“Shizuka what do you want to say? I thought you weren’t interested in the competition. You said it was because your parents made you come and you just wanted to slack off since they had no requirements other than your participation,” said Arisa.
“Originally I wasn’t interested, however, if you incorporate Luon to aid us in the capture of this outpost that’s a different story,” said Shizuka as she entered the encampment with Belle and a maid.
“Milady, how can you allow this man to waltz in like this, the other subordinates wouldn’t approve of his presence in the camp,” said the maid.
From a glance, Luon recognized this person to be the last member of Arisa’s war group, her name was Keyral Agaster. She was Arisa’s maid and second in command. Unlike many other humans, Luon had seen her long blue hair was tied up in a bun giving her a heroic look.
People with colored hair tend to inherit different types of racial abilities. Keyral’s ability from what Luon could recall was dragonification, her bloodline was tainted by a water dragon. When triggered her body would grow a pair of blue wings and a tail, her physical abilities and regeneration would massively improve, and she had a large, uncontrollable mana pool. Their family line was served Arisa’s due to their ability to manage and seal their magic until they could control it.
Sensing Luon’s and Tyron’s gaze her face openly expressed her disgust towards them. From what Luon knew she hates men to the core. He didn’t understand why she doesn’t like men, and he would rather not ask why, as he found it was too bothersome to do so.
Arisa sighed at her nagging maid, she got up from her chair and began to walk towards Keyral. Keyral realized she went out of line by pushing her ideas towards her master and waited for her punishment only to find Arisa helping her tidy her up.
“How many times have I told you to watch out for your appearance unless there’s an emergency,” lectured Arisa.
“Sorry milady, I rushed over here as soon as I heard you had some guest, we have already got the details of the conversation from Kiri,” Keyral shyly replied.
Piqued by Keyral words she turned and faced Kiri and said, “Oh really now? Kiri, I thought you were just standing there but for you to leak the content of our conversation, how could I possibly trust if you won’t do the same when the time matters the most?”
At the moment Kiri bowed and pleaded, “Miss Arisa, although I am not your direct subordinate I apologize for offending you. My master Belle had requested that every particularly interesting event should be reported to her immediately.”
“Now, now Arisa no need to take it out on Kiri. She was just following my orders. As for Luon’s and Tyron’s participation, I don’t mind at all. If Shizuka wants to decline his aid. She came rushing here after hearing that the news,” Belle smilingly said.
Amused Arisa turned and faced Shizuka and asked, “So? What do you want to say about this truce with Luon’s group?”
“I agree with your suggestion of allowing them to aid us. However, those two must attack from the other side. The other girls and I wouldn’t feel safe with them fighting near us at the same time, and we might have some problems regarding kill stealing since they use long-range attacks. Unlike us, many of our subordinates need money, so I rather have them get as much as possible without them intervening,” said Shizuka.
At those words, Arisa nodded, and Luon thought, ‘Well she does have a point, if we wanted to secure all the Inzektors then all we needed to do is let Tyron tag them once with his arrows and claim them as ours.’
Shizuka continued, “Another thing, although I am not that interested in the competition if Luon were to participate in the reconstruction I would do the same, the maximum contribution value his team is allowed is 30%, and that’s final.”
“Isn’t that too low? Shouldn’t the contribution value be fairer or are limiting the value because you’re afraid I would build much faster than you anticipated?” Luon taunted.
Shizuka ticked by his words said, “I was afraid you wouldn’t have any points left over since not only am I aiding in the reconstruction but our subordinates as well, the amount I listed was just some pity value, but since you disregarded my kind gesture than you can have whatever you can obtain for yourself.”
Mentally Luon calculated at how much points he could obtain. If Shizuka and Luon, and the group of subordinates all equally have the same pace, at most he would have about 1/3rd of the value which was still higher than what she listed. Luon smiled, he wasn’t by himself as he had constructed several robots to help him out in the construction. Luon believed that he could at least obtain 40% of the contribution value and no other student could possibly catch up to him in points. Especially since Arisa, Shizuka and Belle were just too wealthy to care about the event.
