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Seraphiel stepped to the side to avoid the clumsy yet ferocious strike made with a crude melee weapon and cleaved the raging creature in two with her glaive made of light. The remains of the green-skinned brute joined the other similar corpses surrounding her. She gracefully danced between targets, killing them with relative ease, or just making sure to deter them from striking at her allies. Occasionally psionically created lightning struck down from the dark clouds above, seemingly at random but always targeting one of the greenskins about to attack her allies.
“Any time now Theliel!” A Khenra Knight-track student with a number two on his armor shouted over his shoulder. He followed the shout up with a shield slam into the face of another Ork. The canine warrior wielded a curved sword their people were known for with considerable skill.
The Orks had not changed since her time visiting their universe as the first destination of her exile. And why would they? The Orks were very simple as a species. There was one thing that made them happy. They loved fighting, and fighting was plentiful in this universe. Their species thrived in the combat-focused surroundings of this universe, and they were one of the most prolific invasive species around. Helped that you never really ran out of them, as they procreated by spreading spores, and a new horde might sprout up even centuries later.
You wouldn’t think of it when you first saw them, but the Orks were a mono-gendered race of fungi-humanoids, and that was perhaps the most logical thing about them. They made no sense as a species, which was kind of their defining trait. They even had a collective psychic power where if they believed in something hard enough, the belief came true. That’s how most of their weapons and gear worked, as mechanics and engineers they were not. In other words, they were a plentiful and perfect source of experience. When they weren’t overwhelming you with sheer numbers.
“I’m going as fast as I can! Opening a portal in the middle of hostile territory isn’t something you wanna botch!” The voice of their Elven support mage came from the makeshift cave they were protecting.
"Just take your time and do it right," Seraphiel called out with a relaxed voice. "I'd rather you take a bit longer than have to re-do the whole thing because you made a mistake." She emphasized her words by sending a wave of psionic lightming through the enemies in front of her, downing a dozen of the brutes.
“Speak for yourself. The rest of us have a bit more trouble.” The Khenra knight complained, and not entirely without reason, just as a Fireball launched by their Mage-track member took out several of the Orks pressuring him.
“I hate to admit it, but Mun-Tep has a point.” The Draenei mage agreed. “I’m starting to run a bit low on mana.”
“I told you to just ask if you need me to take pressure off you two.” Seraphiel pointed out as several more bolts of lightning lashed down, lessening the number of Orks on the sides the mage and knight were protecting.
“You know the two of them are too proud to do that.” The last member of their team, the Asari support healer pointed out while firing a gun loaded with bullets created by some of the 2nd-class crafters at the Orks. Normal bullets lost effectiveness quite quickly as the target’s Vitality increased. Luckily her services as a healer weren’t needed, so she was spending more of her time firing the gun than casting spells, thankfully.
“That’s not really my fault, now is it?” Seraphiel chuckled at the blue-skinned Asari.
“Well, it kind of could be.” The Asari stated between shots. “I mean, you’re the one skipping class levels, and they don’t want to lose to you.”
“Shut it La’viola!” Mun-Tep, the knight shouted out before sending out a cleaving scythe of Qi to cut down a large group of Orks. He was clearly running on fumes as well, as in the beginning, he had been sending similar attacks at the Orks by the dozen.
“She’s not entirely wrong.” The Draenei mage muttered, now focusing on his side again.
Their team was positioned around the mouth of a cave where Theliel, their spatial mage in charge of transportation, channelled his portal magic. As Theliel was low-level and spatial magic required a lot of mana, it took time to form portals. In the meantime, the three combat members each protected a side, while their healer supported whoever had the most trouble with her gun.
Seraphiel had erected several brightly glowing barriers to funnel the Orks into more manageable groups, as well as to protect them from long-ranged attacks. The Orks hadn’t just left those barriers alone and the shootier members of the warband were happily firing their weapons at the barriers, which was constantly taxing her power reserves. As was constantly maintaining her own buffs and the psionic storm above them, which was in large part why she couldn’t do much else as even her power reserves had limits. They regenerated quickly, which allowed her the occasional burst of power, but they still had limits. She was taking care of the largest approach, which only made sense considering she had vastly higher stats than the rest of the group. Most of her attention was taken by keeping her group alive, and not fighting her own enemies as her Physical Stats were more than adequate to deal with the brutes.
One-on-one the Orks were not a threat to the rest of the group. Even if they were strong, and in some cases surprisingly skilled at fighting, they were also quite simplistic in their approach, mainly just wanting to smash their enemy in a straightforward manner. The Orks ranged in level from just below them to just above them, giving an appropriate level of challenge. Which was the point considering this was an outing arranged by the academy. However, the fight wasn’t one-on-one, and they were getting exhausted after cutting down so many enemies.
“Heads up, we have incoming!” La’viola suddenly shouted a warning as a much larger Ork crushed its way through the forest’s undergrowth.
