Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Birth of a Spider Queen

The enemy group advanced on her rapidly, skating down hill much more gracefully than she’d descended earlier, drawing their weapons as they ran.

Both of their frontliners reached the base of the hill first. One of them was the Paladin she’d overheard speaking before, toting a hammer the size of her entire body, and seemingly the leader of their entire group based on the way he’d barked orders at the rest of them. The other Paladin was much simpler in design, a modest shield and sword held close to their body as they kept to their boss’s side, forming a makeshift wall as they pursued.

The pair behind them quickly spread out, making to surround her while she couldn’t flee anymore. To her right was the orc Cleric who had been speaking with the leader earlier, and to her left was an almost unbearably excited Ranger, feeling very smug about landing their earlier shot on her.

Four versus two… not exactly odds she or Silk were happy with. But she had several new toys to play with since her last combat encounter.

“Blade Charge…!”

The sword and shield Paladin called out their skill, rushing ahead of their party, clearly wanting to impress their comrades as they shot forward towards her, sword first.

After all, most mages were weakest at close ranges, so it only made sense to close the gap as fast as possible.

Unfortunately for them, however, Monica was decidedly not most mages.

“Hazard Fumes!”

At once, noxious gases roiled off of her body, spilling out and engulfing her protectively as they spread to try and fill the densely packed forest arena around them. The poor Paladin could only watch in shock as the toxic field appeared directly before them, unable to stop themselves as they were completely locked into their gap-closing attack, flying headlong into the thick cloud before them.

“What is th- g-gaaaah…!!”

The cloud took affect before they could even hit the ground, a knight-shaped statue skidding along the dirt and roots as a thousand particle effects popped up over their body all at once, the unfortunate test dummy being poisoned, stunned, blinded, silenced, and thoroughly embarrassed as they were immediately knocked out of the fight only one attack in.

Those remaining, quickly scrambled back away from her newly deployed barrier, earlier aggression melting into cautious study, waiting to see what the boss fight they’d hunted down would do next.

She tried her leg again, trying to at least stand up. No good still. It wasn’t nearly as stiff now, and her knee could bend again, but it still refused to hold her weight at all, leaving her motionless as the enemy party formulated a plan to deal with her.

“Twin Shot!”

Monica ducked on reflex as the skill was activated, two arrow splitting the thick air around her as they cut past her, neither one aimed too terribly well with the cloud obscuring her exact location in the dark like this.

Several more shots rang out intermittently, the Ranger seemingly testing the waters more than trying to attack her, content to try and wait out their prey while they had the advantage.

Waiting her out would spell disaster at this rate… Hazard Fumes provided an incredible deterrent to attackers, but she couldn’t keep it up indefinitely. Every second a smidgen of her MP leaked out, maintaining her defenses for a bit longer. She needed some kind of plan.

She couldn’t move at all to try and press her momentary advantage at all, and none of them seemed terribly inclined to close the gap either.

But...

“Twin Shot! Twin Shot! Twin- Geez, are any of these even hitting? Feel like I’m swinging at a ghost here, I can’t see a thing through this.”

“Just keep shooting until you hear them yell or something, yeah? That Stun Arrow earlier should still be holding ‘em down a while longer…”

“Yeah… yeah, fine, just seems a bit anticlimactic, y’know-”

“Blowback…!”

A skill none of them were familiar with came yelling out from the roiling fog orb in front of them, the trio all bracing for some manner of counterattack. They were fighting a mage here, so there was no telling if they’d need to dodge flames, lightning, or any other manner of attack spells they’d seen before.

What they did not consider, however, was a projectile consisting of the mage herself.

Her staff aimed at her own body, a kitsune sporting a terrifyingly feral expression flew out of her own smokescreen, her paralyzed leg meeting a certain Ranger’s face with enough magically-induced force to knock more than a few teeth loose on impact.

“Try that one you, little piece of-”

Thud.

