46 Raid (6)

With my mana being semi burnt out thanks to the large area of effect defensive buff spell I had just cast, I needed to be conservative going forwards so that I don't suffer from mana depravation and end up becoming even more of a liability, but from this distance... there wasn't much I could do besides cast my magic, which meant I had a very finite resource that I needed to manage as best I possibly could...

Good thing I used to play building sims, farm sims and other survival games then huh~?

That singular spell easily drained a maximum of a third of my Core, meaning I had a realistic half of my core waiting to be tapped into, which would leave somewhere around a tenth - give or take - for me to continue living on and remain functional, albeit with one hell of a migraine.

Going below that 10% threshold was easily stepping into the suicidal portion of poor body management, since that would be robbing your blood of an important factor that it needed to carry to all of your organs and into the rest of your body, leading to severe consequences that were not fun to deal with at all.

Being in an area with mana and not having enough in your body to deal with the quantity of mana in the atmosphere was poisonous to you, and it would lead to death in a horrible way; your brain would react similar to when it was starved of oxygen, and your entire body would begin to slowly fail you, all while you entered a delirious state and tried to heal yourself by using more mana...

That was something I wanted to avoid, so what could I do with the mana I had left to make a large enough impact that would benefit us and make killing the Goblins easier?

I had [Root Spiral] of course, and it was low mana consumption, so that could work; conversely, [Vine Whip] was low mana too but of little use at the moment, so that was out of the running entirely.

[Sapling] was similar enough to [Root Spiral], though I suppose it could be altered to be an area of effect spell too, one that hindered the movements of the Goblins around us... though, after a certain point we would enter the zone that the saplings were growing in and becoming hindered ourselves, so that too was a no go.

That left my two Fae Spells - [Fae Voice] and [Fae Light] - as well as my two general rogue spells - [Illusion] and [Mirage] - to be used in support of the warriors, and the question became how I should utilize them to benefit us and not cause any issues...

I could use [Fae Light] to blind the Goblins, I suppose... or make use of [Fae Voice] to confuse them, perhaps?

[Illusion] could also work if I used it to alter their perception of us, maybe making us appear more frightening or covering our bodies in a haze that made it harder to spot what we were doing?

Though [Miarge] could only be of use if I ignored Alessia's order and moved out of the line, working on my own and shrouding myself in a cloak of shadows before striking at whoever got too close to me... which was stupid and wouldn't work.

I wasn't that strong or that fast just yet, so while tempting - for the experience mainly - I set that aside and returned to the final three spells, only to cast aside [Fae Voice] as well, so...

Alright, might as well go with my gut on this then huh?

It's either do this or do nothing, so... why not give this a go?

Channeling my mana again, I slowly formed a glimmering sphere between my hands, gradually increasing the intensity and size before I just... tossed it straight into the air behind us, illuminating the entire cavern in bright light that was streaming straight into the eyes of the Goblins, but not into our own eyes.

Then, as the numerous shrieks of agony sounded out from the monsters below as they tried to shut their eyes or cover them, I severed the connection between the sphere and I and allowed it to run on the remaining mana inside itself, which meant it was gradually dimming as I prepared the second spell, one that would continue to mess with the optical nerves of our opponents and disorient them even more.

See, that was one of the reasons I picked Swashbuckler; the idea of being able to talk my way out of a fight, or use petty tricks to escape without even drawing my blade and getting into a brawl - that was what I wanted from this Class, and now it was beginning to show its worth as I got a tad creative.

Low level spells could be turned into extremely deadly spells so long as you understood their functions, and since they were low level... that meant they were really simple, so they weren't hard to understand.

As the bright light began to dim and allow the Goblins to open their eyes again without fear of being blinded, what they were greeted with was something that they couldn't feasibly comprehend with their low intelligence... at least, not quick enough for it to matter.

After being shrouded in brilliant white light that damaged their eyes, they eventually realized that light faded and... were greeted with a dark, misty haze that shrouded their enemies, encasing us in darkness and using a thin, quick mist to shroud our appearance from them, making it difficult to notice if that sword was coming from straight above or on either side.

Especially not when your eyes were still trying to dilate to a point that would allow you to take in the little light that remained inside the cavern and allow you to see.

And despite being monsters, their recovery factor for their their eyes wasn't as fast as their ability to heal from a cut, so they were mindlessly standing around trying to locate their enemies via scent and sound, leaving them wide open to the waiting blades of the soldiers.

A massacre followed that abrupt flare, a completely one sided butchering of every single red skinned bastard that resided deep inside this Lair, allowing us to take the cavern for ourselves and venture into the various tunnels, butchering whatever we found inside as well without any difficulties.