During the first wave of the third day, Hera already felt the difference in the monsters' strength. According to the previous team, the creatures seemed to be in their normal state. Yet, they still were weaker than what Hera was expecting. She didn't fight the frogs since she was level 3 and her skills and gear were stronger now. That led to a misconception from Hera. She expected to have the same trouble as she had at the start of her journey. In reality, her experience and abilities are showing her worth. What was before a serious threat was now is just a fair fight. Especially for someone who became used to fighting against creatures stronger than herself. To Hera, they seemed like just weak enemies.
During their first break, Hera tried once more to activate the mana reinforcement with poison mana, using the poison mana crystal. With a couple of tries, she managed to activate the spell.
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Spell acquired
Mana Reinforcement - Poison
Rank: Beginner
By coating an item with mana, you can increase its properties. Controlling the mana allows you to focus on the increase of the desired property.
The poison mana can seep into the target, damaging it from the inside.
The mana can corrode the area where it hit if it's unable to seep into the target, reducing the target's defense.
The size of the object can affect the cost.
Base offensive increase: 7%
Base defensive increase: 17%
Base corrosion: 5%
These values double if the target is weak against poison.
Base mana cost: 100 mana per second
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"What?" Hera gasped while reading about the spell. The mana cost was too high. She could only keep the spell up for 4 seconds with her mana. Hera tried to use the poison mana from the mana crystal, and the cost was reduced to 50 mana per second. It was much more cost effective but still too pricy to cast. If she could use her own mana, it would be even better, since to charge the crystal, she had to spend 50% more mana than it could store.
On the third wave, a glow covered Alex after she killed a giant orange newt. It was a well known glow, showing that she had just leveled up. Now Blue was the one with the lowest level in the team. The controller kept grumbling about how it wasn't fair, but that didn't stop her from fighting. Now she had one more reason to push even harder.
During the fourth wave, half of what they needed to defend against, Hera saw a pangolin quickly running towards the entrance. She aimed a few poison needles at it, but the monster dodged the projectiles. Burton was helping the vanguard, and Hera was the only one not engaged with anything. Still, it was just a pangolin. For someone who defeated the Carbuncle, it didn't look like a threat. She blocked its advance by stepping in front of it and pushed it back, swinging her handaxe at its face. The pangolin jumped back, evading the attack, and tried to pass by her once more. She grabbed its tail and spun around, sending the creature back.
With a growl, the pangolin tried to headbutt her but missed as Hera sidestepped. She took a couple of swings at its back, but the scales were too strong to break with her handaxe. Hera activated the Mana Reinforcement and struck again, creating a large gash on the creature's armor. The attack wasn't enough to be deadly or even pierce the scales completely, but it was enough to make it angry. The pangolin jumped away and started to shake. Scales fell from its body and began to rotate around it, creating what looked like a moveable barrier.
Hera tried to attack once more, but the rotating scales blocked her advances. Getting closer, she noticed that the armor around the pangolin wasn't missing a single piece, and the barrier was almost translucent. The barrier seemed to have a life of its own every time Hera moved towards the monster. It would shift to block her attacks.
"Hera, are you ok?" Runir asked from the back.
"I'm fine. This one is just annoying," she replied.
"Hang on. I'll help you," Alex shouted from the other side of the road.
"No need. I got this," Hera replied without taking her eyes out of the pangolin.
She sent a poison needle towards it, and as the monster dodged to the side, Hera aimed a slash at its legs. The attack created a large cut on the beast. As a reply, the scales flew towards her, hitting part of her armor and making a cut on her face.
"Tsk," Hera clicked her tongue. The scales were already annoying when they were just a defense measure, but they could attack too? She had to kill this monster quickly.
To the side, Thomas watched the fight. Blue and Kenny were able to hold down the entrance on their own against the small number of monsters that came. He saw Alex, who finished her fight, move towards Hera, but stopped her.
"This seems like a foe she wants to fight by herself. We should honor their duel," he said to the assassin.
Alex looked at Hera, and it was true. It took only a look at her face to see how focused she was. There was also a smile on her face, "Fine, but I'm staying put. The second she seems in danger, I'm jumping in."
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"Very well. I leave her in your capable hands. Oh, brave soldier. Fear not, for no beast shall disturb their bout," Tom said as he joined Blue at the front.
Alex kept watching. She wanted to understand why that creature had triggered such a reaction from her friend.
Hera moved to the side, trying to hit the pangolin flank once more. Yet, the floating scales were in the way. How do those things move? Could it be mana, or was it something else? She triggered her Affinity Sight in hopes of getting a glimpse of what was actually going on. Her vision didn't change, and nothing was connecting the scales with the body. Or maybe it was too far for her to see. Hera rushed at the monster, trying to get as close as possible from the floating scales.
