Chapter 88: Chapter 85

Chapter 85

 

Cautiously we’re all trying to deny the inevitable and cheat it, any way possible!

And the inevitable is that this cursed place is all trying to kill us, not just the monsters, but the entire dungeon system. Everything here is meant to give us the death flag.

We were never meant to leave it alive!

“Can you see anything ahead?” Sunghee whispered. We all stayed low. It seems also that the longer we have to wait for Fox while we’re alone in the dark ups our stress level a bit.

Sunghee is pretty awesome like that in staying positive and forward thinking to counter it but I can see we’re both struggling with the thought of what if there are other things out there that we still haven’t discovered yet? She is staying very protective of me and ready to intercept most the trouble that looks like it might go for me while she’s near me. It’s very humbling to see that kind of inspiring loyalty, whether or not the pheromones are involved or aren’t involved.

Of course Fox is ahead a bit taking care of business in her own way. When she is overdue or takes longer than normal scouting ahead it makes me really nervous. The darkness created more fear. I also had to try to cover up the light with my hand sometimes. I just realized the light is bad if it attracts attention. Everything is so dark; something like this will stand out significantly.

Fox just nods and holds a hand up for us to stay still while she moves ahead part way but not too far away that she’s not with us either. Fox can see ahead in the dark, thus its no big deal for her to be slightly ahead of my light and we can see a flicker of vague shadow at times letting us know how close she is before she bounces back in the radius of the light. I wonder how far her night vision goes. I haven’t tested it yet. It’s not an infinite night vision but still, even a small amount is a big difference. Because Fox is trying to catch them by surprise I have to hang way back with my light spell while trying to cover it up mostly. The light spell is a dead giveaway something is there.

But how far does the imp night vision go? Can they see farther than she can? Fox seems to like being in light quite a bit, but imps love the dark. So if my hypothesis is correct they actually might have a disadvantage in sunlight and be more home in the darkness than anything else. Plus their eyes are all black with huge pupils and the light reflects off them in the dark in strange ways that show she’s not human, but not ugly either.

Until now I hadn’t realized what that particular detail.

A full two minutes later Fox comes back, staying low on the floor. Her own body language right now tells us something is way off. She’s being extra cautious. That means there’s definitely something ahead of us.

If she’d not seen anything she wouldn’t have had to be as careful.

Still we keep as quiet as we can.

Unlike the movies, and games monsters can roam in dungeons. Theoretically we have to be able to fight at any second. We also have to watch behind us as well.

For that reason I think our party is too small. We should have an extra person acting as rear guard. Actually I’d like another bodyguard besides Sunghee too, so that she can fight without worry and maybe someone behind me.

“Whole room full of them ahead,” Fox said carefully in a guarded low voice. I can see a bit of worry on the crease in her forehead. Despite being very young, she still sometimes gets a worry wrinkle sometimes but it mostly would have been considered cute if this weren’t a life and death situation.

“Like as many as we just did before or…?” Sunghee asked.

“Like at least three times that many,” Fox answered.

“Crap,” I nearly swore in frustration. My hands get suddenly very nervous and sweaty as I consider that any slip of the rag I’m using to cover the glow of the light spell could end our lives. But I also can’t kill the light entirely because that could get us killed too.

“You mean three times the normal room or three times however many we just fought in the room of thirty?” Sunghee asked.

“The room of thirty,” Fox said curtly.

“So, three times the room of thirty,” I restated openly to make sure everyone is on the same page. Fox nods back affirmatively.

This is it!

That doppelganger bitch monster had intended to get us over confident and then rush into that room of probably close to 100 midget demons with knife blades for hands! She’d intended the check mate there!

Sunghee is upset. “That’s too many. We should go back.”

“What do you want to do? It’s for sure that we can’t face that many of them. So?” I asked the two of them. “Any ideas?”

“If the doppelganger summoned us here as part of its dungeon then it’s probably not going to let us go until the very end,” Fox said.

“But does the end meaning getting to the final destination or until no one is left of one side’s team on the chessboard?” I asked.

“That’s a good question actually. Well what do you think Shun?” Sunghee admitted.

I shrugged, “I’d like to gather as much data as possible before I can conclude since we don’t have a reset button.”

“Reset button? What’s that?” Fox asked innocently.

“It’s …an Earth term. That’s why you wouldn’t know. I’ll explain it later,” Sunghee said patting her shoulder.

“Technically it could be either way, or possibly both conditions? But we could majorly fuck up and get hurt trying to move without being sure of it,” Fox argued back.

“Yeah that’s the catch isn’t it,” Sunghee sighed with her hands on her hips.

“So do you guys think the question of if there’s a boss is separate from the idea of if we’re going for a destination point or a sort of genociding evil until the end concept?” I asked.