The landing from her makeshift ranged attack was less than ideal, landing in a heap at the base of the tree she’d crashed into, missing more than a bit of her HP by now.

It was far from the most well-launched plans, but that seemed to be something of a trademark of her fights by now.

Her nightmare cloud of ailments was dragged slowly along after her, a certain shell-shocked Ranger barely having time to register what had hit them as they were engulfed by the disabling smoke like their comrade before.

The two she’d successfully disabled remained wonderfully frozen in place in the dirt, HP slowly leaking out from the poison effect, resigned to ineffectually wriggling in place as they were equal parts desperate and embarrassed.

Only the leader and the healer he’d been speaking with before remained, and they had already taken a much more defensive stance after seeing her flying dropkick technique, ready to try and deflect her away if she repeated the move.

Not that it was an option to begin with, despite them not being aware of that. Not only had it hurt horribly, the fox barely keeping from screaming and swearing over her smug, predatory expression, it had also done plenty of actual damage to her HP as well from using a disabled limb as a battering weapon. Right now she was down to about 30% of her health, not at all enough for another flying knee off of the top rope.

The leader, still a Paladin, sported no shield like the other had, only sporting a frankly excessively-sized hammer, the head more like a boulder than an actual weapon. The Cleric had only a simple wand for a weapon, but carried a rather sizable tome in their other hand, browsing through the text as their companion covered them, the pair whispering low enough that she couldn’t make out any kind of words they were saying.

Panting and weak from extended physical activity since the moment she logged in, Monica pulled a fold of her ornate robe open, Silk spilling free from their makeshift hideaway.

“Silk, I need you to try and sneak around behind them, as quiet and slow as you need to not be seen. Okay? I’m gonna be keeping their eyes on me, so you just stick to the shadows while I tank.”

“Chk… chkchk!!”

They both spoke quietly, none of their enemies having spotted Silk thus far. If they could get around behind them and land a few good Silkshots, it would make this entire ordeal a lot smoother for them both.

The spiderling scampered away, keeping out of site of the two downed members as well as they vanished in the poison mist towards the treeline.

“Oy, you still in there? Not much of a field boss if all you’re gonna do is run and cower, eh?”

The Paladin tried to provoke her, clearly ready to deal with any flying mages sent their way.

Something quiet and muffled echoed from within the cloud, and behind it came yet another projectile, aimed squarely towards the taunting Paladin.

“Ah ah, I’m not that blind! Rampart!”

They clasped their hammer with both hands, thrusting the hilt into the ground below as a barrier of holy light materialized before the pair, perfectly covering the two from the incoming attack spell…

Clink.

You are reading story The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox at novel35.com

...And with a dull sound, a small, Blowback-propelled rock plinked off of the massive shield put up just to stop it, tumbling to the ground harmlessly.

“Shock!”

Much less impotent was the arcing bolt of dull blue thunder that shot out from another angle entirely, bypassing the expected defensive ability a tank would have prepared to justify the lack of a shield and striking their exposed flank squarely.

Running was still out of the question, but with a slowly healing leg, she could at least maneuver in her own obscuring fog with her staff functioning as a crutch. And after launching herself a few feet to the side as she launched her stone, her expectations had rewarded her with disabling a third of their party.

“Getting rusty this early…? Good thing you keep someone with half a brain with you, hm? Cleanse!”

Her victory was short lived however, as the stunned tank was bathed in a green light, their petrified body loosing once more as they were purged of her status ailment as quickly as she’d placed it.

“Tch, first monster we’ve found that fights like this… here I’d been thinking everything in this miserable little place was pathetic.”

Her sneak shot was purged off instantly, the fox grumbling as she was rebuffed.

“Shock! Shock! Shock!”

“You little… gah, stop that!!”

She kept pelting the duo with stunning bolts, the Paladin blocking most of them with their massive shield ability, the few that sneaked past only keeping them locked up for a moment as their healer dutifully removed each stun she landed.

“Is their AI broken or something? They’re not- guh – doing anything else!”

