterns, they were only charging at Alois, so as long as Crimson could see the attack, he could dodge it easily. If it was only a 5-level difference, Crimson was willing to bet that he could fight them.
So he took that bet.
The moment he was attacked, he felt a spell being cast that hit him, wind magic, and as it started to push him back he retaliated with his own mana. The [Affinity] opposed to [Wind] was [Earth], but the only [Earth] spell that Crimson knew was [Erosion], which wouldn’t be helpful in this situation. Irritated, he just reached out with his mana and started using it to slash at the spell around him, causing it to break down immediately.
A little surprised by how effective his counter was, he hadn’t the time to dodge the monster’s attack and opted to block it instead. After hitting it against the ground, he was frustrated to note that he’d done barely any damage. Memories of a year ago, working on the farm came to mind. When he had gone to hunt slimes, it had taken too many jabs of a spear to kill one, while the hammer worked instantly. The sensation he felt while hitting this bird monster was similar to the one he’d felt while stabbing that slime: like his attack was doing something, but barely anything.
He attempted to pressure the monster to keep it on the ground, since these things worked together he considered the possibility he could use his fight with it to dissuade the others, but that plan was abruptly stopped as he was forced to block another monster that charged in on his left, allowing the first to get away.
He wouldn’t be able to focus one down long enough to kill it, but he could stand his ground and pretend like he was actually doing something to help Alois. For as little as it was worth, it would at least be good training for him.
There was just one big issue, one he only noticed as he blocked the third enemy: his sword’s durability. It was a Lv.3 claymore, and these things were hitting it pretty hard, so its original durability of 55 had decreased to 48. After blocking just three blows, it had fallen by 7 points. Once it hit 20, he would be in a lot of trouble. The 35% mark was dangerous for a weapon.
However, he had been hit 3 times, yet it had only fallen by 7, based on that information, not all blows were taken equally, meaning he could compensate with technique!
He easily dodged the next charge - just to ensure that he could charge them if necessary - and set up to block the next one. This time, he didn’t firmly set his stance, he took the bird’s blow at a bit of an angle and allowed himself to slide a bit. Glancing, the durability was 47 - better!
But still not good enough.
He had used every bit of experience he had in deflecting blows to try and prevent the durability dropping with that block, so there was still something he was missing.
Opting to think about it for a moment over blindly trying again, he spent a bit of time just dodging the charges. The ones that came from behind him were the biggest issue, but it was also extremely hard for the monsters to come at him from that direction because of the mountain. Only one had managed it thus far, and it had been moving slowly enough that even after catching him by surprise, he’d still been able to get away easily. He didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, but he did have his mana, and these things were constantly trying to use wind magic on him, so they were constantly signaling their location to him.
It was obvious enough that he might have a chance against them even if he were blindfolded.
Because of that awareness, his favorite moment was when two of them charged him at once. When they did that, he could easily dodge in such a way as to cause them to run into each other. It was the thing that had dealt the most damage thus far.
Theoretically, if he knew any attack spells, his most effective form of damage would be magic. Whatever their WIS was, he was willing to bet that the difference between it and his INT was bigger than the difference between his STR and their CON. None of the spells he knew were combat-oriented, and he hadn’t developed any kind of attack spells.
There was one other complication that made that impossible, and it was the thing keeping him alive: the fact that he was using his mana to disrupt their spells. There would come a day when he would be able to do multiple things in battle with his mana, but that wasn’t today. So he couldn’t use magic, and he couldn’t kill any of the monsters attacking him. All that meant was that he was wasting time and energy since Alois didn’t really need his help.
The eyes burning into the back of his head refused to let him forget that fact.
Crimson ended up fighting for a while. How long? He couldn’t tell, but eventually, Alois called out, “Switch out, I’ll take over for a bit!”
He immediately ducked out, allowing the first three-pronged attack to tremendously crash into each other, tangling one another up. He had another moment before he was attacked again, so he carefully kicked the group to send them flying off the cliff. They were still tangled, so they hit the ground with a sickening thump. They were still alive, from what he could see from a glance while retreating, but they wouldn’t be a problem anymore.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Well, there was at least one way to deal effective damage. It was just extremely hard to reproduce.