The other two are scratching their heads. It seems I hit a nerve. They aren’t sure about this either. It might be different from the dungeons that spawn around towns.

“I kind of hate these kinds of discussions. Life is easier not thinking about those kinds of things,” Sunghee sighed.

“There’s not really an indicator either way on if there’s a boss or not,” Fox said after a brief silence.

But Sunghee has different ideas. Is that because she’s from Earth where all mythological stories and rpgs have a boss? “There’s…probably something at the end…probably,” she admitted grudgingly.

Sunghee and Fox look at each other in the eyes. Both of them have like a heavy resolute kind of feeling they are putting on.

“I think we better make sure nothing survives so that we can,” Sunghee says first. As she says it Fox nods.

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“But there are so many of them in there,” I cringed.

Fox’s hand rests on my shoulder for encouragement. “Not to worry. I will take care of this.”

“Are you sure you can do this alone?” I asked.

“We’ll just have to be careful. Thanks Shun,” Fox gives me a peck on the cheek. It wasn’t like her to do that. Was it because…

“Hey, we’re going to live,” I interjected.

We get ready to move and support behind Fox.

She has a funny way of moving now. She’s down on all fours sort of moving forward in a scamper mode. Her ears are pricked straight up in alarm with her tails out. Inwardly, I think it’s because she’s a bit afraid but is facing it courageously.

This must be the type of strength she’d had to harness in order to fend off the orc boss for so long. If I draw from it then I can grow too right?

“Get ready for a fighting controlled retreat. Then we’ll just whittle them down while we’re evading,” Fox said quickly.

I see her hands pulse with electric energy and she blasts off a heavy electric cone of force that’s glowing blue. It penetrates the darkness. Electric magic is really beautiful to watch with its ‘welding torch like flicker’. Plus it’s very fast and works to stun easily it seems.

The first blast was supercharged with extra mana. Even from here I can feel that. Probably she’d done it for shock and awe.

“You two pick off the two guards closest to us that I’ve missed,” she says hurriedly. She is too busy to help and this part is critical.

I almost missed them. The two imp guards in front of us were only about fifteen feet away. They’d been hiding behind garbage cans of some kind while resting with their weapons in their hands. Sunghee uses throwing knives to instantly kill one. She hit several vital points easily. Its dying slowly but has punctured lungs and a slit throat so it can’t shout or cry out.

I cast the starry missiles spell and blast the first one that’s still there. It doesn’t go down, and so I have to blast it two more times, for a total of nine missiles before its dead. It collapses in a pool of dark black blood which is already evaporating. I couldn’t kill it fast like the others though. It unfortunately is screaming some kind of alert and alarm and even as it dies it’s making a mess like a braying mule.

It’s true that they will already be waking up because of Fox’s attacks but still…every little bit helps.

The other bodies are evaporating into dusty charred ash as well.

Meanwhile, I look up to see Fox is still blasting a ton of electric magic everywhere. In the big room as well she’s got hordes of them screeching in fear and chittering to rouse a resistance.

“Hahahaha, whee!” she is acting like she’s drunk on power.

“Uh, Fox, are you OK?” Sunghee asks.

“No way…” In less than a minute she’s already terminated about sixty imps.

“Crap, there’s too many of them,” Fox Girl said. “This isn’t good.”

Wow, it changes that fast?

“So is it time to run?” Sunghee asked anxiously. There’s a nervous edge in her voice.

“Pull back,” I confirmed the order.

We start pulling back, even while Fox sends out one more arc.

“I think we pulled more than we can handle,” Sunghee says. She dispatches a couple of imps that are the quickest and first responders. One of them has its throat slit and the other gets its arms and wings mauled terribly from the blunt end of the war hammer.

After that we’re running for our lives. We head back the way we came. It’s hard to run faster than imps however. They have much smaller bodies and that would have given us an edge, except for that they can do this scamper like thing and they also have a bonus effect of some kind from being able to channel momentum with their back’s wings.

“Fox do you have a plan?” Sunghee exclaims.

“Survive…” she gasped back.

“Let’s get to that T section near the beginning,” I gasped while we ran.

“That’s their breeding nest. Sorry I shouldn’t have taken on that many,” Fox huffs.

“It’s….kind of…unfair…putting that many of them…all in the same room…” I huffed as we ran.

“Yeah definitely a trap,” Sunghee said.

We began turning corners and retreating again.

Whenever we hit a corner of a tunnel it gives Fox a chance to send off another electric magic burst. Within another minute of running she’s managed to melt down other forty or so imps from five bursts. But they are still coming.

Something is off because they should be all dead right? But now there’s almost more than there were to begin with?

It works well taking them out like that, but still…can we keep it up? Fox is sweating and I’m sure she can’t do this forever.

“They’re still coming!” Sunghee says thick with worry.