“They’re just… getting desperate since we’re still standing. Just keep blocking it!”

Both sides kept up the seemingly endless exchange, neither one making any headway over the other as the hidden mage fired off at them over and over and over.

“Can’t keep… sitting here. I’m gonna start firing back, keep me cured!”

“Fine, we’ve got to-”

Thunk.

There was a dull crashing noise behind him, the knight sparing a glance behind himself… to find their Cleric having been struck from behind, a hidden support enemy having taken advantage of their singularly forward focus. Silk had launched a barrage of Silkshots from the trees overhead that dispatched the inattentive enemy mage before they could alert their tank.

“H-Hey, get up, quick-”

Not nearly fast enough, their own lapse in judgment earning them yet another Shock to the back of the head, knocking them flat to the ground alongside the rest of their party in the clearing.

“Cle- mmmff..!”

Another Silkshot struck the downed orc, plugging their mouth and stopping their spell before they could render aid for their teammate.

Finally, the glade grew quiet once more, the constant noises of heated combat being replace with grunting players and a panting witch, looming large as she cast a massive, imposing shadow through her dark cloud.

Four extraordinarily well-equipped foes lay defeated at her feet, with only the spider queen and her loyal minion standing after the carnage.

She couldn’t keep her mouth from coiling into a disturbingly satisfied, villainess’s grin as she watched her prey finally fall.

...Maybe this build was starting to have some effect on her psyche.

Her leg had recovered enough to walk normally finally, giving her the chance to advance on her final two quarries, both of them visibly worried as they were engulfed by the cloud of instant death, the Cleric mostly seeming annoyed at their entourage being dispatched, while the Paladin appeared as if they could piss themselves at any moment.

The first two targets to meet with her cloud finally reached the limits of their HP, both poofing into death particle effects as they most likely were sent careening back off to town to respawn and regather themselves.

She rested her staff against her fellow caster as they lay incapacitated, prodding them a few times to ensure they were properly downed.

“Sorry, but… Sap.”

Her imposing weapon drained every mote of MP they’d left unspent out of them, restoring her own mostly-emptied stores once more Their HP drained just as fast, the healer clearly planning to stay defended by their brick wall of a tank as after only a short exposure to her poison field was enough to kill them off as well, sparing her once last glare of annoyance before vanishing into dust.

Now, only the leader themselves remained, and… much to her surprise, he seemed to be perfectly stable despite his afflictions. His massive pool of health drained bit by bit, only to bump itself back up just as quickly.

Frustratingly, something they had was passively healing them just as fast as she could drain them out. This was, more than anything else really, annoying. She could have just left them frozen here for a while and left back to the woods, but…

They’d certainly made a fuss about killing her off. It only seemed fair for her to get to respond in kind.

Once again however, a deeply satisfying idea burst into her head like a sinister little bubble, and she couldn’t bring herself to not at least try it.

“Y-Y-You little… you won’t… g-get away with…”

Every word was forced through a combination of genuine fear and literal immobilization, the Paladin more or less reduced to a metal punching bag.

He could hardly see anything as the thick, green fumes had him completely engulfed, only the occasional pip of his Temple Body skill slowly, gradually refilled his HP every few moments. Even the shape of his attacker was obscured, a dull silhouette all he could make out.

After a while, they could feel something tap against their side several times, prodding and clinking against their armor.

Clank, clank.

Clank, clank.

Clank, clank.

“Blooooooooooooooooooooooooow… back!”

The staff struck against his side yet again, but significantly more forcefully this time, the knight feeling the ground vanish from underneath them rapidly.

Meanwhile, a very satisfied Gloom Mage followed through with her picturesque golf swing, launching the man responsible for hunting her like a wild animal skywards, his glistening armor shimmering as he vanished into the sunlight overhead.

You can find story with these keywords: The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox, Read The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox, The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox novel, The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox book, The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox story, The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox full, The Greatest Mage Is A Harmless Fox Latest Chapter