We need to go catch a half-serpent, doing so could greatly alter the timeline but I can't do that to Lilith. Isn't it funny? I need to take another person's life to save the life of someone I love, I guess this is life's sense of humor.
We started roaming around looking for a half-serpent, people were continuing to kill them without even checking what the mission was about. After roaming a bit more, I saw a dark-haired man holding a half-serpent behind him, trying to protect it from other people.
Dark-haired Man: "Stop! Can't you see? We killed hundreds of them but the mission is still not completed, haven't you realized? They wanted us to catch them, not kill! Instead, we have wiped out an entire village…"
Aggressive Group:
"How do you know that's the mission?"
"Yeah, maybe the mission isn't completed because that's the last monster."
"If we kill it…"
Dark-haired Man: "Stop! There's only 1 hour left until the mission period ends! If we kill it, we will be considered to have failed the mission and we will die, don't you understand?"
The dark-haired man was trying to talk and convince them but his words seemed in vain, no one was listening to him. The group of 4 started moving towards the dark-haired man, probably wanting to kill him first and then the half-serpent.
The group was about to attack the dark-haired man.
Dark-haired man: "D-Don't come any closer!"
One from the group swung his sword to attack, I intervened at the last moment and blocked his sword. Our swords clashed in the air, sparking; I couldn't push him back, all I could do was block his attack. They seemed like a strong group.
"He's right, if we kill it, we lose!"
The man I blocked quickly retreated back to his group, the atmosphere was tense. I could hear the dark-haired man's fast and anxious breathing, the half-serpent standing behind us was just a kid and looked very scared. If I wanted to complete this mission, I had to protect this child. Sacrificing one child for another…
Aggressive Group: "This is taking too long! I will deal with you myself!"
The man whose sword I blocked: "Stop, he's strong. We might not be able to handle him alone."
"Well then, I have no choice but to use this. [Shout] "EVERYONE COME TO MY VOICE! THE LAST MONSTER WE NEED TO KILL IS HERE!"
He shouted with such a high volume that it was enough to cause pain in my ears. It must have been some kind of ability. In no time, hundreds of summoned people were standing in front of us. It was me, Lisa, a scared child, and a man we didn't know, a four-person team. Everyone looked ready to attack us at any moment, I had to hurry and make a plan.
"Hey, tell me your class."
Dark-haired man: "My class?"
"Just tell me your damn class so I can make a plan!"
Dark-haired man: "Healer."
Healer, huh? Doesn't sound like a combat class, especially with so many opponents in front of us.
Dark-haired man: "A-Actually, I have another class."
Another class? Like me? So, there really are people with two classes?
"What is it? Waiting for an invitation?"
Dark-haired Man: "N-Necromancer, but I've only recently acquired this class so I don't have any soldiers yet."
"How many soldiers can you raise with your current power?"
Dark-haired Man: "T-Twenty? Maybe Thirty. I'm not sure."
Damn, if he was as strong as the necromancer I encountered in the arena, we would be in a much better position right now…
Aggressive group: "Hey, what are you talking about? You've got no place to run now."
He was right, the group that was just hundreds was now almost a thousand.
"Alright, Lisa protect the child! You, I'm going to make a few soldiers for you so make sure you use them quickly!"
Dark-haired Man: "S-Soldiers? H-How?"
I filled my legs with aura and quickly attacked the man who had blocked my sword, decapitating him with a single blow.
"Like this."
Aggressive Group: "ATTACK!"
I started fighting against everyone who was rapidly approaching, I opened two portals around the small child so that attacks coming from the right and left would be redirected through the portals to the other side, behind us was a massive structure so all we had to do was defend the front. The level and power difference between most people and us were immense so I could kill them quickly, the soldiers raised by the dark-haired man allowed us to fight even more steadily but we were still at a numerical disadvantage.
Dark-haired man: "THERE ARE TOO MANY! THEY ARE KILLING THE SOLDIERS QUICKLY! RAISING THEM AGAIN CONSUMES MORE MANA THAN THE FIRST TIME! IF THIS GOES ON, I'LL RUN OUT OF MANA!"
"THEN STOP RAISING THE DEAD ONES AND RAISE NEW ONES YOU IDIOT, CAN'T YOU SEE WE ARE SURROUNDED BY CORPSES!?"
The dark-haired man gulped, as Daichi said, he started raising new soldiers and using his mana more efficiently. Raising dead bodies, rather than completely obliterated ones for the second or third time, required less mana.
Lisa: "WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING! I CAN'T USE MY ABILITY! THERE ARE TOO MANY CHOICES!"
Think, think... how do you fight against a large group of enemies? With a weapon that causes area damage? I could create a weapon using my [Mechanism] ability but it would nearly drain all my mana, I wish I had allocated more points to my mana stat.
As I continued to ponder, I was also persistently fighting, trying to protect myself with the aura I had condensed around me. However, I kept taking damage due to the constant attacks. Moreover, as I killed lower-level opponents, I began encountering stronger ones. As I had suspected, the stronger ones were watching the battle from behind, assessing my power. My only option was to fight my opponents in a random manner without employing any tactics. For the first time, I was fighting without a strategy, and it was exhausting me. If this continued, my aura and stamina would soon be depleted. Fortunately, this dark-haired man, with the help of the healer class, was continuously healing me. Damn, how much stat points had he added to his mana? He kept saying things like he was going to run out of mana, the damn coward.
Wait a minute, it's been over 20 minutes since we started fighting, and I've lost count of how many times I've been wounded and healed. If I could reflect all the accumulated damage I've received with my [Reflection] ability, I could create massive damage. However, the reflection ability could only be used on a single attack, and I definitely had more than one opponent in front of me. What if...
I tried to ascend as high as possible into the sky with my sky steps ability and concentrated my aura on my vocal cords.
"HEY, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!"
The attackers:
"Hey, what's that guy doing?"
"Is he calling out to us?"
"What does he think he's doing down there? The moment he comes down, I'm going to kill him!"
I opened a portal beneath Lisa, the dark-haired man, and the little boy, sending them to a place outside the city.
The attackers: "H-Hey, what's happening!?"
"Where did that monster go!?"
"Is he dead? Maybe he disappeared because we won!"
"You idiot, we haven't received any notification!"
"It must be that man's doing! Everyone with long-range attacks, attack him!"
Initially, I considered creating a bomb like in my battle with the god, but I couldn't access enough aura to fill such a bomb without entering my berserk mode, and using the bomb could potentially kill me and my friends. So, I thought, how could I create massive damage with a single attack in one direction while also protecting my friends? Hence, I devised a plan to send my friends out of the city through a portal. But then what? I still couldn't make a bomb because it could harm me, and maybe even affect my friends. So, what was needed was a weapon that could create a wide area of damage with a single, directed attack. But does such a weapon even exist? At least, I didn't know of one. Then it hit me, why was I trying to create a normal weapon? My [Mechanism] ability allows me to create any mechanism I can imagine, so the weapon I envisioned... a gun from a knock-off MOBA game I played on my phone, which could emit a long and wide-ranging beam! And if I filled that gun with all my aura and the damage bonus from my reflection ability...
"[Mechanism]. Burn in hell, you motherfuckers!"
I fired my weapon, filled with all my aura and the damage bonus from my reflection ability, annihilating all my targets with a massive display of light. I could feel the heat from the beam, and the attack was so powerful that the recoil sent me soaring further into the sky. Being in the sky meant all I had to do was aim downwards and fire, ensuring I wouldn't be harmed, and only those in the direction of the weapon would be hit. Everything went exactly as planned, and the firing power even lifted me higher, allowing me to see almost the entire area. I even saw Lisa and the dark-haired man running towards the battlefield, probably having realized that I was the one who had sent them away with a portal, trying to come to my aid, but everything was already taken care of.
Then suddenly, I started falling from the sky.
"Wait a minute! Why aren't my air steps working? Don't tell me, DID I RUN OUT OF MANA!?"
Damn, I should have predicted that using the portal multiple times, on top of the mechanism and air steps, would deplete my mana.
Lisa: "DAICHIII!"
She's still running, she must really want to save me. But it doesn't seem likely she can make it in time, and even if she does, how could she save me from falling at such high speed? Maybe she knows some kind of gravity magic. Anyway, the fall is taking quite a while. I must have been really high up, so this is how it ends? Not even a god could kill me, but I'm going to die from a high fall?
[10 seconds until the end of the third phase.]
10 seconds? Is this a joke? If only I had been a bit higher...
9
8
7
If only I had been a bit higher?
6
5
"LISA! ATTACK! ATTACK ME!"
Lisa: "What is he saying?"
Dark-haired man: "I think he wants you to attack him."
4
Lisa: "I got that, you idiot, but why does he want that? Why hasn't he landed yet?"
3
"ATTACK! HIT ME WITH SOMETHING! CAST A SPELL!"
Lisa: "Wait a minute, his mana couldn't have run out, could it?"
2
Damn, I guess this is it.
1
Lisa: "[Fireball]!"
0…
