Step by step, my sheep were approaching the place prepared for them, none of them could see, hear or feel anything, we remained invisible to them. I could have ordered my army to simply flood them with bodies, or I could have ordered Randaloph to attack them with his pack, I could have even ordered Gawein alone to attack them, which I suppose he could even handle.... but where's the fun in that.
I decided to do it as simply as I could, with my own hands.... with my own magic, it worked out the same.
The caravan bypassed the undead hidden in the bushes and kept going until it was more or less directly in front of me.... then I started to act. But before I did anything, I made sure on my own whether there wasn't a mage or some form of mage hiding somewhere out there that could somehow be a threat.... nope, no one on the outside gave such a feeling. But even if such a person were to be found inside.... he wouldn't know what hit him.
[Ice Wall] x4
[Blizzard]
Four walls as if creating a dogfighting arena, but this time much smaller and more compact plus the legendary blizzard, a perfect combination. Constantly receiving ice damage with no way to escape.... and judging by the screams inside my lunchbox it seemed to work. Even the mana consumption was not so terrible, the smaller the area the less mana.... logical. Well, but who would want to spend all their time casting one spell.
As if to think about it, nonetheless, I have not yet had the opportunity to start playing with my magic.... other skills and features of the system yes, but magic itself, no. For if you look at it from the objective side, blizzard is not just ice magic, or at least not in its entirety. The little icicles of ice, the cold wind and the snow field.... everything had a cold aspect yet ice magic by itself was not.
Imperfection, the ideal place for abuse, just how can I use it to my own advantage.
Also, the fact that the field of casting a spell could turn into a square was a surprise to me, the fact that I had not tried it until now made me feel foolish. Not to try the simplest thing, well, but in my defense I had the fact that I couldn't split and couldn't do many things at once. Still, the fact that I could modify spells gave a lot to think about, if I made the shards in the blizzard fall faster, be bigger and sharper or more deadly. Other spells likewise, more, faster, stronger, more efficient, and more expensive.
Damn, all of this makes me feel like I'm playing a resource management game instead of an actual RPG.
Modification, creation, summoning and calculating costs, where is the spreadsheet when you need it. I guess creation magic had unlimited potential, theoretically if I could create anything and the only limitation is that it would be made of ice, then spells from other schools would also maybe work, maybe not all but rest should.
So if I so created about twenty maybe thirty kilometers above me a large block of ice and let it go free it would create an ice meteorite.
I wasn't some outstanding in physics but it should be possible if I could hurl at such a distance, just use all the mana and watch as the block of ice would destroy everything in front of me.... such as a certain fort. Maybe it's a good idea to go back and check....
The sudden fall of an ice wall and immediately followed by another from the other side cooled my enthusiasm and immediately brought me back to reality, even despite all this time further someone managed to survive and manage to get out, only why did they waited so long.
Almost at the same time two knights came out of the ice box, they looked as if they were not even touched but it was only an illusion. I noticed on their weapons sizable fragments of icy metal and fragments of torn skin where the metal was not presented. Although one of them was in noticeably better shape than the other, it was clear who was the stronger one.
But the question remained how they got out because, after all, metal had no right to cut through such a thick layer of ice, or at least not with a single cut. I didn't have to wait long for an answer as upon staring at them for a while longer I noticed a thin layer of mana on their blades, barely noticeable from this distance. Correlation, knight, mana wielding person was clear.
Knights, however, did not wait until I was able to discover more, once they managed to get out they kept searching with their gaze around the surrounding forest in which seemingly nothing seemed suspicious. They passed the hidden skeletons with their eyes until practically at the same moment they focused their gaze on one point.... the point where I was, they were looking at me. It appeared that if I could see the mana then also could.
And as if sharing one body they began to run at the same time, sprinted towards my position, they were fast but the reaction to their behavior was even faster. Once again my weakness was shown because instead of reacting I started thinking, instead of casting spells and stopping them before they got close to me I decided to stand like a peg and do nothing about it.
Yet Gawain and Randaloph were not dependent on me like most of my army and acted on their own. They understood each other without words, one took one and the other took the other, having confidence in each other about the victory, worse that I continued to ride the last one, apparently my wolf seemed to have forgotten about that. The knight was approaching but it was me who rushed towards him this time, even if I didn't want to.
Randaloph's leap was sudden, unexpected and, most importantly, very shaky. Jump, leap, dodge, tail attack, claw attack and bite attempt, I couldn't see what his opponent was doing at that moment because it was quaking so much and the height I was at was changing so fast that I could only see fragments. I gripped onto my wolf's back with my arms and legs just to keep from falling because I knew too well that my collapse would change the battlefield, and for the worse.
Fortunately, the combat of my knight was easily discernible.... relatively. It was a duel of chivalry that anyone could expect, but for me it felt like it was sped up. The usual exchange of blows blocks and dodges, nothing out of the ordinary.... yet Gawain did not dominate the skirmish. He won, obviously, but not instantly as I expected from him. Randaloph was the same way, all the time wounding his opponent but failing to get to organs or vital points. They were stronger but not nearly as much.
I was safe and nothing promised that this was going to change so unintentionally my thoughts again went to the analysis.
In this medieval world, villagers were weak, even very weak, at the level of my regular skeletons and maybe even below. There were exceptions among them, but exceptions are exceptions, they could not be taken into account in statistics. Next there were priests of the gods which could deal with a skeleton without a problem, so they were somewhere on the level of a captain, but it was still unknown if there were any stronger ones in the larger population centers. Well, and now I also discovered a knight, stronger than the captains but weaker than my two companions.
Normal, elite and lord. Peasant, knight and baron, coincidence or maybe....
Just where to put mages now, probably above because the more there is of something the more valuable it is.... and I haven't met any mage so far. If I can do so much in less than a month what someone could do training for a lifetime.
But going down this road the nobles should be somehow absurdly strong, as strong as I am, only I have no experience and combat awareness. For this, the castle should have at least dozens of knights if not hundreds, if one were to take these two as the standard. It would only take a hundred Gawain level undead to get this thing.... phhh.
Good job I didn't attack this castle, I dodged a bullet....
My field of vision stopped shaking, the sound of clashing swords disappeared and the gasps of people quieted down, the battle was over. I returned to my previous comfortable position by sprawling in the now stationary seat and began to observe what had taken place.
One knight ended up with his head cut off and the other with his body torn apart, I didn't even have to ask, the wounds spoke for themselves.
Gawain even, without a word, just in case, stabbed the lying knight's sword through the heart and then did the same with the next corpses that were in the box, my paranoia apparently began to spread. Not that I'm complaining, a good human is a dead human, but now that I'd made sure they were all dead it was time to unpack the present and see what, or who, these people were escorting.
What it could have been?
Patreon
