Chapter 93: Welcome to the Outlaws: Spectating
Erani was woken up by Arlan in the middle of the night. For a moment, she was confused, but then she remembered she was supposed to take over watch for the next shift here. And then she remembered he was also planning on going out to kill some Mountain Troll to test out his abilities. It was certainly a… choice.
Well, really, it was technically completely riskless for him to fight the thing, since he had another use of Time Loop that’d be wasted at midnight if he didn’t use it. So, she supposed it made sense. Still, it felt absolutely insane for her to just sit back and watch him march off to fight something stronger than him for absolutely no reason. Again, it technically made sense for him to practice fighting on his own while he had an opportunity to see combat while facing no real consequences for his mistakes, but she couldn’t help wanting to yell at him to come back here and go to sleep, just out of instinct.
Instead, she just settled on sleepily muttering, “Good luck. Don’t die.”
“Yeah. Well, really, I’m fine if I only die once. It’s if I die twice that I get in trouble.”
“Oh, right. Well in that case, be sure to only die after you’ve killed it and gotten the XP. Then feel free to die and come back, I guess.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
And with that, he walked off. In the dark night, the main thing allowing Erani to see was the glow of Arlan’s Light Plate, but now that he was walking away, the camp was cast in darkness, with him taking her source of sight along with him.
She’d mentioned it to him before, but the Dark Plate really did make him look pretty scary. He didn’t realize it, since he was the one always wearing it, but the way it was decorated, with the deep black coloring that literally sucked the light from the sky and the sharp edges, it just made him look like something that walked out of the deepest hell.
Sure, the intimidating edges and small spikes lining armor wouldn’t do anything themselves – the only person able to touch or use either Light Plate or Dark Plate seemed to be Arlan – but that didn’t mean they didn’t still make him look freaky. Add in the fact that Dark Plate had a full face covering, and he barely even looked Human when he had it on. Secretly, Erani hoped that whatever Rank 10 Upgrade the Spell got would only make the Light Plate portion stronger, and not the Dark Plate. She really just didn’t like looking at it.
But for now, she wouldn’t have to worry about it. With the almost half-off discount Light Plate offered, it was the obviously correct choice. Sure, when up against something insane like a Dragon that could kill someone at their Levels in a single hit, donning the Dark Plate would be useful, but in the closer matches like the one he was about to find himself in, Light Plate was just better.
So she watched as her literal knight in shining armor departed, off to slay the evil beast. Of course, this was an ‘evil’ beast only in the way that it was just some wild monster minding its own business, and he wasn’t really a ‘knight’ if he was literally being hunted down by the entire kingdom he lived in, but she still felt like the armor made him seem heroic, at least.
The brightness of the Light Plate let Erani see Arlan even from far away, so she spectated as he walked off a few hundred paces, stopping near a cave that housed one of those Mountain Trolls. Erani hadn’t seen one before, but from Arlan’s description, they were apparently pretty scary. And with that super-speed ability, she would hate to find herself up against one of them. She was pretty much only effective when fighting at a range, so for something to be able to so easily close that gap, its build would pretty much hard-counter hers. Luckily, Arlan had clearly built his own set of abilities to be able to handle close combat quite well.
She watched as he seemed to take a moment to set himself, preparing for the fight as he stared into the glowing red eyes of the cave. A man standing in glowing armor against a red-eyed beast lurking in the dark, the gentle wind blowing dust and ash around them – the scene looked like something she’d see in a storybook. But here she was, watching in person.
Then, in a flash, the beast attacked. It leapt out of its cave, lunging straight at Arlan. But he moved quickly – probably boosted with Expedite – and stepped back and to the side, completely dodging the monster’s attack. At the same time, he lifted his hand with pinpoint accuracy to shoot off a multitude of Rays of Frost at the monster. It was still just a silhouette in the dark night to Erani, but she could still see the bright blue rays impact it, causing the Troll to roar in rage and charge again.
