Might as Well

Following the sudden attack, a lot of things happened in short order.

Sam’s sword met the rushing spear, stopping it just in front of himself to the surprise of the spellspear.

At the same time, SilverLion cried out with a horrified look on his face. “What are you doing?!”

The spellspear face was set into bewilderment and as he jumped back, he couldn’t help but exclaim. “How? You’re just Level 40!”

‘So, that’s why they were so confident…’ he thought, as a small insidious smile formed on his face.

“Level is not everything, my friend…”

The guy clicked his tongue. “Doesn’t matter. You die here!”

With that declaration, he and the two shield bearers rushed forward, attempting to box him in and then skewer him on the still-shining spear.

Sam simply activated his speed-increasing skills and began dancing around their attacks. Meanwhile, he kept an eye on the rest of the Steel Lions. The two mages looked at each other, shrugged, and raised their hand, which immediately began to glow with mystical energies.

Meanwhile, SilverLion was calling them to cease their attack, but nobody listened to him.

Sam danced around a heavy strike from one of the tanks, directly getting into the way of another strike from the other tank, but raised his sword to block the strike, coincidentally at the same time, the spellspear let loose a series of thrusts with his spear, aiming at the middle of his body, but Sam simply projected a gust of extreme wind, causing the spellspear’s aim to be thrown off.

Instead of waiting for them to attack again, he took another step and with a quick motion decapitated the first tank, then continuing the movement, he dispersed the lightning ball that was aimed at his head.

There was a gasp from the mages, but the remaining tank and spellspear only had a determined look on their faces, the death of their friend not fazing them. He deflected another strike, then raised his hand and made a sign.

Instantly, his teammates, who were watching the fight with blank looks on their faces, thanks to his previous orders, sprung into action.

Katie launched herself forward up in the air, her greatsword crackling with barely restrained yellow energy. And as she reached the apex of her jump, she swung her sword, unleashing the energy contained in it in a crescent shape.

The lightning mage had a brief moment to be surprised, then he was vaporized in a flash of yellow light while letting out a small scream.

Katie landed delicately on the ground, her skills absorbing the shock of landing, and instantly the girl was once again swinging her sword, this time at the water mage. However, the water mage had enough time to react and conjured a shield of water around himself, while lashing out with tendrils of water at Katie.

She danced between the strikes, however, the water seemed to be simply absorbing her attacks.

“Hah! Little girl, you are centuries too early to defeat me!” the water mage exclaimed, his face set into a proud look. “This is the Shield of the Ocean! Nobody can defea–“ His monologue, however, was interrupted by a lance of white-hot flame coming from his back, piercing through his chest and heart.

For a long moment, he stood there as the water shield vanished, gaping stupidly, no sound coming from his mouth, before simply collapsing as if he was a puppet whose strings were cut.

At the same time, Sam was still keeping the remaining tank and spellspear occupied.

“All of you stop!” cried out SilverLion, sadly, ineffectively.

Sam was standing between the spear wielder and the tank and watched as the tank raised their sword and clanged it against his shield while mumbling something under his breath. Instantly, he could feel the mana surge from the man flow into his shield, and then with a visible pulse of light shot forward at him. The light formed a circle and with quick succession enveloped him, rooting him to the ground, and preventing any movement.

‘Circle of Restraint… Good skill… But I have better!’ he thought mirthfully. ‘Mana Disruption!’

With a small twist of his mana, he reached out to the spell trying to restrain him, injecting his own mana into the matrix of the spell.

“Got you!” exclaimed the spellspear, and his spear began to glow pure black. “Take this! Devastation Strike!”

The man lunged forward, the black light swelling around the head of the spear, forming an ethereal spear, ready to destroy Sam. However, he just smiled and with a flex of his arms, broke the circle that he had disrupted, then ducked under the strike, letting it fly over his head, took a short step forward, and thrust his sword out, piercing the spellspear’s body.

Then with another twist of his mana, he let loose a Wind Drill, ripping the man apart.

