A short while had passed after the mind fucking done by Rob, and the two returned to their places and acted high as hell.
The others started to regain their clarity as the beneficial effects of the potion gradually appeared, warding off their suspicions and doubts, enjoying their newfound clear mind and crystalline thoughts.
“So, we’re gonna loot the ogres, and rush to deal with the Boss Ogre,” said Rob, waving his arms and using illusions to create a general presentation of his plan. It was quite an amazing feat, especially for someone who has a mediocre talent for illusions, but with his amazing mana control, this was nothing but an easy task to do.
“Are you sure we should rush this? We have enough supplies to last us another week, you know,” Elaine said, pointing at the ring on Leo’s hand.
“Yes, that’s true, but we’re in a competition! We should at least land in the top fifty, that would be more than possible since we’re in a B Rank dungeon with a party of five. If we manage to finish it faster, we’ll get more points,” Rob explained with a smile.
“Hmm,” Elaine hummed, rubbing her cheek.
“My mana reserves are full now, so we’re more than ready. I can create barricades with my wood magic, so as long as we’re on the high ground, we can effectively control the movements of the ogres. With your rifle, we can deal with them from a distance, ensuring our safety, and if any of them manage to pass through the barricades, we can just handle them without much problem,” Melvin suggested.
“I don’t see any problems with that. I can deal with an ogre or two on my own with my speed,” said Leo, folding his arms.
“My mana is also back to full too!” Holly exclaimed.
“Fine, fine,” relented Elaine. “Let’s go with that plan of yours.”
“Good!” Rob clapped his hands, dispelling the illusion. “Let’s do this!”
…
The five walked out of the cave, looking around the periphery of the entrance for any sign of ogres. Numerous footsteps were planted on the snowy ground, but for the most part, no ogres were close as far as they could tell.
They heaved silent sighs of relief and proceeded to explore the dungeon as usual, looking for the large group of ogres they previously saw so that they could finally end this long dungeon exploration once and for all.
Rob was hovering high in the air, supported by his mana that acted as a sort of kinetic force to lift him up like a formless hand. He closed one of his eyes and looked through the magical scope of his rifle, surveying as far as the eye could see over the wide, snowy mountain range.
“There,” he said, his voice echoing in their ears. They could tell he transmitted his voice through wind magic, and while it wasn’t the hardest of spells to do, praise was given where it was due.
The others rushed over to the area Rob informed them of, while Rob flew along the sky at a far faster pace than they could walk on the ground.
“You should really teach me how to fly later,” Elaine mumbled.
“It’s easy if you just listen to my damn lessons and practice your mana control,” Rob snorted. “This is essentially just raw mana control.”
“That’s easy for you to say! I’ve only been practicing magic for around a week!” Elaine grumbled.
“And a super duper genius who’s only a bit behind in terms of talent compared to dear Holly here,” Rob taunted with a condescending stare, his figure hovering atop Elaine’s body and circling over her like an annoying fish.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you too.”
“They’re here!” Melvin alerted the two, and as soon as he did so, they heard a loud, monstrous roar echo from the distance.
A ginormous ogre rushed down a distant mountain peak, its body as large as seven meters tall, wielding a dark blue club made out of magical stones. Its eyes radiated endless hatred and rage, with its every step causing a loud rumble to burst forth and ring in their ears.
Behind the leading ogre was an army of ogres, rushing in a chaotic yet orderly manner, raising their weapons and rearing back the huge boulders they held in their hands.
Holly hurriedly cast her buffs, covering the entire party in holy light and heavily enhancing their abilities. Elaine swished her hands, warping time to their favor and hastening their perception beyond the levels of normal humans.
Melvin planted his palms on the ground and lifted them up toward the sky. On the sloping ground ahead of them, a large wall made out of wood and vines erupted and bloomed with numerous flowers, as spores and fumes flowed down the ground.
The distant ogres roared in anger, hurling the huge stones they wielded and throwing them at breakneck speeds. Winds howled as the sky was covered in dark blue circles, encompassing their view and threatening to destroy the team.
Leo growled, covering himself in bright yellow electricity, and a yellow spear formed from the palm of his hand. He gripped it tightly and took a deep breath. With his feet firmly planted on the ground, he roared and the spear tore through the sky, blitzing past the numerous boulders in the sky and onward to the ogres.
Rob busied himself. Multiple magical circles formed in front of him, far larger compared to before, and he pressed the trigger of his rifle. A singular, normal-sized bullet shot out of the rifle’s nuzzle and passed through the colorful circles.
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The single bullet shone brightly in bright white light, splitting and dividing into numerous strands, disintegrating the various boulders left in the sky, and exploding into bursts of light. Some slipped through the boulders, launching themselves directly at the Boss Ogre.
It roared angrily, waving its large club with its brute strength, smashing it against the numerous bullets of light that were directed at it, along with the spear of lightning aimed at its eye. The bullets and the spear shattered upon impact, exploding into bursts of light, but a few managed to nick past its attack and landed themselves on the monster’s skin, exploding into grander lights.
But, when the light receded, the ogre stood there, straight as a pillar of rock with barely any damage apparent on its thick skin. The only visible result they could see was that it closed its eyes, temporarily blinded by the light that appeared from the light bullets.
It roared angrily as if spewing out an unintelligible order to the ogres behind it. A few raised their arms, casting a sort of healing spell as soft green light exuded out of their open palms, converging on the giant ogre, healing its wounds and raising its already monstrous strength to another level.
Its muscles bulged, its eyes erupted with a dangerous light, its body seemingly grew by a significant bit, and its stony club released a burst of icy energy.
