Chương 217: Chapter 218: An idea

Alya and Marcus were busy fighting a drake while Quinn and Chloe dealt with another. The rest of us simply watched. After an hour and a couple of dozen dead drakes we decided to try with smaller and smaller numbers. First we divided the whole group in two, then in four. Now we were dealing with every drake only in pairs. Our coordination improved tremendously.

We were getting more and more used to fighting alongside each other, especially after the great stat boost and the addition of new traits and skills that happened in the past days. I realized that my teammates were actually pretty strong, especially the older ones. Chloe, Frederick, and Tom instead were still a couple of steps behind the others.

"Give me an opening!" shouted Quinn at our guild manager. As the teen disappeared into thin air, leaving the drake dumbfounded and without a target for a moment, Chloe furiously scribbled something in front of her. The arcane words remained suspended until she finished, then as a single stream they flowed into the monster, which startled and turned to look at us, who were just spectating. Strangely there was seemingly no aggression in the beast, as if it forgot what it was doing there.

Then the spell broke only a moment later, but it was more than enough. By the time the monster tried to charge a beam of super-condensed water at Chloe, it found its brain pierced through by one of Quinn's new blades. Luckily this particular specimen had no core, and it fell heavily to the ground, twitching a couple of times but otherwise dying without too much fanfare. Quinn smiled victoriously, then disappeared for a moment only to reappear beside his current partner.

"Hell yeah! That was perfect! Super tag team! Give me a high-five!" he screamed at the startled girl. Chloe was much less excited than him, but still complied, a small smile appearing for a fleeting moment before a frown replaced it. As they approached us she said, "I don't think I would be able to deal with one by myself just now... I don't have the firepower for that."

"Me neither," replied Tom.

"But this is just the first time fighting them, and I don't know about you, but pushing so hard made a couple of my skills ready to evolve. Consider that you are still level 25. It's already crazy that we are dealing with these kinds of monsters. You heard the others in the tavern..." Her eyes moved to me, then returned to Tom.

"I know that most can't even fight monsters over their level, but still, I'm not satisfied with my progress, especially after seeing these kinds of performances." As if on cue, Marcus shouted as he brought down a mighty swing of his bone club on the drake's head. A sickening crunch sounded through the marsh, and we could feel the vibration of the strike from thirty yards away. The head of the drake got splattered here and there, but the beast still lived. Well, unlived?

Being undead and all, I had no idea what the right terminology should be. In any case it wasn't important. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Another!? Can't these bastards just die!" Alya screamed as she started hacking at the monster's legs one by one. I didn't ask her the details, but it was clear that she used her token. I'm sure she was successful, but we didn't have the chance to talk about it. Her fighting style was still extremely aggressive though, and despite her great agility and combat awareness she was still prone to injury, like now.

As she hacked into the front leg, she suddenly had to twist out of the way of a claw strike from the back one, only to be swatted away midair by the drake's tail, an attack that she had no way of dodging while airborne. I slowed my perception and saw that she noticed the attack approaching, but had no way of acting on it. Well, except for placing her sword in front of her. The tail hit the flat of the blade, which got pushed into her ribcage, and her arm bent in a way that shouldn't.

She rolled multiple times on the ground, getting mud and dirty swamp water on her... well, everywhere. She rose with a scream of defiance and made to get back into the fray, but Mary stopped her. She approached and started healing her from afar first, then she put her hands on Alya's shoulder and side. A series of snapping sounds managed to reach us despite Marcus and the drake making a ruckus. Alya groaned and spat some blood to the side, then Mary finished her work and brought her back to us.

Marcus instead proceeded to carve the undead beast open and extract the core. It was a gruesome sight. Every time we did it we ended up with a terribly mangled corpse, headless, limbless, and horribly torn apart. But we found no other way of stopping the things, so that was that. As Marcus came back to us, a discussion was underway about the names of skills and traits.

Many believed they were tailored to our culture, or at least to our race, because one of Chloe's traits was called The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword. Quite long in my opinion, but for a trait that gave her particular kind of word magic a boost, it was quite fitting.

"Let's get back on track, people. Elias, how about we move towards single fights? We could have a team ready to intervene while some of us hunt solo, then we rotate," said our general. I thought about it. Actually, among us I think Alya, Marcus, Rhea, Quinn, and I were the only ones capable of soloing the monsters without trouble, and we didn't even need the experience and whatever achievements a high-level monster could give us.

We all had Elite Slayer III, so it was more a matter of training than gaining something substantial, but still, if they felt confident, especially after all the practice we did... Actually I wanted to stretch my skills a little too. After playing support all morning, I wanted to see how I could deal with the beasts using just my skills, and without aura. Using aura would make the whole exercise pointless.

It was the only thing not restricted by the cursed bracelet, so I would have to be creative if I wanted to take a drake down. Actually... I had an idea.

"Fine by me. I trust you enough to know if you have a chance at dealing with the monsters solo or not. I won't baby you, but let's set the backup team first."

"I would stay in the back," said Chloe.

"Me too," echoed Tom, a sensible choice. He was a good fighter, but his skills weren't really great at dealing a lot of damage. He was more skilled as a duelist if we were to take purely his offensive side into consideration, but it was something that didn't bother me. He was still more than capable enough to fight alongside us. It was his commanding skills that I was more interested in.

"I would stay too for now. I have a skill evolution to consider. I'll get a turn later." I wasn't expecting restraint from Alya, but I was actually glad that she didn't throw herself into another fight just after finishing one.

"I would like to try by myself." Frederick was looking at me, seeking approval.

"Go for it. You are the most durable among us, and if you need help we are here," I told him. He nodded. I wanted to see how he would fare. I didn't think he could deal with one alone, but maybe...

"I'll go too," I announced. At the skeptical looks of many, I simply replied that I wanted to see if I could deal with them using just my hexes, highly limiting my skills. In the end, Rhea, Mary, Quinn, Marcus, Frederick, and I would fight solo for this round, then we would rotate. I was curious to see how Mary would deal with one by herself. And I wanted to try something. I had an idea...