Chapter 78: Operation (1)

"My apologies if I offended you, Missy, but those long ears aren't quite human, are they?" Royce asked.

"Not being human doesn't make me a monster," Shalia said. "Or are you trying to imply that humans can't be monsters?"

"... You got me there, in this type of situation where humans become monsters… or should I say, they show their true colors," Royce said.

"Let's forget about this," Luke said. "I assume that you saw many people dying in the hands of monsters. Still, we should make a distinction given the circumstances… Shalia and Rina might be aliens, but they are also my allies."

"Okay… again, my apologies," Royce said.

"We are aliens… I suppose we are," Rina said while showing a complicated expression.

"From your perspective, I am an alien as well…" Luke said while frowning. "Nevertheless, that doesn't matter."

Chloe began to guide Luke to the place where they found the crystal while walking on his left side since Arcanine was on his right side. As expected, people wouldn't be able to fight alongside monsters after seeing so many of their friends dying by their hands. Regardless, Luke asked when the Red Fangs began to appear, and Chloe explained that it was on the night of the first day. Since then, their numbers have kept increasing at a steady pace, and their power was also increasing pretty fast. Thanks to that, the survivors of the city were having more than a little problem dealing with them. While they were above the others, Chloe and her parents still were at level twenty… two days ago. Amanda and the others reached their level, after all. But only after they helped Luke fight half of a horde.

As expected, Chloe guided Luke to the area he had passed earlier, where the number of encounters was high. As if the creatures had noticed their smell, six of them began to run toward the group, but Luke stopped them with Spark Balls. While the spell paralyzed them for a full second, Luke didn't have the chance to attack them. Chloe chose a target and dashed toward the beast, kicking its head with all her might and making the neck snap. As for Royce and Abby, they attacked with a powerful barrage of projectiles from a distance. Luke didn't notice until now, but Royce had two hidden pistols on his back. He pulled them and hit the enemies with some weird light-blue bullets.

You obtained 10 experience points.

You obtained 10 gold coins.

You obtained 10 experience points.

You obtained 10 gold coins.

...

"Those are…" Luke frowned.

"Bullets made of mana… he can enchant those weapons with a magic, but non-elemental attack," Rina explained.

The barrage of the attacks had been pretty powerful… a bit too powerful, in fact. Since they could do that, why was their level so low? Luke soon learned why when they asked to take a break already… they invested too many points into intelligence to increase their magic attacks, but not enough into focus to increase their mana recovery.

"Why is your focus so low?" Luke asked.

"We are trying to increase it, but when we neglected the main parameters, the monsters began to cause more trouble than before," Chloe explained.

They got stuck in a vicious cycle… They focused too much on increasing their overall power in the beginning. Thanks to it, they couldn't fight for longer periods of time and thus couldn't level up their skills or themselves all that much. When they did it, the monsters became more dangerous. In some fights, they had to run away without getting any experience…

Luke probably could solve that problem if he focused on giving support with Spark Ball, but it will take a while to clear the area of the Red Fangs. Still, if he wanted to rely on them to defeat the horde in the south, he didn't have any other choice. Perhaps, he had…

"How many people you have in that school that can face the monsters?" Luke asked.

"A few dozen, but they won't leave the place since they have injured people there," Chloe said.

That complicated things a little bit… While that means that Luke won't have to share experience and gold coins with too many people, it also means that he will have to fight for quite a while before leaving the city. In any case, Luke had to leave those thoughts behind when the number of encounters increased yet again. Since they were closer to the crystal, the monsters began to get more vicious.

While using Stinger with one hand, Luke charged toward one of the enemies, and despite that, he managed to kill since he used the level four. While he pulled his sword, he used Spark Ball on the other Red Fangs to prevent them from using the Flamethrower. They hesitated at first, but upon seeing that Luke wasn't running out of mana and the monsters were focusing on him, Chloe and the others joined the fray.

"I should have brought my daggers…" Luke thought when he heard the sound of another group of Red Fangs approaching.

Carrying his two long swords had already been pretty difficult while he was running and stepping on the zombies' heads. So, there wasn't much that he could have done since Luke also brought his crossbow. Nevertheless, he would make things work out in the end.

"We will stay here for a while," Luke said. "I won't let the monsters get close, so it is time to increase your Focus."

They nodded in agreement. While it seemed that Luke liked to give orders, it was the least they could do for him since it became obvious that he was the real deal. He was helping them without expecting to receive anything from them.

Still, they were quite curious about Rina and Shalia. It seemed that they were just hanging out on Luke's shoulders, but it was hard to imagine that they weren't doing anything. Even though they actually weren't doing anything...