Josh exited the cart to see France standing in front. He walked up to him and asked,
"What happened to you?"
"Don't worry about me, go check on Schein.", France said, his voice raspy and pained.
Josh took a stick from his inventory and lit it up, the pitch black area was illuminated by the torch, allowing Josh to properly see France, France's body and right arm was lodged with arrows.
"France you're Injured!", Joshua yelled out in shock.
France sat against the cart and glared at Josh.
"Check up on Schein for me Joshua, he's probably in a worse position than me.", he said weakly.
Josh nodded and began incantation, "Earth's Embrace."
"Josh what are y-", A dome erected from the ground as to protect him.
'Were we ambushed by bandits?'
As Josh went in a disgusting smell reached his nose, 'Is this what a dead body smells like?', he thought as he wrongly mistook the stench of blood.
'No, its just been a few minutes since Schein died, decomposition hasn't happened yet. Oh-', Josh saw the image of Schein arrows embedded deeply into his body.
The twitching of Schein's body, his grainy and pained grunts, and the tears dripping from his eyes. This was a sight that would horrify anyone, however Josh stood there with an empty face.
"i- Is someone there?", Schein's words were jumbled.
"You're alive?", Josh spoke out. 'Of course he isn't dead, her death wasn't bloody'. He thought to himself.
"...voice, j- Josh? Is that you?", The young man cried out. He was in severe pain as he spoke out he fumbled his words.
"...", Josh spaced out.
"Is anyone there?", Schein cried out.
"...", Josh answered with silence, he was in a place where he could hear nothing, see no one, why were there so many arrows in the first place?
"Don't worry I'll heal you up.", Josh said as he took out a red bottle made of glass.
"Drink this.", he forced Schein to drink the contents of the bottle. Schein drank everything in the bottle and whispered to Josh.
"Look behind you."
Shivers ran down Joshua's spine as he quickly reacted to Schein's words, he turned around as volatile flames formed on his left palms, the flames in about 0.2 seconds had rapidly expanded and contracted into blue flames. Something had stung Josh's right shoulder and his whole body had twitched in response to pain. [Fire Bolt] had fired out from Josh's palm and penetrated through something's skull.
***
[You have killed a lvl. 100 soldier of Dagfinn!]
You have gained 50,000 EXP!
You have levelled up once!
***
Josh stopped his movements as the soldier fell down on him, he was didn't push off the corpse immediately as he was too shocked what happened, he knew that his life was only spared because of luck, had he not twitched could he have killed the soldier? "No" was the only answer he could say.
Josh felt horrible for Schein even though he was an NPC, he valued their lives to be the same as a humans, why? It was because NPCs were given emotions, he knew that that the only difference of humans was the medium for where they lived, it was because of this that he felt shocked for killing the soldier.
'This is just a game...', Joshua had told himself. Sure, he cared less about anyone's life than most people but that did not mean he was a heartless person. He had been playing the game for more than a few months and he found that NPC's acted human, more than him.
Josh pushed away the lifeless corpse that weighed down on his body and sat up, he knew that he would've been killed by the soldier if he didn't kill him first. Josh fixed his beautiful gold hair and activated [Enhanced Hearing].
Pat. Pat. Pat!
The sounds of footsteps, just as he thought there were others that were getting closer to his position, '5- No it's 7 people.'
He readied "[Fire Bolt]" on his palms and increased their power until they displayed violet. He rushed out and fired them off in the direction of the footsteps.
[Vaporized Atmosphere Has Activated!]
[Fire Magic is enhanced and the Mana Consumption is Reduced.]
BAAAAAAAAM!
The Fire Bolts had hit their targets and exploded, the explosions appeared to be as large as the trees of the forest and it illuminated the pitch black landscape into a beautiful blue and in just a fraction of a second, the explosions sent out heatwaves that forced Josh to cover his eyes.
[You have killed "Arne"]
You have gained 250,000 EXP!
You have levelled up 4x!
You have gained [Bloodstained Dagger]!
[You have killed a lvl. 95 soldier of Dagfinn!]
You have gained 47,500 EXP!
Josh opened his eyes and had seen bright fires that lit the forest, Josh could see 5-, No it was 10- 9? The surroundings that had been lit up however it was still the night and they were in the middle of the forest too, so it wasn't surprising that he would fail to properly see them.
