‘Oh no, this isn’t good!’, the numbers kept on increasing like crazy, to the point where I even asked myself if not ‘all’ the players were gathered here.

“What are we gonna do?”, I asked the person who brought this upon us in the first place. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I was bewildered by what his answer could possibly be, he showed a confident smile. “We’ll fight through them!”

‘Somebody please wake me up from this nightmare.’, I begged to god, that I would wake up from this scenario that seemed like a nightmare.

“Why the hell did you even do ‘that’ to begin with? Are you trying to get us killed?!”, I referenced to his glowing sword, he leaved a heavy sigh of disappointment and pointed towards a hill.

“This was a set up to begin with, one way or the other we would’ve been surrounded.”, he said.

‘You think I don’t know that!’, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t muster the courage to speak. Because, I felt that if I said something now, I’d be making fun of myself.

That is one of my abilities, I’ve shamed myself many times in the past, but I’ve learned to think before I speak.

“Their plan was probably, to lure other adventurer towards the stronghold and make them search for the shield for them.”, he then looked at me. “If we’d let things go his way, it wouldn’t be much fun now would it? That’s why I am now attracting more adventurers, so that I can put them in a panic.”

He was telling the truth, right before the castle went down I sensed four people in the distance together with a lot of mana.

“But still, we need to somehow get out of here and regroup.”, we still hadn’t found Gray and the other guy (should’ve asked his name). “Don’t worry, if they aren’t here the better, and if they saw the pillar of light I’m sure they’ll find their way back here.”

‘He may be a reckless and stubborn, but he sure knows what he’s doing’, I thought, when suddenly a arrows rained upon us two.

I held the shield in front of him, in order to protect both of us from the barrage of arrows.

The arrows collided with the shield, they didn’t pierce it and fell to the ground like pebbles.

“As of right now we have no choice but to fight, I would appreciate it if you would stay here with me.”, I told him, he smiled confidently with a little hint of bloodlust.

“Of course I will, all the fun will happen right around you.”, he held his sword in position, as the first number of adventurers appeared.

The team that was with us already disappeared, they probably didn’t want to be dragged into this mess that was already out of their hands, in this situation their only option would be to secretly escape and search for a different treasure.

Of course, they could’ve simply stayed and try to steal the shield from me, but they decided to search for another one, either way they’re both are a reasonable option.

“Alright let’s go!”, my ‘teammate’ jumped ahead without a single sign of fear, right by the contrary his mouth curved into a smile.

I too decided to join him, I couldn’t simply stay still and do nothing since I’m the target.

‘I could simply give him the shield and ditch him…’, the thought crossed my mind, but then I realized what he would’ve done with it and immediately changed my mind.

‘I can’t really trust him with the shield.’, I came to a conclusion, and followed him into battle.

“You know, I didn’t expect twenty of them this soon.”, I leaved a weighty sigh and prepared myself, however my partner seemed to have a different idea.

“Here I come!”, he charges into battle, his smile put the other adventurers into unease and fear.

“‘Flame Lance’!”, a flaming lance was shot by him, aiming for me as the target. “‘Barrier’.”, I conjured a imperfect barrier in front of my shield to increase my defensive abilities.

The impact of the lance broke through my barrier and hit the shield, it’s force wasn’t strong enough to to pierce it, but it did leave some scorch marks behind.

‘I just said if he could a accompany me, and he charged straight ahead?!’, I realized that it was useless to speak sense into him, I could already tell his personality, so it was of no use.

I charged towards him with my shield up, even though I needed the shield to qualify, it was my only form of defense excluding my magic.

“Hey could you slow down a bit? If I lose this shield we’re out!”, I complained to him, but it lead to no avail. “Don’t worry, just try to keep up with me and we’ll be fine.”

‘Curse you!’, I was at my limit, I could feel my consciousness telling me to reorganize my thoughts, everything felt like it was going south and in the worst way possible.

“”’Fire Ball’””, multiple flaming orbs were launched towards us, I was the main target but together with my supposedly ‘teammate’ we should be able to avert most of them.

“HOME RUN!”, the person known as the ‘Berserker’, held his sword and hit the fire balls back towards its sender with the base of his sword.

The mages who has launched the fire balls were incapacitated, win goes for the Berserker!

I was hit by a couple too, but the shield defended me up to some extent. “There are some coming from behind.”

I hadn’t stopped casting sense for a second, I needed to be aware of what was happening from all directions.

