Chương 371: Shock and Awe (3)

"Father," said Felix, as he tried to contain his surprise. He had expected to need to explain the fact that he was a hero to other people - that was half the point of this stint. There was no good way to meet up with Miria without that, since the city was now watching Miria and Anise like hawks. That also meant that his family would discover the truth sooner or later. He had just assumed it would be later, after the battle had concluded. Wasn't his father one of the city's strongest Mages?

Why was he on the front lines? Felix had assumed that all of the really powerful Mages would stay away from the front lines for a lower-level skirmish like this, so that they didn't get tempted to waste essence that the city couldn't afford to lose. With that in mind, Felix was baffled. He flew over to his father, so that the two of them could talk. The flesh clouds didn't move that quickly - they could have a quick conversation as long as they were careful.

Seeing Felix's surprise at his presence, his father rolled his eyes.

"What, did you think that I would just hide in the back lines and hope for the best? I might not be able to use my higher-power spells on a small raid like this, but I'm a public, well-known Mage. I can boost morale, and I can also step in if things turn out to be more dangerous than expected. The scouts who ring the bells estimate the power of each raid based on our knowledge of the enemy and the types of monsters it sends. But the scouts aren't perfect. Sometimes they make a mistake.

So we always prepare for the worst, and then avoid intervening if… if we don't have to." Felix's father hesitated for a moment, and Felix caught a glimpse of something other than his father's dry, confident tone for a moment. A hint of sorrow, that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"What about you, boy? What are you doing here? The servants should have been taking care of you, and you definitely shouldn't be here. Your boots are unusual as well, and they also look like they come from a different magic system." His father squinted at Felix." Are you a Hero?" Felix hesitated for a moment, before he nodded. He had expected a lot more discomfort during this conversation - perhaps even an argument, or disbelief. Instead, his father managed to quickly arrive at the correct conclusion.

It probably wasn't that surprising, but Felix had still expected it to take longer for his father to realize what was going on. His father sized Felix's attire up, before he sized up Felix as well. Finally, he barked out a harsh-sounding laugh.

"Well then. Less than a year ago, the city was abuzz because we found two heroes. To think there was another one hiding under my very nose. And it was my own flesh and blood, at that." Felix's father as he fired an arrow at one of the other flying flesh-clouds. The creature went berserk, and charged towards the two.

"How long have you known that you were a hero?" asked Felix's father seemingly indifferent to the charging monster.

"Is now really the time to talk?" asked Felix, as he pointed his acid staff at a berserking flesh cloud and released another jet of acid. The creature died.

"You'll be fine. You're a hero. Gotta have at least some grit in ya if you want to live up to that name. Heroes have big shoes to fill, and since you came out here, you must have at least some confidence. Even when you were acting like a normal kid, you were never one to be reckless," said his father.

"Come to think of it… I suppose you were sizing up our reaction to the first group of heroes? That's the only reason I can think of why you would deliberately wait so long to reveal yourself as a hero. It's only now that you're confident the city will treat you well that you revealed yourself, right?" His father sighed.

"I can't believe I missed it until now." He shook his head.

"Fine, we'll talk more when we get back to the house. Now get down here - flying around like that is still a danger to you, and it's a waste of essence at that. You might be able to regenerate essence without needing food, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to waste it willy-nilly. Besides, I'm not going to lose one of my children over a normal four-star raid."

"I'm not using essence," said Felix, as he pointed at his boots.

"Once these are made, I don't need anything to keep them powered. Well, I still need to maintain them, of course - but the boots don't consume more."

"Oh?" Felix's father's eyes suddenly lit with interest.

"Can only you use them?"

"No, other people should be able to use them too, as long as I teach them how," said Felix.

"If you want to ask whether I can supply some more to the city, I was planning on doing so later. They take a bit of essence to create, but I can still make a good number of them each month." Arming and equipping the city's defenders with new and useful weapons would probably be worth a hefty amount of Achievement, after all. Felix thought it was a good avenue for improvement, especially since his focus had always been item creation.

He would probably need to replace the metal boots with stone boots instead, or perhaps some other material, but that shouldn't mess with the actual flight capability much. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Felix's father grinned from ear to ear.