As he straightened out, the surprised tank was taken care of by Katie appearing behind him with extreme speed and beheading him.

As the last body fell to the ground and slowly turned into rainbow pixels, Sam sheathed his sword and turned toward the gaping David.

Katie walked next to him and put her hands on her hips.

“Well, brother? What’s your excuse?”

For a second, brother and sister stared at each other, with the brother’s eyes jumping between the corpses of his minions and Sam and his angry sister. Then he hesitantly spoke up.

“Katie… I–I didn’t order them to do that…”

Sam glanced at the girl and saw she deflated visibly.

“It was probably him…” she spoke with visible disgust.

David took a moment to think it over and then nodded. “I always suspected they were more loyal to him than me, but it is disheartening to see it confirmed.”

Sam nodded. ‘Ahh, family drama…’

Katie turned to Sam.

“Well, boss, what do you want to do?”

Sam glanced between the siblings, one expectant and the other worried. In the end, he shrugged.

“I get that it is a family argument, but they still tried to kill us before the boss. That’s a big no-no…”

Kate looked visibly happier as he said that. She instantly turned to her brother and spoke up.

“Brother, we shall speak later. For now, goodbye!”

“Wait, what?”

But it was too late. Katie shone with light, Clarissa's buffs enveloping her body, and before David could react, she was in front of him, her greatsword going through his neck.

He fell to the ground and began to transform into rainbow pixels, which in turn began to vanish up into the air.

Katie instantly turned to them and bowed almost ninety degrees.

“I’m so sorry!”

Sam chuckled a little, while Dan called out to her.

“No worries! It’s not like we were in any danger…”

Katie straightened out and looked at them, worry still on her face.

Clarissa just shook her head. “People like that always backstab you… It’s not your fault…”

Sam nodded in agreement. “Indeed. It was pretty obvious what they were planning.”

Katie looked at them, then a little hesitantly began to speak.

“My…father… he probably…” However, she was interrupted by Sam.

He stepped forward and put a hopefully comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it now. Let’s kill the boss quickly so that I can deal with the quest. Then we can have a long talk. Alright?”

“Alright…” she replied quietly.

Sam nodded and turned to Dan, letting Katie compose herself behind him.

They spent a few minutes resting, letting the skill cooldowns reset, then with a determined look, entered the dust-filled halls.

Instantly, there was a roar, and the dust in the room began to swirl, as poisonous sludge began to bubble up from somewhere.

The monster quickly took shape, with the lower part looking like a snake, the dust forming into scales; the sludge filling up the gaps between the so-called scales, while the upper body was that of a bodybuilder. Albeit one with no face.

They had a moment to take in the monster, before it roared somehow – despite not having any kind of orifices that could logically make a sound – and one of its arms transformed from a giant fist into the head of a mace, with the spikes made from hardened sludge that were no doubt leaking lethal toxins.

Then the mace slammed into Sam’s shield spell, the force of the attack sending the remaining dust on the ground flying, and the fight was on.

Clarissa immediately began casting buffs and protective spells on them, while white fire, originating from Dan, began to rain down from up high. The moment one of the ‘raindrops’ touched the dust, it let out a sizzle, and part of the monster’s body fell to the ground, leaving it weaker and diminished.

Katie simply jumped up, landing on the giant hand of the dust-slash-sludge elemental, and akin to an anime hero, began running up the monster’s hand, raising her sword that was brimming with energy.

Sam simply reinforced the shield protecting Clarissa and watched with amusement as Dan and Katie began systematically pulling the monster apart.

Katie simply began a series of slashes at the monster’s head, while Dan used his flames to try to destroy the material it was made from. Sadly, the moment a certain amount of material was lost, it let out another roar, and the dust began falling from the ceiling, reforming the monster’s body.

Sam let them have their fun for a moment, then while maintaining his shield, he reached out with his mana and tried to find the elemental’s core.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long, and soon he managed to pinpoint its exact location, which was unsurprisingly in the middle of the dust elemental’s body. In the later stages of the game, when people were much higher leveled, elementals would have their cores in odd positions, protected by extra appendages, or even hide them outside of their bodies.

