Syl

Chapter 98: Frosty

The pig was not happy about being assaulted while slipping and sliding, all thanks to the icy ground below it. It thrashed around and tried to gore whoever possible with its elongated tusks, but Roderick ensured his shield was in place every time to block it. Despite the absolute beating that shield was taking, it looked only minorly dented; likely, it was enchanted and undoubtedly boosted by a skill or two from Roderick.

Whitney's voice rang out with excitement, "This creature is so helpless; I've triggered [Sneak Attack] enough times to even gain a skill level!"

Likely sensing that its own efforts weren't helping, it seemed to call out to the forest again, a burst of green mana flowing throughout, and then a heavy creaking of wood could be heard. Trees were freshly animated as treants and uprooting themselves to aid their creator.

"If we kill the pig, the treants should return to normal," Dewi suggested, not entirely confidently.

We would find out shortly, as the final two debuffs landed upon the boar, and then I began casting [Decay] again as fast as possible. When the spell was completed, the scene repeated, and suddenly, the boar shuddered as it took the unseen magical blow internally. Evan was the first to cheer, obviously having seen its lifeforce plummet firsthand. We joined in with the celebration, but the boar let out a guttural squeal that chilled me to the core.

"It must have [Defy Death]; get back!" I shouted in warning.

The boar seemed to grow in size and, in its increasing thrashing, nearly gored Roderick, but with his good instincts and perhaps my warning, he managed to block it with his shield in time. There was a horrific metal rending sound, and Roderick was sent tumbling backward, his beloved shield nearly folded in half where the boar had struck.

"Shit. Roderick, you okay?" Whitney asked, appearing by his side.

"Just got the shit kicked out of me, but I'll live." He responded.

Now that everyone was out of melee range with the boar, I rapidly increased the area of the frozen ground. Worse, I could see it building Nature mana below the ground, obviously trying to use roots to free itself from its slippery situation.

"What's the plan, Syl?" Dewi asked, seeming unsure of the trait I mentioned.

"From my perspective, it should be dead," Evan shouted while running towards Roderick, a healing spell primed and ready.

"We need to expire its extra lives. I think it's combining [Defy Death] with a [Rage] skill or something to give an immense last stand." I explained while putting extra effort into reinforcing the frozen ground, as now roots were trying to break through. "It's trying to free itself with roots, I'm reinforcing the ice to stop it."

I had one of my [Sub-Cores] cast [Poison Mist] by its head, and the affliction applied after some time. I could also see the boar's mana aura plummeting at a rather rapid pace.

"Shit. [Rage] skills usually scale based on low health." Dewi muttered, glancing at the damage Roderick's shield had taken. "We can't fight it directly; you keeping it trapped until it finally dies is the best option."

"We'll need to deal with the treants then," Whitney said, appearing next to us. "They were heading towards the boar, but now it seems like they are targetting Syl. We'll need to protect her from the angry trees."

"Great, I get to burn some more trees!" Dewi chuckled.

Roderick had equipped a smaller backup shield, and the party had reformed and started assaulting the approaching trees. I could only be grateful that the trees weren't built for speed, as this gave them plenty of opportunity to hopefully be dealt with.

Dewi was throwing caution to the wind now and was prepared to run out of mana; he chugged a blue potion and started flinging [Fireball] spells rapidly at his own group of trees. Roderick must have used a group taunt as he managed to pull four treants to himself and began parrying and smashing with his mace.

Whitney took a low stance before dashing forward. Her daggers seemed to have an elongated coating that I recognized as Air mana. Each swing of her blades as she twisted and parkoured through the treants ripped large chunks of bark out of them. Most surprising of all was Evan. Never once had I seen the healer do anything besides support, but he pulled out a small golden dagger and made a slashing motion through the air.

"[Smite]!" He exclaimed, and the dagger shone with a brilliant light before a golden blade of energy appeared above one of the treants and cut down into it. He repeated the process; the golden immaterial blade would form and cut deep into the trees each time.

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"I hate this spell. It costs far too much mana for what it does!" Evan complained.

"Desperate times, my friend," Roderick replied.

Meanwhile, I still needed to keep the boar trapped. The [Ice Patch] had now been far extended, as the boar flailing had led to it sliding towards the perimeter, and I could not let it gain traction. The roots from below kept trying to chip away at the solid ice and breakthrough. I really wished I had more ice spells. I was tempted to use some skill points, but I was still extremely reluctant to do so, and the spells might not even help me keep the boar contained.

