Her jet-black straight hair swayed gracefully in the gentle breeze. For a brief moment, Vien's violet eyes and Gideon's eyes met, each with a different expression on their faces, hers blank and his filled with astonishment and relief while chasing his own breath.
Their moment of silence and stillness was broken when the other Fire Ants rushed toward them. The closest of the giant monsters lunged its pincers toward Vien, but an arrow passed through with such speed and force that it easily reached the giant ant. The Fire Ant screeched and raised its head. However, when the arrow landed on its head, it caused a small explosion as powerful as a firecracker, just powerful enough to stop it from doing what it was trying to do.
A skill that allowed the user to cause the object they touched to explode upon contact after being launched by the user. The power of the explosion was determined by the user's mastery and the amount of mana used when casting the skill. The Skill, Detonator's Touch.
Mana was the world's energy, which existed everywhere and could be stored in both living and nonliving things. Using magic was impossible without mana. Furthermore, regardless of whether the skill was physical or magical, the only way to cast it was to use mana. The amount of mana that could be stored and how quickly it could be replenished depended on the person's aptitude for mana, which could be improved through training to increase the amount of mana one could hold inside their body.
Mian, the arrow's launcher, appeared without delay, rising above a tree and aiming her bow at the Fire Ant's approaching Gideon and Vien. "Ordy!" she exclaimed.
"I'm on it!" yelled a baritone but energetic voice, his aggressive force surging right in the middle of the scene. He was like a raging truck crashing into everything in his path. "Out of the way!" Ordy yelled as he slammed his shield into the Fire Ant that had received the arrow earlier, knocking it to the ground.
Gideon just stared at the towering boy in front of him with his enlarged eyes after seeing what had happened to the massive ant. A monster he couldn't defeat rolled to the ground like a rugged doll, with no chance of retaliation, and the one who knocked it out laughed in front of the 18 Fire Ants approaching them.
To survive the dangers of this world, humanity of the world of Eteria, like the other intelligent beings in this world, had undergone massive changes in order to compete with the monstrosities that dominated this world. They could adapt more easily, become more powerful with enough training, and gain unique and powerful skills in a variety of ways. Eteria's equivalent of a superhuman on Earth was a trained warrior. One of the many differences between where Gideon came from and where he was taken.
Ordy raised his double-edged sword and shield, a big smile on his lips. His gaze was wandering around, but it couldn't be seen because his eyes were closed. "Look at me now, I should be the center of attention!" he exclaimed before stomping to the ground.
For a brief moment, Ordy's entire body glowed with red light, drawing the attention of the enemies around him and keeping everyone safe. A skill that allowed him to taunt hostile monsters nearby, forcing them to focus solely on Ordy and ignore his allies, denying them the ability to flee. This skill, however, caused the monsters to attack him with all their might and was only effective against hostile monsters, having no effect on intelligent life forms such as humans and monsters that did not show hostility. The skill, Guardian's Protection.
Following his taunt, the Fire Ants ignored Gideon and Vien, focusing all of their attention on Ordy while twitching their antennae. And as a result of Ordy's skill, they approached him without reservation. The Fire Ants that surrounded them ignited their pincers at the same time, revealing a blazing scene that could burn anything that came their way.
"That doesn't look good," Gideon said as he walked back, knowing he couldn't do anything in this situation.
The final member of the party then entered the battle, holding her staff in both hands. A white light the size of a marble circling her was floating just above her shoulder. She stood next to Vien, her gaze darting through the ferocious enemies in front of them. "Try to weaken their fire, Loafy," Halini said softly as she stared at the white ball of light.
The bright white light instantly transformed into sky blue and flew above the blazing enemies. It sprinkled water down the enemy after a few moments of delay; it couldn't do any damage on its own, but it was enough to mitigate the danger their entire party was about to face.
Halini pointed her staff at one of the Fire Ants. "Water Ball!" she screamed as a bowling ball-sized ball of water emerged from the tip of her staff and flew toward the nearest Fire Ant, extinguishing the fire on its pincers.
The skill Elemental Wisp. The ability to summon an orb of light that could transform into an element if Halini possessed at least one skill from that element. In this case, having the basic water element skill Water Ball enabled her wisp to transform into a form of water with power proportional to her overall mana and elemental skill proficiency.
As the Fire Ants' fire dwindled, Ordy rushed in and tackled the first Fire Ant that came his way, waving his sword to the Fire Ants that approached him; he was so powerful that the Fire Ant couldn't even compete with his raw power. Small explosions could be heard at the same time as arrows surged toward the Fire Ants. As arrows exploded around them, the Fire Ants screeched.
