12 Trolling The Snakes (1/2)

Catherine rolled her eyes when hearing this.

”I'm glad you're so enthusiastic, just try to not get us all killed,” she said.

”I know what I'm doing... most of the time,” he added as she pointed to a burned mushroom.

He made three drones appear and had them fly around the party. It was the maximum he could deploy with his current energy stock.

”You can see through them too, right?” he asked.

”Yes. What are you planning exactly?”

”Just watch,” he said while flying over towards the snake along with the drones.

The snake was circulating around the island as usual. Joshua kind of pitied the snake for having nothing better to do and figured it had to be bored out of its mind. Therefore, he decided to do the snake a favor and give it something to do. As soon as the snake was in sight, he made some noise to draw its attention. As usual the creature immediately focused on him and drew closer.

When the snake was within the hundred meter range, Joshua launched the drones at him. They were flying at high speed, turning around the snake. It was clearly annoying by those pesky little bugs and tried to swallow them, but the drones were too fast. Joshua snapped his fingers and activated the rune engraved into the drone and suddenly lightning shot from the drones toward the snake.

He decided to use his lightning rune since that was the element he controlled the most. By using a combination of the rune and his new aiming assist, the drones were shooting small electric attacks at the snake at regular interval. While the damage was low, the snake was clearly irritated and was starting to move frenetically between the drones, trying to catch them.

The rest of the party was observing the situation from a safe place. They were wondering what Joshua was doing, while his attacks were hitting the snake, there was no way he could beat it that way. They looked at Joshua, he was just standing there, looking smug while drinking a cup of tea.

Finally, the snake couldn't take it anymore and charged at Joshua. Seeing that, he simply entered the ground below him, causing the snake to hit its head. You could hear it scream in anger. Joshua merely reappeared a few meters further up and resumed shooting with the drones, waving at the snake.

The snake tried to stay underwater and hit the ground with its tail, but to no avail. The rocks were too solid, and the drones merely had to shoot the water near it for the lightning to connect to it. Ultimately, seeing nothing was working, the snake retreated and quickly disappeared from view.

Joshua dismissed his drones and went back to the party, looking extremely smug.

”What an idiot. He never thought about changing tactics,” he said.

The group was kind of taken aback by what just happened. While it had technically worked, the beast was still alive, he had just annoyed it so much it left.

”You know those things are going to come back as soon as we set sail again right?” Catherine said.

”Of course they will. That's where the next part of my plan comes in. Oh… actually, it looks like they're already coming.”

Luna had just detected several forms approaching, it looked like the snake had called its buddies.

'Perfect!' thought Joshua. It was actually safer to try out the next phase while still on the island.

”Catherine, prepare to summon the boat, we should be ready to leave soon.”

Catherine was not sure about the situation but nodded, deciding to trust him.

He summoned his drones again and waited for the snakes to arrive. There were five in total. Joshua recognized the one who he had annoyed by all the bruises on its face it had obtained by hitting the ground. He waved at it causing the creature to let out a big roar.

He launched his drones again, like before they started to rapidly circle around the snakes, causing them to get annoyed. They tried to bite, but the drones were too quick. However, these snakes seemed to be able to coordinate their actions and by launching multiple attacks toward the same drone, they managed to swallow them, one by one. Seeing this, Joshua's gaze took a more worried look. As for the rest of the party, they thought Joshua had bitten more than he could chew by facing five snakes at once.

The three snakes that had grabbed a drone looked at their bruised buddy in disdain before turning their head toward Joshua. They all lowered their head and stopped about five meters from him, all smiling.

Joshua just smirked and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, three explosions went off, one inside each snake. The snake's bodies instantly disintegrated, as Joshua expected. Those creatures were spirits, like him, so he knew if they took too much damage, their physical form would be destroyed. He expected to see their soul form float around but was surprised to see none. There was nothing remaining after the explosion, leaving him confused.