Syl

Chapter 70: Bandits

The caravan continued down the road as the crude blockade approached. Syl stood atop warily, looking around for any approaching hostiles. Roderick almost felt sorry for whatever brigands decided to ambush the merchants, as they likely had no idea what they were dealing with. Roderick had seen an impressive magic cast like this before, so he was no stranger to the wonders possible through enough mana and dedication, but never had he witnessed it used so casually. When they were within shouting range of the barricade, a lone man stood atop it and shouted at the group.

"Surrender your goods, and we'll let you live!" He demanded.

"Do I offer them surrender?" Syl whispered.

"You can, but they are dead either way. Banditry receives the death penalty, and they know that." Roderick answered.

She seemed to think for a brief moment before nodding and raising her hand. Multiple luminescent green magic darts formed and fired rapidly at the barrier.

"Shit! Fire at will, men!" The man screamed before one of the projectiles struck him.

From behind the barricade, arrows began to rain down, but all the projectiles harmlessly bounced off the bubble spell. Tarps began to lift off, with men hiding in the holes. Roderick overheard Syl muttering a complaint about her [Perception] skill not being high enough. Roderick was ready to intervene but halted when he saw a ball of water flying toward one of the holes. Despite its small size, when it collided, it erupted into a massive torrent of water, flinging the bandits across the ground, and one body even bounced off the bubble.

"Gods. So much water in such a tiny ball. No wonder she's tempting Dewi." Roderick chuckled.

Syl cast her spells with brutal efficiency, and Roderick was rapidly beginning to understand why Harris was so concerned. This was one elf who had seemingly never touched magic before. Imagine what a Grand Magus or Archwizard could do.

A few bandits reached one of the bubbles, but their attacks couldn't penetrate the magic defense. Roderick noted that they were barely above level five. Syl took out the ones near the bubbles with arrows from her enchanted bow. Roderick thought the dungeon must have sensed her former archery skills and rewarded her appropriately as the deadly bow took life after life with ease.

'I bet those archery skills took out the Forest King. I'd almost say it's scarier than her magic, with how she hasn't missed a vital point.' Roderick thought to himself.

"Come on, Syl, where's the fire magic?" Dewi shouted nonchalantly.

"I'm worried it might damage the bubbles!" Syl responded, finishing off the last melee combatant.

The remaining bandits were cowering behind the rapidly melting remains of their barricade.

"We surrender!" one of the men screamed, dropping to his knees.

Syl turned towards Roderick with a questioning look, but he shook his head.

'I'm glad she has a conscience, even if it is bandit scum. I hope nobody takes advantage of her goodwill.' Roderick thought.

He was also relieved that she took the quickest method to execute them, an arrow to a critical vital. Some adventurers liked to drag it out, which was unfortunately understandable when you'd witnessed some of their more gruesome crimes, and Syl could easily do that with her corrosion magic.

Once the last of the bandits were dealt with, Syl melted down the last of the barricade and then washed away any remaining acid from the path. Roderick was about to question why she was doing that when he realized it might have harmed the animals or even damaged the caravan.

'Well, she's certainly getting full marks.' He thought with a chuckle.

"I think that's all of them. I can't sense any others." Syl said, looking around.

"You got all of them. I'm a little sad you didn't notice the tarps covered in dirt. If you didn't set up the barriers beforehand, I might have had to intervene." Whitney answered.

Everyone helped loot the bandits and gathered the remains together for a pyre. Syl's fire kept going out unless she maintained it with mana, so Dewi stepped in and cast a higher-level fire spell, which scorched the remains into ash.

"If you leave too many corpses, there's a chance they will rise as undead if there's too much essence in an area," Roderick explained when Syl questioned why they were burning the bodies.

The rest of the day's journey was uneventful. Darius and his staff had thanked Syl profusely for the protection and watched in awe when she dispelled all four bubbles in a burst of water upwards that left a small rainbow.

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When the coast was looking clear, Dewi even walked alongside the caravan to hound Syl for an explanation of her water explosion spell. The explanation of compressing water went over Roderick's head, but Dewi seemed entranced by the explanation. Dewi proposed that maybe she actually was raising the concentration of water mana, but Syl just shrugged and said it felt like compression to her.

'Thank the Gods I'm not a mage.' Roderick chuckled to himself.

In return, Dewi gave an explanation on manipulating Fire mana and what he'd managed to do so far. Again, the conversation went over his head, but both seemed pleased with the knowledge transfer.

'To think she's cooling down our resident hothead when he was trying to convert her to a pyromaniac.' Roderick chuckled to himself.

Syl gladly volunteered for the late watch with Whitney again to get some more [Perception] tutoring. Her diligence was outstanding, and Roderick could only hope that when he joined the guild staff, he'd get such enthused future adventurers.

It was just his party around the campfire, he wanted to hear their opinions on the attack. Syl might be able to overhear them, as it was rumored that those pointy ears could hear a pin drop, but he wasn't concerned if she did.

