Chapter 98 – Another Hard Mission

The War Maidens were surrounded by the enemy, the high orcs. 

Tera, Janine and Jenna the heavy duty knights planted their tower shields into the ground, creating a shell of protection against the enemy arrows. 

Angelica and Jessica the archers returned fire from their bows, but they were already running out of arrows in their quivers. 

Tyler, Danni and Stacy were the swordswomen, trying their best to fend off the high orcs that managed to get near and Kobe flitted in and out, as the assassin and thief, trying to backstab those that got too near. 

All the while, Devon the priestess was casting healing spells and buffs, while Tina the mage was conjuring elemental magic. Both were already running out of mana 

This was a Hard mission and the High orcs were as formidable as dark elves that wiped out the Roughnecks. The War Maidens actually were a poor match for them.

The dark elves were superhumanly agile and fast, they were two times stronger than a normal human, compared to the high orcs that were superhumanly strong and durable while being two times as fast as a human. 

"Hold! Hold!" Tyler, their leader yelled. 

"We're out of arrows!" Jessica yelled as she and Angelica drew their short swords. 

"We have to hold on a little bit longer!" Tyler said

"Easy for you to say" Tera yelled, her shield was already fracturing from the heavy impact by the attacking high orcs. 

Suddenly, there was a loud scream behind the high orcs as a human male ran through the high orcs, slicing their backs as he attacked them from behind. 

He jumped off the back of a falling high orc, spinning in the air, his sword knocking away all the arrows fired at him, landing in between the War Maidens and the high orcs. 

"Samsara!" Devon the priestess cried out. 

Sam was covered in wounds, but he proudly held up a huge head by the hair and roared in front of the high orcs. 

The head was that of the leader of the high orcs. 

The plan was for the War Maidens to create a distraction by a public attack on the high orc village while Sam took out the leader .

"No! It's not working!" Tyler said as the high orcs yelled and charged angrily at him. 

"Didn't think it would" Sam said as dropped the head and ran towards the War Maidens, planting his foot on one of the tower shields and jumping over the shields to join the War Maidens. 

As he flew in the air, all 10 of his fingers shot two magic missiles each

The missiles flew in the air at bullet speeds, each one moving independently in the air, changing directions as needed, before hitting 20 different high orcs right between their eyes!

While the magic missiles at a lower level barely tickled a hydra, at level 15, Sam's magic missiles were now adjustable in strength, from the strength of a slap, to the power of armor piercing rounds. 

"What was that?" Tera asked as she watched Sam heal himself with his hands which was now glowing. 

"I'm a magic swordsman. This is one of my few spells" Sam said as he fired another 40 magic missiles, 4 from each of his 10 fingers, accurately killing all the remaining high orcs, effectively ending the danger

"It looks so easy for you!" Kobe blanched 

"So that's your secret to your mission success rate" Stacy said

"It takes alot of mana. I generally work on my sword skills, but I have my magic guns when I need them" he said, showing his fingers.

Unlike all the battle missions Sam has been taking solo thus far, whenever he joined the War Maidens, it was to do missions that had other goals besides pure battle. 

This was one of the other groups, besides the Roughnecks that Sam joined. 

Sam joined them when Tyler their leader asked him to join them, like the Roughnecks did.

Tyler was actually the young woman who appeared next to him when he appeared in the Survival Tutorial naked. 

They weren't a particularly strong team in pure battle ability, but they were good at problem solving missions.

Although they were all women, they had a very well balanced team 

Sam joined them for more missions after seeing that they were actually quite good at such missions that Sam could not solo. 

However, this was a battle mission and one that was graded Hard. 

Fortunately, Sam had kept them all alive and fighting. They had planned to finish this mission by killing the boss, and Sam played along. But the high orcs were not affected by the loss of leadership. 

He didn't summon of his familiars, as he wanted to keep them his secret. 

Besides getting to know more people, Sam had another objective of getting to know the Roughnecks and the War Maidens

He's always wanted to know why he was selected. Initially, there was the silly prophecy about being betrayed by a loved one. 

But then again, this second time, his birth date or death date seemed more important. Perhaps the selection were by different beings, or a different criteria was fulfilled?

After asking many of the Roughnecks and War Maidens, he found out that they were mostly similar in age.

All of them had birthdays of 7/7/77, 8/8/88, 9/9/99, 1/1/01, 2/2/02 or 3/3/03.

There probably were younger and older people. But they died in the Survival Tutorial.

Speaking of which, Sam guessed that Merlin was probably born 6/6/66, based on his age. He's been a creator for some time!

They exited the mission

"Thank you" Tyler smiled sweetly

"It's been fun" Sam said

"What are you going to do now?" Tyler asked, pressing her body onto his arm

The other girls smiled knowingly and gave them privacy. The rest liked him too, but they respected their leader Tyler and agreed not to compete for him unless he outwardly rejects her

"Um...I'll be taking another mission" Sam answered

"Why are you such a hurry?" she asked

"I think the next stage in Fantasia will be harder than we think. So every moment is a training moment" he said

"But the impossible mission?" she asked

"You've seen me. The Hard missions are no longer a challenge for me. I've soloed them several times already" Sam said

"I understand. Just be careful alright?" Tyler said as she tiptoed to kiss his cheek

"Ok" Sam said as she walked off

Sam knew she was interested in him. But this wasn't the time for such things. 

He looked at the missions table and chose the only level that was ranked Impossible