Chapter 72: Explosive Growth

Chapter 72: Explosive Growth

Erani, the Dryad, and I stood at the edge of the forest, looking over the campsite that was our target. I watched the storage depot that was full of explosives, trying to find a time when the most Infernals were nearby. If I blew the whole thing up, it’d certainly hurt everyone within a wide radius, but it most likely wouldn’t kill any Infernals that weren’t close by. I knew from experience just how much damage those things could sponge up.

From activating Time Loop, my Health and Mana were reset – that much was needed for this plan to go off smoothly. I needed Mana to get the explosion to go off, and Health to survive it. Ideally, I’d be far enough away to prevent myself from taking the bulk of the damage, but I still needed as much of a shield as possible. Gravity Well’s range was okay, but not far enough to totally avoid the damage.

Erani, when I first explained it to her, was disapproving. Not that I blamed her. It probably didn’t sound good to say ‘we escaped, but then I went back to do it again because I want XP.’ But I truly felt like it was the only way to survive in the future. We were simply outmatched as-is, and I needed to even things out between us and our enemies.

Truthfully, my main worry didn’t actually have anything to do with the plan itself. It was the fact that I was trying to be stealthy while I had Dryad right next to me. I was sure she had the capacity to stay hidden, but I wasn’t too confident in my ability to convey that to her. How was I supposed to tell her that the way we were dealing with these enemies was not going to be the same as how we killed the other enemies?

Thankfully, Erani agreed to help keep her back if anything seemed like it would go wrong. I trusted her ability to do so – out of the two of us, the Dryad seemed to get along with Erani more. I wasn’t quite sure why, though. Must’ve been a difference between our personalities. I knew the Dryad could read emotions, so maybe she just liked what she read from Erani more?

“How are we going to know when you’re done and it’s safe to come out?” Erani asked me as we looked ahead.

“You’ll know when the entire place blows up,” I said without looking over. I was focusing on crafting my plan.

My first step would be actually getting close enough to the depot without being spotted. I wished I could just use Erani and the Dryad as a distraction, but if they tried to pull attention away from that area, they’d also be pulling our targets away from the blast’s source – making this entire thing pointless.

But there were still methods to do what I needed to do.

I needed to stop stalling. The fire was creeping up behind us, however slowly, and this wouldn’t be any easier if I waited longer.

“Going out,” I said.

Erani just pursed her lips and nodded.

I got down to the ground, lying prone so my belly was on the dirt, and began slowly crawling into the tall grass in front of me. The field was thick enough that it should’ve hidden me well enough, as long as I didn’t make any sudden movements or make much noise.

Within a few seconds, I was fully into the vegetation, and could no longer see around myself. I continued crawling in a straight line, navigating using my general sense of direction. It was itchy and uncomfortable to be in such a position for so long, but I shook off any desires to stand up and get a nice stretch in, and kept moving.

Minutes passed as I continued to make my snail’s pace through the field of grass, wriggling my way through. Enough time passed that I began to worry I’d somehow gotten myself turned around in my blind crawl. But soon enough, I finally made it to a new milestone – the minefield.

There were a total of about one hundred paces between my starting point of the treeline, and the mine depot. Fifty of those paces were made up of plain field, and another fifty were of this explosive-ridden ground. All I needed to do was get within thirty paces of the depot. So, if I’d gotten to the mines, I only needed to go twenty further.

Of course, this second half would be much more dangerous to traverse than the first. I didn’t have that Enchanted ring anymore – I’d left that in the previous timeline – so I was vulnerable to blowing myself up again. Fun.

But I wasn’t being chased or anything, so I just had to take things slowly and I’d get through. I kept moving, gradually pushing through the grass and revealing bits more of the path ahead of me. Anytime I saw the signature shine of those Enchanted plates of metal, I veered away and took a wide arc around it. Didn’t want any accidents happening.

As I got closer and closer to the camp, my nerves got worse and worse. I was only getting easier to spot as I neared the guards. And the longer I took, slowly weaving through the mine-ridden ground, the higher the chances. But I calmed myself and reminded myself to stick to the plan. Nervousness would just make me sloppy.