I turned around and collided with a pair of swords. “Tch, he saw us!”, three opponents, most likely from the same team from what I had to guess.

I picked up the shield and bashed forward, throwing them off.

The three of them prepared to attack once again, while I could feel the use of mana behind me, that meant they were probably preparing to launch multiple spells towards us.

“Oh no you don’t, I’m your main target!!!”, he ran right towards them, the spells were shot right at him, but there was no effect.

Or that’s what it appeared to be, he had cuts and bruises in multiple parts of his body, but most of it was protected by his armor.

He held his glowing sword, the light of his sword glowed immensely to the point where it seemed to blind the whole world.

“You read? Here I come!”, the opponents didn’t have time to recompose and cast another spell.

He held his sword vertically and slashed from above, a blade of light was shot from his sword. It seemed as if it could cut through darkness itself.

The blade of light curved slightly and blew up on spot, the opponents were knocked out as a aftermath.

‘Wow…’, I was truly amazed by this guys guys and offensive power, however I didn’t have time to spend idly by and do nothing.

I could feel the numbers around me increasing, they were all cooperating with each other to get the shield no matter what, even if they got it, they would gang up on the next team that held the shield.

“I’ve been working myself to the bone since I’ve come to this world.”, I muttered to myself while hiding behind the shield.

“At this point it might as well be a team Battle Royale.”, some of them prepared spells ready to attack, all I could do was use my skills and magic to evade nothing else, and since I have my hands full with the shield, in the literal sense. I couldn’t bring out my swords to fight.

“Hyap!”, someone leaped onto me, but I blocked myself with the shield and threw them to the closest adventurer about to attack me.

The next one came from behind, probably one that escaped from my teammate thought that they could launch a surprise attack.

“‘Mana Shot’.”, a ball of mana appeared at the palm of my hands together with a magic circle, and was shot towards the one coming from behind, thus throwing him off.

‘All of my spells are half-assed, except for the ones that were actually taught to me.’, it was the truth, an example would be my ‘Dark Attribute Magic’ spell ‘Dark Bullet’, it was made by imitating the spell ‘Mana Bullet’ that was taught to me, but using ‘Dark’ mana for it instead.

What’s important about magic, is the control of mana, the visualization, and the outcome. Whether you chant or not isn’t really important.

Casting is like a bridge, that helps you reach the desired outcome that is your ‘Spell’. The reason why I don’t chant is because I don’t really need to and it’s not like I know any adequate chants for ‘Dark Attribute Magic’.

I’m not sure if there is someone in this world who can use ‘Dark Attribute Magic’, and if there is I would like to meet them if they could teach me something that is.

All of my spells are imperfect, nothing but imitations of something original and or just imagined spells I had.

Making spells is both easy and hard, one must imagine and have the fantasy to create a ‘outcome’ of the spell, and the process must be something you can create.

An example would be the spell ‘Sense’, since I’m extremely sensitive to mana, everywhere my mana touches that is connected to me, I can feel it. Imagine it like a rope that is tied to you, when something touches the rope, you can feel the reaction a bit.

“Now!”, a person on the other side of the battlefield commanded, and multiple arrows penetrated the shield I was holding onto.

“What the—“, I realized the arrows were stuck on the shield, and exploded like dynamite.

I got knocked back a little, but I held my ground. My ‘Strength’ stat is considerably high, so I was able to hold of the barrage a little.

“Hey how are things going on… your end…”, I saw my teammate stand still looking forwards, I caught a glimpse of what his sights were set on.

A hours of four people presented itself, all their sights were set on me, except for one.

“I really wished it wasn’t you who stood behind it all.”, said a man with a noble aura and expensive armor. His eyes were bloodshot, and he frowned strongly at the sight of the person before him.

“Hello, been a while, how has it been for you?”, the ‘Berserker’ greeted him casually, like friends who had not seen each other in a while.

“Don’t treat me so casually, it was because of you that I couldn’t pass the exam.”, he frowned at his answer, he took out his sword, it was about the same length as my teammates’.

“You’re here to take the exam again? Not that I mind, though you won’t get evaluated.”, he smiled and looked back. “Hey, can you hold things out for me, I gotta settle this score here, thanks.”

‘Hey! Don’t leave me! If I lose, you lose too!’, he prepared himself to fight his new opponent. “I’ll take care of him, all of you go take back the shield.”