“Alright I agree to those conditions, Arisa do you mind telling me where I can attack from, the sooner, the better because right now your subordinates are still clearing Inzektors as we speak, isn’t that right?” asked Luon.
“Hehe, Arisa looked like he wouldn’t fall for us stalling him here, just assign him north from the outpost, he has to go all the way around, after all, there’s also more Inzektor’s there, so it’s better for him, right?” Belle said.
Arisa elegantly chuckled and said, “Alright let’s go with that, Luon you’re allowed to attack from the north side that’s filled with Inzektors if you don’t clear it fast enough then Shizuka may have already rebuilt the outpost.”
Luon nodded and towed Bendan, and Kiri away, right now time was of the essence. Although he has confirmed that the girls weren’t interested in their scores the same couldn’t be said about Zythos and his minions, and if he slacked off a bit than Arisa who was nonchalantly participating would overtake him.
Tyron, Kiri, and Luon went around the outpost, and with Kiri’s guidance, they avoided causing trouble with the other group of girls.
Soon enough they reached the designated point of which Luon began to scout the Inzektor nests. From what Kiri had told him it would take one or two nights to clear the Inzektor nests on the south side before Shizuka can begin reconstruction. With Luon’s calculations, the number of the nests on the north side would typically take him three days to clear. That is if he normally did it – after he sent Tyron to scout the nests he developed a plan, a road to get to the outpost while eliminating all the Inzektor nest’s on the north side in the fastest way possible.
…
“I didn’t expect you guys to be this fast. I told Kiri to keep it a secret since it was interesting, but to think you would actually clear all those nests at the same time as we cleared ours normally,” replied Belle.
Luon smiled and said, “It’s because we had everything we needed, and the execution was perfect. A single misstep could have been disastrous.”
“Isn’t it already a disaster? Not only did you consume tons of explosives, your tactic practically ruined the northern terrain,” said Shizuka as she viciously retorted.
Luon’s tactic was a hybrid version of a hit and run maneuver, he had set the path to loop around every nest, and at the fastest pace possible it took merely 6 hours every lap. At each hive, he would cause an alarmingly large amount of damage on the outside using his magic cards and lure tons of Inzektors out of hiding.
With a crowd of riled up Inzektors every once in awhile he tosses explosives and magic cards slowing them down and causing massive amounts of damage. The Inzektors were angry, every few minutes a portion of them would die causing their anger to rise even further.
At first, Kiri was following along Luon when the team split up, Luon was in charge of the mob while Tyron was set elsewhere, she didn’t know which one to follow so chose to monitor Luon. After the first lap, she was too tired to follow along, even if it’s just observing running for 6 hours straight was a troublesome task.
The only reason Luon was able to last that long was because in between he activated his NG-Arms and rested for a bit before switching it off, he also had many potions and rejuvenating medicine to keep him going.
When Kiri stopped, she tried to look for Tyron to see what he was up to, but couldn’t find any traces of him, so instead, she sat at the starting point and waited for Luon to clear up the mob.
Only after the fourth lap did any changes occur, while the mob was still going strong Luon had received word from Tyron that the task he had assigned him was completed.
Within moments an earth-shattering quake occurred as the Inzektor nests were all blown up, from a distance all one could see was a chain of explosions. Kiri was glad that none of her companions were in the northern region, as well as the fact that she wasn’t in the danger zone.
With the nests destroyed the Inzektors following Luon were in disarray, and at this point, Tyron had appeared attacking the remaining Inzektors. Together Luon and Tyron wiped out the group within minutes.