I have to amplify the light spell so that we can run faster without tripping over each other, or other objects. Interestingly enough the evil little imp creatures don’t like the light spell; it seems to hurt their eyes. But the problem is that it also makes it easier to see where we are going and for the imps to follow too.

“It can’t be helped,” Sunghee muttered.

Despite my being the magic user, she’s the confident one and still shows her better experience. She’s pulling me along with her hand while she runs making sure I am with her the whole way. All the time her boobs bounce like mad while she’s running. If only this were a different situation where I could appreciate it more…

The caverns are noisy and so loud we can’t hear each other talk now because of the imps all screeching at once. It sounds like they are coming from everywhere.

We pull back and finally I can hear Fox say, “I’m almost out of gas. I need to charge my power back up.” She then pulls out a normal weapon, some of the salvaged weapons that I usually kept with us.

“I think they have lost their initiative from sheer numbers and are being more cautious now,” Sunghee said directing me to what was going nearby.

“But they are still coming,” Fox countered.

“Well you did burn about a hundred or so of them to death,” I said.

“Uh oh this is near where we came from,” Sunghee said in fear.

“How is that bad? We need to be here,” I rasped.

“It means we’re running out of space to run too,” Fox said, managing to shoot off one more blast into a crowd of tailing imps.

“I don’t want us to get trapped in an area we can’t retreat from,” I said.

“So we don’t go back to the start?” Fox is confused.

“Nope. It’s better if we look for a spot where we can run them in circles and confuse them. We need a circular tunnel network,” I decided.

“I hope there’s something like that here, but no guarantees,” Fox huffed.

“Yeah sure, and we can just order up a pizza while we’re at it,” Sunghee said sarcastically while her boobs are bouncing all over while straining her shirt as we rounded a bend. Oops…was that a nipple slip as she turned to make sure I’m able to stay caught up with her? Yeah I’m definitely sure she had a nipple slip, but it was probably in this case really an accident instead of a fake accident. Not to mention having the perfect mix of view to see too much.

I almost tripped because of it distracting me.

We go the other way instead when we reach the T section into the yet to be explored area.

But I’m sure we aren’t going to surprise anything now. The tunnels echo loudly for probably miles.

Sure enough in front of us some imps poke their heads out to watch for us, just in time for Sunghee to take over running as point. She chops the head off the one, having borrowed my axe. Then she uses an orc hand axe to kill the other fighting dual handed with a series of fluid looking chops; the last blow is a kick in midair while the body is already flying away from us. She doesn’t stop and is already moving onto the next small group.

“Wow, nice.” Fox admits it was very artistic to see a coordinated combo like that.

Fox then kills two imps that have snuck up behind us.

Wow, I hadn’t even seen them. They have some type of sneak abilities too? Crap.

“Sorry, I’m not as strong as you guys,” I said.

“Actually I just don’t want you on the front line,” Sunghee said.

“It would be good to buff you guys now,” I said.

“Do it quickly then,” Fox said.

I cast my movement speed buff, and the +10% combat stats buff on both of them. I add it to myself too. Before now since we’d been using Fox’s spell formation work it wasn’t necessary to use this and it would have worn off anyway. Plus it wouldn’t have changed much since the imps were dead from the electric attacks really fast.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually a big effect. I’m amazed when I see Sunghee is that much quicker and kills three imps without hardly any effort on the next time I blink. Her speed is increased a lot in swinging and she was already fast before. It also surprised herself, and at one point she almost let the orc hand axe slip out of her hand.

Fox is also busy, but not quite as good in hand to hand combat, focusing on agility and dodging instead of raw destructive power. In the end it works out for her, and she has an uncanny ability to predict where they are swinging at, moving away before the strike connects.

But I’m not one to lay down on the job.

While Fox is killing imps I come in from the side and add a savage chop with the warhammer I’m carrying to one that she’d just wounded, coming in from the side to back her up by attacking it’s flank. It dies quickly, but technically Fox did all the work.

I try the same technique to sneak in a flanking attack when Fox wounds other imps after that when she doesn’t quite finish them off. It turns into like a combo move that we both try to exploit the enemy with. It works well not because I’m that good, but because the imps are already distracted by Fox by the time I come in from the side.

We’re here quite awhile when suddenly Fox’s runic shield starts to flare from some damage. Because it’s my mana forming the shield, I can feel my mana core also pulse when others are hit with damage…but until today I hadn’t noticed that particular aspect yet.

Something really weird just happened. I don’t have a good feeling right now.

What is this feeling?

Something dangerous is going on...

“What the hell? Something is hitting the shield! It’s some kind of energy?” Fox exclaimed.