I had no real way to gauge my distance from the depot – not without popping up for a look, which would’ve been a terrible idea – so I had to estimate. Once I felt like I’d gone at least twenty paces into the minefield, I stopped and took a breath. I’d gotten within thirty paces of my target. Next, I had to clear the mines out of this area. That’d be a bit harder than moving in a straight line.

The reason I had to do this was out of safety. I was about to create a massive explosion. It seemed like these mines weren’t triggered by other random detonations, but they were triggered by each other’s. So, if I was about to blow up an entire depot’s worth, I definitely wouldn’t want any extra lying around me. So I spent the next few minutes gently kicking and pushing all the metal I could see as far away from my ‘home base’ as I could, while also moving as little as I could, so I didn’t get caught.

With that, I was finally in position and ready to begin what I deemed the ‘action phase.’ It was named that because things were going to get a bit hectic.

The reason for that was simple: I was gonna leave cover. I had to. For this plan to work, I would need line-of-sight on that depot, and there was simply no real way to do that while staying hidden from sight and also keeping close. Unfortunately, I’d just have to deal with it, and do everything quickly once people noticed me.

There was one more thing making me hesitate. I was eager to get rid of these Demon bastards. But the Humans... Sure, some of them were probably perfectly sympathetic with the Demons. But others weren’t. They could’ve had their lives threatened – or the lives of their families. Some of them didn’t want to be here.

But then, neither did I. It was us against them, no matter the reason. Either I died or they died. And I sure as hells wasn’t going to let it be me.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “We’re doing this. And, go.”

I popped up from the grass, my head peeking above as I quickly scanned the area for my target. I’d slightly overshot my distance, landing closer to twenty-five paces from the depot than thirty, but overshooting was fine. As long as I was within range.

It didn’t take long before our enemies saw me. Humans manning the siege weapons shouted to each other and began hurriedly loading ammunition into their ballistas and cannons, and the Infernals saw me and grouped up, preparing to move forward as the front-liners. I kept an eye on the Infernals. All I needed was for one of them to make a single, fatal flaw.

One of the Infernals manning a ballista put a hand on the release handle, gripping it and readying itself to release the massive bolt flying in my direction. But just as I saw its arm flex to pull and launch it, the weapon exploded.

I glanced back to see Erani behind me, hands up after she shot a Firebolt at that ballista. She’d bought me a couple seconds, but she couldn’t take down everyone who wanted to shoot something my way – especially once the archers loosed their barrages of arrows.

But I just needed one of the Infernals to take a single wrong step. I kept my eyes on that depot. They were scrambling about, but none had passed by it yet. Damned Demons and their dumb luck.

But after a couple seconds, one of them looked me in the eyes, punched its fist into its palm with a sadistic grin on its inhuman face, and took a step forward.

Right where I needed it to be.

Its foot headed down toward a mine that was lying directly next to the depot. Before its foot fell on the plate of metal, I cast Gravity Well on the Infernal. I watched its eyes widen as it suddenly fell forward at a much faster pace. 45% faster, to be exact.

These mines worked on weight, and the bronze rings reduced the weight of the guards enough so that they wouldn’t trigger the mines. However, they still needed the mines to trigger from me. With the rings only reducing weight by 70%, those massive Infernals had to be skirting the line pretty closely. So, even though Gravity Well didn’t increase their weight back to its original value, for an Infernal, it was certainly enough to pass that trigger point for the mines.

Its foot impacted the Enchanted sheet of metal, hard. And I saw it look around in a panic for exactly one second. After that one second, I went completely blind and deaf.

You have been blown up. 138 damage.

Your Health is 152.

The shockwave felt like it had to have been felt around the entire world. I was blasted back by the massive explosion, my vision spinning as I tumbled through the air. My ears rang from the deafening noise that came with the shockwave.

-You may choose a Spell to learn.

Threshold reached. 800 XP.

Your Level has increased to 13.

Due to achieving Level 13 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:

-You have gained 1 Endurance.

-You have gained 2 Conjuration.

-You have gained 1 Intelligence.

-You have gained 3 Stat Points.

