Rei just looks towards Xenon and gives just a mere nod. Indeed, for someone who lost all but 1
HP, he seemed fine, as if the powerful attack had never happened. "
It felt like I got hit in the stomach with a sledge hammer, but thanks to The Gamer's Body, once you heal lost HP the pain just goes away". All in all, this made the Gamer power a very convenient one. It didn't change the fact that he had had taken 340 Damage, but still Rei had to acknowledge the small things to momentarily take his mind off how powerful that attack was and how it felt.
"A sledge hammer is an understatement..."
Rei just shakes his head, deciding to forget about that for now. They had other matters to attend to, namely getting stronger in time for this first round.
"For now, ill provide Healing and Support while you guys do all of the fighting. If something seems too strong, ill take care of it. Hopefully these enemies will give more experience and you can get to Level 10 in the next few hours or so, since we have 24 hours to do all of this. And I don't want to hear any complaints about how loot is distributed. Right now we just need to worry about surviving, and we can figure out who can get what later". Of course, they also had to take care to find food and water as well. Rei had some provisions of course, and they did just eat Alexander's pasta bentos. Even if they weren't good, food was still food.
Rei decided to take up the rear just in front of Shouko. They didn't really need to move in a straight line, so they were more in a group. Luckily Tian's armor was repaired. Not restored of course, but at least it is repaired. It seems like the damage it took is permanent and thus Tian would probably need to get new Armor soon. Hopefully these chests had some new Armor they could purchase with the strange gold coins they had found.
Then came the next few hours. Two hours to be exact. Naturally they explored, but they would also take breaks between combat to grind, talk, or test out abilities. Monsters came around decently often. Gremlin Archers ranging from Levels 10 - 12. The Level 11 and 12 ones mainly being different in they hit a little harder and had more defense, although the Level 12 Gremlins, the few there were, had a really hard hitting attack that they used. 18 Gremlin Archers had been fought in total. Nine of them were Level 10, Five were Level 11, and Four were Level 12. So naturally a very nice amount of EXP was given from all of these monsters.
Naturally the next two hours were filled with immense amounts of progress. Shouko acquired a new Skill that lets her somewhat utilize Mana with her arrows. Of course, the Skill consumes alot of MP and destroys the arrow upon usage, but its still a step in the right direction. Alexander acquired a new Meditation Skill that also benefits Mana practice. Xenon acquired the Feint Skill. While Tian didn't acquire anything new, just like everyone else he made huge leaps of progress in all of his Skills.
Thanks to both the EXP gained from fighting the Gremlin Archers and the EXP gained from grinding their Skills, the New Gamers were all Level 9 now and not too far away from Level 10, with Tian being the closest. While it seemed like fighting Monsters gave more EXP faster, grinding Skills was indeed another great way to gain EXP.
Rei, for the most part, played support. He occasionally interfered to intercept attacks or trip up foes, but he never really did much in terms of damaging them. According to Rei, him helping the fights anymore than that would only be detrimental since their levels were still too far apart to activate the Equal EXP Share function of the Gamer power's Party Mode. Of course, Tian's armor took a beating after the first fight with the four Level 10 Gremlin Archers and thus needed to be stored for now lest it be destroyed, since there wasn't much time to repair it.
Tian could keep wearing the armor if he wanted to, but wearing depleted Armor seemed to be a bit more detrimental than it was beneficial. His 'Charge' Skill definitely felt a small bit better with the Armor off, since he actually had
AGI to work with when not wearing his Armor. Of course, he was exhausted, to the point of nearly passing out a few times, during the two hours due to his constant usage of the
Second Wind Skill which he decided to grind since he had little to no usage for his MP except for his
Intensify Energy Skill, which he would use whenever he used
Second Wind.
Regardless, the group made great progress. Six more Gold Coins were found, as were 14 more of those Barbed Arrows for Shouko. A couple of bows and swords were held onto, and Rei just hung onto those, as he did with the Gold Coins and Yen that they found.
Upon the passage of that second hour, they would come upon an area near Neo Tokyo U. Shouko, if she knew of the popular trends of Neo Tokyo U, would recognize it as a field the school often used for events and thus was owned by the school. In the center of this medium sized field appeared to be a large treasure chest and a gray flag at the bottom of its pole beside it. There appeared to be some
very bulky, tall, green skinned creature wielding two sharp, intimidating axes standing in front of the chest.
Empty Camp Guardian
Orc Axman Lv 16
"
Camp Guardian?" Rei inquires aloud in a puzzled, curious tone as he steps forward in front of the group. Luckily the Gamers are still far enough away to where no one else has noticed them yet. Rather than be curious about the monster, Rei was more curious about this 'Camp Guardian'. He knew that they couldn't just approach carelessly though. Especially with one member of the party positively exhausted.
