“Apostolos, javelin, now!” Rory shouted, reaching back. Instantly, Rory felt one of the oversized projectiles being handed to him. Placing the javelin in a sling, Rory flung it forward, the projectile flashing forward almost too fast for the eye to see. Booming through the air, the javelin lodged itself into the thick, red-colored hide of a six-legged fusion of a scarab and hippo.

“Heave!” Rory shouted, yanking on the thick rope trailing from the javelin lodged within the forehead of the strange-looking monster. Behind him, within the relative safety of the walls, Apostolos grabbed hold of the trailing rope and began heaving in time with Rory. Heaving one final time, the monster was pulled forward and off balance. Unlike the thicker hide covering the rest of its body, the monster’s underside appeared far softer. The theory proved correct when, a moment later, several bolts pierced its underbelly. They had rebounded off the thicker hide covering the rest of its body just earlier, so for the bolts to tear into the monster was a definite improvement.

“Again!” Rory yelled as the constructs fired their crossbows once more, even more bolts stabbing into the tough monster’s gut.

“Once more!” Rory shouted. Again, the constructs fired, and with a final barrage, the monster went still.

“Damn tough,” Rory sighed, wiping sweat from his brow.

Apostolos poked his head over the wall and scurried up the opposing ladder as if on cue. “Good things for the javelins.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Rory muttered. Just beyond the walls, it was as if he’d enacted a personal crusade against weird hippo-scarab monsters. The entire wave of monsters had purely consisted of the same monster. There were fifteen stages of hippo-scarabs, first one per stage, then two per stage, until the last five stages had three per. It was a good thing they couldn’t fly, and they were half hippo and not squirrel because the stupidly durable monsters would have swarmed up his walls rather than smashed their heads against the base, trying their best to break in. The first few stages of hippo-scarabs ranged from levels fifty-one to fifty-three; their levels were low enough that their tough hide couldn’t ultimately withstand his arrows.

That changed once they crossed the level fifty-four threshold; his arrows could only pierce through when empowered through Blood Legacy. From that point onward, Rory had swapped to chucking the javelins, utilizing a spear sling to give them even more oomph.

After each stage, they desperately retrieved the javelins and sprinted back before the next stage could arrive. Afraid of what would happen if they were too slow, Rory had shifted Apostolos from uselessly plinking arrows off the monsters to instead making more javelins as quickly as he could, a process that was streamlined by already having javelin heads and javelin shifts premade.

“Only two more waves to go,” Apostolos said, giving Rory a thumbs up. “We’re almost there.”

“Yeah, but this was a rather alarming wave.” Rory sighed.

Rory had been right to begin making the armor-piercing javelins nearly two weeks back. Between those and the help of their imp constructs, they’d preserved over waves that, on their own, would have overwhelmed them.

But they still had two waves, and so much of this wave had been filled with neigh invulnerable monsters. It was a concerning trend if the last two waves had anything in common.

Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel early.

“Apostolos, I want your opinion,” Rory said as he crossed his arms.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to throw in the towel?”

“Throw in what now?”

“I-” Rory paused, taken off guard before shaking his head. “A phrase, sorry. Do you want to call it quits on the waves? “

“Why?” Apostolos looked at Rory, perplexed. “We’re so close, only two more waves to reach the ten-wave goal. That’s what you said we’d need to integrate the energy grid, right?”

“Well, yes, but that was just an estimate.” Rory sighed, chewing his lip for a moment. He had figured ten waves would likely be enough for what he was attempting. Still, in the worst-case scenario, he also had a reinterpretation in his back pocket, which might allow him to cheat out the energy grid integration for a lower ascension cost.

Assuming I could get Eon to bite. Still, I’d bet my left arm Eon would take the bait after hearing exactly the rundown of what I was up to.

“So, if we’re only two waves away, let’s go for it.”

“You sure?” Rory raised an eyebrow at the young man. “You couldn’t directly assist during this wave. Who knows what may happen if we get more monsters with such high durability.”