"So. What did everyone think of her job?" Roderick asked, breaking the ice.

"Perfect marks from me. Any fight without a single injury is a blessing." Evan responded honestly.

"The only thing I could knock her on was not spotting the hidden bandits or the scouts that spotted us beforehand. But considering her precaution with the shields, it was irrelevant, and as soon as she gets some more levels in [Perception], it'll be a non-issue." Whitney responded.

"Overwhelming magical superiority." Dewi declared, "The lack of fire was disheartening, but as Syl herself said, it might have disturbed the shielding since they are opposite elements. I'd have no problem dealing with that many bandits, but not so cleanly or quietly."

"I liked that she swapped to a bow when they got too close to the bubble. She didn't want to risk her magic breaking it." Evan added.

"Her bow work was amazing. When we were gathering the dead, I noticed every single hit was a vital shot." Whitney added.

Dewi was about to open his mouth, but she beat him to the punch, "Bla bla bla, don't tempt her away from magic." Whitney said with a cheeky smirk, "Her magic shield protected everyone. Nobody is going to try to sway her, but this helps explain how she dealt with so many forest monsters."

"Indeed. This was beyond her demonstration when we were against the wolves." Roderick commented.

"Well. We gave her a junk bow, and she was recently a prisoner. Can't exactly blame her for not being her best." Evan pointed out.

"Kurt said she was looking into skill fusions like Attack Mastery." Whitney answered, "If they fused for a higher rank, it might explain the better performance."

"Ranged, Accuracy, Magic..." Dewi started counting off with his fingers, "Melee?"

"With how much Kurt was bragging about those water flails, no doubt," Whitney answered.

Dewi whistled, "Must be some nice bonuses all added together."

"So you've heard our thoughts. What about you, Roderick?" Evan asked.

Roderick sighed. He wasn't happy because his complaint sounded like nitpicking or attacking her character, but it was a truth in the harsh world, "My only concern is that she's too naive. When the bandits surrendered, she wanted to give them mercy. I worry that attitude will lead to her being taken advantage of, or worse, a knife to the back."

There was silence from the group while they pondered Roderick's words. The first to break the silence was Evan, "I agree. She's probably better off working solo jobs or auxiliary roles in bigger operations than joining a dedicated group."

"Yeah, I can imagine some asshole not sharing the loot with her, and she'd think it was normal. The guild automatically splits quest rewards, but any bonus loot or treasure is unmoderated." Whitney added with a hint of frustration, "Running solo would certainly let her put her stealth skills to use as well."

"And then she doesn't have to worry about collateral damage." Dewi said nonchalantly, "As much as I love you guys, not needing to worry about blast radiuses is so much fun."

That earned him a slap from Whitney, although mostly in jest. They continued to chat throughout the night. About their plans in Kaerlin and teasing Roderick about his upcoming wedding. Until Whitney excused herself to take a nap before her watch was due.

I woke up eager for my watch duty with Whitney. The day had felt like a bust, and I gained almost nothing from that encounter, so I hoped to salvage something with some [Perception] tutoring. All the bandits put together gave me one class level, and even my customized bubble spell hadn't leveled up my water magic. My single class level didn't even give me a revelation.

'Well, at least I proved it was possible to improve the spell. And at least the chat with Dewi was fruitful.'

Dewi had pointed out that another way to modify a spell was to split it into multiple projectiles. So far, my spell modifications have only conformed to the principle "bigger is better.". I would have thought multiple projectiles would have fallen under multicasting and Dewi admitted he also had the same thought until he reached [Fire Magic LV 6] and received the spell [Fireflies], which created hundreds of tiny little flames with a single casting.

"When I first got the spell, I had thought I got scammed." Dewi had admitted, "I mean, the previous level was [Fireball]! I was expecting something with more oomph, but then I realized I was being taught the building blocks of splitting a single spell into multiple projectiles."

He demonstrated this by forming five fire arrows in a single casting. I had tried to replicate it by forming two water orbs, but it was tricky even with me observing it firsthand. Dewi had hoped that by showing it to me early, I'd find some success before one of my learned spells installed the knowledge directly.

Likewise, he couldn't wrap his head around compression, as it baffled him, and even when I demonstrated it to him multiple times, he couldn't replicate it. He also said what I was doing seemed physically impossible, but it was happening right in front of him - so he couldn't deny it. He also theorized that, in reality, I was compressing the water mana and not the physical water.

'It's too bad I couldn't just tell him that I had gotten the inspiration from my old [Slime Density] trait.' I thought bitterly.

I did wonder if I'd ever feel comfortable enough revealing my actual race to someone. Would they believe me if I said I won't go evolution crazy? Maybe I could build up a positive reputation in the guild. Or the alternative is to get strong enough that revealing myself wouldn't put me at risk.

'Well, that's for future me to worry about.'