I can see spidered cracks appearing and moving across her mana energy shield! It’s threatening to buckle and wavering in the air. I reinforce it but they are still appearing even after reinforcing it and while Fox is trying to stay alive. There are more imps now too. She’s trying to evade and dodge in violent desperate turns in mid air and jumping away that under normal conditions should have been like masterful evading but still the runic shielding is having problems and still getting damaged.

They imps seem to be in an organized formation as they are moving to flank and thwart us. I should have realized what that meant right away but it didn’t click right away. We hadn’t realized they could have smart officers in charge.

The others and I try to dodge and move away but it’s still not working in trying to escape them completely.

“Something must be causing it. The shield wouldn’t receive damage for nothing,” Sunghee says with her teeth grit.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but energy means…,” Fox said back. Fox’s shield is still shrinking more quickly than I’d like.

We’re both ducked behind a doorway on either side now. I cast another shield to restore Fox’s while she keeps imps from going through. On the other side Sunghee is charging ahead. She has no choice but to do it this way since we are in danger of being cut off from ahead and from behind at the same time.

“Don’t get too far ahead of us, or we can’t back you up,” I said.

“Too late,” Fox countered.

“Shit. She just got separated from us,” I said. My orders earlier are to no effect now that we’ve lost sight of her.

“Damn.”

“Shun, use your paladin holy light the next time a big group of them comes through,” Fox suggested.

“Will it even work on imps?” I asked.

“I know they look small but they are creatures of darkness. They are full of evil and are a type of small demons. There’s no way it shouldn’t work.”

We try to avoid whatever was hitting Fox’s shield but we’re still confused at what was doing it. Then there’s a surge as a whole platoon of imps rushes to the door way that’s approaching this room from an adjoining chamber.

“Now!” Fox shouts.

I activate the paladin burner in my hand, and thrust it through the doorway.

To my surprise it works better than I thought. I end up rushing the doorway after I see the imps catching on fire en mass, and rolling in pain as a whole group. As they are thrashing about in madness they continue to burn as if they were standing in a campfire. As they start to die they are dissolving.

Before Fox can stop me I run out in the middle of them. If the paladin holy light is this good at turning them into biological gasoline it’s a good chance. I run through the area trying to hit as many of them as possible.

“No Shun wait! It’s dangerous!” Fox said desperately.

Too late, I didn’t see I was also taking damage to my shield as I ran. So I run faster instead, hoping to miss the darts they are throwing. But the damage to my shield is still ongoing. I can feel it’s an energy source of some kind.

Weird…unless…

I realized just then that it’s a spell right when I saw the chief imp in the back. That’s where the strange feeling was coming from! Its him!

In the same instant I also realized, that I was feeling energy...mana energy to be exact coming from him!

A spellcaster imp?!

Crap…..

My brain is screaming at me to run and I can feel the hackles on my neck stand up feeling the energy about him which screams magic user.

“Fox. Their leader!” I said.

“Is a magic user!” she shouts back to make sure I understand the danger.

No wonder I had a strange feeling coming from him and noticed him right away. It was like he stood out from the other imps by quite a lot, even though he was purposefully dressed to look just like them and blend in with his brethren. Is this how the mana sensory thing pings when you run into other mages?

I begin running back the way I’ve come dodging him entirely. It also makes that the imps that I’d run through as a crowd would burn to death faster from a second pass around them with the paladin burner‘s radius of effect. We must have burned about forty imps to death just now. The paladin light works well on them.

As I duck down the doorway I roll to the side, and just as I did so a lightning bolt shoots through where I was just standing. But unlike Fox’s light blue electric colored lightning bolt, this one is like a red neon color. It spasms violently and has less control than hers has as it takes parts of debris and corridor with it trying to eat at us.

“Wow that was close,” Fox gasped.

“Well now we know what was damaging your shield,” I said.

“He must have been using some kind of spell that caused damage but very little in effects. I think he did a double cast of something to mask and stealth the spell as it was coming in,” Fox confirms as we stayed under cover.

“What would do that?” I asked.

After she says that another flashy lightning bolt shoots through the doorway with terrific power and rumbling noise. It’s so bright and hot I’m seeing specks in the air from where it passed…that’s not good.

“Wow this guy is juiced. He’s pretty powerful,” Fox warns. We stay trying to hide and now it seems there aren’t any melee imps left except for this caster since he was the only one that didn’t burn to death.

“Stay back, don’t engage it directly or you’ll die,” she added.

“You mean, he’s more powerful than we are?” I asked.

“Not me, but you yes. Lightning is pretty popular recently because it’s so deadly too. Lots of damage with not the most cost and the burns look horrific and hard to heal from too,” she said.

...

Fox cast something else and throws a smaller ball of lightning down the tube as a return fire volley. I did notice it’s not a heavy bolt like her previous version but something miniature sized instead. We hear the gasp and cries of a few dying imps that had been hiding but somehow I can feel we didn’t get the imp caster. His mana presence can still be felt, even though I don’t dare peek to look around the edge of the corridor.