This time, Arlan let it get to him and take a swing without him dodging, and it was only then that Erani could actually see the monster’s features in the bright light of his armor. It was big – that much she could tell by its silhouette – and misshapen. Lumps covered its body, and she couldn’t tell if they were asymmetric muscles, some sort of massive tumors, or just the way its body was naturally shaped. And, of course, its face, twisted in anger, was just ugly. Its eyeballs were somehow too big while its actual irises and pupils were too small, its nose was wide and long, and its cheeks sagged and flapped in the wind like there was too much skin on its face.
But none of those features seemed to prevent it from fighting. It swung with deadly speed at Arlan’s torso, and seemed like it would easily bat him away, but before the hit could land, something happened to the Troll. It lurched and its already ugly face twisted in confusion and pain, and its speeding arm suddenly slowed and lost its accuracy. After fighting alongside Arlan for so long, Erani well knew what those effects were – he’d probably used Crippling Chill or activated Gravity Well. Or both at the same time.
Either way, its previously deadly strike was suddenly a complete joke to dodge, and Arlan, seemingly out of pride or maybe just to show off to Erani, who he no-doubt knew was watching him fight, opted to dodge by leaping straight over the Troll’s fist, landing on its hand with his arms out as if asking for applause. The moment the boots of his Light Plate touched the Troll, it reared back in pain – he’d probably used Noxious Grasp to deal some damage while he touched it – and he leapt back off.
The Mountain Troll, obviously furious with Arlan at this point, took a breath and just looked at him for a moment. Arlan seemed to realize what this meant, whatever it was, and prepared himself to defend against a deadly attack. And then the Troll’s eyes glinted, its red eyes shining in what Erani could immediately tell was magical brightness.
And then it disappeared.
Or, at least, Erani thought it disappeared. In an instant, it moved from its own position to right in front of Arlan in an incredible burst of speed, leaning forward and opening its jaws in an attempt to chomp its enemy’s head clean off. But Arlan ducked, also moving much more quickly than what should’ve been possible, and rushed forward between the Troll’s legs. He dragged his hand across its body as he dashed, no doubt using Noxious Grasp, and ended up behind it, reaching up to fire off a couple more Rays of Frost as it turned around to face him.
In another burst of speed, it rushed forward and swiped, but this time Arlan leapt back, apparently not seeing a good opportunity to get off a few moments of Noxious Grasp there. He held up a hand and shot off yet another Ray of Frost, though.
It stepped up for another attack, reaching out both arms as far as they could go to try and grab him and– oh! Suddenly, it was on the ground, pushed downward by an invisible force the moment it offset its center of gravity by reaching out so far. But Arlan didn’t utilize this moment to attack the Troll. No, instead, he just backed away and watched as it pushed itself back off the ground.
It was obvious what he was doing here – buying time. The longer this fight went on, the higher his chances of winning. Normally, for Magic-Types, this worked in the opposite way. For example, Erani’s maximum Mana was around 1200, meaning she could fire off about 24 total Firebolts in a fight. So, if combat went on too long, she’d have to ration those shots out more and more. Sure, natural Mana regeneration might allow her to use one more every now and then, but in true combat, that bit of Mana wouldn’t come quickly enough.
And as Magic-Types Leveled up and increased their Mana/Minute, so too did they Rank their Spells and increase their costs, keeping that relationship between Mana regeneration and number of Spells able to be cast pretty steady. In fact, often it’d work out that Magic-Types would have to wait even longer to regenerate enough Mana to cast their Spells again as they Leveled up. Since Mana/Minute increased in a linear fashion with Level-ups, but the Mana cost of Spells increased exponentially, the higher-Level someone was, the more time they’d need to prepare for a fight they’d have to go all-out in.
But for Arlan, that common knowledge was turned on its head. His absurd Mana/Minute meant that, if he could just get a fight to last long enough, he’d win every time. Before, trying to outlast an opponent would mean almost exclusively using Noxious Grasp to ration out his Mana for the maximum amount of effect, but now he didn’t need to do that. Sure, he wouldn’t be able to use his Spells constantly, but he’d be able to cast Rays of Frost, keep his Crippling Chills active, and even occasionally utilize the expensive Gravity Well to fight off his opponent and slow them down, making the fight last even longer.
