Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Ajax’s duel was a wake up call for the team. Even one of their strongest had admitted he could have been killed despite not going easy on him. Not only that but his fighting style as a whole intrigued Jones.

A strong melee and ranged fighter was nothing he hadn’t seen before, but from what he picked up watching him fight during the afternoon Ajax had no problem providing support with his magic while fighting in melee. This support was both flexible and quick, its only downside being the high mana cost or lacking power. Then again powerful support could already be handled by Nelly.

As they made their way over to the obelisk Ajax noted that they were heading towards the only mountain area he could see on the floor. Getting a glimpse of the obelisk itself Ajax noticed an orb conspicuously placed outside the center of the pattern. UppTodated from nô/v/e/lb(i)n.c(o)/m

“Don’t touch the orb.” Jones said to him. “If it rolls in position it will activate the obelisk and we don’t want to do that with night coming.”

Ajax didn’t know what he meant by that since he couldn’t tell how far away from night they were with the forest and clouds overhead. Still he did as he was told and didn’t approach the obelisk. He instead followed Donny when he got waved over.

“This is where we will face them,” he said, pointing to a big shotgun model cave.” The cavern is not too deep and leads into a dead end not long after the paths converge.”

The cave marked a perfect chokepoint, it was large enough that they could properly field their melee fighters, tall enough that the ranged fighters could help without having to worry about friendly fire and it covered them from any attack from above. The issue was the second entrance, it was much smaller barely enough for Donny to fit through without clanging his armor off the walls but plenty of space for wolves.

“The plan usually is for me and a ranged fighter to hold this entrance while the others cull the incoming horde at the other.” he said. “For tomorrow it will be up to you and me. This will give us the best opportunity to unlock [Cooperation] and it won’t really be a problem since if you can’t keep up it’ll be easy to ask someone to help and step in.”

Ajax could tell that the second part of that statement was meant to rile up his competitive spirit, especially after that duel he had. Despite this he could feel it working and wondered if a skill was at play or if he was just that competitive

Returning to the others Ajax found the camp already set up with food being brought out of the pack he had been slugging around all day. Dinner was a quiet affair with Jones taking the time to relay the new plan to everyone else, a few raised voices to object Ajax taking over as one person of the two man team but they were quickly silenced when it was explained how close a backup would be.

Tonight Ajax had some of the most trouble sleeping he had ever had. It wasn’t the possibility of an attack during the night that troubled him, since he knew they had a lookout shift in place. It was the high mana density.

Ever since he had overloaded on mana Ajax had been a bit more wary of neutral mana that had seemed so harmless. During the day he managed to get used to moving around with such a high mana density surrounding him but falling asleep was another matter.

The first sign of intelligence from their attackers came when three wolf bosses made to enter together. They knew none of them had a chance to take Donny down, but maybe as a team it would be more manageable.

Finally Ajax had something else to do besides picking off the odd stray wolf. He coated everything but a small circle around Donny with a layer of ice to limit the wolves mobility. At the same time he also used earth mana to reinforce the ground beneath Donny in order to let him make use of his high strength with impunity.

Donny noticed the difference as the ground no longer felt fragile under his feet, a smirk Ajax couldn’t see formed on his lips as he started putting his whole body weight into shield bashing the wolves. Not only that but Donny grew more and more sure with every passing second that Ajax had gotten the [Cooperation] skill. An hour was all it took and now Donny barely had time to think about the wolf that was going to be a pain before an arrow shot by Ajax would sprout from the beast's head.

The tide ended shortly after. Donny and Ajax had killed over eight hundred wolves, six of them bosses. This was nothing compared to the eight thousand the rest of the team handled. Ajax was pleased with the new addition of [Cooperation]. He didn’t even feel it was a chore to gather the nearly five hundred mana cores from the leftover bodies.

“How’d he do?” Jones pulled Donny aside once everyone else got to gathering.

“Kid’s a natural.” the tank said. “If this was a trial run I would say we should accept his application based on nothing but his talent and skills. I am pretty sure he already got [Cooperation] just from that fight.”

“He isn’t too overconfident?”

“No, just the opposite. I’m not sure if it is because of a bad experience in the past or because the innate reaction all mages have to the dungeon environment but he’s almost paranoid of anything and everything.” Donny gave his assessment.

“What do you think about bringing him to the second floor? Would it be safe?” This was the real question. Would he do fine in an unpredictable environment?

“At worst he’ll slow us down.” Donny shook his head. “He definitely is strong enough to join a team on the second floor. The only thing that worries me is that he might be lying to us. Him being a level twenty-five is a harder and harder sell by the day.”

With everything gathered the entire team headed towards the closest boss area and their entry into the second floor. As Ajax approached and studied the arch he carefully placed a hand on it.