A picturesque meadow. Bright afternoon sunlight. Colorful rolling hills. Fluffy clouds dotting the sky. Humans and Monster brutally fighting to the death. Blood soaked grass and-
BOOOOOOM!!
A group of goblins were ripped to shreds in an instant, their blood evaporating before it could even flow out. The explosion launched out scalding wind in a wide area severely scorching the surroundings as it became a much more one-sided fight for a certain party of adventurers.
[User Slayed Level 5 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 3 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 7 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 3 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 4 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 2 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 6 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 3 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 8 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[User Slayed Level 4 Entity - Clawed Goblin]
[Accumulated Experience Has Reached The Required Threshold]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
...
Shock. Einer's party turned around to stare at him, before quickly turning back to their fights. The pair of adventurers he had meant to assist were now knocked out on the ground from the shockwave.
Einer came to his senses as he stumbled forward, both confused and concerned about what he had witnessed.
He had done that? Pieces of goblin flesh were strewn about, which belonged to those towards the outer rim of the explosion, outside the actual flames but close enough that the shockwave thoroughly ripped them apart.
As Einer reached the pair, his mage partner arrived as well, and she immediately started casting a skill while leaning over the fallen swordsman.
It looked like she had been knocked out directly by the blast, and her front side was decently burned from the high temperatures she was exposed to.
Einer looked towards the two and felt a heavy guilt, this was his fault.
[Lesser Heal]
The tiny mage girl poured out her magic onto the warrior, the burn marks slowly fading more and more. Einer looked on with anxiety as his mind raced over what had just occurred.
He had shot a fireball that should have done nothing more than piss off a goblin or two, and ended up blasting apart the entire cluster two party members were being oppressed by. Although the cloud of flames had only been about two meters long, the kill zone was at least twice that.
At least four of the goblins were completely incinerated, and while the shockwave may have been weaker than the core of the explosion, it was still enough to rip the goblins on the outside of the clique to shreds... resulting in the total annihilation of the goblin's small formation.
"Status!"
-
[User: Einer]
[Rank: Stone]
[Level: 4]
[Stats: >]
[Skills: >]
[Unique: >]
-
Looking on at the menu, there was something completely new there. Something Einer was completely dumbfounded by.
'I have... a unique trait?'
he quickly mentally tapped on the arrows next to all three of his menus in order to examine what exactly caused his firepower to increase tenfold.
-
Stats:
AP: 3 [+]
Force: 10 -Locked-
Agility: 10 -Locked-
Vitality: 10 -Locked-
Wisdom: 10 -Locked-
Sorcery: 11 -Enhanced-
[Hidden Stats...]
-
Skills:
[Fireball]
-
Unique:
[Ultimate Minmax] -Curse-
-
Einer now had a basic understanding of what was going on, and was about to go through the detailed information under the arrows when Brad interrupted.
"EINER!! What happened over here??"
Brad and his partner were rushing over, having seen the explosion and quickly finishing up the goblins in our immediate surroundings. The other warrior/scout pair were about to retreat to our position as well.
"That was your spell just a second ago right? why did Aisha and Philip get hit?"
I turned away from the healer girl who had moved on past the female warrior name Aisha, and had begun healing the scout named Philip.
"I- I don't know."
Einer slightly lied to protect his new secret that even he didn't understand just yet. Off to the side Aisha had just woken and was looking around in confusion. Seemingly realizing something, she got up and was trudging over to the healer girl.
"Annaliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! *sniff* you saved me didn't you!! *sniff*"
"Aisha... shush, I'm working on Philip right now."
Einer looked at the trio, 'huh, I guess they knew each other already.'
Brad spoke up again, "We can figure this out later, there's more monsters headed to our position now- Einer can you do that again?"
"Haha, actually I had deliberately used all my energy thinking there was almost none left... it looks like I'm on empty, I can barley even move right now anyways."
"I'm sure, with that display you went far beyond expectations. Annali's almost done with Philip anyways, you can retreat to further away towards the wall with her help."
Brad then went over to where the rest of the group had gathered around a now waking Philip, "Everyone! Einer over here and... uh... Annali... will be heading further back. Prepare to receive another pack of monsters!"
"Another three minutes at most until reinforcements arrive! HOLLLLLD!!!"
The physical combatant group reformed, and the mage girl Annali joined Einer as they walked away towards the town's wall.
.
.
.
We were now a good two hundred meters away from the fighting, and decided to stop and wait there. Silence descended as we sat down on top of a low grassy hill observing the clashing forces, the adventurers clearly fighting a losing battle as I could even see some fallen who were definitely irretrievable.
"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to endanger them."
"That's good," she spoke quietly and with a slight chill in her voice.
"I guess they are your friends."
"Yeah."
...
"I didn't mean to hurt them... I don't even know why that happened. That was my first time in a fight and I didn't know the skill could even do that."
"Honest?"
A flash of empathy appeared in her voice.
"yeah, I guess it's lucky you had a healing skill though... ahaha"
I laughed weakly.
...
A minute of silence.
"...I understand," she suddenly squeaked out.
"Huh?"
"I'm... not good with combat situations either... so I get it- making mistakes that result in harm."
"Philip and Aisha were the only party I've ever had, I joined the guild a month ago... and then I learned to heal as my first... and I can't really level up without help either and so I'm always getting in the way... and... I uh... I-"
"Thanks, really" I spoke.
She kept tripping over what she was saying, but the meaning was still there, 'I Forgive You'.
"mmm," she made a sound of acceptance.
Neither of us were the biggest talkers, but I was happy to sit in a now less awkward silence since I had received forgiveness, although I was kind of worried what the two people I actually knocked out would think when they heard about it.
"WAAAAH!!!"
I turned my head towards the sound of a collective war cry, my eyes spontaneously greeted by the glorious sight of almost three hundred adventurers pouring out of the gate.
"GUILD POST #14 PULL BACK TO MEET THEM, THE REINFORCEMENTS ARE HERE!!!"
despite being more than a kilometer away from the main force, I could still easily hear the bellowed commands of a certain goliath shield user.
Although there had been a few casualties on the Stone Rankers side, the exhausted main force retreated with zero deaths, having dealt with the Geode Rank monsters that outnumbered them four to one admirably well.
Now a force twice as strong and full on stamina, compromised of those from posts #13 and #15, spread out and began fighting as well. Those from the original force who were injured moved behind a newly created group effectively three times as large as the original. The original headcount of approximately 150 soaring to almost 500 adventurers.
'Looks like I can relax and finally take a look at what the system did to me.'