Josh had properly seen them all, 4 drew their bows, whilst 3 charged from afar with swords, the other two were still covering their eyes from the previous explosions. 'There are about nine of them, 2 are vulnerable, whilst the other 7 are still quite far. I should put away those two with [Fire Bolt]', Josh had readied 4 "[Fire Bolts]" in on his palms. "Ea-"
Fwaaaaooom!
As Josh had prepared to attack the two soldiers, he felt his cheek sting as his elongated ears were overpowered with a hissing sound. [Earth's Embrace], Joshua summoned a wall reflexively and touched his cheek, it had drops of liquid pouring from his cheek as he looked at the bloodstained tip of his finger.
...
"...Huh?", Josh had blurted out in shock. Was he just shot by an arrow? Josh had been reminded of his predicament, he was alone and ambushed. He was reminded that even thinking in battle could lead to his death.
[Earth's Embrace], a wall had risen from the ground. It was a reflexive action that had been resulted from shock. Mages were capable of performing spells without incantations, the primary reason that "Wordless Spells" were used less was because they resulted in weaker, less effective spells compared to a spell where the incantation is just the spell's name.
The wall had stopped rising at the time when it rose to around 2 meters in height. Josh peeked to survey the battle field, the two men who shielded their eyes just a second ago were already running diagonally. Josh had summoned "[Fire Balls"] and aimed it towards the two men.
They had hit and exploded one person, whilst the other had stepped sideways to avoid the flying 'bomb'. The man had rapidly dashed towards Josh and had swung his sword, his sword had cut cleanly through most of the wall and the man tried to pull it back.
"...?", the man grunted as he tried to pull the sword back, however the sword didn't move back. He sliced the wall cleanly, however Josh had used his impressive processing speed and and quickly repaired the wall as soon as it was cut.
"I'm sorry...", Josh spoke with regret in his voice. The wall had expanded and formed spikes, they pierced through the man's chest, blood had spurted out and the man had let out a blood curdling scream.
"hyel-", the man tried to speak out, his weak voice had stopped as he puked out blood. Josh looked empty, unlike [Fire Bolt] that allowed them to die almost immediately, this spell made for a painful, and hard to look at execution. [You have killed a lvl. 153 soldier of Dagfinn...] Josh looked away and turned to see the people wearing black clothes had charged towards him blindly.
As they charged towards him, one of the soldiers had been shot by an arrow aimed for Josh, it was obvious that they were far more disgusted than Josh was. They were likely to be inexperienced soldiers, they wouldn't blindly charge if they weren't.
"Lug)4 N3g diG!", A man had yelled out in anger, it sounded corrupted.
Josh felt a shiver run down his spine, "Cancel Spell, [Earth's Embrace]!", Josh had yelled out in his incantation.
[You have suffered great damage...]
[You are incapable of moving until your health has increased to a certain point]
His back had been horribly stabbed. "ski=g^ad!", a corrupted voice was heard as he fell down from pain. Josh could see 4 rapidly approach him, 'Damn it, I can't die again.', Josh thought to himself.
Josh's hair was pulled up and his unresponsive body followed, he could feel the pain as every single strand of his hair felt as if they were about to be pulled from his scalp and his eyes let out a tear. He looked towards the four as a his neck felt pressure, Josh closed his eyes and accepted his death.
"[Star shaped Cuts]!"
Josh could see jade coloured lines, the lines were intricate as if you looked at a constellation. Of course, these lines were just afterimages of France's swings which meant that in just a tenth of a second the afterimages of his swings had already disappeared.
The man which had held up Josh's scalp was forced to back off, as he jumped back to dodge he had also blocked other attacks. France had prepared a stance and ran towards the assassin. "[Cutting Reflex!]", his charge had stopped just a meter from the assassin and had rapidly cut 3 times.
"[Earth's Embrace]", as the assassin and France fought Josh hid himself in a large dome.
Clang!
The sound of metal clashing against metal was clearly heard. As their swords clashed sparks flew, making every single swing a beautiful spectacle. Both were quietly reacting to the actions of each other, they were looking for an advantage as they fought.
"...", In the speedy pace of the battle none of the other soldiers could have assisted the assassin, the fierce clash of their blades and the masterfully evaded attacks had made the battle seem choreographed. "Kuuu..." France had grunted as he was kicked whilst the assassin's forearms was cut. The damage they took was minuscule, however both had jumped backwards to regain their wits.