I wanted to freeze it in place, and then I could keep coating it in layers of reinforcing ice until it finally accepted death. While I mentally cursed my lack of foresight in putting more effort into training [Ice Magic], I had a rather obvious epiphany—I could create water, and I had [Cryo Slime]!

Step one was to restrain the boar, so I opened my water storage and flooded the ground before plunging my hands into it and setting [Cryo Slime] to the extreme. The layer of water froze rapidly emanating from my position, and the boar's flailing body was lightly restrained as all the water it was in contact with froze. Next, I cast a reversed [Bubble] targeting the boar while preparing a [Torrent] spell to be my water source. When the [Bubble] spell snapped into place, I cast my other spell inside it and started flooding the sphere.

Ever since my battle with Odark, when I saw the effectiveness of [Vaporize Slime] in an enclosed area, I wanted to be able to reproduce the effect myself. After all, I doubted I'd be so lucky that my opponents would be encasing themselves again anytime soon. This led to me experimenting with my [Bubble] spell and finding out it wasn't too hard to reverse its effect of allowing things to pass outward. Alone, the spell wouldn't trap anyone as it would follow its target, but with this icy combo, I'd repurposed it to suit my needs.

The boar was starting to break free from its icy restraints, so I cast another [Torrent] to help fill the sphere of water with added haste. As soon as the boar's body was fully engulfed in water, I thrust my hands into the sphere of water and watched as it rapidly became a frozen hell. Moments later, the thrashing boar was entirely still and encased in a solid sphere of ice. I smiled appreciatively at my work before falling backward onto my rear with relief after all the building mental fatigue.

"So, our elf friend can get mana fatigue." Dewi teased.

I turned around to see Dewi grinning smugly, and only a few smoldering remains of the treants were left.

"Ugh. Don't you have trees to kill? I did my job."

"All gone. I'm grateful, too; I finished just in time to see this masterpiece." He replied, tapping his knuckle against the icy ball. "Oof, that's cold."

"So..." Roderick exhaled, "Do we just wait for it to finally die now?"

"It should die once it runs out of mana, which is prolonging it. Then I think it's about 10 seconds per [Defy Death] if I had to take a guess." I answered.

"What the hell did you fight that had that trait?" Evan asked, looking slightly horrified.

"Badgers. Lots of badgers."

"Ah!" Roderick exclaimed, "That suddenly solves a mystery I had always wondered about those bastards."

"Yeah, monster traits are hard to discover, especially passive ones like that. Thanks for the info." Dewi said.

"If we can verify it, we could possibly lower their rank. They were raised because they got a notorious rep for being rookie killers. I'm wondering how many of those deaths were actually people thinking it was dead..." Roderick said.

Suddenly, notifications appeared, and everyone went silent. The boar had died.

'Shit!' I cursed mentally and quickly reduced my race level by one on my profile with [Identity Fabrication]. I needed to keep my elf level away from forty until I got another element.

'Oh? A new magic type?'

Emblem Achieved: [Nature's Bane].>

'Huh. That's unexpected.'

Roderick was the first to break the silence, "Did we all just get an Emblem?"

"I believe so. That's an unexpected surprise." Evan said.

"Everyone's going to be so jealous!" Dewi chuckled, "We gotta all equip it before we return to the guild, then walk in together."

"Forget the Emblem. I finally unlocked Assassin!" Whitney said, positively beaming.

"Congrats!" "Well done!" "About time!" Everyone cheered respectively.

"Anyone else get anything good?" Roderick asked curiously.

"I got a revelation for [Arcane Magic]," I answered, "I'm assuming this is why you told me to stick to Sorcerer until ten?"

Dewi replied by giving a thumbs-up to my answer.

"Well... Now we just need to defrost our prize. I'm assuming you'll harvest it for us, Syl?"

"Gladly," I replied.

"I'm sure Dewi won't mind melting the ice for us," Evan said.

"Guys, have you read the Emblem?" Dewi asked, a grin starting to appear on his face.

There was a moment of silence as we all took a moment to read it.

Achieved by defeating a Nature-based Unique Monster, or over 200 Plant Monsters.

Deal 20% bonus damage to Plant Monsters or Nature Constructs.

Equipping this emblem will cause Fear (Lesser) to all Plant Monsters.>

"Do you know what that means?" Dewi asked.

"It's a pretty good bonus," Whitney answered.

"No," Dewi replied, still grinning wildly.

Suddenly, Evan's eyes widened, and he shook his head, "Oh Gods no..."

Dewi, now having a victim to his joke, suddenly laughed loudly, "Now, the trees really will fear me!"

Evan groaned, but Whitney and I couldn't help but chuckle, and even Roderick struggled to hold back a smile.