Chương 43: 1-42 Wrapping it up

When Josef's eyes opened to the violence he had left behind, he was as ready as he could be, having made his plans before finalizing his selection, albeit still down a hand. While his mana had recovered upon entering his skill selection, the energy he had spent summoning his new familiar had drained a considerable amount from his available pool, which didn't seem to regenerate while in that location. Even so, he was much better off than before, and more than ready to continue fighting.

Pretzel hadn't magically exited that desert with him, but he could still feel her presence within him, nary a call away from joining his side. Something he immediately did, as to push the numbers advantage decisively. A ripple spread across his chest, a blue haze-like mist over a lake in the early morning, through which his familiar emerged with the speed of an arrow, flinging herself right at Josef's target.

The one-armed knight, almost leisurely keeping pace with his opponent, could barely react to the living projectile heading straight for him, hastily flinging himself aside to avoid the devastating impact. Rolling away over his good shoulder, he was quick to regain his footing as he faced his new opponent, though there was some hesitation in his movements, as if he wasn't entirely sure what stance to take against the large serpent.

"I'm backing you up, Miss Knight!" Josef let the woman know, hoping to reach her in her current state of rage. If she had heard him, she gave no indication of it, but fortunately she continued to aim for her initial target, ignoring Pretzel completely. This was the decision he had come to, backing up the part of this encounter that was closest to breaking apart.

There was no telling how long that lady could continue to survive on her own, and her partner needed immediate attention, so naturally, that was where he should be headed. Sure, there was the option of letting them kill each other, mopping up the rest afterwards, but he couldn't do something so heartless after promising his help. Besides, he wanted answers as to what had happened here, as well as insider information about Sanctum.

Also, he chose to believe in Zippa and Bezzo, who were more than capable in their own right. It would not surprise him if they could finish their fight before his own battle was done. Besides, something that had escaped him during his earlier shock, he realized that they weren't necessarily on the back foot either, as that mace-wielding knight's armor had gained a concerning red tint. It looked like the heat was getting to him.

Meanwhile, Josef was busy getting himself some additional mana, making use of the rather sizable source right in front of him. He had debated with himself before coming back, on whether he should do so, and finally decided that he'd rather fully commit to surviving this fight. Extending small tendrils of mana into the body of the frost knight, he swiftly invaded and plundered the leftovers, which were a decent amount for a mage who had been fighting actively for a while.

There was little resistance as he did so, and not long after the corpse disintegrated as so many monsters before it had done. The dungeon didn't care what died within its halls, bestowing the same fate upon all who lost their lives. It wasn't nearly enough to fully replenish his own magic, but it would have to do until he could recover more.

Rushing over to the side of his serpent familiar, he focused to send some of his newly regained mana over to her, which happened a bit slowly and clumsily, as he wasn't yet used to his new skill. He had picked Empowered Link after receiving some great counsel from Pretzel. If there were too many things he wanted to achieve at once, just ask them, his familiars, for help. Josef had to admit that there was wisdom in her words, even though it didn't feel like she thought about it that thoroughly.

Either way, delegation was king, and what better skill than the one that allowed him to do more of that. If his familiars could use his mana to shape spells, then what stopped Nibbles from creating his own cure for beastkin going feral, or Dusty from expanding whatever progress he has on breaking that state? Also, it was the only choice that offered him an immediate gain for the situation at hand, both the current fight and the whole expedition into the dungeon.

Maybe the water skill would have also been useful while going down the dungeon's floors, but he always had the option of figuring out a new spell to help with that at any point in time. The same went for the sight-related skill, which presented an upgrade he could reach on his own once he found a way to push his current skill in that direction. Furthermore, picking that one was an investment in the future after he had returned from the dungeon, which wasn't at all guaranteed.

Creating a Crushing Water Prison, he used the sphere as a deterrent to push the knight from his current position, trying to give himself space to check the fallen man. Pretzel was eagerly helping in this endeavor, hissing and striking with abandon, barely dodging out of the way of any sword strikes aimed at her. Together, they forcefully moved the location of this fight by several meters, allowing Josef to take a knee and check the injured knight.

He kept the sphere of water between himself and their opponent as he checked for vitals. Thankfully, the heart was still beating, meaning that the final stab hadn't hit it, as otherwise the man would probably have perished by now. However, he didn't need a medical license to realize that the attack had instead perforated the lung, causing blood to flow in, something the shallow, wet, and raspy breaths of the knight cued him into. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

This time, he didn't bother with the slow and steady approach because he intended to stabilize the man quickly before returning to the fight at hand. Using his Greater Heal, he focused on knitting the hole in the lung and stemming the bleeding of the wound itself, cutting off the encroaching threat of suffocation. He would still have to figure out what to do about the blood already in the lung, but as long as the amount no longer increased, he might just pull through and cough it up once his body had healed up.

