Chapter 12. A Party of Four (2)

Congratulations on killing an Abomination!

You have levelled up!

You have levelled up!

The plan had a simple start. After the three of us rushed into the art room, Mr. Willis would confuse the abominations with his skill, 'Roar of the Valiant'. Ms. Willis would send a Heal to me and Mr. Haley to prevent us from falling into a frenzied state as a result of friendly fire.

Since the three of us couldn't take out four abominations if we fight them head on, I proposed that the one with the highest level, me, to take out one of the abominations as soon as possible to assist the two.

The attack with the painting knife was a premeditated one, which was decided when I first approached the art room. As soon as I spotted four monsters, the gears in my head started to churn at great speeds. Noticing the painting knife and taking a look at our baseball pitcher, the idea instantly clicked inside my head.

Making use of the high speeds that I could achieve when under the influence of 'Lightning Steps', I could deal a tremendous amount of damage to the abomination in my last fight. But what if something sharper and faster was to collide against one of the most sensitive areas of the body?

Just the imagination sent shivers down my spine. If I could hit it accurately, I could possibly take out around three-quarters of the health that the abomination possessed. This was when we excluded the attack's efficient use of the skill itself. The short duration in which the skill would be used will cause significantly less strain on my body and in the case that I had to directly hit the abomination without being able to redirect the recoil like I did in my last battle would leave me open to the attacks by the other abominations, using a spin to do that was only possible due to the abundance of free space available to me during the fight. I was elated by my sudden inspiration!

If my thoughts worked out, then this would open a whole world of possibilities for the utilisation of my skill. There was no way I wouldn't be thrilled at the idea. Before the fight I couldn't wait to test out my theory.

Looking at the results, I couldn't help but gulp. The massive penetration power that it possessed was simply a terror to the foes!

Even though one of their fellows has fallen, the other three abominations didn't bat an eye as they continued towards Mr. Willis. The attack I did just now wasn't something I could repeat multiple times. I should say I clearly lucked out in that throw just now. Performing a similar act when the targets were close to my allies was something I didn't dare to attempt. I couldn't say I would practice the art either, because the enemies would only go stronger down the line and it would take more than petty tricks such as these to deal with them.

The only way to survive in such a world was for me to get stronger along with my allies. That truth was slowly settling inside my head. Monsters, magic and apocalypse were no longer a fantasy!

When observed without my skill, 'Lightning Steps', the monsters appeared to be very swift. Without thinking much, I placed one point of my assignable stat points into strength and 3 into agility. These two were the stats I needed to grow as of the moment and the agility stat was what I relied on the most during the fights. My stats now looked like this:

LVL. 7

Daniel H Martinez

HP: 100%

MP: 100%

Stats

Strength (STR) – 23

Agility (AGI) – 32

Intelligence (INT) – 83

Mana – 4

Skills +

Equipment +

Inventory +

The points in agility upped my speed even more and the monsters appeared slightly slower compared to a second ago, though the difference was not too noticeable, I could feel it.

The three abominations were almost upon Mr. Willis when Mr. Haley made his move. Calmly, with a face devoid of fear that almost consumed the rest of us during our first encounter with these beings, he ran forward while using one of the busts in the art room to completely turn the aggro towards himself. The bust was fairly big, having to take the shape of the upper body of a human, but wasn't solid enough to deal heavy damage to the abomination.

The pain, however, was still inflicted as the abomination turned towards him with fire blazing in his eyes. Mr. Haley, on the other hand, still had a stoic expression. Though I wanted to watch more about how he would deal with the monster, I had to move because taking on two monsters would be difficult for the current Mr. Willis.

It had already been 5 seconds since he used his skill and he couldn't make use of the damage reduction provided by his skill, but I was confident that he would be able to dodge the attacks easily if I attracted the attention of the second one.

Without using my skill, I charged in to distract the abomination that was closest towards me. I reached out for a painting tripod and pushed it toward the legs of the abominations. The result however, was the tripod being shattered into fragments under the march of the abomination. The abomination didn't even bat an eye at the sudden obstruction to its path. Without even glancing towards me, it continued in its path toward Mr. Willis.

Seeing that I wouldn't be able to reach him before the monsters, I immediately shouted to give him my next instruction.

"Use the Roar again!!!!"

<<ROAAAR>>

As soon as the words left my mouth, the terrifying roar made its appearance again. The monsters were dazed for a second before resuming their attacks.

Mr. Willis who tried to increase the distance between his attackers in the short time, was once again within the range of the creatures who started to attack him simultaneously. Even with the 10% damage reduction of his skill being in effect, a direct hit would leave him immobile and a free pick to the monsters. So, he had to avoid the hits or reduce the impact as much as he could in this confrontation.

The abominations had serious talent when it comes to pulverising the opponent. I know because I experienced it myself but it was nearly impossible for Mr. Willis to dodge the attacks of both the abominations unscathed.

The first abomination aimed for his head and just Mr. Willis stepped back to dodge it, the second abomination aimed for his feet. The sudden movement he expressed to protect his legs led to an imbalance as he jumped to the side to avoid their attacks.

I was just two steps away from him but his last movement only allowed the monsters to close the distance between them and as soon as Mr. Willis dodged the first attack aimed at his jaw, the second one immediately aimed a punch straight towards his abdomen. Though, Mr. Willis tried to block the attack by protecting his front with his arms crossed, the force behind the attack wasn't anything to scoff at. With a little power dissipating and spreading through his body, the punch still landed accurately at his abdomen.

<<BOOM>>

Just as I anticipated, Mr. Willis was sent flying for the second time today. He crashed heavily into the wall as he landed beside the door, with blood trickling out of the corners of his mouth.

"Cough, Cough" He spat out a mouthful of blood into his hands as he winced in pain. I could tell that his arms seemed severely damaged with the possibility of a few broken bones by looking at the weird way he moved them. The cracks that were spreading slowly throughout the wall came to a halt but the dust still had to settle in. And he laid there, sitting with his back leaning against the wall and barely holding back his screams.

I turned my attention back towards the abominations, who in turn stared at me, the one who was the closest to them.

"HEAL" I could hear Ms. Willis mutter along with a soft thud to my left, as a smile crept onto my face. I knew that though the damage received by Mr. Willis looked devastating, the wounds weren't fatal and were something that could be dealt with using Ms. Willis's HEAL spell but that wasn't what put the smile on my face.

No, the reason for my smile was because our super rookie successfully took down his first monster. And he achieved this feat almost alone, excluding the effects of Mr. Willis's skill, and would have received his first skill.

Now, it wasn't two vs one. It was two vs two. I glanced to my left as we just got the best addition we could hope for.

Mr. Haley's hands were slowly buried underneath the dance of a beautiful, pinkish-red fire. He stood there over the corpse of the abomination which was slowly turning into ash, looking like the human incarnate of the mythical phoenix, with the fire slowly growing bigger and hotter.

The abominations also turned towards Mr. Haley as they could feel the immense threat coming from his sharp gaze. His usual nonchalant expression could no longer be seen on his face, as he glanced towards Mr. Willis and back towards the two abominations in front of me.

His eyes glowed with anger as he slowly opened his mouth to sentence the abominations.

"Burn!"