Chapter 178: [Impact Bubble]

'It tingles.'

As the ability was assimilated into his body, Sol felt his muscles tingle and become stronger. It didn't take long for the process to be over, and he saw the system notification:

[Learned [Impact Bubble] Lv 2!]

[[Impact Bubble] Lv 2: Able to create a small area that stops anything that enters it. Size and strength of the bubble increase with level. Mana cost: 50.]

Once the talent skill was completely assimilated into his body and he understood how it worked in depth, he felt it was a decent skill. He decided to try it out and used the skill. In front of him, a small half-foot-wide transparent white bubble appeared. It floated completely still in the air before him.

'It's not invisible, so people can react to it, but it appears instantly and anywhere within five feet. I can just time its usage well.'

To probe its capabilities, Sol reached out with his hand and touched it. Like touching a wall, his hand didn't even enter the bubble. It was only until he applied more force that his hand began to slip inside. The deeper he went to the center of the bubble, the stronger the stopping force was.

Sol shivered, 'Yuck. Feels like I'm touching a slime.'

After removing his hand, Sol wanted to give it one final test. With a normal sword he picked up from one of the bandits he killed, he slashed at the bubble with all his might.

Crack.

Like glass, the bubble shattered, unable to handle the power of his swing.

'So after a certain point, it will break. I was hoping it would at least slightly slow it down.'

The shattered remains of the bubble dissipated as he put away the sword.

Sol lamented, 'I wish I could test it further, but the fighting just ended.'

He no longer heard the sounds of battle, so he assumed it had ended. It wouldn't take long for Rex to find him, and he would rather not get caught using a skill that wouldn't make sense for him to have.

Sol quickly buried Zayn along with the rest of the bandits. Not long after sealing the earth over him, a voice was heard behind him.

"Hey Captain! Need any help?" Rex said as he came around the corner.

"I'm just about done here. How was it over there?"

"Pretty easy. Honestly, Nataly did most of the work."

"She did?"

It wasn't that he didn't have a lot of faith in Nataly, but she was only C-Rank. There were three B-Rankers in the fight, and Rex believed that she still did better than them.

Rex nodded. "I think she got around half of them on her own. Every time her massive summon swung its arms, it took down like five people. The rest of us lack abilities that can take down large groups like that."

Sol understood what he meant. Rex himself specialized in scouting and tracking, so while he could fight, he didn't really know any flashy or big moves. Duncan was focused on defense and had little ways to fight besides using his raw attributes and a few offensive shield skills. Lapis, as the second strongest after Sol, had a few ways to deal with groups, but once again specialized in fighting smaller groups of enemies. Aron was similar to Lapis except that he only had one ability to deal with multiple enemies.

"I'll try to find someone to help fill in that gap when we finish this mission."

Normally, when a squad was newly formed, they would start at five members and grow as they gained merit. Sol knew once they completed this mission, the merits they would obtain would be more than enough to add a new member, maybe even two.

"Yeah, that would be ideal, Captain. Welp, I gotta go. See ya in a bit."

"Where are you heading off to?"

"Some bandits thought they could slip away and hide during the battle. Just gonna clean it up while you tend to the townsfolk."

Rex then dashed away towards the area he saw a few run towards. After clearing the areas he knew they were hiding in, he would do another sweep throughout the fort just to be sure.

Sol went around the main building and saw the rest of his squad picking up bodies and placing them in a pile.

Nataly was the only one not carrying bodies and instead letting small walking shrub summons take care of her workload. She was the first to notice Sol and waved him over.

"Hey! How was your end?"

Sol shrugged, "Rather lackluster, but I got some important information from them. Did you all encounter any issues?"

Duncan tossed a body onto the pile and answered for her, "There were no issues during the fight, Captain. Though there is the matter of Nataly drinking a third of our mana potion supply."

"A third?!" He expected a few potions to be used throughout the fight, but a third was way beyond what was acceptable.

She didn't deny it. "Yeah… but I got the most bandits, so it evens out, right?"

Sol turned to Duncan, "Did you tell her why that's bad?"

He shook his head. "No, I thought it would be best if you explained it to her."

"I don't understand what the issue is. We still have enough for the rest of the trip."

"That's not the issue, Nataly. First of all, did you need to use that many potions? Would someone have gotten hurt if you didn't?"

"Well, no, but it ended the fight faster."

"There are two reasons why you shouldn't have used so many. First of all, you never know what will happen in a mission. Maybe we will encounter another problem out of our expectation like this bandit. You should already know from being an adventurer not to waste your consumables like that."

"But what's the harm? We can always request more when we get back." She still didn't see the problem with it as she wasn't an adventurer anymore.

"Do you think the supplies are free?"

Nataly nodded.

Duncan felt the need to clarify for both of them. "They didn't go over those things during training. It was mostly teamwork, situational drills, and rules. Usually, the captain would explain it to their new members."

Sol looked at him with eyes that asked, 'Why didn't you tell me sooner?'

Duncan didn't claim responsibility, "Don't look at me. I had a lot on my mind when I was pulled into this squad."

Sol sighed, knowing it wasn't right to blame him, and returned to the main subject. "Nataly, none of the things we got were free. They all cost merit. Besides our weekly gold salary, missions earn us merit. As a newly formed squad, we were given an amount to start with to gear us up. Because our first mission required us to travel so far, I had to forgo getting us new weapons and better armor and spent all our merits on our supplies for the trip. When we get back, we can either keep the supplies or return them and get a refund as long as they are in good condition."

Nataly's eyes widened in surprise but quickly switched to sadness. "So we still have to worry about money… I thought knights didn't have those issues…"

Sol chuckled. "Haha, I wish."