Crimson passed by Alois who caught the enemy’s attention the second he stepped back out for the fight, allowing him to retreat without being harassed. Instead of hiding in the den, he opted to take Alois’ spot next to it and watch the older wolfkin to see if there was anything he could learn by watching. He’d been watching a bit earlier, but it hadn’t been a close watch.
Keeping his mana prepared around him to act as a warning signal, he decided to check his [Blessing], and was surprised by the amount of alerts he saw.
—————
-Skill Level Up!
-Calculating…
-Note: User has not updated [Blessing] in some time. More frequent updates are encouraged.
-Skill: [Sword Mastery] 64/100 —> 75/100
-Skill: [Intermediate Linguist] 7/10 —> 8/10
-Skill: [Secret Sense] 3/10 —> 4/10
-Skill: [Advanced Calligraphy] 9/10 —> 10/10 (MAX)
-Awarded 1AGI, 2 CON, 1 VIT, 1 INT, 1 WIS, 3 WIL, and 1 PER for Skill [Advanced Calligraphy] (MAX)
-Skill: [Eyes of Will] 5/10 —> 6/10
-Skill Set: [System Instincts: Skill Peak] 5/10 —> 6/10
-Note: Rewards have been reduced by Admin. The difference will be stored as data.
-Skill: [Sword Kinship] 4/10 —> 6/10
-Calculating…
-Trained Stats!
-Stat: 3 STR
-Stat: 2 AGI
-Stat: 4 CON
-Stat: 4 VIT
-Stat: 1 WIL
-Stat: 2 PER
-Warning: Stat Training Caps have been lowered by Admin by the quantity of <7>
-Admin Message: Get a Class and I’ll restore the amount. We’re running into issues with you on the back end, and I need to mitigate them where I can.
-Trained Stats: 4/5 STR, 3/5 AGI, 5/5 CON, 5/5 VIT, 3/5 INT, 5/5 WIS, 0/5 CHA, 4/5 WIL, 3/5 PER
-Quest Progress!
-Beginning of a Legend
-Requirements:
- Reach Lv. 100 of [Sword Mastery]
- 75/100
- Defeat a powerful foe
- 0/10
- Steal a sword style from an opponent during battle
- 0/1 (In Progress: 3%)
- Propagate a sword style
- 150/5 (Completed)
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
-Reward: Ul Bryn
-Note: Requirements for the Quest:
-Steps Upon the Ground
-Requirements:
-Withstand blows from an opponent with 30 STR or more without falling.
-0/50
- Withstand blows from an opponent with 35 STR or more without falling.
-6/25
-Utilize 4 different types of footwork effectively
-0/25
-Recover from a broken stance
-60/100
-Utilize footwork to dodge blows from an opponent with (at minimum, and subject to change) 25 STR 25 AGI
- 0/10
-Utilize footwork to dodge blows from an opponent with (at minimum, and subject to change) 35 STR 35 AGI
- 6/5 (Completed)
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
-Reward: [Footwork]
-Developing Magic
- Requirements:
- Achieve 50 INT
- 45/50
- Achieve 55 WIS
- 45/55
- Modify 5 Spells
- 1/5
- Modify [Healing Orb] to allow it to interact with a [Blessing]
- 0/1
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
-Reward: [Skill: Magic Adaption]
-Mana NERD!
- Requirements:
- Modify 10 Spells
- 1/10
Time Limit: N
Failure Condition: N
-Reward: [Title: Mana Programmer]
-Applying changes…
-Applied
—————
Crimson sat, stunned to see a bunch of numbers shoot up at once. He quickly navigated to his [Stats] page.
