Chapter 80: Almost Reaching
80 80 - Almost Reaching
This time the 2 points he received for leveling up meant approximately 17% improvement over what he had previously. This was something that Noah would always welcome, since, as the monsters would become stronger and more resistant in the next Fortresses, it would not do him good to have good dagger techniques and good hand-to-hand combat, but in the end not have the strength to at least pierce the skin of the monster he was attacking.
Being a magician was good, having magic to do this job was also good, but if Noah hadn"t been able to pierce the monster"s two eyes while they were fighting, he was sure the battle would have taken at least twice or three times the time he spent.
Unlike the previous railcar, where it was surrounded by extremely heavy metal boxes, this car was strangely more s.p.a.cious and had nothing to prevent the Blessed from seeing from end to end.
This caused a strange feeling in Noah, since when he looked around and mentally measured the size of it, it was clearly more than 300 meters wide. Not to mention that because of the low light, he could not see the end of the carriage, so the only thing he could think of was "How is this holding up? It was a common fact that the greater the ma.s.s, the greater the effort required to displace that ma.s.s. For a train as big as this with seemingly barbaric technologies, the amount of fuel needed to move such a train didn"t even make sense..."
This thought was not exclusive to Noah. By their expressions of confusion, the other Blessed apparently also had similar thoughts.
Walking in the empty car for three minutes, the feeling of strangeness increased even more with the pa.s.sage of time. Even if it meant danger, the Blessed Ones were starting to want some kind of monster to appear soon, because that would at least bring something they were accustomed to in this abnormal situation. And as if in response to their requests, once again a trail of blood appeared in front of their path.
Noah bent down to look at the blood, and like the last trail, it also looked like human blood, or rather, dwarf blood. "So there are more dwarves in this Fortress?"
Thinking about this possibility, Noah was excited, as they could probably get some answers if they met with a dwarf who was still alive.
What worried the party was that the amount of blood trailing along the ground this time was much greater than the previous one. If Noah"s estimates were correct, with that amount of blood, either the wounded dwarf had a cut at least three times that of the previous dwarf, or that blood was not from just a single dwarf, which would be even more worrying for their group.
These monsters were apparently the same species as the monster they had just fought. Their appearance, like the other monster, was quite unpleasant. Because of how they were chewing on the bones of the dwarves, the ease with which they did it just showed how powerful those bites were.
"Can you handle one of them?" Noah asked in a low voice without taking his eyes off the monsters.
Jasper knew that Noah was talking to him, so after pondering a little, he replied despite having a slightly uncertain look, "From what I saw, their speed is only slightly lower than mine when using my Blessing. Dealing with two is probably impossible, but dealing with just one of them I believe is okay. They are more powerful than normal Rank D monsters. Even though I am confident of dealing with generic Rank D monsters, these monsters have something special."
Noah agreed with Jasper"s judgment. He also felt that these monsters were much more powerful than normal Rank D monsters. Unfortunately, their party had been unlucky enough to fall into a peak Rank D Fortress their very first time.
"Okay, so you will take care of the monster on the right, while the two on the left will be mine. I think the group better take care of your monster first, since I will be able to keep fighting for a while with the other two without any major risks," Noah suggested.
Even though he was not the leader of the group, he had the right to speak here. Normally this type of right was granted to Blessed persons who would be grabbing the attention of the monsters, so in almost all strategy discussions, Jasper had also had the right to propose something that he judged to be safer by the limits of his own ability.
Hearing Noah"s proposal, the other Blessed were concerned. It had been a little difficult to deal with the lone monster the other time; now they would have to deal with three monsters at once. They knew that as long as Noah could teleport, he would practically be untouchable, but the weakness of this ability was usually the high cost. They could not maintain such a long-term strategy. What they didn"t know was that Noah had a practically infinite energy supply - as long as they managed to kill the monsters, he wouldn"t be without energy, as each monster provided even more energy than he spent. This was not to mention that his [h.e.l.l Flames] skill had almost reached level 03.
Having composed himself on how they would do it, Noah started walking towards the two monsters on the left, synchronizing his own steps with the noise of the monsters" bites on the flesh and bones of the dwarves. Taking advantage of the fact that the lighting was a little dark, the monsters distracted by their meal would hardly notice him before it was too late.
Jasper, who had watched Noah do this before fighting the first monster, also tried to repeat the process. He was more agile than Noah because of his own Blessing, so his body reacted faster than Noah"s. He thought to himself that even though this was the first time he was trying to do it, it was not so complicated for him because of his high agility.
Since Noah"s Blessing was so much more striking than Jasper"s, they had decided to let Jasper make noise and attack the monster on the right before Noah appeared, as Noah"s blasts of fire would probably draw the attention of Jasper"s monster more easily than Jasper could, if Noah were to teleport earlier.
Fortunately in that regard, they had no flaws in their execution. Jasper used his Blessing to the fullest, and with a quick boost, he took advantage of the monster"s distraction while biting its food, and just like Noah, he stuck his dagger in one of the monster"s eyes. But as Jasper"s agility was far superior to Noah"s, he still managed to get the dagger out of the monster"s eye before it could move away or advance.
When the monster screamed in pain, the other two monsters were alarmed and looked at Jasper. Noah took advantage of this distraction and immediately teleported in front of one of the monsters before he stuck his own dagger in that monster"s eye as well.
However, unfortunately, as Noah"s agility was not as high as Jasper"s, he was unable to get his dagger out of the monster"s eye in time before the monster advanced on him to take a bite with its big, sharp teeth that were still stained with the dwarf"s blood.
Noah already imagined that he would not be able to take out the dagger, and without thinking twice, he teleported to the second monster. With a big ball of fire in his hands, he hit the monster"s a.s.s, which also caused the monster to start screaming in pain due to the purification of Noah"s flame. Even if the effectiveness of the flames was not as high as it was against Rank E monsters, it did not mean that they were useless. Being burned by a candle and being burned by a torch would make a big difference, but the candle"s flame would still hurt.
At that point, the three monsters were screaming a lot in despair, which was a sign for the other Blessed to start attacking so as to quickly eliminate Jasper"s monster. As Jasper still had his dagger in hand to protect himself, even though he couldn"t teleport, he could still use the dagger to defend himself from the most dangerous attacks.
To avoid wasting energy when teleporting back and forth between monsters, Noah had brought them as close as possible while teleporting nonstop from one place to another. In a dark car like this one, it was extremely attractive seeing several explosions going on one after the next, which could even be mistaken for a fireworks display, but in fact was a Blessed One going from point to point instantly.
"You will raise my skills to level 03." Noah said to the two monsters as he increased the speed of the teleportation.
-----
Please read the author"s notes down here! :3 ↓↓↓