But if I can feel him then my growth in magic is definitely progressing.

“Don’t go, he’s faking it,” she said confirming we’d made the right choice.

“Got it,” I responded.

“He has a magic shield just like we do. We haven’t even hit it yet,” she said.

“So we’ll be doing cat and mouse for awhile?” I asked.

She nods.

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Sure enough a lightning bolt flashes our way a few minutes later. It clips part of the doorway but the dungeon walls are built of heavy rock and brick, which absorbs parts of the damage as the rest sped through it.

He should be able to hit us, but since we’re under heavy cover the energy gets absorbed by the tunnel.

Wow, clever. If I’d been without her I would have charged out and gotten burned to death by electricity.

“Clipped his shield,” Fox said quickly after returning fire. After she throws a couple more lightning balls down the hallway she looks a bit more animated. This time the shrieks of pain sound more real.

“I thought you were low on power,” I said frowning.

“I always say that when I get to a certain point. You have to plan for sectioning off how much of your power is for escape and emergencies,” she said.

“Oh.”

I cast starry missiles and then hurl them right after the next lightning bolt arcs through back down the dark hall. All three of them bury themselves in the imp’s magic shield. I can see three small holes that are burning where I’d impacted his shield. He was too far to use the paladin holy light still as well, while we were sniping at each other from opposite ends of the tunnel.

“Not bad,” Fox said while we dodge his screaming fury of profanity and retaliation.

Fox pulls my head back in, just as another lightning bolt arcs through. I found she’s pushed up against me on the wall. “What are you doing?! You have to move fast! Don’t sit there to look at the damage!” she said.

“Sorry. Is Sunghee going to be OK?” I asked.

“Worry about us more than her,” Fox hissed angrily. Wow that hit a nerve. I better smooth things over later. I was still getting used to the fact that I needed to manage the two of them.

Fox throws a few more lightning balls down the hall. I hear a metallic clang as they are hitting the imp mage’s energy shield. Strange, was it a force of magnetism? Is that why the shield sounded metallic on impact even though it was mostly clear and transparent looking?

If I try to add a magnetic element to my shield will it be stronger? What was the metallic pinging? Or it could just be a different normal type of magic shield, and not magnetism related at all.

“Now!” Fox said.

We both let loose our volleys of magic, just as another lightning bolt goes through. The lightning bolts aren’t shabby. They look heavy and flash by so fast they create their own wind field. It’s amazing a mage can throw such a thing out. Just being close to it feels like I’ve lost a few minutes of my life.

Without the stone archways to hide behind this would have already have been a tragedy.

I accidentally gave Fox a look like I was deadly afraid.

We both clipped his energy mana shield at the same time on the counter attack. The metallic ping is much heavier this time, because we’d concentrated our hits together. In the dim corridor I could also see some kind of light bounce off the shield.

“I thought lightning bolts are a heavy hard to use spell?” I asked.

“They are,” she said.

“But he’s tossing them like they are candy. How can he do that? Why doesn’t he run out of power?” I protested. I’m kind of mildly jealous. I wish I could just toss stuff around like it’s nothing.

“Sorry Shun, I didn’t expect you would have your first mage battle as an apprentice, so soon,” Fox said. She pulls me back into a hug against her to keep a lightning bolt from hitting us both. Because somehow she has the battle sense to easily see where he’s directing the bolts it’s necessary for her to do. It wasn’t for comfort but to keep a bolt from hitting me that shaved part of the walls we were behind.

But the edge of it did nick the edge both of our shields. It’s clear that a very small section has been burned through on our shields, but a much larger edge should have been clipped off than that had she not done what she did and probably would have also shaved some flesh with it, based on what I’d just seen.

I lean down to take a closer look. How strange…

I think I just discovered something else new. Where our shields were overlapped there was like a bonus effect? Much more of the impact was shielded than there should have been because of how Fox was practically right on top of me. I’d like to study that further when we’re not trying to survive.

Crap, this thing is a full on mage too? It’s surprising that a creature like imps can have mages among them.

I start to feel really bad.

The mana prescence from the imp mage feels like a crushing despair that is heavy in the air. But curiously I wonder if he’s trying to amplify it with some kind of fear effect. I’m being brave so I shouldn’t have the temptation of despair, but it’s there like a metallic taste in the back of my mind.

He’s pretty clever after all if he can do all this at once.

Then another electricity bolt surges through. But this time it’s bigger, the stream of energy looks thicker and it flashes by for a longer period of time. Even when he misses it stirs up clouds of dirt not far from where we are, making it hard to breathe without choking on dust.

“Oh crap! I didn’t know it was going to be like this,” Fox said.

“What?”

