Chapter 297 (1/2)

Although it looked flashy, Randidly regretted using most of his Mana pool and all of the Mana from the few energy storage rings he had been able to make in the past several days. Honestly, he hadn’t given much thought to the aftermath, but without access to the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil and Meditate, his Mana Regeneration was half of what it usually was.

230 an hour was probably an amount that would make other people horrified, but to Randidly, it simply wasn’t enough. Inwardly, he made a mental note to work on freeing up a skill that cost less from the influence of the Aether Shards. Still, he had enough Mana potions to push him back to fighting strength. But he would not be doing that display again in the near future.

Thea was still giving him a strange look, which made him slightly uncomfortable. Randidly knew that it would perhaps be better to keep a low profile, avoiding the notice of the Creature for now, but it seemed Donnyton was busy dealing with their own skeleton problem. Hopefully this town was beyond its range…

But that wasn’t a real hope. Honestly, Randidly just didn’t know enough about how the Creature was acting, and what it wanted. But it hadn’t sought him out yet, and in such a state, there wasn’t much else he could do…

No, right now Randidly’s primary concern would be healing himself, and Simon’s potion was critical for that. Randidly didn’t want to be cruel, but the faster Simon grew and leveled, the more quickly he would have Mana to make more of his fluid. Also, the more valuable Randidly was to the village, and to Simon, the more likely he would receive the materials he needed to grind the healing out quickly.

So for now…

Randidly grinned. Plus this was going to be fun as fuck. He hadn’t done anything like this since Franksburg was dealing with the monster horde.

Without saying anything to the two individuals next to him, Randidly stepped forward, hopping down off the hill, sliding his way down towards the sea of skeletons. The leaders of the pack were still staggering, avoiding the flames the Hammers of the Dawn had left, but they looked up when Randidly arrived before them, their jaws clacking.

Randidly flexed his fingers, careful with what he did, trying to keep the physicality of the movements to a minimum, while relying solely on Fighting Proficiency. In spite of his efforts, the small bits of Aether lodged in his passive skills began to ache.

His hands blurred, striking out left and right, and then Randidly stepped forward, moving very quickly into the middle of another group. His hands were like iron claws, smashing the skeletons to pieces. They were almost comically slow and clumsy compared to him, and Randidly wasn’t even using his spear; he was simply relying on his superior stats and the bonuses from Fighting Proficiency.

Thea was yelling his name, and then frantically calling out orders, but Randidly just grinned. It didn’t matter if they kept shooting spells, they wouldn’t really be able to hurt them. But while his newfound silence was a heavy burden in some ways, that Randidly wanted to stay within the comfortable ambiguity, for now. Better to just remain silent and let things work themselves out.

With a slight grin, Randidly pushed deeper.

*****

Simon was breathing heavily, carefully aiming his Bubbles and Water Jet, then using Water Manipulation to slow down skeletons and push them into damage.

Experience poured in, already raising him to Level 6, his distributable stats piling up as he didn’t dare take his attention away from the battles going on in front of him. There was just too much, going on too fast.

“Goddamnit,” Thea growled next to him. “Where the fuck is that idiot going? What if he took an arrow to the back of the head? He isn’t invulnerable…”

She turned to him then. “Is he…?”

Both looked at each other for a minute. It become abruptly apparent to Simon that Thea was much, much younger than he had initially assumed, probably for the same reason that he had at first thought she was stocky. The armor on her body was thick, worked leather, padded with what appeared to be bear fur. It gave her a burly look, but the closer you were, the less scary that was, and the more it seemed like a 6 year old wearing a coat far too puffy for their body.

Simon shook his head, focusing his attention back on his Water Manipulation. Better to stay focused. And the incredible thing was his Skill Levels were shooting up like mad. He must have gained 5 levels in the past few minutes of frantic fighting. At this rate-

Thea took his head shake as answer to her question, and sighed. “Well… I guess he will be fine. He’s deep enough now we don’t even see him… Archers! Fire at will once more!”

David’s actions were still noticeable, as the skeletons that arrived at the base of the hill were in pairs or threes, disrupted from the rest of their troop, some of them sporting missing limbs that had been smashed aside as David charged forward.

The hill defenders had done well enough thus far to keep the numbers low, but more and more were making it through, as the ones from the flanks, which David hadn’t thinned out, arrived at the front, filling in for the destroyed skeletons.

Firing frantically, the archers continued to whittle them away to almost nothing, but more and more skeletons were coming, staggering up the hill. Their strange bodies enabled them to ignore the steepness, and begin climbing directly up, without using the staircase.