CHAPTER 103(Different Magic)

Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)

Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk

pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

Sitting atop Welf's training pillar in the lake. Both Yang and Welf have their feet hanging over the edge, with his sword on his back Welf munches on a ration bar as he sits up looking out at the safe zone. Yang lays flat on his bare back with his feet over the edge, eyes closed as he takes a break from his training.

Welf could see half of the expedition force at camp, all the combat teams had left yesterday to complete the quests leaving the less combat savvy members behind, with the Trifecta to support them. He could see Thalie walking into her tent, done with their training for the day she would usually get some solo training in after a short break.

"You thought about the frontier floors yet?" he asks Yang before taking another bite of the chocolate-flavored bar.

"Yeah, it's supposed to be cold, the exact thing you guys are less resistant to, especially you, we'll need custom camping gear to go down there..."

"Huh, we're camping on the cold floors? Why not just get to the warmer spot, like the next safe zone, wherever that is..."

"Considering floor 37 is the size of Orario and they only get bigger going down, I'm guessing floor 59 has a diameter of 50 Kilometers at the minimum, I doubt the guild will give us maps anyway considering they don't want people going that far," Yang says as he sits up, joining Welf in looking at the camp.

"Huh, whaddya mean they don't want us going that far, the guild wants people to beat the dungeon...right?"

"Hmm, maybe it's more like they don't want you to know what's there UNTIL you prove you really wanna go and can actually pull it off, we'll likely have to go there before they give us any info. Think about it in terms of math, Freya familia got to level 58 with one level 7 leading the charge, do you really think Zeus AND Hera who had levels 9,8, and 7 people couldn't get past floor 59?"

"Well," Welf felt a bit dumb for not realizing sooner how little it added up," that... but why wouldn't they tell us?"

"Because adventurers are stupid, look at them," Yang nods toward the people walking around the camp," how many of them do you think really care about going that far? How many do you think came to Orario to be heroes? Most adventurers that get past level 1 don't get much further because you can get enough money and fame at those levels for a life of comfort. Nobody will really care about what's down there and they'll stay away from Orario if they knew what the dungeon could really throw at them. It makes sense to withhold information to stop the panic, I'll make a request for the information but either way we need to get more efficient."

"You really gave this a lot of thought huh, that's kinda unlike you..."

"What?" Yang wasn't sure what he meant by that.

"I mean, you only really think things through this much when it comes to dungeon stuff, you tend to not care about anything or anyone that's not related to it."

"Yeah well, if you can't love them just be indifferent to them."

"A saying from your world?"

"Not really, something my dad told me when I'd keep starting fights, growing up as a kid with parents from two minorities can be tough... had to deal with a lot of ugly for it..."

"You don't mention your family, or your world much..." Welf's tone was more gentle, carefully approaching the subject.

"I try not to think about them, or home. If I think about it too much it hurts, I've gotta just focus on one thing at a time, but that saying is how I deal with people so I just kinda thought of him..."

"So instead of hating them back, you just focused on yourself, I can't say I've experienced anything like that. We've been too busy surviving monsters to bother with race stuff, well except Elves."

"They came about 600 years ago, after Orario was built to seal the dungeon and the world became peaceful, that why people don't like them? Because they didn't fight with you?"

"Ha, no. It's because they're elitist, they literally don't even let anyone they deem 'unworthy' so much as touch their exposed skin. The gods made them as close to perfect as possible and gave them massive forests and magic, then whenever they leave their forests they spend decades looking down on other races before they realize we're all in this together, that's why people don't like them."

"Hmm, doesn't seem like enough reason to wipe them out thought," Yang says, noticing Welf becoming a bit annoyed as he spoke about Elves.

"Ares probably had reasons, I don't really care, but with my last name being Crozzo they tend to care when I'm around. When I realized that my swords weren't used for defense but for the expansion of Rakia I ran away, but the damage is already done. I can't even get mad when they look down their noses at me," he finishes with a small and sad chuckle.

"So you're looking for what, forgiveness?"

Welf falls into contemplative silence as he considers what his new goal really means in his heart.

"I-I'm beyond forgiveness, even if I die it wouldn't be enough, and that's exactly how I want it," he draws his magic sword from his back and holds it in front of him," my swords destroyed their forests and killed countless Elves, but I'm strong now, I can make sure they don't suffer anymore, that's enough for me," he says with a soft smile as a small flame flickers between the rods of Mosoka.

"Something's wrong," Yang snaps Welf out of his thoughts as he points toward the entrance to floor 51, a mere 100 meters from the campsite.

Seeing the two guards put on watch at that tunnel running frantically toward the campsite, both men rise to their feet, carefully watching the tunnel for any sign of monsters.

"Black Rhinos," Welf says as they see around a hundred large black Rhinos rushing into the safe zone, trampling the forest and immediately engaging the first line of defenders.

"Huh, those were almost extinct because of overhunting in my world, herbivores too, this is weird..." Yang says before he wraps an arm around Welf and rockets toward the camp site.

As they descend down to where Anakitty; a catperson female with black hair and a sword on her hip as a level 4 herself directing people around.