In short, his Spells all focused on making a fight last longer, and now Arlan’s Talent would allow him to cast more Spells the longer a fight lasted. It was a vicious cycle of fucking with his opponent. And quite honestly, Erani was a bit scared of it. Even without much information, he’d managed to build himself up to be nigh-unstoppable in combats that were even remotely fairly-matched. Unless he was completely outnumbered or his opponent was quintuple his Level, he had the potential to dominate a fight.
So when she watched him calmly back away as the enraged Troll stood up and charged once again, she had nothing but confidence that he’d end up killing it. Maybe not instantly, but he had the inevitability here. His build countered the Troll’s, he was already in a better spot in terms of resources, and he was probably a lot smarter than the thing, on top of all that.
It swung again, and he dodged and shot another Ray of Frost, and then it tried stomping on him, only to lose its balance and fall, most likely because of Crippling Chill’s Dexterity drain. And then, after a few seconds passed and it got back to its feet, obviously tired and injured, it got another Ray of Frost to the face, reawakening its anger and causing it to charge once again.
She realized Arlan wasn’t just controlling the flow of the fight, he was even controlling the monster’s emotions, getting it angry whenever he had the resources to fight it off, and knocking it down to demoralize it whenever he was low on Mana and needed some time to regenerate. It was almost like watching a professional dancer, the way he commanded complete control of the entire battlefield.
And the longer he fought, the more and more tired his opponent got. He was finding more moments he could tap his hand against it to refresh Venomous Grasp, which of course got the monster even more tired, and make it even easier to touch with Venomous Grasp.
It took at least five or ten minutes, but to Erani, the fight was over before the first thirty seconds had passed. The Troll just didn’t know it’d lost yet. But eventually, the beast collapsed, and Arlan came walking back over to Erani. His face shined both in obvious excitement and from the glow of his armor.
“Did you see that?!” He laughed once he got back to the camp and plopped down next to her. “That shit was awesome! I totally fucked it up! Only took a few scratches, and it’s fuckin’ dead!”
“Yep, very impressive,” she smiled. She couldn’t help but grin alongside him after seeing his enthusiasm.
“Got a bit over 700 XP, too,” he said.
“Wait, 700?” she asked. That was way more than she was expecting.
“Yeah, yeah, it was lower-Level than the last one we fought, so not quite as much.”
“No, 700 sounds like way too much!”
“Well, I killed it twice. Time Loop.”
“Oh, right.” She normally knew that he’d activated it recently because she’d be standing right next to him, but he must’ve gone back to when he was already away from her and out ready to face the monster. Or maybe it was when she was still asleep, or something. “Well still, that’s amazing!”
“All in a day’s work,” he sighed and laid back down with a sarcastic smile.
“Dumbass,” Erani rolled her eyes.
“If I’m so dumb, how did I kill a Mountain Troll single-handedly?”
“Time travel,” she laughed. “Now go to bed. I don’t want to have to delay because you’re tired and wanna sleep for five more minutes.”
“Fine, fine,” he said and closed his eyes. “Let me know if anything goes wrong while you’re on watch.”
“Mhm,” Erani nodded and scanned the area, looking for Ghouls. She’d try to keep them from picking apart the Mountain Troll corpse too much, too, so that they could eat it in the morning. She’d become surprisingly accustomed to eating raw monster meat over the days, so it took a while for her to remember that the prospect of eating it would probably be considered completely disgusting to the average person. Or, really, it’d be disgusting to her back before the invasion. Maybe Arlan’s mannerisms had rubbed off on her more than she’d realized.
But they needed the nutrition and energy. With the mountain range ahead and the ambush that likely lay in wait for them in it, tomorrow would likely be a big day for them.
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