"I'll hold you to that. The city could use more flying defenders, since every enemy that makes it up here can fly." As Felix thought about the Achievement he could earn, Miria's mental voice interrupted his thoughts. <I see the first flesh-cloud monsters, > said Miria. <They have decently sized candles of life, so I'm going to focus mostly on support. I'll still extinguish one completely though, just to see if I can get a good skill out of it. Let me… oh, interesting, > she said.

<I'll need to think about whether I want it, but I can provide some useful information. Based on the skill I just stole, these things activate their 'speedy' mode when they are likely to die in the next minute. When that happens, they enter a kind of berserk state. They get a bit of vitality back, and restore some essence and speed up. All of these boosts are temporary - after two minutes of entering this state, they die.

So if you can find a way to stall them after bringing them near death, the enemy invasion will solve itself. I don't know if that's possible, but maybe it can help reduce casualties for the city, > she said. Felix blinked in surprise, before he considered Miria's words. He wasn't sure what tools the city had available for its defense - they weren't welcome in the rooms where the city decided its policies, after all.

Still, Miria's words could save lives - if he could find a way to 'discover' this information on his own and relay it to his father. Actually, was there a need to pretend to discover it on his own? Since the city already knew that they were all heroes, it probably wouldn't take much thinking to put two and two together and realize that Anise, Miria, and him were potentially in contact somehow. After all, Miria had never delved super deeply into what she could do to the city - she had given a rough summary.

Heroes were already known to possess unique magic systems. It wouldn't take much imagination to suspect that they were communicating somehow. After all, they were in communication - and it was unlikely that none of them had ever made any kind of mistake that would clue people in. Revealing this ability now might inspire more trust from the city leaders. Felix confirmed that the others were all right with his decision, and then conveyed Miria's message to his father.

His father's eyes lit up when he glanced at the monsters.

"Just need to hold them off for two minutes once they enter that state? We have a few spells that can do that - it should cost the same amount of essence, but we can save some lives that way." Felix's father patted him on the shoulder.

"Good job, son. That information will save some lives tonight." He turned back towards the monsters.

"Do you have some way to gather intelligence from the enemy? Some other quirk of your magic system?" asked his father. Felix shook his head.

"Miria does. I just have a way to talk to her," he said. Felix's father narrowed his eyes at Felix, before he barked out another laugh.

"So you three have been in contact for a long time already. I suppose Miria and Anise revealed themselves to test our reaction to new heroes, and then you remained hidden so that you could observe us, and to create an escape route for them if we proved to be bad actors... Unbelievable." His father laughed heartily, and Felix was faintly reminded of a bear.

"There are four of us," said Felix.

"There's another hero fighting outside of the city, one of the closer farms. She's dealing with enemies nearby, and she'll make contact later," said Felix, after double-checking that Sallia still wanted to reveal herself. Felix's father laughed.

"Well, I admire your guts, at least. Fine. All four of you, then. We'll talk about this later. For now, I've got a city defense to organize. I need to get those movement-freezing beams ready to go." Felix nodded, and his father moved off. Felix returned to the skies to help the defenders, by occasionally blasting the enemy with acid when he noticed an opportune moment.

After a few moments, he noticed that enemies no longer had the ability to make charging attacks - every time they did, a gray beam would hit them, freezing them in place and halting their momentum. This would 'ground' the enemy, and a few minutes later, each enemy would die on its own. Meanwhile, the defenders on the ground seemed grateful that Felix could swoop in at opportune moments and distract dangerous enemies.

Combined with the occasional jar of acid to keep the insect swarm on the ground at bay, the battle went well - though not without casualties. As the battle started to draw to a close, a few soldiers escorted Miria to the front lines, who started distributing healing spells to save anyone that could still be saved. It wasn't a costless battle, but Felix felt it went as well as it could have. After the fight ended, Felix felt a mixture of relief and anticipation.

He had made his debut as a hero, and after the city leaders had a few days to figure things out, his own training would probably start, and he could start chipping in to Miria's research on an artificial sun. It was still far from a real solution to the problems encountered by the miniature sun… but at last, real progress could begin.