—————
Name: Crimson
Race: Half (High Human, ???) -Age: 16
Affiliation: [Adventurer’s Guild: Brass]
Active Title: [ Linguist ] [Rean] [Blessings of Trans’Du’Niir] [Rean]
Titles: Lucky, Linguist, Mentor, Holy Interpreter
Health (HP): 100/100 Regen/s: 2.1
Magic (MP): 410/450 Regen/s: 5.0
Condition: Minor Fatigue
-Class: [Empty]
-Sub-Class: [Locked]
-Sub-Class: [Locked]
Status:
Strength (STR): 21 Agility (AGI): 21
Constitution (CON): 21 Vitality (VIT): 25
Intelligence (INT): 45 Wisdom (WIS): 50
Charisma (CHA): 7 Willpower (WIL): 26
Perception (PER): 48 Luck (LUC): 90
Affinities
Elemental
Fire: 5 Water: 5
Earth: 5 Wind: 5
Lightning: 5 Metal: 7
Magma: 5 Ice: 5
Dynamic
Holy: 5 Profane: 5
Purity: 6 Corruption: 5
Life: 5 Death: 5
Mana: 9 (10) Void: 2
Skills
Bloodline:
>[Eyes of Change: [Eyes of Will] 6/10] 1/10, [???] 0/0
Class:
>None
Sets:
>[System Instincts: [Skill Peak] 5/10 [Locked], [Locked], [Locked]] 1/10
General:
>[Sword Mastery] 75/100, [Sophisticated Mana Influence] 10/10, [Sophisticated Mana Sense] 10/10, [Intermediate Linguist] 8/10, [Secret Sense] 4/10, [Advanced Calligraphy] 10/10, [Sword Kinship] 4/10
—————
It was an impressive list and he didn’t have the time to process it all right now, but there was one, very little, yet very important thing that was in the bevy of changes that stood out to him. He noticed that there was now progress listed on the ‘Steal a Sword style from an opponent during battle’ from the [Quest: Beginning of a Legend].
Assuming that 3% came from this battle, that would mean that because he and Alois were opposing each other, they were considered ‘opponents.’ Right before he’d decided to join Alois, he’d been watching the wolfkin’s flowing fighting style and made a few mental notes about what would be useful to him. Was that enough to be considered ‘stealing?’
Well, time to test it.
Crimson began to genuinely study Alois’ fighting style. It was one that used the nature of the curved blade of a saber to its advantage. Gently transitioning between attack and defense, it was a style that relied primarily on deflection to open up the opponent, followed by a lethal counterattack. It was extremely precise, and the stance was relatively weak compared to other styles Crimson knew, meaning that it didn’t choose to hunker down in one place but flow from step to step using the force of the foes to move to the openings its deflections created.
Alois was clearly extremely skilled, Crimson guessed that his [Sword Mastery] was higher, and it was a style that went from a subject of curiosity to a subject of desire for Crimson. It was a great style to learn, and he started internalizing what he could.
He didn’t let a single detail escape him as he watched Alois fight, and as the five minutes that Alois could fight were approaching the end, Crimson started approaching him to get a closer look. The monsters were still focused on Alois - probably an agro skill of some kind - allowing him to inspect a few details he’d missed from his prior spot.
His current sword wasn’t designed for a fighting style like this, but Crimson had a lot of experience in adapting sword styles, so he could make it into something at least usable with his Claymore on short notice. The biggest problem was the extra length of the blade Crimson had. Alois used his long arms to make up for the decreased reach of the saber, which Crimson had grabbed a Claymore because it would add to his reach. That subtle distinction would interfere more than the weight difference, as Crimson was strong enough to easily wield the Claymore one-handed.
Crimson would have to have a lower stance, and he’d need to keep the handle closer to his chest to have the leverage he’d need to mimic some of the moves, but he could do it.
“Alois, swap out!” He shouted.
Stepping into the storm of enemies, he resumed his dance of dodging and blocking. Alois’ style held the answer he had been looking for earlier. He could now block the enemies without losing any durability in his Claymore. It took a lot of focus, but he could do it. Now, he was losing 1 durability point about every 3 hits as opposed to 3 every hit.
Behind him, he heard a deep throaty laugh, and the phrase, “You sneaky little thief” was barely heard from Alois. He’d recognized the style, the minor changes not hampering his recognition in the slightest.
The day stretched long as Crimson and Alois continued to alternate. Crimson eventually managed to be left alone long enough to kill one of the monsters on his own, which made him very happy. At least he wasn’t completely dead weight. He got one of them!
…it was only one though.
It was about that time that the mass of monsters had decreased enough for him to look down the mountain to check on other people. There were cells like Alois and him fighting at different points down the switchbacks. Their killing pace was faster than Crimson’s, but slower than Alois's - during the brief periods he was active - which meant that part of the reason things had slowed down was their contribution.