Kiri asked how did Tyron sneak in each of the nests which pulled out a robe which he had received from Luon before the expedition had started.
|
[Magical Stealth Cape] [Rank – Rare] [Defense – 500] [Durability 400/400] [A cape with the ability to manipulate wind to hide sound and smell, and light to cast an illusion. Made with the silk of the rare Chamel spider the wielder is nearly invisible.] [Perk 1 – Wind Manipulation] [Perk 2 – Light Manipulation] [Perk 3 – Illusion Magic] |
Looking at the cape features she found that the invisibility option was more lacking compared to her racial ability, however, the fact it could hide the sound and smell using wind manipulation interested her. Her ability at most can conceal her entire presence from magic and vision. However, it could not hide her from influencing the surroundings.
The only downside to this magical cape was the amount of mana it costs to cast and maintain it.
Luon coughed at Shizuka reply and said, “Isn’t it about time we start building the outpost?”
Shizuka nodded, she turned around to face her subordinates who were watching them from a distance and said, “Alright girls, it’s time to start reconstructing the outpost, and I want no trouble from anyone as long as I am in command, alright?”
The group replied positively, and Shizuka turned towards Luon and said, “Alright, since you wanted a lot of contribution points, although I don’t know how much you could do you may start with the outer wall.”
Luon nodded as it seemed quite fair, the outer wall itself was about 50% of the contribution value. Seeing Luon agree with her judgment everyone got to work except for Arisa and Belle who led a team to clear the remaining Inzektors beyond their initial cleaning range.
While Luon was mending the wall, he faced a few challenges from the rich girl’s unruly subordinates. For example, when he needed materials to repair the wall, a few of them would claim that they are using it, or when he was servicing specific sectors, they would say that they were there first. Although they were right, he couldn’t help but sigh at how many people they have, he didn’t know if they were bullying him or just straight up desperate for points.
Fortunately, in the middle of the night he snuck off with some materials he stole from each group, and they seem not to notice the changes. As for claiming parts of the wall to repair he and his robots scattered over to every possible open spot claiming them for himself, and with Tyron’s guiding him on open places they managed to maintain a pace faster than then the group of girls assigned to the outer wall. After all, they weren’t professional engineers who had the teachings of a master teacher.
The group hammered away at the repairs keeping a peaceful equilibrium.
…
“It should be around here right Chester?” Zythos said.
While Luon and Arisa’s group were competing Zythos and his group marched into the forest a few days away from their outpost.
“Yes Zythos, the guards say they didn’t bother clearing the Inzektors in this area as it was troublesome to deal with them. They said they grew too much and would be penalized if news of this got out,” Chester obediently nodded as he confirmed the information they had received.
“Alright, take out the bait, and ready the device. Luon and Arisa’s group have arrived at the outpost right?” Zythos asked Chester.
“Yes, I have visually confirmed it with our subordinate. After fixing the teleportation portal, the two groups walked towards the premeditated path that we had someone traveled once before leading towards the outpost. Those foolish hunters in the group led the group on the pathway without having any second thoughts,” Chester snickered.
“Good, also make sure to split the bait in half. I want to keep the other as its quite expensive and useful,” Zythos nodded and said.
The moment Chester took out the chest and open it the surroundings was shrouded in an aromatic perfume. Within seconds the earth shook, and giant Inzektor surged from the nest they were at. Zythos shocked at the fast reaction of the Inzektor and said, “Quick activate the device and drop the half! Hurry up we got to run!”
Chester quickly activated the device and dropped half of the bait as the group began to run away, the huge Inzektor didn’t bother chasing, consumed the bait and then rested. A few seconds later a swarm of Inzektors came out of the nest and chased after the scent to offer to their leader.
Groups of Inzektors closed in on the group from all of the nest in the region, and Zythos yelled, “S***! I didn’t think it would be this effective, quick drop the second half inside the river, if possible we can pick it up later. Luckily this channel leads to the outpost and as long as we pass it before the Inzektors come we would be able to get it again.”
Chester toss the chest into the river, and it quickly went downstream, all of the Inzektors following them turned towards the direction of the chest leaving the relieved Zythos and his minions.
Zythos began to laugh at the fate of those who offended him.