“Master, no offense, but you sometimes overthink things. Isn’t the point to push ourselves? Test our limits? You can’t ensure everything will be safe.”

Rory found himself frowning. The boy was right, and Rory himself wasn’t too worried about testing his luck. He’d done it enough in the past. What happened, happened, it had been his motto never to fret the stuff outside his control.

But.

But that was before he’d had a ward to ensure the safety of.

I can’t ensure his safety if something dangerous appears outside our ability to manage.

“Are you thinking about my safety?” Apostolos questioned as if he were reading Rory’s mind.

Rory was silent, still frowning and mulling over his thoughts for another few seconds before his shoulders sagged.

“You’re still tier four. Realistically, a single tier five would tear you to shreds. I know your skills and relative attribute distribution. You’re nearly a carbon copy of me from when I was a tier four.”

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Which wasn’t by chance, either. Once Apostolos had finally gained the ability to improve his ascension standing, the very first skill he’d been offered from his tier-one rank-up had been Scholar’s Retreat.

Apostolos had, of course, taken it. It had helped immensely in some departments; he’d been able to learn skills from Rory that Rory had needed ascension rank-ups to gain, allowing him to select other skills instead -which Rory had then learned in return- but what it meant was that Apostolos, much like Rory, had no powerful combat skills. Their ability to battle with monsters almost depended entirely on their gear, their raw attributes, and their ability to strategize.

“You managed to solo a powerful tier five monster as a tier four; you’ve told me the story before. It was how you conquered the first floor of the Maw.” Apostolos pointed out.

“Yes, but it was only barely, and with some serious gear advantages. You can’t use blood-weave, so you’re without those advantages.”

That had been probably the most significant disadvantage Apostolos had compared to Rory. It turned out that one couldn’t utilize blood-weave without a blood affinity. Attempting to do so would instead act more like willingly ingesting a poison or exposing yourself to a parasite. Furthermore, Rory had been the source, the original progenitor of the blood essence used in making this specific line of bloodwood. No matter how distant it was from the original tree Rory had grown, every bloodwood was part of that progeny; thus, the bloodwoods always resonated with Rory, with no affinity or essence rejection issues.

In short, the attribute-boosting blood weave was something that only someone with a blood affinity could use, and only Rory could draw out the maximum potential from these bloodwood trees in particular.

Apostolos had no affinity for blood essence, to begin with.

If Apostolos were to attempt to engage a tier five monster head-on, unless it was a low-tier, weak variant, chances were it would rip the young man to shreds with little difficulty.

“I know I can’t use blood-weave.” Apostolos snapped back, annoyed by the reminder. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be useful. If they’re not a high durability type monster, I can still wound them from afar.”

“And that’s my point,” Rory said; the entire discussion had come full circle. “This wave was full of monsters that I could barely hurt. You were delegated to support duty. If the next two waves have monsters that are as tough or tougher, then we will have serious problems. I can manage one mid-level tier-five, but if several start streaming in and you cannot help dispatch them?”

Apostolos went silent, his turn to frown. What Rory had said was entirely accurate. Neither of them was the combat type, and this wave had been a wake-up call, a genuine possibility that Rory had considered may occur.

“What about Big Bertha?” Apostolos finally offered.

“You know exactly why Big Bertha is off the table.”

“No, I mean, why not risk it if we’ve got Big Bertha as back-up?”

“Having Big Bertha in reserve for unexpected danger is one thing,” Rory said, shaking his head. “But it’s very different to go into a risk where we have an obvious indication of what we might be risking.”

“I don’t see the difference,” Apostolos said with a scowl.

“The difference is in interpretation, how Eon will view it. Let me phrase it like this. When we travel to the Maw, we bring our weapons, even if we know that monsters tend to avoid getting too close to our established route. The weapons we bring in that case are for the truly unexpected danger we can’t anticipate. Versus, imagine we found a shortcut to the third floor of the Maw. We don’t know what to expect directly, but we could probably assume we’d be walking into a lion’s den of tier-five and tier-six monsters. In the first situation I described, a risk would be an entirely unknown risk that we couldn’t have expected. In contrast, in the second situation, we’d know damn well that we’re biting off more than we can chew.”