Next up was the almost completely detached hand, holding on only by a strip of skin and flesh, after the sword had cut through everything else. Unsurprisingly, reattaching a limb was indeed easier than growing one from scratch, though it took a good amount of concentration, regardless. The process became a little awkward when having to eyeball the right position of the limb, but once he aligned the bones, the magic helped with pulling everything into position.

The expenditure of doing this was surprisingly low, but it made sense as only a small amount of tissue had to be created to fuse the parts back together. Most of the mana he spent had been used to ensure that every piece was in the correct place. Thank God that magic made this much simpler than surgery would have been.

With a final cast of Regeneration, putting in only a small amount of magic to help with keeping the man stable, Josef finished his impromptu triage session and rejoined the fight, only to realize something with surprise. His Water Prison was still there, perfectly fine despite him being distracted by healing his patient. How? Had he hit some hidden Intelligence threshold, increasing the maximum number of spells he could maintain by one, or had he entered a state of enlightenment during his earlier relaxation?

The answer turned out to be much simpler than that when the sphere moved away and went to support Pretzel in her siege on the armored elf. Apparently, she had made use of the mana he gave her and took control of his spell when his own concentration dropped. He hadn't thought such a thing was possible, but it came as a pleasant surprise at this moment.

Pushing past the continued hesitation he felt about fighting another person, Josef engaged decisively by creating another orb of water, this one smaller than the first, and accumulated space mana to prepare for another teleport. His mana had once more dropped low enough to threaten damaging his body during this cast, but he was in no rush to finish the spell, as the energy inside his body could still serve as a spontaneous weapon until he was ready to commit.

'Dolonar': Silver Swordknight - Level 31 A quick check revealed that this guy was actually a level weaker than his spell-slinging buddy, though going by how well he stood his ground, that number alone didn't always reflect someone's personal ability. Beset by three adversaries, two humanoids and a snake, the one-armed knight soon felt the pressure, barely weaving through the incoming attacks without a moment to retaliate.

Things might have looked different if he had the use of both his arms, but his original opponent had ruined that chance for him. In the end, the onslaught caught up with him, as his movements could not keep up with all three attackers, two of whom were waving around wet spheres that promised his demise should they ever entrap his head. It was Pretzel who caught him, just after he had sidestepped another swing by the lady's greatsword, who, despite all of Josef's expectations, had kept swinging without slowing down.

As meticulous as his movements were, they didn't completely account for the injured arm not following the precise flow of his body, which got it caught within the serpent's spell. With one arm locked in sudden stillness, Pretzel shot through the sphere itself without being impeded by it, and crawled up the limb to wrap around his neck, quickly tightening with crushing strength.

What little chance the elf had to save himself, the Water Prison ruined any chance he had left at survival, as the water quickly moved about his body and restrained his remaining healthy arm. It wasn't strong enough to stop it from moving completely, as desperation granted the knight one last burst of strength, but where one spell wasn't enough, two were, and Josef's spell joined his familiar's, restraining the limb completely.

In the end, the only uncertainty that remained was whether the strangulation killed him, or the greatsword that plunged through his chest when the lady knight finally got to land a strike. Her swing to hit ratio had been atrocious, but at least every hit was a killing blow. Before the body even hit the floor, she ran off to the side of her downed companion, frantically checking over him, as if she had only just remembered his existence after breaking out of her rage-fueled tantrum.

"Aifreed? Can you hear me? Please say something!" she pleaded with the unconscious knight, without a care for the adventurers she had dragged into her fight. Josef was just about to send Pretzel to help Zippa, letting his eyes wander to find out where Bezzo had slunk off to, intent on treating his wound as well, when the serpent interrupted his train of thought.

"That won't be necessary," she hissed, her voice sounding pleased. He had to agree with that at the sight of what the two siblings had accomplished. Zippa had wrapped his opponent in a disastrous hug, arms under the knight's pits, lifting him off the ground. There was no mistaking that the man was getting cooked in his own armor, which had turned a bright shade of red through contact with the reptile's flaming body.

Behind the knight's back stood the younger sibling, a satisfied grin on his face, blood dripping not only from his claws but from a deep gouge at the elf's waist, where poisonous claws had found purchase between cuirass and greaves of the armored man.

'Sordon': Silver Shieldknight - Level 34 Conditions: - Poisoned Thanks system, never would have guessed. He didn't know which of the two had created an opening for the other, or if it was Dusty, who was still dangling from the rim of the knight's armored boots, ferociously tugging at the metal, but they had also succeeded at overwhelming their opponent three on one. Who cared about fair odds, anyway?

That was how the fight ended, with the sobbing concern of a lady knight for her companion, the screams of a man getting torched in his own armor, and the upsettingly good smell of freshly cooked meat. Josef couldn't wait to wrap things up and get some answers from the duo they had saved.