“Why you grots take this long?!” The larger Ork bellowed, while waving around an axe larger than a normal Ork. It looked towards them. “Oi! You’s up for a proper smashing!”
“Ok, now you might want to hurry Theliel!” Seraphiel shouted.
The creature was almost a hundred levels higher than her, putting it roughly in the Big’un category, as far as such classification went among the greenskins. It would be interesting to fight the creature, if only she could manage a one-on-one, but as noted before, this was hardly the place or time for duels. She had a team to protect and other Orks swarming them.
“Oh, fuckety-fuck-fuck!” The Khenra knight cursed. “Trouble!”
“Keep calm!” Seraphiel ordered. She raised her palm up to the large Ork, and suddenly closed the hand into a fist, calling forth a yellowish energy that formed into a thick rope. “Bakudo 64: Sajō Sabaku!” The yellow rope of energy wound itself around the surprised Ork, causing it to stumble and fall to the ground.
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"Great! How long is a rope going to hold the thing though?" La'viola questioned while frantically shooting at the Orks now running closer unimpeded by lightning because maintaining such a high-level Kidō spell took a lot out of Seraphiel. The rank of the Skill determined what Kidō spells she could use, but it didn't make casting the higher-ranked spells easy. They were her most power-hungry abilities, but in return they gave power and versatility.
“Theoretically? As long as it takes. That rope should not be susceptible to just physical strength.” Seraphiel replied, focusing both on maintaining the spell, the barriers, and fighting the Orks that didn’t just stop.
“Theoretically?” La’viola asked worriedly as the large Ork was putting up a mighty struggle against the ropes.
“Yes, theoretically. Theliel!” Seraphiel shouted towards the elf. The Orks had their own weird power of imagination after all, and if they could just believe strongly enough, then the ropes could be broken.
“I’m done! You can retreat into the cave now!” The elf answered, and Seraphiel could sense the portal forming behind her.
The entire group rushed through the crackling portal before the elven mage allowed it to collapse in order to stop the Orks from following them. The rest of the group collapsed in exhaustion while Seraphiel remained standing as she noted Tatsumiya approaching. “You all seem a bit worn. Report!” She ordered.
The teachers knew what had happened of course. They had monitored the whole thing and would’ve intervened if things got too hairy. They’d likely made sure to direct only the correct level Orks to approach them as well. They’d also deployed them to the specific area with the correct level enemies on purpose. It wouldn’t do to get the students killed after all.
Seraphiel gave a small salute while the rest of the group trundled to a standing position. “Ma’am! Squad S conducted reconnaissance at the assigned location. We came into contact with Orks. Despite attempts to stay discreet, the Orks were alerted to our presence. The number of the Orks was more than what the squad could handle in a direct engagement, and we were quickly surrounded, so we conducted the standard extraction plan T while under pressure. All squad members are present and accounted for, and Ork presence confirmed." Plan T was short for plan teleport.
That had been the main purpose of the mission, to confirm the Ork presence. The world in question had hired Mahora to deal with the Ork problem, and the academy of course used it as a training exercise. Lower-level students would work as supports and scouts, while higher-level students would eradicate the threat. In the end, the teachers and staff would swoop in to completely eliminate the problem when things got too difficult and make sure it would stay handled, but they’d stay out of it until necessary. The more mobile academies often took on such missions, as it was great training.
“Squad Shiny, individual reports!” Tatsumiya wanted everyone to expand on Seraphiel’s report in their own words, and the others confirmed everything Seraphiel said with slight alterations in wording. “Alright, personal thoughts? Where did you go wrong? What could you improve? What could’ve gone better?”
"It's rather obvious we lacked stealth," La'viola stated straight away. "Remaining discreet is a large part of scouting, unless you specifically want to draw attention, which we did not. Couple of us had some stealth Skills, but we had no one dedicated to stealth, and we certainly weren’t very stealthy as a group. In fact, our group was rather bruiser-y in nature. Very useful for when we got into combat, but maybe not a group setup optimized for scouting. More for protection and elimination jobs." The Asari had likely studied under a commando, and their kind always valued stealth and small-group tactics.
“On the other hand, without Seraphia’s presence, we would’ve been pretty fucked.” Mun-Tep admitted. “Had any other 2nd-class student been in her place, we would’ve lost that fight. Our retreat took too long, and we were not up to facing an enemy so numerous. We only managed because Seraphia could funnel them to us in manageable groups and keep down the enemy ranged assets.”
“On the positive side, we did manage to hold our own against a much larger force for far longer than we really should’ve been able to.” Theliel pointed out. “My talents are not really yet up to creating a portal in the heat of combat, but we managed, and I got several levels out of it.”
“On the other hand, we might have been able to buy more time with more guerilla tactics. We went for a direct approach exactly because we did have the benefit of Seraphia’s barriers with us.” La’viola added, before shaking her head again. “Then again, as with scouting, our group was really not made up for guerilla tactics so that wouldn’t have worked. I’d say our biggest issue was the group composition when considering the mission at hand. In normal circumstances, you would send dedicated scouts to do scouting. We were not that. At least not most of us.”