The monster didn't let the opportunity pass and tried to hit Hera with its tail. She blocked it with her skirt and leg as the repulsion blast was triggered. The scales moved to attack once more, getting in a spear-like formation as they moved to slash her. Hera raised her handaxe to block, but the impact made part of the scales to detach themselves and keep going. The five projectiles that hit her chest were heavy, almost like being hit point-blank by a paintball. Hera had to take a moment to catch her breath as the pangolin went forward to headbutt her.
Hera failed to see the attack coming and fell backward with the impact. As she hit the ground, the creature kept running past her. Alex jumped to the fight when Hera got hit by the scales and was already on top of the pangolin as it tried to reach the city. The scales proved to be an issue even for her, and the two fell to the side, tumbling on the ground before Alex managed to toss it back towards Hera.
The pangolin felt cornered. One human was already a problem, but now there were two. It shook its body, making even more scales fall, this time showing large gaps on its plate. Alex attacked with her cutting wind, while Hera grabbed her chakram and tossed under it. When the creature passed by her head, she saw small strands of mana connecting the scales with the body. If her idea was right, she could do the same with her chakram. When she threw her weapon, Hera kept Yarnball's thread on her hand, trying to cover it with mana. As the chakram got under the pangolin, Hera tried to pull back the mana, hoping that the motion would be enough to send her blade up. The chakram hit the creature's belly and bounced off. The attack was far from being strong enough to cut the beast's hide, but it was enough to give an opening for Alex, who stabbed the monster's jaw, killing it at once.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
"I'm great!" Hera replied with a huge smile. It worked. Now she could control her chakram using her mana! She pulled her weapon back and threw it to the other side, away from the fight, doing the same thing she had done before as she pulled the mana towards her to make her chakram go up.
There was a moment where Hera just kept staring at the chakram on the ground with a large smile. But as the seconds went by, her face turned into a frown. Why was it not working?
"Did you hit your head or something? Or is there a monster over there?" Alex asked.
"No... I was just... trying to move the chakram," Hera said.
"But you are not touching it," Alex replied. Hera had even let go of the thread.
"I mean, with my mana."
"Either way, we don't have time for that right now. The monsters are coming," Alex pointed to the treeline that was illuminated by the floodlights. There were a set of four newts coming towards them.
"Right, sorry I got caught up in this," Hera replied as she turned around and threw her poison needles.
"It's okay. I got you," Alex winked at Hera and prepared her wind cutter.
As they focused on the attack, the rest of the shift went by quickly. To Hera, that was a good thing. She wanted to practice moving the chakram with her mana. It was such a simple concept, and she was amazed by how she didn't think of it before. Moving back to the guild, the entire vanguard went straight to the infirmary. They all got hit a few times, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
Hera had some large purple bruises on her chest and arm, the places where the scales hit her. There was also a cut on her face and several smaller bruises covering her body. Kenny scolded her when she had to stay for a long time to get treated. She was too reckless during the fights. If it weren't for the armor, she would be in a much worse shape. According to him, Hera got greedy several times, being hit by attacks that she could have avoided.
She listened to the complaints in silence. Kenny was right. In hindsight, many of her fights today were unnecessarily taxing. She wasn't being smart and kept rushing towards the monsters as they crossed the traps. Her armor made her rash. Not feeling the impact as much impaired her judgment. Just because she had a strong protection, it didn't mean that she could stop caring about being hit. Her armor should be the last line of defense, not the first one.
Since they rushed to the infirmary, the team was able to get only a single of the training rooms to sleep. The men would need to sleep in tents. The situation still felt weird to Hera. They had specific times to sleep and had to wait for the previous group to leave the dormitories before going there. To get a room they had to talk to one of the clerks and they would see which room was available. Considering that every team had a different number of people, Hera imagined that assigning rooms for all the teams could be a lot of work, and considering that there were a lot of things to do, the staff didn’t have time to make those arrangements. Still, they had 4 hours before 'bedtime' and then another 4 hours to get ready for their next shift.
It was the third day, but spirits were still high. No one seemed worried about the waves or the fighting. In total, only seven people were out of commission from all teams and shifts, and they were either new recruits or people who were not used to fight. They were also getting a significant amount of money from the materials. The second day netted each member of the team 1 100 gold, and the third day 1 300. It was over 1 000 gold a day. Sure, it was the same as the 1 000 she would get if she were hunting frogs and selling them to Mond. But here, she could train her skills, increase her combat experience, and work in a team instead of alone.
Hera left the shower and started to look for Helena. She wanted to talk about the new idea she had. There was a commotion coming from the main hall. People were speaking loudly while others shushed them. The large screens in the lobby all had the same image, and the audio was transmitted through the speaker system. A tall, muscular blonde woman was in front of a podium with the symbol of the guild.
"I will keep this brief. After the assault on the wall, we faced a threat like no other, and we were not ready for it. I'm not going to talk about what I could or should have done. The loss we suffered by the wendigos was my fault. Because of that, I'm stepping down as chairperson of the guild."
Leliana took a step to the side and kept talking while leaving a space in front of the podium, and spoke in a bland tone, "Please welcome our next leader and the man who will bring the guild to the future, Romeo Ballester."