With one hand maintaining the shield spell, he held out his other hand and conjured a small ball of light. With barely any effort, he sent the ball of light at the monster’s body, where it settled over the spot he sensed the core to be.

“Aim at the light!” he called out and watched as his teammates reacted to his order.

Dan let out a great gust of flame aimed at the torso of the monster, where the dust and sludge instantly solidified and began to fall with a pitter-patter sound, and Katie rushed forward her greatsword coming down on the suddenly exposed dark green core.

CRACK

The core was cracked, but not broken.

The monster let out a roar, the shockwaves of the roar sending Katie flying backward, landing with one knee bent next to Sam like a superhero.

Dust and sludge surged, and instead of being covered by scales made of dust, the sludge from the ground swelled up, covering the body of the elemental fully and when it retreated, the monster was covered by scales made of the toxic sludge, inverting the color scheme.

The hand made into the mace reformed, instead turning into a simple pipe with a hole where the hand should have been. Then the next second it glowed with the same color as the core.

Sam strengthened the shield, with Clarissa triggering her own hexagonal shields as sludge bombs began to bombard them from the gun-turned hands.

Reaching out with his mana, he searched for the core and found it in the same place, but now it was protected by a layer of scales made of crystalized sludge and under it the scales made of the solidified dust.

Conjuring another ball of light, he sent it out.

“Once more!”

And once again, fire and pain rained down on the elemental, this time with Sam joining in with a few precise Wind Blades to crack the sludge.

Soon, under their barrage, the monster fell, leaving behind a pile of dust-covered loot.

He shot off several large area cleaning spells, making sure to get all the dust he could. Mainly to make sure no more dust monsters attacked, but also because it was a nice chunk of experience points for his skill.

Sam then walked forward and inspected the loot. It was mostly ores and crystals with several boxes and four flasks made of metal, with a pattern of scales on them.

He picked up one of them and inspected it.

[Congratulations! You found a Bottomless Flask!]

[Bottomless Flask: A Flask made with enchanted material to be made bottomless*. Capable of storing all kinds of liquid, both cold and hot. Cannot hold acids. *Not actually bottomless.]

He chuckled at the flavor text and put it away in his inventory. It would be an excellent holder for health potions. Quickly, he picked up the other flasks and threw them at his teammates, who caught them and began examining the artifacts.

While they were reading the tooltips, he swept the rest of the loot into his inventory and stood up. Seeing as everyone was happily putting away their flasks, he opened the notification screen that was blinking in the corner of his eye.

[Congratulations!]

[You cleared the fracture for the first time!]

[Due to accumulated dimensional energies, the amount of items found is increased!]

[Fracture: Auxiliary Storage Cavern #BX/G-7 is cleared!]

[Fracture can be visited again!]

[Cooldown: 600 seconds!]

Nodding happily at the information, he closed the screen and turned to the others.

“Ready to leave?”

Clarissa spoke up. “Won’t they be waiting for us?”

Katie shook her head. “My brother is not like that.”

“It didn’t really seem like your brother was in charge…” came the sassy retort.

“Yeah,” agreed Katie with a shrug. “But now that he knows they don’t obey him, he will act…”

Clarissa eyed the younger girl and nodded. “Alright, if you say so…”

Dan nodded, once again taking notes, and Sam simply pressed the exit button and they were away, the dimensional energies swirling around them.

As usual, they were deposited in front of the swirling portal, the Steel Lion members nowhere to be seen.

Katie looked at Clarissa smugly.

“See, I know my brother…”

“Fine…Fine…”

The two girls began walking out of the storage room, good-naturedly ribbing each other. Sam and Dan looked at each other and chuckled, and then followed them.

His teammates would return to Ironwood to rest and do their quests or maybe do a little crafting, while Sam would be meeting with Lucy and then Lord Silvercrest.

‘Money~ Money~ here I come…’