“Cannibal mages, often have a lot of extra power stored up from eating people that have mana in their bodies. That’s the first sign is instead of running low on power, their power starts to flare up at the end and get more wild and violent when it should have been shrinking,” Fox said.

“Then you’ve fought one before,” I asked.

She nods briefly, while we toss some more power back at the mage. Our little flashy effects are starting to seem like a hand sparkler to his stadium level firework like effects.

“Battles like this can be an attrition game as both mages have to keep their shield from going out and end up going at each other. It can get messy,” she said worriedly.

After more damage I had to recast our runic shielding protection. But just like that, all over again he’s clipped the edge of it again.

But for Fox to say that…she’s worried, when before she was like our MVP scares me.

“Got any other tricks we can do?” I asked.

“Sh, quiet.”

?

“Are we winning or losing?” I asked a full minute later, while we were being patient. During that minute both sides were hiding afraid to pop out of our hiding holes.

“It’s too quiet, now,” she said worriedly.

Did that mean he was sneaking around to a new position?

Then suddenly he attacked again with another blast of fury and profanity.

Our mana shields flash as the lightning bolt clips part of the wall away. The walls are hot now too because of so much energy buzzing at the edge, so many times.

“It’s not always the heavy flashier attacks that win,” Fox reminded me. “He’ll eventually bleed out his power, because he’s going for aggression and fear, and not a solid strategy.”

“I’ll try to remember that when I’m seeing my life flash before my eyes,” I said.

We throw back another volley but it seems like he’s got us outgunned. He can attack every time we can, and his are heavier.

I have to think outside the box…somehow.

What do I do?

“Do you have any throwing darts?” I asked.

She shakes her head.

Still, I think back to the boss battle before. I had started to use distance on my casts.

I pick up a few rocks. Could I put the paladin evil burner on one of these and throw it at the mage? It wouldn’t be very stable, if I did. I haven’t had much experience with having the paladin holy light remaining constant with a distance away from my body. I’d have to hurry and throw it quickly with high velocity.

The first time I try it, it only clips the edge of the imp’s shield. He does shriek however as blue flames engulfed his shield. The second and third are more direct. It leaves half of his shield collapsed. It looks like a complete wreck.

But his shield when full was better than mine and Fox’s. That means I needed to research more.

“Hurry, he’s open!” Fox said. She’s getting ready to throw another lightning ball.

But we see he renews his shield much faster than we’d anticipated. I throw three more rocks with paladin burner in them and his shield blinks out. But he re-energizes it just as fast for a second time recharging his shield with really good speed. Fox wasn’t as quick on the take as she wanted. Plus her ball of lightning is much smaller. She’s had to make them smaller for the last fifteen minutes of fighting because of mana conservation.

Thus, her ball of lightning is like a third or a fourth the power his lightning bolt carries.

Damn. He’s good.

“Flashy attacks don’t always win. We have to play for the long haul. Also just because a mage tosses something doesn’t mean it’ll always hit; despite appearances we can miss sometimes. People can get under cover too,” Fox said again, holding my wrist.

We jump back as he throws another electricity bolt through the doorway. This time it’s the bigger heavier type and has an odd angry violet flashy effect to it, rather than the red tinge that was there before. Fox is right. This guy is really powerful.

He’s also laughing at us harshly. Even in imp language I can tell he’s laughing and taunting at us.

Shouldn’t Sunghee be back by now?

“I’m sorry Shun, we should have practiced for mage battles. I didn’t think this would hit so soon,” Fox said.

“Let’s try some more of those Paladin burner things,” I suggested.

In the next volley we ended up taking a third of his shield as my thrown rocks burned half his shielding away from the paladin holy light burning him up.

“Uh oh, he’s adapting,” Fox said quickly.

Sure enough the imp is saying some kind of spell in Egyptian. I didn’t recognize the whole thing, but did recognize part of the sequence from things I’d learned from training with the girls in the dream state.

“Get down!” Fox said.

She throws herself into me and pulls me away. She did the gravity jump to the next doorway too.

We got away only because of Fox being a bad ass.

Behind us a fireball has exploded and is so hot even the rock floor is aflame. Lots of smoke and small miniature seas of flame are even on the walls.

“Uh oh,” I coughed out, picking myself up off the floor from where I’d landed. Both Fox’s shield and mine were completely shredded open like melted plastic. Before getting up I recasted both of them on both of us as fast as I could while Fox dragged us to cover.

“Uh oh is right. This is a really interesting mage,” Fox counters.

“Can we get him?” I asked.

Fox’s grin settles in. “Oh, I have a few tricks still.”

I wonder if she means her energy sword. It could probably cut through that shield quick enough, but it’d be a tight squeeze because to get it really hot and powered means a little time concentrating one’s energy first.

Another electricity bolt shoots past us.