-Recursive Growth has activated. You have gained 1 Strength, 2 Conjuration, and 1 Intelligence.

-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 13.

Threshold reached. 900 XP.

Your Level has increased to 14.

Due to achieving Level 14 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:

-You have gained 1 Endurance.

-You have gained 2 Conjuration.

-You have gained 1 Intelligence.

-You have gained 3 Stat Points.

-Recursive Growth has activated. You have gained 1 Endurance, 1 Dexterity, 1 Conjuration, and 1 Intelligence.

-Soft Cap has increased to Rank 8.

-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 14.

My Soft Cap increased two separate times, Time Loop Ranked up three times, and, of course, the Stats. I didn’t have the capacity of mind to count it all, but three Levels worth of Stats, plus the Stat Points, plus the 12 random Stats from Recursive Growth... it was a lot. A huge amount. I could physically feel myself growing more powerful, literally. The Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, all of it coming in so suddenly made me feel materially stronger. The Endurance helped with the pain, too, which was nice.

And, on top of all that, I got another Spell Choice. One more tool to add to my arsenal. I couldn’t wait to see what my options would be. And, now that I was at Level 14, my next step would be Leveling to 15 – something that would get me a new Talent and another Spell to add on top of the one I already got.

But then, I felt another notification come in. That was strange – it felt different from all the others. It wasn’t a damage notification, not a kill, not even a Level up. I tried to calm myself down and focus on the information the System was telling me.

Feat of excellence performed. You have gained 3 or more Levels over the course of a single minute.

You have gained the Devastator Title.

I mentally stared at what I was being told. A Title? A fucking Title?!

Most people didn’t get a single Title over the course of their entire lives, but apparently, I now had two. Sure, the Trailblazer one wasn’t really through any achievement of my own, but this – I’d actually earned it. I couldn’t focus enough on pulling up the full description of what the Title did, though, what with the massive explosion I’d just survived and the insane headache from the notification sickness. For now, I needed to focus on getting out of here alive. If I died, this would all be for nothing – I had no more uses of Time Loop left, after all.

I heard myself groan and cough – something I wasn’t even aware I was doing. My mind was so occupied by the System’s information overload that it seemed I’d somewhat blocked out my surroundings. But, with the barrage of notifications over, I was slowly recovering.

“–Arlan!” I heard a voice. Something hoisted me to my feet. I blinked wearily and saw Erani looking at me with worried eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Mmpgh,” I replied. Okay, maybe I wasn’t recovering as much as I thought I was.

“We need to go. Now.” She lifted my arm around her shoulder, supporting me in my unsteady stance, and turned me to face the camp we’d need to go through to get to the other side of the forest.

Or, rather, what was left of the camp.

It was completely decimated. Wreckage. Actually, wreckage wasn’t even an accurate descriptor. A better word would be ‘crater.’ There was nothing left behind after the explosion but a massive hole in the ground. Blackened dirt smoldered. Dry grass burned. There were no signs of life.

I looked over to see the Dryad kneeling by the edge of the crater. She was doing something, but my blurry eyes couldn’t make it out as we approached. The battle wasn’t won just yet, so I needed to focus up. We may have destroyed that section of camp, but the blockade was long, and we’d certainly made enough of a commotion to get the attention of the soldiers further down in the line of tents and weapons. They’d be on their way, and we needed to flee. Fast. No time for delays.

Erani led me through the wreckage left behind by the explosion. There weren’t even any recognizable bodies left behind. Just a massive hole in the ground with some suspicious piles of black. As we passed the Dryad on the edge of the crater, Erani grabbed her shoulder and lifted her up, urging her along with a gesture. I could see, now that we were closer, that she was kneeling by the crater in order to try and put out the various small fires lining the edge of the explosion site.

But, at Erani’s request, she stood and came along, glancing back only once to look at the destruction left behind.

As I began to hear the distant shouts of soldiers approaching the blast site, we passed through the treeline and into the forest. We’d finally made it through. And, despite my battered state, I was happier than ever with the results.

Three Levels. Three fucking Levels. And on top of that, a new Title.

It was time to look through everything I’d just gotten.