[f̴̦͛Ù̴̥p̷̩͠ţ̷̾R̶̛͉c̵̡̋k̶͖̒K̸̹̒t̵̟͒", the assassin had yelled out and he started to become transparent until he became fully invisible. "Shit-", France cursed out and prepared his sword to block. '-Just kidding.', he had waited for a second to pass and turned around, swinging his sword as he could feel the impact of another sword.
"Hahahaha, I've got you now!", France laughed as the assassin's invisibility had turned off, the assassin swung his sword once again. Klang! His sword is blocked once more, sending sparks into the assassin's eyes, in slight panic he tried to pull his blade however they had gotten stuck from the serrated edge of France's sword.
"[Cutting Reflex!]", France quickly readied his stance and immediately sliced 3 times, all of the hits had connected. Two of the slices cut the man's chest as the third strike had the man's neck spurt of blood.
Thud...
The assassin's head fell to the ground, and the other soldiers had hesitated to move.
The fierce battle had quickly ended, the assassin may have been an NPC, however their stat distributions were almost the same as a player who chose the "Assassin" role. It meant that their health was far less and only their burst damage could make up for that, if he couldn't see the assassin's ability to be invisible France wouldn't doubt he would have lost that fight.
'It seems he's the one I brutally decapitated was their leader, they wouldn't be hesitating to attack if he wasn't...', he looked blankly at the assassin's head. '...Not like it matters right now, they tried to kill us and Josh and I had killed them in self defence. I should give them a painless death.', he readied his sword.
***
Inside Earth's Embrace was dark and Josh could only hear his pained breath. He couldn't even move to drink a healing potion, 'If only I had my own personal healing sla- servant, I don't have to be in this situation.', he laughed as he entertained his idea, not hearing the cries of the soldiers.
[I need you to feed me a potion.], Josh sent a message to France.
2 minutes passed until France replied, [You can remove your spell now.], Josh sighed and said,"Cancel, [Earth's Embrace]."
[Earth's Embrace] had crumbled to dust and Josh laid on his back and had looked around, seeing blood stained everywhere, Josh could also see a decapitated head staring at him.
[You feel like throwing up.]
He could feel the contents of his stomach up his throat, however he swallowed it back, How disgusting. However, Josh couldn't sit up right now so if he did vomit all of it would cover his face. "You don't seem to be in good shape...", France walked next to him. "Give me a potion bastard!", Josh said. As France stated, Josh looked horrible, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked pale, was this because of blood lost?
"Where's Schein?", France asked the sick looking Josh. "He's fine, I gave him a potion earlier. Can you please give me a potion?", Josh had said the magic words. "Here.", France had crouched down and poured the red juice directly into his mouth.
[Your Regeneration speed is increased!]
[The side-effect of drinking the healing has made your appetite felt, eat some food.]
France had walked towards the cart and entered inside to check on him. He could see Schein breathing fine, however arrows were still lodged into his body. He pulled the arrows one by one without worrying that Schein would bleed out, the attack started 10 minutes ago meaning there was still 5 more minutes for the healing potion's effect.
"Huuu...", he sighed in relief when he saw the arrow inflicted wounds start to close. Josh exited the cart and grabbed a branch of a burning tree and surveyed the state of the cart. 'The base is fine, wheels... also good.', "Josh can you stand up yet?", asked France.
"Yeah, I think so...", Josh slowly stood up. "Check if the wheels can still turn left and right.", Josh nodded and slowly walked over to the front wheels. "I'm going to steer left in 3... 2... 1.", the short countdown ended and the wheels turned slightly to the left side. "It works for the left side!", Josh had told him. "Steering right in 3... 2... 1", the countdown ends and the wheels turn right. "Both work!"
"How much more mana do you have?", France had asked Josh. "I have about 24000/50,650." "Really? I thought you would have ran out of mana when you fought.", France sounded shocked. "If I'm right, whenever I level up I restore 10% of my Health and Mana.", Josh had stated the level up bonus. Back when he was level 1-20 he had restored 100% of his mana and health whenever he leveled up, as his level has increased the bonus has gotten less, it wouldn't be surprising if the level up bonus wouldn't exist at levels above 100-
"Hey Josh!", Josh had been startled and asked, "W-What is it?". "You're wondering quite alot today. Anyways, we should go now, there is still about 18 hours before Stadshamn will be in sight. That and we should be there at tommorow dusk.", France exclamed as Josh sighed and headed into the "Steamer".