“He’s wilder this time. See, notice how he’s getting desperate,” Fox said.

“You think now is the time to strike?” I asked.

“Yes, but not me, you,” she said. “I’m almost out.”

“Eh?”

“Do you trust me?” she added.

I nod slowly.

“We dodge another wild bolt. He probably figured he was using his bolts to drive us in a corner and then finish us off with the fireball. Am I right?” I asked.

“Yes, and that’s why he can’t be allowed to leave here alive. He’s too powerful and very cunning. He could waste a whole small town on his own,” she said. “Here.”

She pulls out her energy sword and gives it to me.

While doing so I cast my resistance 20% buff on both me and her, tuned to electricity. Assuming he doesn’t do a fireball it will buffer some of the hit, if we don’t suffer to death first.

“We have to move. He is going to repeat the same pattern and throw another fireball for sure,” she adds. “Charge up the sword with as much power as you can. When it’s good, I’m going to come from behind you and gravity jump us next to him. It’s going to be a dangerous maneuver so try to not cut my arms off,” Fox said nervously.

That said more than I thought because she was a pro.

I’m charging up the blade so hot it’s almost singing with reverberating force.

“Oh shit! We can’t wait,” Fox said desperately.

We hear the unintelligible roar of the approaching fireball.

I’m feeling anguished because the sword isn’t quite as red hot as it was before when I was slashing at the tentacle beast. I’m scared stupid and worried I’ll cut my own arms off, as Fox grabs me and rushes her gravity jump spell.

We come in behind the other mage in a haze of smoky looking shadows and I almost puke from feeling like I’m upside down. It’s a rough set up. I almost drop the sword.

I have to stop and steady myself. If I drop it I could and will probably lose the charge. I need to make sure I concentrate on the spell and not get ahead of myself because my fear is making my adrenaline go all over the place.

The imp mage has hesitated throwing lightning bolts and he can’t figure out why he doesn’t see us. He’s leaning closer. He’s getting suspicious why there’s no activity ahead.

Precious seconds go by as I try to figure out which way is up and have my head clear enough to even move.

One, two, three,…oh crap…

He’s turning around.

The imp mage is horrified to see we’ve somehow appeared behind him. He cried out in fear.

But then he starts to cast, even while I’m charging up every bit of power that I can. I lurch forward and the burning overpowering energy sword swaths right through his magic shielding as if it’s made of butter.

“EEEeeekkkk!” he screams out. In mid cast he changes spells, abandoning his first one which had been offense. Now he’s trying to keep his shield intact so his guts don’t splatter the walls and ceiling.

“Hurry! Bombard him, he’s trying to get his shield back up!” Fox yells.

She’s also casting her own offensive spells, but she’s fizzling out.

We will either win or die right now.

I swing the heavy plasma energy sword through him again and again. The second hit goes through his shield severing one of his hands, but he somehow got his shield up again and I’m cutting it again. My third and fourth hits end up melting his shield so hotly that it’s dripping down like melted snow melted water coming off a mountain like run off.

The imp mage is crying, but still casting something knowing he is already dead. It feels heavy and wicked. I’m guessing it’s something offensive but I can’t tell for sure. He intends to take me with him to hell.

In no time flat, I burn out a fifth and sixth swing but I can feel my mana starting to feel tight. At this rate, if he doesn’t die soon I’ll be out of power.

Fox does something weird and interrupts his cast by …bouncing him off the floor and ceiling.

What the frick? There’s a move like that?

Overall it’s not a spell that does any damage to him, except make him crazy and confuse the shit out of him.

It just so happens as he’s coming down from the bounce I accidentally cut off his head. His body is so small and the energy sword is so powerful it took both of his shoulders too and the bones inside were melted and had become a puddle of goo.

I put away the energy sword.

“Oh thank goodness,” Fox said breathing heavily as we finally are able to relax.

“Now hurry and put that dreadful thing away fast. If you keep using it, it’ll give me a heart attack.” Fox is clutching her heart like she’s in pain.

Ah, there’s a cost to using a weapon that’s this dangerous like this it seems. Crap.

Fox is leaning against the wall heavily and straining like she’s in terrible pain even after I’d put it away.

“Is that all of them? Is there any more of them here?” I hurriedly ask, whirling about in case of danger.

“I think that’s the last of them,” she gasped.

I rushed forward and put her arm over my neck and shoulders to help support her weight and help her move with my body weight while we’re linked touching side by side.

“At least we’re…not maimed or missing limbs,” she croaked.

“Eh?!”

“What, that happens sometimes in mage battles,” she said.

“So you really think I’m a mage?” I blushed.

“Yeah you did good,” she snuck a kiss on my forehead. It was more of a brother and sister kiss though, so I’m kind of disappointed.

Wait, what’s that? There’s something sparkling there on the ground on the dissolving body of the imp mage.