The noble mans team moved out to fight against me, I held my shield while parrying the attacks from all sides.

‘What the hell is wrong with my luck today.’, I began to think that the devil had left me for someone else, and now I ran out of luck.

“‘Water Blade’”, a blade of water was shot towards me from the left, I didn’t have enough time to evade it.

“!!!”, I braces myself for impact, when something unexpected happened.

“‘Barrier’”, a barrier appeared protecting me from the blade of water, the barrier didn’t break it stood still without flinching.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this!”, a boy in a robe said in a annoyed voice, it was the same one as before inside the castle. “What are you still doing here?”

I was bewildered by his presence here, was he here to take the shield? No, then he wouldn’t have protected me.

“Do you think we are that shameless to leave someone behind who saved us?”, the girl whom I had shielded from the crumbling castle was here as well.

“Are you idiots?!”, I was shocked by how dumb they were. “You’re the idiot here, you decided to help your enemy! Or is it that you don’t want us to help you?”

I caught the eight of another person attacking my shield, I bashed them back again. “Actually, I would appreciate it, if you wouldn’t mind, however make it look like we’re not teaming up.”

‘I didn’t forget the rules, if it looks like we’re teaming up it might become a problem.’, I pointed my fingers towards a row of adventurers and shot multiple ‘Mana Shots’.

“Leave it to us.”, the team that I had saved decided to cooperate with me temporarily, it seemed like my luck was beginning to come back.

It seemed like there was only the two of them, like everything else was not even worth to care about.

The man in expensive armor held his sword, while his opponent smiled menacingly, as if he was anticipating for this battle for a time.

“Let’s go.”, the first one to move was the opponent holding the glowing sword, ‘Berserker’ was the title given to him.

He flashed his sword against the others’. “You still have the same strength as back then, you haven’t improved at all!”, the ‘Berserker’ said to his opponent to provoke him.

“Shut up!”, he twisted his sword in a weird angle, and parried the ‘Berserker’ off. However, that was all it did, no damage, no injury, nothing.

“You want to know why you didn’t go up a class?”, he asked him whilst smiling in excitement, his eyes were aiming right at him, like knives stabbing right into his soul.

He threw his sword in the air, and leaped off the ground to catch it back. He rolled mid air creating pressure around him, and landed back down colliding his sword once again.

“It isn’t because you’re weak.”, the man in expensive armor used all of his strength to back off, he was breathing heavily and his eyes were full of rage.

“It’s because you’re fragile.”, his words pierced his heart, even though his wording was vague, he could tell what it would lead to. “Not in the physical way, but the mental.”

“Shut up!!! ‘Wind Cut’!”, he jumped off using a sword skill, however his opponent defended it effortlessly. “You’re like a castle supported by pillars, if one of them is gone, you’ll break down to pieces.”

The ‘Berserker’ used his free hand, and punched him in the stomach. “Once your castle falls, you begin to act like a child.”

“Shut up…!”, he held his stomach, strength was gradually leaving his body. “You know it’s the truth.”

The battle between the two of them came to a conclusion, the ‘Berserker’ looked behind to see if his teammate was doing alright.

“Wait!”, his defeated opponent stood up, using the sword to hold himself back up. “If you’re so strong, why aren’t you ‘S’ class?”

“Actually, I received a opportunity to get to ‘S’ class.”, he became speechless, he didn’t know if the battle maniac in front of his very eyes was telling the truth or speaking a mediocre joke.

“But I turned it down, if I get promoted I’ll start getting into the states affairs and it’ll become a pain in the ass.”

“Ha..ha..”, a laugh could be hear coming from the man in expensive armor, he had tears running down his eyes, like his sanity finally began to crumble, and despair written all over his face.

The ‘Berserker’ shook his head in disappointment. “I really hoped you could’ve gotten stronger, maybe this fight would’ve been more fun. And killing you would be unsatisfying.”

He finally left the field and returned to his original objective, leaving behind the lone man in the middle of the battlefield.

YeetusFeetus

Took me a while to write this chapter, if you find any spelling mistakes then please do tell me if you can. I'd wish my reader count would stop decreasing it sort of unmotivates me. And I hate it when I don't feel inspired to write even though I want to. Nevertheless, I hope all of you enjoyed reading this chapter.

Question: How would you feel if you've spent over 90 rolls in a gacha (specifically Genshin Impact) and you still don't get a 5* character? Answer: You feel like quitting Life.exe.