"
You all stay here. I will take care of it. And don't try to play hero and come help me, just stay put". Adding in that last part sternly, Rei switches Equipment Sets back to his Gekkoukan Uniform and begins to draw in closer. At about 20 yards away, the creature glares in Rei's direction, seemingly noticing him, as a glowing ring appears around the 20 yard distance that Rei is standing away from the creature from.
From the top of the flag pole a bolt of arcane energy shoots out, heading right for Rei. It blasts him head on,
Critical 57! appearing above his head. His HP goes down from 341 to 284, so it seems like he'll be fine, but he doesn't seem to happy about getting hit by that sudden and surprising attack. So he goes on a counterattack of his own, quickly chanting "
Harmonize Essence!" to create the familiar glowing aura around himself.
Next he thrust his palms forward as he chants "
Palm Wave!", a burst of glowing light blue, greenish energy shooting from his hands towards the Orc. It hits the beast dead on, making it growl out. A
33 appears over its head as it glares at Rei now, snarling. It now moves forward ten yards, brandishing its axes, as the pole glows for a moment before a blade shaped wave of magical energy, the familiar blue TV static appearing around its axe, launches towards Rei.
Rei, thankfully, deftly dodges out of the way, making the creature growl as Rei prepares for a counterattack. Rei quickly reaches into his Inventory, pulling out one of the Gremlin Shortbows, clenching his fist around it as the Bow simply vanishes in a flash of the blue, magical TV static like energy, this appearing around his hands as he chants "
Palm Wave!" and thrusts forward both hands once again.
Now an arrow shaped burst of light-bluish, greenish energy blasts from Rei's hands, heading straight for the Orc at a higher speed and precision now. This time a
76 appears above the creature's head, and it looks anything but happy. Rei isn't finished yet though as he quickly and easily moves that ten yard distance, thrusting forward with his hand as he shouts that signature technique. "
Palm Wave!" Perhaps the Orc was expecting a ranged blast, but not this time, as Rei aims to slam his hand right into its stomach.
Unfortunately Rei completely misses, the orc easily parrying his glowing hand aside. This leaves Rei wide open as the Orc swings its axes towards him. Fortunately its not much for exploiting opportune moments, and Rei dodges, although with the second swipe he has to move a bit out of optimal melee range. Which is good for Rei though as the Orc advances, baring its Axes down upon Rei. Rei cries out with the first slash, being dealt a nasty 47 Damage, Rei managing to dodge the main blunt of the attack fortunately. Luckily though Rei is able to dodge the second attack, although it still hits him for a not pleasant 23 Damage.
Either way, Rei is not looking too good as he is already down to half HP. And now the magical turret seems to fire once again at Rei. Fortunately its aim was off. Very off, as it slams fully into the Orc's back, a startled snarl emanating from the creature as 34 points of Damage are dealt to the Orc. Fortunately for the Orc it wasn't startled enough by the back attack to leave an opening for Rei though.
Still, Rei wasn't going to let that poor shot by the apparently magical flag pole go to waste. He goes for a diagonal chop, but as he does so he chants "Set 1!", his clothes and weaponry changing, his gauntlets with their blades extended as he had left them before he changed appearing as he manages to not really catch the Orc off guard, but still surprise it nonetheless. Its not good enough as Rei slices right deep into its torso with the demonic dark green blade, a loud howl escaping from the beast as it is immolated by the hot flames.
67 Critical!
20 Critical!
These appear above its head as it is slashed deep by the deadly, flame imbued Pata. Its not looking good for this creature though as Rei goes for another strike with his offhanded blade. Those same numbers appear once again as Rei wracks yet another critical strike, creating a deep, X shaped gash across the beast's entire torso now as it lets out another loud of bellow of pain as yet another 89, the first of those numbers having increased slightly points of Damage are dealt to it.
Rei isn't letting up though, even for a moment. Using his superior speed, he lets out a third slash. This third attack hits, but its not a very deep strike. The first number that appears above its head is a 5 as the blade barely manages to penetrate the beast's hide, followed by another green and orange 15 as it is immolated by dark green and orange flames once again. Now it is time for one more Attack, which will hopefully put the beast down.
Still, with another 35 and another 15 from the flames, the beast cries out a mighty bellow before it vanishes in a burst of smoke and fire. In its place is a nice stack of four potions, all of them light green, a stack of yen bills, three gold coins, and one of the beast's large, one-handed battle axes. The beast was quite tall after all, so this one-handed axe seemed to be a bit heavier than most one-handed axes.
Rei is panting a bit heavily, until a window appears before all of them.