It makes me curious. It’s sparkling like its glowing.

I pick it up.

“hmm.”

Then a blue screen pops up. Shoot, where’s Sunghee when I need her.

Is this? Wow. It seems I’ve found something good. But since she’s not here I won’t know what it is until then. The sparkling item in my hand dissolves but I can tell I’ve got something new in my inventory box.

There were other things too I’d picked up just waiting to exploit.

Finally Sunghee shows up limping at the end and bloody. She’s torn up pretty good and had been carried off by imps it seems. They’d apparently torn up and cut up her clothes, trying to shake her concentration into dropping her weapons but she’d kept her cool.

Now however she’s describing it to us with only her shoes and a belt left, with the belt loops and top part of her skirt left. The bottom half has been torn away revealing everything underneath. There’s also nothing left of her shirt and it’s like she never had one in the first place. When they’d been about to plummet her to her death, they somehow decided to run away. Fox says this was because the imp mage had a mental telepathic link with them, and when he died it was severed.

I tried not to stare at her like this.

She describes to us how while being carried off she’d had to painstakingly shave off imps killing them even while they carried her and their friends kept also replacing the ones she’d killed. They’d been about to throw her off a cliff chasm that was above a lake of lava not far from here.

Thanks to Fox helping me keep self control I don’t have to worry about the pheromones making me and Sunghee go crazy in wild animal like fun.

She tries to hug me. I’m a bit overly conscientious of it when she latches onto me because she’s totally naked. Sunghee ends up pushing her boobs against me purposefully while starting to kiss me. She licks my face a few times.

“Gosh I missed you. I’m so glad you’re safe!” she says with half closed eyes full of mischief. She bites my chin and is rubbing herself on me.

“I’m glad you are safe too,” I said.

Fox will probably stop this before I can enjoy it, I think.

Yep, sure enough; “Hey cut that out. No hugging naked people!” Fox Girl interrupts. She chases Sunghee off, who is now laughing back at her. Fox’s face is blushing more than mine is right now. Sunghee’s boobs sure bounce a lot when she’s trying to dodge Fox.

Wow…amazing.

“Oh come on, you can do it too. Come on I’ll share him with you,” Sunghee says energetically.

“Nah that’s good. I’m totally fine. I don’t need any touching,” Fox says. Fox has a stance with her legs spread in an upside down V with her hands on her hips and ends up puppy guarding me while Sunghee is forced back. Fox’s ears are laid flat against her head in aggression and her two tails are sticking straight up.

So much work still to do with just getting those two to get along…

But back to my upgrade options…

I wonder if I’ll ever end up with something like the lightning bolt. I didn’t have a clue how it worked, but I’d picked up that there was a way to channel magic to create terrible force. What would happen if I tried channeling bigger force into my Starry Missiles as if I was trying to create lightning?

I needed to create a barrier defense or upgraded shield for defending against heavy magic attacks like the fireball, since raw elemental force went through the shielding too fast. Its destructiveness was an instant kill if there ever was one. Or at the least it would injure someone so heavily that they’d wish they were dead.

We’d been very lucky…

There was also the issue of how the shields overlapped when Fox and I were close to each other on impact. I could create such an effect with my own magic. I just had to keep bending it.

I felt like I needed to upgrade everything considerably; but my telekinesis wasn’t even good enough to consider it a real active power yet. I could basically levitate small objects only two or three feet like coke bottle sized objects or rocks only for a few seconds at a time.

I must have been pretty desperate to pull it off on the tentacle boss.

But I could also try to upgrade my abilities that I’d seen with the demon summoner job. In the end I had too many choices to consider. This time of mental reviewing myself near the end was helpful though, in being better able to see how I could grow in the future.

Was it also possible for more practical types of magic? So far I’d had to worry about attack and defend skills, but what about skills that would make my life easier? Was there a way to create or shape matter into tools or housing, or convert energy into food or clothing?

Suddenly my questions were so many I didn’t know where to start with.

I’m in trouble in other ways too.

I somehow think it’s a bit too convenient that Sunghee has let the imps shred her clothes. Is she trying to make me see her naked and create mischief? The pheromones could be making her do that without her even realizing it.

She’s a bit too happy to be showing off her birthday suit.

Yep…she let the imps do it probably…

Regardless I only have one more set of girl’s clothes left. I’d originally had two sets, but Asakura had needed a replacement shirt. So that meant I had one full set left plus a skirt and a pair of sneakers. So I was screwed in terms of what I was going to do with Ayumi and Haruka, if I could get them out.

And since I didn’t have much trust with them yet, that wouldn’t go well. It’s true that they kind of had an idea who I was since we were at the same school…but it was barely knowing my name and face.

“So Sunghee, are you going to help me with this blue screen thing please?” I smiled.

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