But this time, despite the fact that only a few of the Ants were falling down as a result of their attacks, Ordy, Halini, and Mian were deliberately not hitting their eyes and instead trying to disrupt them with their attacks because it was someone's job to deliver the clean final blow.
When Vien saw that everything was finally in place, she crouched next to Gideon, holding her daggers in her hands. Her gaze moved through the formation of the Fire Ants, which had been disrupted by her party members, as she planned her quick attack. And when she finished her analysis, she narrowed her eyes as she saw Mian finally stop attacking, and Vien vanished from where she was standing, leaving Gideon alone with his enlarged eyes and dropped jaw, unable to say anything about what had just happened in front of him.
And the next place Vien appeared was right beside the screeching Fire Ant, where she slashed her dagger into the ant's thinnest and weakest part of its neck, easily killing it without causing damage to its body, particularly its eyes, which they required for their quest. She used the same technique she used to save Gideon earlier, but this time she did it in a row, taking advantage of her confused and unmoved targets and taking them down much easier thanks to the help of her allies; she wasn't fast enough to compete with professional rogues, but she was fast enough to take down half paralyzed giant ants. After a few moments, the battle was over, and corpses of Fire Ants lay on the ground.
The water from above stopped falling, leaving Vien and Ordy in the middle of the Fire Ant corpses. Vien and Ordy were both chasing their breath, drenched from the artificial rain that had fallen from the sky. Ordy slid his double-edged sword into its sheath behind him, and Vien slid both of her daggers into their sheaths on her hips.
Ordy valiantly raised his head to the air and spoke. "The fierce and dangerous battle has finally ended," he said, flexing his right arm and brushing his brown hair up as he looked around at his party members. "And the victory is ours."
What followed was a burst of clapping from Mian and Halini while staring at Ordy. They were standing next to each other, Halini with a huge smile on her face, Mian with a weak smile while clapping with Halini.
"That was cool, Ordy! Say it again!" Halini exclaimed, as the wisp named Loafy, who was floating on Halini's shoulder, shook continuously.
Ordy laughed in a baritone tone, his gaze shifting to Vien, who was looking down. "Hey, Vien, you did a great job; say something cool."
Vien simply stared at Ordy with widened eyes, her face flushed with embarrassment. "Ha? I... I don't know what to say," she replied shyly.
"Come on, Vien, say something cool and strike a cool pose while you're at it!" Halini exclaimed, and Mian nodded in agreement.
Vien, on the other hand, did not respond and simply looked down, her red face hidden.
Gideon, on the other hand, who had just been saved by the people in front of him, simply stared at them with his enlarged eyes. He walked up to them, slowly tilting his head sideways. He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Ahm... Excuse me," he waved at them awkwardly. "Hello... I'm assuming you can understand what I'm saying... because I can understand you."
Halini and Mian both looked at him, attempting to decipher Gideon. Ordy, on the other hand, approached him with a gentle smile on his face.
"Oh, right? Isn't it the amazing young man who did us a great favor by luring the Fire Ants for us?" He tapped Gideon's shoulder with his massive hand. "You aided us there, making our quest much easier than it should have been."
Gideon's pupils constricted. "I won't call it that, but sure," his dirty face said, smiling gently. "I almost died back there, so thank you for saving me."
Ordy laughed. "Don't worry about it; the situation you were in was not a rare occurrence in adventuring; it happens frequently; but given your reaction and how quickly you recovered... I assume that wasn't the first time something like that happened to you... You didn't cry like a lost child in the middle of the marketplace."
Gideon rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah... it's happened a few times now," he said, raising his hand for a handshake. "Anyway, my name is Gideon."
Ordy grabbed his hand. "My name is Ordy, and it's nice to meet you, Gideon," he said as he walked back and extended his hand to his party members. "And this adorable mage with red hair is Halini, and the sophisticated ranger next to her is Mian, she just looks that way, but she's kind."
"Ordy," Mian said, and Ordy just laughed.
"Nice to meet you, Gideon," Halini said as she waved her hand.
"Nice to meet you," Gideon said before shifting his gaze to the person standing between the Fire Ant corpses, looking down.
"And that's Vien, she's our party's rogue, don't worry, she's just a little shy but she's very kind," Ordy assured.
"Anyway, what happened to you? Did you swim in a swamp or something?" Mian asked, her gaze drawn to Gideon's filthy body and unusual clothing.
Gideon paused for a few seconds before nodding slowly. Finally, while staring at the four people with him, he relaxed his entire body and breathed a sigh of relief. Understanding something...
Finally, he was safe.
"A lot happened."