Defeating The Oil Puppeteer
[Ace POV],
I disconnected the staff in my hand from the mechanism that connected them as I changed it to the twin blades I was more familiar with as the oil puppet charged at us with a speed that was difficult for my eyes to follow as it left a trail on the ground with its long body.
I charged to Emma's front in an instant, holding the twin blades in an X shape in my hands to defend against the oil puppet's charge attack.
This was my plan until a three-layer light shield appeared in front of me and collided with the oil puppet's head.
I turned to look at Emma, and seeing that she had no other expression on her face apart from a slight exhaustion and she didn't look like she was about to collapse like the time we fought against the goblin lord, I returned my attention to the three-layer light shield or rather, the now two layers light shield since the oil puppet just succeeds in destroying a layer.
It was also not surprising that Emma's light shield she cast to defend herself against the oil puppet lasted. Aside from her affinity for mana, I believe the other main reason is her magical staff.
It had to be her magic staff because it was a rare grade item like my twin blades and had a remarkable function.
I got to see the information about Emma's staff and the additional effects the staff had while we were in the forest and everyone was curious about what weapon the others were using before we encountered the fog.
Aside from being a rare grade weapon, the staff reduces the mana consumption required to cast Rank 0 spells, also known as unranked spells, by 35% and reduces the mana consumption required to cast Rank 1 spells by 8%. Aside from that, the staff increases the effectiveness of unranked spells by 5%. The increase may look small, but it was still something since it was an increase.
The main function of the staff that made it a treasure was the reduced mana consumption for spell casting.
And as for why Emma's mana still runs out relatively quickly, I can only blame it on her light element, where even the most basic spell consumes mana.
It may appear to be too much of a disadvantage in the early stages when Emma's mana was limited, but the truth was that if this disadvantage didn't exist and Emma could cast her light magic spells more freely, she'd be relatively overpowered because it's still the same basic spells she uses to contend with rank 1 creatures.
I suppose Emma can cast spells more freely without worrying about her mana reserve only when she's by my side and taking my pills.
Well, if she happens to find a potion master, she can get the same treatment, and with the amount of usefulness Emma can provide, I don't think even the empires would dare to ignore her.
Perhaps if she's there, she won't be valued much, but she won't be treated badly either, but I don't think there will be many people like me who would make use of a rare opportunity to get something that didn't directly help with increasing their combat prowess.
People like me should become scarce as a result of this. I'm curious if I can monetize this.
As these random thoughts raced through my mind, I noticed the second layer of the light shield in front of me was about to be destroyed.
When I saw this, I realized we were dragging things out far too long, especially against someone who was seriously injured.
When I thought of this, I turned to Emma behind me and spoke.
"Do you think you can manage this oil puppet on your own?" I asked as Emma nodded her head in response to the dragon-like figure in front of us.
When I saw this, I didn't say anything else and charged in a different direction to get around the oil puppet in front of me.
But, of course, things didn't go as planned since the oil puppeteer had the eyes and brains to figure out what I was doing as the oil puppet that was attempting to break the light shield before stopped as it turned to attack me but I didn't bother looking at its action as another light shield appeared in front of it and stopped its attempt to get close to me.
Following this, I noticed the oil puppeteer's face staring at me coldly as it did not attempt to control the oil puppet to attack me again and instead took the big brush that was hovering at his back and changed his posture to one that looked ready to welcome my attack.
Seeing this, I began to wonder and doubt if my previous assumption that the oil puppeteer should not be good in close combat was correct since from the start, he appeared to be quite dependent on his puppets, but looking at his posture now, I'm not so sure.
People who rely on an external source, such as the oil puppeteer, have weak individual strength, according to logic and video games, which I don't usually refer to. Anna is a good example of this, but I couldn't change my mind since I was already charging at the oil puppeteer and had made a decision with Emma.
As I thought of this, I finally got close to the oil puppeteer and I gave a little jump and attacked with both blades in mid-air while the oil puppeteer defended in a vertical line with the big brush in his hand.
Seeing this as my feet touched the ground, I didn't give the oil puppeteer time to rest or attack me as I attacked again with my twin blades as the sound of metal clashing violently resounded around us.
I noticed a few things as the fight between the oil puppeteer and us heated up.
One was that the big brush in his hand was surprisingly hard as metal, despite its deceptive appearance, and another was that the oil puppeteer was not good in close combat, as I had assumed.
It wasn't that he wasn't good; it was just that when it came to pure combat prowess, I was better. This didn't help much because it only allowed me to have a stalemate and a slight advantage over the oil puppeteer, but this wasn't anything worth mentioning since the oil puppeteer had already been injured by something before and was still able to fight me to this level.
Seeing this, I can only conclude that the smallest improvement made to the oil puppeteer in comparison to what a common grade job can deliver rendered the common grade job undesirable and obsolete.
As I was thinking about these things in the heat of battle, the oil puppeteer suddenly vomited a huge mouthful of blood as his body shook a little, and looking at slightly bloodied Emma at the corner of my vision, I saw that she had just delivered an attack that killed the oil puppet.
After seeing this, I didn't need to think about why the oil puppeteer suddenly vomited blood.
In addition to the oil puppet's death and the oil puppeteer's previous injuries, it had to be a backlash, and I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity to strike when the oil puppeteer was at his weakest as I pumped all the mana I had in my body into the twin blades in my hand as they both became coated in blue flames that were so intense that they rose by a few meters.
After that, I dashed closer to the oil puppeteer, who had a hideous expression on his face and what I assumed was fear in his eyes as I cut his body in half and separated his upper torso from his body, and immediately after that, I heard a familiar bell-like sound in my head.
....
If you want to support me, use your golden tickets and power stones.
Do you like it? Leave a review and add it to the library!
Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow!