413 - Tactical Roland Drop 3
TL/Editor: raei
Status: 5/Week Mon-fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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The star of this battle wasn't me, but Han Se-ah.
While the tank drew the monsters' aggro and held firm, and the archer and swordsman cleared out the side interference, the priest supported them. Once the side branches were dealt with, the neatly gathered monsters went boom boom boom with a wide-area high-rank magic!
Wanting a satisfying display, she didn't summon Ice Storm but instead hurled lightning bolts through Call Lightning. No matter how sturdy their armor, mere mid-rank monsters couldn't withstand lightning imbued with mana. Unless they had a mana shield outside their skin, the mana-soaked lightning would fry their insides black.
With each thick bolt of lightning that struck, dozens of monsters collapsed from electrocution. Han Se-ah, clearly getting a huge "high" from this spectacle, flung magic around wildly.
Yes, wildly.
"The, center? ...Oh, wait, that's right? To see if this is a safe zone or not, we need to check the core of the base? Oh, oh no no no!?"-Just when I thought she'd finally show off something cool, she immediately turns into a klutz again, fuck
-Her magic control was dazzling, never hitting her companions, but what happened to the hint?
-Come to think of it, shouldn't she have just calmly called a blizzard and frozen them to death?
-At least a blizzard would've been gentler than lightning. Look at how blackened and scorched the ground is
-Does lightning normally have that much physical force? The ground is all torn up and shattered
High-rank magic, Snow Storm, is a wide-area DoT damage spell that summons a mana-infused blizzard to gradually wear down the enemy's health.
High-rank magic, Call Lightning, is a burst damage spell that summons mana-infused lightning to fry the enemy, with the area of effect adjustable based on mana control.
Even ordinary lightning has enough power to snap a large tree in half with one strike, so imagine the mana-infused lightning of a high-rank mage intent on killing monsters. With dozens of bolts hammering the ground, it's no wonder the earth was a mess as if bombarded.
Again, lightning can snap even thick tree trunks.
How could the thin grass of the prairie possibly withstand it?
"We've gathered all the mana stones, so let's check it out like Roland said."
"Then I'll keep watch from the palisade. Four people are enough to search the ground, and enemies might come."
"Please keep a good lookout, Grace."
The ground was either upturned into mounds of dirt or scorched black and crispy from the lightning's aftermath. As the group started poking around the ground without complaint, thinking this was also part of the investigation, Han Se-ah, her expression twisted with all sorts of worries and anxieties, hurried to the center of the clearing.
She seemed to have calculated the exact center of the monster encampment surrounded by the palisade using her minimap, given her unwavering steps. However, what greeted her was a pile of dirt reaching up to her ankles.
Well, it was a monster encampment run like an army, and the goblin laborers were doing manual labor like maintaining the palisade, digging moats, and moving dirt piles...
Of course, the center of the encampment was full of orc javelineers, who could be considered officer-class.
When lightning struck orc javelineers loaded with alchemical bombs, how could the ground possibly remain intact?
"Well, if there's nothing here, it doesn't really matter, right?"
-Immediately goes into denial mode
-Don't run away, little streamer, this is your karma. You need to find the next encampment and compare :)
-Wow, she really did a number on it. If this is just the aftermath, mages really are something else ㅋㅋㅋ
-An orc who saw Han Se-ah destroy the encampment told his son, "Let's farm this land now"
-They say crops grow well in lightning-struck soil, so this must be what they meant ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
It was quite a sight to see her poking around the piles of dirt and ash with a dazed expression, using the bottom of her staff.
She must be anxious, knowing that a mistake could mean aimlessly wandering the 55th floor again in search of a new encampment. Grace, Katie, and Irene would probably accept it without complaint, thinking it was all part of the journey for the Goddess, but for Han Se-ah, it looked like she'd gotten too excited and messed up the quest herself again.
But I just enjoyed watching her.
'This has to be the hint, no matter how you look at it.'
While Han Se-ah was zapping lightning above my head, I had already picked up a suspicious-looking crystal from the ground. Its location was right around the center of the clearing, it looked completely different from a mana stone despite being a crystal, and it was even attached to the grass like a fruit... This had to be the quest clue.
In real safe zones, a four-leaf clover-shaped flower with a golden crystal forms, but here we had a murky dark purple crystal. The colors alone made it obvious which was good and which was evil.
I rolled it around in my palm, but it didn't give off any particular energy. Was that because it was a fully crystallized mana lump like a mana stone?
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Raei Translations
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As Han Se-ah found nothing no matter how thoroughly she searched, she was bombarded by the viewers' barrage. All sorts of harsh jokes flew at her, from "irresponsible pleasure" to "quick nut and bolt," causing her eyebrows to twitch as if she thought they were starting to cross the line.
"Hey everyone, I found something."
"Did you find anything?"
So, it was time for a counterattack after taking so many hits...! With that kind of feeling, I held out the purple crystal just as her eyebrows twitched.
The prairie was green, safe zones were golden like wheat fields. So the dark purple crystal glowing ominously in my palm was clearly out of place to anyone who saw it.
It was also quite large, about the size of my palm, so it really caught the eye.
As I held out the gloomy dark purple crystal that looked like it could be an evil black mage's magic catalyst, the group rushed over. Among them, Han Se-ah's expression was like someone who tried to sneeze but had their nose forcibly pinched shut - blank yet with a crooked smile.
Her face twisted in a strange mix of emotions - relief that the quest clue wasn't lost, anxiety that she almost destroyed it herself, and a bit of vengeful glee towards the teasing viewers. Seeing her expression made me feel like the biscuits I ate in the mercenary corps 10 years ago were finally being digested.
"It's a dark purple crystal, and I found it in that pile of dirt over there. It must have been flung to the side from the bomb and lightning blast."
"It's definitely a completely different color from mana stones."
While Grace glanced this way curiously before returning to patrol the palisade, Katie and Irene gathered in front of me, putting their heads together.
The nun's hood, not a hair out of place, and Katie's silver hair nearly touched as they leaned in close. In this world, mana stones were a light blue that deepened with the amount of mana, and rare stones from bosses or named monsters were red. So this suddenly appearing dark purple crystal was clearly something special to the 55th floor.
[A dark purple crystal emitting a strange light]
[Why was something like this buried in an encampment full of monsters?]
[Could it be related to the golden flower that blooms in safe zones? Will the Magic Tower be able to figure it out?]
"Wow, this thing survived. Well, didn't they say you can't forcibly uproot the golden flowers in safe zones either? They were researching it as some kind of marker, so I guess the symbols for fake safe zones or monster encampments wouldn't break in battle either."
-She's talking like that but her expression is totally fucked, right?
-ㅋㅋ She was shaking and poking through dirt piles with her staff, now she's talking like she predicted this
-Just when I thought she was killing some monsters, turns out the teacher is still progressing the story. Stop coasting ㅋㅋ
-Lady! This lightning-grilled pork belly is raw inside! This isn't sashimi, please cook it properly!
-No, maybe it's better for the progression if she just leaves it to the teacher and focuses on the camera
Han Se-ah, who had come to look at the crystal meekly without even a peep, unable to counterattack the viewers, reached out to put it in her inventory. As she touched the crystal, a quest window popped up in the corner of her stream screen, signaling the story's progression.
The contrast between her cool image of flashily firing lightning and her comical expression twisted with anxiety, along with the quest progressing thanks to her 6★ companion's help, successfully diverted the viewers' aggro.
Of course, we couldn't stop things like "Bulletproof Performance.GIF" from being uploaded to internet websites like the Heroes Chronicle Forum... But at least the viewers weren't typing it in the chat or sending it as video donations.
Thinking this, I slowly examined the dark purple crystal along with Grace, who had finished patrolling and quickly climbed down from the palisade.