Calling it a ‘flock’ of flying monsters was too much of an understatement, these kinds of numbers would be better off competing with an insect swarm. There had probably been in the neighborhood of a thousand of these things. Weirdly, it was almost better that they flew since it meant that only a couple at a time could attack without interfering with each other. It created a situation almost like a choke point that allowed for a long series of one-on-one or two-on-one fights. If they had been goblins then wave tactics would’ve overwhelmed everyone but Alois.
Crimson was extremely grateful for the breather. While he had been switching off with Alois, which extended the amount of time he could fight, Alois would rest anywhere from half an hour to an hour, fight for five minutes, and leave Crimson to fight on his own during the rest of it.
The only good thing about Crimson fighting was the fact that he kept the monsters who were focused on him from going to attack someone else. He was a minor distraction, but it was something.
The most interesting thing occurred after Alois had noticed that Crimson was trying to steal his fighting style. He had started exaggerating some moves a bit, slowing down others to be more clearly seen, and he’d started using more of the style than he needed for the level of enemies he was fighting. Crimson soaked it all up like a sponge, so they started to reach a point where Alois would verbally instruct him. One of the things he’d been told in the one time they’d both fought together was the philosophy of the style and its name.
The name was [Virrak Tau], translated from Kiiwolf, it meant roughly to ‘die at the hands of a pack [of wolves].’ The idea was to combine attack, defense, and movement into a single action to simulate the feeling of a many-against-one fight. It was hands down the best, most complex style Crimson had learned thus far, and fighting with it all day had it’s own, unbelievable rewards:
—————
-Skill Level Up!
-Skill: [Sword Mastery] 75/100 —> 90/100
—————
Progress like that hadn’t been possible since he first got the [Skill]. Just ten more levels in the [Skill], and he would finally reach the minimum condition he was willing to accept to get his [Class].
Even after things slowed down, Crimson didn’t stop fighting. He started to take advantage of the new pace to try and kill more of the flying monsters. The gaps were big enough that he could let up on the magic countermeasures to try using magic against the bird-like flying monsters. They were quite large, like a big dog, so he didn’t consider pinning them with ice or burning them with his [Ignite] spell. Instead, he used an old move that he’d used on a stronger opponent once before: he filled their lungs with water and froze it in place to force them to suffocate. It was quite effective, but they still died too slowly, so he had to wail at them with his sword while dodging other attacks. He managed to kill fifteen or so this way, which is how he managed to fulfill one of the requirements for [Beginning of a Legend]. When he looked at his [Blessing] to check its progress, it looked like this:
—————
-Quest Progress!
-Beginning of a Legend
-Requirements:
- Reach Lv. 100 of [Sword Mastery]
- 90/100
- Defeat a powerful foe
- 15/10 (Completed)
- Steal a sword style from an opponent during battle
- 1/1 (Completed: 100%)
- Propagate a sword style
- 150/5 (Completed)
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
—————
The biggest chunk of progress could be seen in his other [Quest].
—————
-Steps Upon the Ground
-Requirements:
- Withstand blows from an opponent with 35 STR or more without falling.
-95/25 (Completed)
-Utilize 4 different types of footwork effectively
-26/25 (Completed)
-Recover from a broken stance
-300/100 (Completed)
-Utilize footwork to dodge blows from an opponent with (at minimum, and subject to change) 35 STR 35 AGI
- 150/5 (Completed)
-Time Limit: N
-Failure Condition: N
-Reward: [Footwork]
-Quest Completion!
-Skill awarded: [Footwork]
—————
What a happy little surprise. Though he tried to act cool, Alois had started laughing when he saw Crimson celebrating over the new [Skill].
The tide of enemies had been abated, and while a few strays were flying around, it could be said the fight was over. The biggest loss of the day was his Claymore. It had reached 20% of its durability and would be extremely difficult to repair. A Lv.1 [Repair] skill from a blacksmith would result in a 50% total durability reduction, and while he could find someone with a better version of the [Skill], it would probably cost more than the sword was worth. He decided to leave it to languish in his [Inventory] as he didn’t want to break it or get rid of it.
Looking out toward the giant dungeon, he saw that they were all dead, so he glanced down and saw that the Chief had just returned. A wave of arrows from a few of the archers in her squad got rid of the few that were left. Following that, Crimson decided to go to bed. Forget the shower, he couldn’t lift his arms after the adrenaline ran out.