It appeared that the Rhinos were charging the campsite to bring it down because they couldn't trample it, adventurers were jumping over the side to stop them while the mages arranged themselves closer to the edge to bombard the army of Rhinos.

"What's the plan?" Yang asks as they land beside Anakitty; Aki.

"Your team is to stay out of the fight unless necessary, this is important training for our less powerful members, if you need to get involved I'll call upon you," she blurts out before walking to the edge of the plateau to direct the battlefield.

"Well, that's an interesting choice," Welf says in disbelief as Thalie approaches her team, her spear in hand now.

"A stupid choice," Thalie adds," We could deal with this crap easy if she asked, I don't get why adventurers are this dumb."

"We do risky things too to get stronger," Yang says as he strolls on over to the edge to watch the battlefield.

With Welf and Thalie at his sides, he hears Aki yelling orders, her Command Howl ability allowing them to reach all corners of the battlefield.

"Shield line tighten up the left flank, mages fire when ready!" She yells out, the mages at the edge of the plateau begin chanting immediately, some of them having magic circles a few feet out from their legs forming below them.

"Huh, that's just like Riveria..." Yang mutters as he walks up to one of the Elf women who was chanting a spell.

As she sees him approaching from the corner of her eyes it takes all her training to focus on her spell. Her pink short dress dancing about with the force of her magic, the sword resting at her hip shakes about as she holds a small wand out toward the monsters. Golden hair moving as if it were in a slight breeze as she begins her chant.

Her eyes become slightly panicked as he suddenly drops down and begins running his fingers along the lines of the blue magic circle at her feet.

After a few moments of internal panic, her magic dissipates as she can't continue her chant. Looking down at him she sees his fingers on the ground, his head craned to look at her with an annoyed expression.

"Why'd you stop?" Yang asks, not sure what was wrong with the woman.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" She backs away while putting a hand on the edge of her dress to pull it down, the end only reaching halfway down her thighs.

Yang only raises a single brow as he looks at her with a bored expression.

"I wasn't looking up your dress, I was checking out the magic circle you were making..." he says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"What, why?" she was completely confused now, looking at him as if he was missing some brain cells.

"I'm curious about that, that's all, now do your magic so I can get back to it please," he gestures to all the monsters still attacking her allies.

"Uh-I---"

"Alicia why the hell aren't you chanting, use your ice!" Aki yells out from not too far away causing the Elf to straighten her back and retake her stance.

As she begins her chant once more, Yang closes his eyes and focuses on the magic circle under his fingers.

'I can't feel anything from it, then what the hell does it even do?' he wonders as Alicia Foresight fires off a dozen ice spikes into the army of Black Rhinos, quickly turning to look down at him.

"Can you get away from me now?" She pleads while taking a moment to catch her breath.

"How does your magic circle work?" he completely ignored her question to ask her own.

"Wh--huh, the only people who understand things like that is lady Riveria, all I know is it helps mages focus magic," she rattles off her annoyed answer before beginning another medium-length chant.

As Yang continues observing her magic circle, the battle eventually begins to drag on, the enemy out numbers their forces almost 6 to 1 after all, without large annihilation magic like Riveria's they couldn't finish this fight quickly without some help.

As Alicia begins preparing another volley, Yang decides he learned all he can from this, rising to his feet he strolls over to Aki who's still commanding from the edge of the plateau.

"Recall everyone," two simple words, a command given to the defense commander.

"Excuse me?"

"You're wasting everyone's time, this isn't the kind of battle that'll be useful to get anyone a good improvement in stats anyway so just recall everyone."

She purses her lips and glares at him, at least until she remembers who she's talking to. If anyone knew how to get as many stat points as possible it was him after all.

"FULL RETREAT, EVERYONE BACK TO THE CAMPSITE!" she yells at the top of her lungs, the archers and mages immediately focus on covering their retreating allies as they make their way to the top of the plateau campsite.

"Welf, burn it down..." with those three simple words Yang decided to end what was becoming a brutal battle.

"Got it," Welf says, a smile on his face as he walks to the edge and draws Mosoka from his back, immediately transitioning into a wide swing, "huh-ah!" he grunts as a massive torrent of blood-red flames washes over the battlefield.

Dozens of monsters and a section of the forest are immediately incinerated as his flames wash over all of them.

The stone floor is left glowing with heat as ash floats about on the rising air in the area.

Before anyone can get used to the immense heat, he stabs his weapon into the ground, the glowing red stone immediately cools as Mosoka absorbs all the heat via flame control.

"Holy shit..." was all Anakitty could say, unable to understand what she just saw, a sentiment shared by most of her familia, the only difference being the rage felt by the Elves as they witnessed the power of the strongest Crozzo magic sword. The sword that just defended them...

---Floor 36...

Within the tunnel to the 35th floor, the ground shakes as the sound of thundering footsteps echoes off the walls.

Red steam flows out of patches of exposed glowing muscle as the creature lumbers through the barely lit cave. Only the glow of exposed flesh alerts any unfortunate prey of the hunger moving toward the surface, but before it arrives at the buffet that is Orario, the strongest familia lays in wait at the end of this tunnel...

END CHAPTER---