“Fucking hell, shamans!” Rob cursed. He flew higher into the sky, and shouted, “Cover me! Just deal with the boulders and projectiles, leave all the attacking to me!”
“Okay!” Melvin grunted, waving his arms wildly and intercepting the boulders flying through the air with grassy whips.
Leo growled, exerting more of his strength, and launched himself into the air. His hands formed into claws, and as he waved his arm, a claw-like projection jutted out in front of him, striking against the glacial spears ready to impale Rob.
Rob, on the other hand, remained calm and unperturbed by the various attacks headed straight at him. He cocked his gun and aimed at the distant shamans, and jammed more of his mana into his rifle while casting a few spells on the spot.
It seems I lacked variety when adding the spells to this thing, but the materials used for this thing were the limit of my budget. A bit ironic since I can essentially transmute any material into something else, but that’s magic for you. Rob thought, planning out the ways to improve his little gun for a later project he had in mind, a project that might be absurd now that he thought about it.
How would I even power that thing later? Only a magical nuclear reactor would theoretically power that thing for extended periods of time.
He dismissed his various thoughts and focused on the matter at hand.
With another loud bang, the single bullet split and divided into numerous projectiles aimed at the ogre shamans who were acting as the backbone of the entire army. As long as he kills them, then they would lack any means to heal themselves, and his efficiency in killing the ogre army would skyrocket.
The bullets flew past the sky littered with boulders and magical spells, past the army of ogres, and straight toward the shamans in the far back. They hastily responded to the bullets covered in flames, erecting a dome of invisible force around their bodies.
‘Fucking amateurs,’ Rob snickered. This was simply too easy for him.
Rather than landing at their shields, the bullets unexpectedly landed a lot lower, straight at the ground beneath them, and exploded with a loud boom. Dust and smoke rose to the sky, dampening their vision, while the ground beneath them crumbled and transformed into craters, dispelling their barriers.
Not wasting any time, another torrent of bullets launched at breakneck speeds, far faster than what any ogre could ever hope to block. In a single second, the bullets pierced through their heads, splattering their brains into meat paste and brain matter.
The ogres looked back and roared in anger at the death of a fallen comrade, but he simply took advantage of their blunder and shot another hail of bullets at them. He wore a sadistic smile as he watched the distant ogres burn to a crisp under the bright flames that covered the distant mountain peak.
His bullets were scarily fast, far faster than the speed of sound, and since the fastest of ogres could only hope to achieve a fraction of that speed, one can only imagine what kind of terrifying results that would bring to someone as experienced and merciless as Rob.
All it would take was for one of them to make a split-second mistake, and a bullet would be lodged deep into their heads, or they would get covered in an explosion of flames.
The Boss Ogre hurriedly rushed forward, ignoring the deaths of its comrades, and instead opted to deal with the main threat. As long as Rob was dead, it was confident it could deal with the remaining fodder with the help of his army.
“You think you can approach me?” Rob taunted, satisfying his urges to act as a sort of talkative braindead villain. “You think you can even hope to defeat me?”
Bang bang bang!
Three bullets tore through the sky, one red, one blue, one yellow. They circled one another, rotating and spiraling to form a vortex of colors.
The large ogre roared loudly, swinging its club and launching a devastating blow of icy energy, forming a large chunk of ice from the ground up to the sky. The spiral of colors collided with the ice barrier, erupting out in a flash of brilliant white light and tearing down the ice into tiny fragments.
As the fragments dispersed, its eyes landed on the distant figure hovering in the sky, wielding a strange metallic weapon that appeared alien to its pitiful knowledge. A bright ball of light gathered in front of the thing’s end, shifting and warping in an unstructured manner.
“Die,” Rob murmured with a playful smile. He casually pressed the trigger, and unlike any of his previous attacks, the beam of light gathering inside the barrel of the rifle burst forth in destructive horror. It rapidly expanded in size, forming a pillar of white light that appeared in front of the large ogre in less than a second, covering its entire silhouette in the blink of an eye.
Rob wobbled in the sky, his hands shaking as he struggled to handle the dubious amounts of kinetic energy slamming against his body in response to the beam of light formed at the end of his rifle.
This was his trump card, essentially. One of the rifle’s main abilities is its capability to gather the ambient mana in the surrounding area, or from the remaining mana left in the aftermath of previous bullets. It would slowly gather them into its storage, and if he wanted to, he could release all of that mana in one blow, forming a pillar of destructive light amplified with the various enchantments placed on the rifle itself, and its great amplifier and Rob’s skill.
The great thing was that it could store a large amount of mana with the way it was built, and that storage would only grow larger with better materials and growing skills. Not only that, the attack wouldn’t even require any of Rob’s mana since the mana came from the rifle’s mana reserves!
In the end, when the pillar of light dissipated into nothingness, they stared at the place where the Boss Ogre previously stood. In its place, nothing was left, nothing but the incredibly large hole in the ground with unknown depth.
They gasped loudly. Surprise, fear, horror, awe - it was a mixture of emotions they couldn’t even begin to describe, one directed at Rob’s great talent and one at his terrifying ability to produce a weapon of mass destruction… as a mere fifteen-year-old student.
After a short while, Rob broke them out of their trance-like state with a loud shout, “Enough being surprised, we still have an army to take care of!”
Just as he said so, the ogres in the far distance roared with newfound anger at the death of their leader, and rushed forward without any fear of death. What they want is vengeance, and only death can stop them at this point.
‘You want to die so badly? Then die!’ Rob cocked his gun, grinning with an ecstatic gaze.