“Meaning?” Apostolos questioned, confused by the long analogy.

“Meaning Big Bertha is only there for the truly unknowable risk. It would be like if a tier-seven monster showed up halfway through the fifth wave. We could not have accounted for that based on what we already know. Eon would maybe forgive its usage in such a situation. But if we go into a wave already having a strong possibility of being forced to rely on Big Bertha, Eon will come down hard on us. And I do not want to risk having our settlement suddenly become the tourist spot for tier-seven or tier-eight monsters that Eon popped into existence.”

Apostolos looked down, deflated.

“So, no wave?” He asked.

“Not quite,” Rory said. His plan had been to end it here. Still, seeing how resistant Apostolos was to the thought, Rory found his apprehension being overcome by Apostolos’s eagerness to push forward. “I will offer this. We can continue to the next wave if, and only if, you can come up with an idea that will allow you to contribute should things get hairy, something that isn’t running to fetch Big Bertha.”

“Me?” Apostolos questioned. “I have to come up with the idea?”

“That or we end it here and hope Eon will accept a reinterpretation charge as collateral to allow the energy grid integration.”

“How long do I have?” Apostolos asked.

“By the end of the day,” Rory said, flicking his interface to Apostolos. “I could give you more time, but I want to push your ingenuity here.”

With that, Rory slid down his ladder, heading toward his hut.

He had a nap to take.

----------------------------------------

“Master! I’ve got it. Wake up!”

Rory found himself being shaken awake; his dreamless slumber forcibly ejected.

“Huh?” Rory mumbled, confused as to what was going on. A second or two passed before his mind snapped into place. “Oh, Apostolos.”

“I got it!”

“An idea, I assume,” Rory said with a resounding yawn. “Well, let’s have at it then. But not this second. Let me stretch out by the fire, at least.”

Giving Rory space, Apostolos backed up, letting Rory drag himself out of his cot. Exiting his hut, Rory groggily plodded over to their fireplace and sat down, yawning again.

“Alright, go, I’ll hear you out.”

“Alright, so I was thinking!” Apostolos started excited. “Well, I had several ideas, but most of them I had to throw out; they’d require too much prep or resources. Then, I had ideas based on Big Bertha, but honestly, I couldn’t recreate something like that without your explanation. Plus, that would be the same problem as just using Big Bertha. But that got me thinking, what about a weapon system that was more powerful than what I could do on my own, but not outright better than what you might be able to do, or something like that.”

“Limited offensive output,” Rory said, unsurprised. “Not a terrible idea. It’s one I’ve had myself. But it’s hard to make something that can put out more firepower than you can while still within an acceptable range.”

“Well, I realized something. Those javelins, you know how you just sling ‘em forward using one of those spear chucker things?”

“Not the most eloquent name, but sure,” Rory said.

“I thought I just needed to emulate that, a way to launch them with more power. So… Tada!”

Brandishing the design tablet Rory had made in year one, Apostolos showed Rory a blueprint, who scrunched his eyebrows.

“A ballista.” Rory finally said after a moment. “I’d considered it before, but I didn’t think the output was that much different than if I just used…my…. bow… Clever.” Rory suddenly broke out into a grin. “The output is stagnant. Between Blood Legacy and my blood weave, I have no need for a slow-firing ballista, but it would work for you, who can’t actively use blood weave nor have my base attributes. Honestly, I’m a fool for not thinking of it myself.”

“Well, you tend to always look only at those big grand projects. Smaller stuff tends to skip past you.”

“Hmm, well, I’m not sure I needed to confirm my flaws outright.” Rory sighed with a tone of mock hurt. “Nonetheless, I’m proud you’ve figured out how to continue contributing.”

Apostolos beamed, the words having a more substantial effect on him than Rory would have figured.

Heh. Teenagers.

“Well, you’ve sold me,” Rory said after a moment. “We’ll keep going. But first things first.”

“What’s that?”

“That should be obvious. It’s project time. It isn’t going to build itself.”