Tatsumiya clapped her hands, interrupting the conversation. “That’s good enough. You’ve given the matter some thought and learned something. I’d recommend thinking on the subject again after some time has passed. You might figure out things that could’ve been done differently. In general, you managed to complete your objective. Although not with flying colours, you did manage the main points, so you all pass. Get some rest. We will be providing individual feedback later. Seraphia, stay please.”
As the others made their way out, she stood at attention, looking at Tatsumiya who finally turned to her once everyone else was out of earshot. “You performed excellently under the circumstances. I believe you would’ve been able to complete the assignment easily by yourself, correct?”
Seraphiel shook her head a bit indecisively. "Hard to say for sure. I do have stealth Skills and could've moved with more discretion, but you should never underestimate Orks. Hard to say if they had some among them with detection abilities that my Skill doesn’t work against. That said, making a clean escape would’ve been much easier, yes. Protecting the others also did make the fight more difficult than it needed to be. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have been able to portal out without at least Theliel.”
Tatsumiya smiled a little. “Humility is often a positive trait but shouldn’t be excessive and it doesn’t suit you. From our observation, you handled the situation as well as you could've without completely overriding everything your squad decided. The reality of teamwork is that sometimes you have to deal with suboptimal situations. And you dealt with one better than we have any right to expect. Perfect individual grade."
“Thank you, ma'am." She nodded. "A question, if you will?"
“Ah, you want to know about your brother?” Tatsumiya realized straight away and got a nod in confirmation. “His team managed to eradicate their assigned target without trouble. There were some injuries, but nothing a healer couldn’t fix in the field, and your brother wasn’t among those that took hits.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Any chance I could join them on their missions?” She asked a little hopefully.
“I’m afraid not. The 2nd-class has been assigned to full support and scouting duties. Most of your peers can’t really handle that level of combat yet. I know you can, which is actually one of the reasons we want to keep you with the other 2nd-class students. It allows us to deploy any team you're on to places that are riskier, as we can count on you to enable a clean exit. I know you'd rather be with your brother, but at least you do get to see combat, right?" Tatsumiya explained the reasoning.
“I suppose that’s fair enough.” She might not like it, but she understood.
“At least it seems you’re on track to easily reach your target for 3rd-class promotion by the end of the year.” Tatsumiya pointed out. “You might even manage to hit level 100 if we can keep missions like these up.”
She’d already reached level 75 with both of her Classes and combat was giving her levels fast. In fact, she might be able to get enough kills to propel her to level 100 just against these Orks, but that would leave her Skills lagging behind, although her constant earlier training meant that leveling her Skills was currently quite easy. Her experience buff from [Been There, Done That] was getting a little ridiculous. The only reason she wasn’t completely crushing others in leveling speed was because she was leveling two Classes and all the associated Skills equally.
“Have you already decided the direction you want to head into with your second Class?” Tatsumiya inquired. “Just for the record, the academy has noted your abilities as a Guardian type, and we officially recommend something that would enhance that, like a Paladin.”
"I'm honestly not sure yet. I think I'll make the decision at the time, based on what's available." She admitted.
"That's not a bad way to go about it. Staying flexible is important. Some like to plan their path well in advance and specifically aim for certain achievements to get certain Classes, but the problem with plans is that they rarely work out just as planned. There's always going to be curveballs, both in battle and in life." Tatsumiya nodded. "I'm more of the planning type, but that's just my need for thorough preparation talking. I assume you have some ideas though?"
"Yes. Paladin was actually one of the Classes I was considering, but there's something I'm a bit worried about. I'm not sure it's wise to spread your Stats over multiple types. Another psionic Class would allow me to double down on the stat that I already have. The new stats would also start so low as to be useless until the new Class reaches parity." She explained her problem.
“Ah yes, the age-old issue of hyperfocus versus spreading yourself wider.” Tatsumiya nodded in understanding. “It’s important to know that there are no right answers, only opinions. That said, my take on the issue comes down to this. Which do you value more, Skills or stats? Yes, hyperfocusing on a single set of stats will leave you extremely high on those stats, but it will leave you thin on Skills. The different Classes the different stats are tied to tend to focus on similar things. If you take nothing but psionic Classes, your Skills tend to get really similar as well. They might accomplish the same thing in different ways, but they're still accomplishing the same things. Do you really need five different ways to throw lightning at your enemy? Especially if the other option is to, say, heal your ally instead. There's also the question of whether you have access to several Classes of the same type, and have them high enough rank to get the plentiful stat points you might want. I don't know. You might, but most don't. Then the question becomes, if you're going to have to branch out eventually anyway, is it better to do so early or late?"
“Food for thought.” Seraphiel nodded in understanding. Tatsumiya’s thoughts mirrored some of her own. That’s why she’d likely wait with her decision until she got to talk with Lucifer again.