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HS Chapter 43:
🕑 Added 2024-11-05 19:00:02 +0000 UTCChapter 43:
It didn't take long for Alice and Titus to return to the store. Again, they ignored the shopkeeper, who ignored them as they pulled up the lists. Titus scrolled for a bit before he read out the name, and Alice tapped it into the search bar and pulled it up. It was just a simple hunter's spear, E-grade. It was tough, sharp enough to cut through steel, and wouldn't take damage. Simple, sturdy, effective, and balanced for throwing. It wasn't enchanted, though, and Alice had some ideas for it. Titus was right; he was just short on funds and only needed about 25% of what she had. She did it without hesitation.
Hopefully, the credits wouldn't matter for much longer, Alice thought as Titus stored his new spear in his inventory.
They scrolled through more items, looking at magic wands used to cast spells. As far as Alice could tell, the wands weren't anything special based on their shape. They were merely an enchantment that, when mana was input, would produce some sort of magical effect. She wanted one for fireball, but she didn't have nearly enough currency.
"Windblade seems good," she said. "But it doesn't really fit with your whole warlock theme."
"Does it need to?" Titus asked, tapping his lips with one finger. "I suppose not. I think it might be best if it does, though, at least to give you some sort of idea."
"Well, what do you think?"
"Hmm. What about one of the cursed ones?" Titus suggested.
Alice scrolled through and grimaced at the options. There were apparently lots of curses that could be laid with wands. She hesitated to list them all but found one that wasn't too expensive.
"Well, um, Curse of Sloth?" she asked. It was something close to budget, and hopefully, she would be able to afford it with a small killing spree and some help from Titus.
Titus nodded. "Yes, that's certainly an option. That could be useful with the ants, assuming it's an area of effect and can be used many times."
All the different seven sins were represented with wands, but those weren't the only ones. There were curses like Curse of Flesh and Pustule Explosions, some of the more descriptive ones.
"How are these different than attack spells?" Alice wondered aloud. "Like Windblade. It seems like it was just producing some sort of magical effect."
"Well," Titus said, "The only commonality I see is that they're all direct effects to a target. They describe outcomes rather than effects."
Alice skimmed through the list and agreed. "Hmm. That's an odd distinction to make, but you're right. That kind of fits Warlock better."
"What about Curse of Combustion?" she said, pointing to one particular wand. "I think it's like spontaneous combustion of your opponent. It seems a little broken, maybe."
"It's hard to say. We don't really know enough about how curses work. Also, there's no way we can afford that," Titus said, finding the indicated item in its own list.
Alice shrugged. "I think Sloth is probably best."
"Yeah, probably," Titus agreed. And with that, they exited the shop, still not speaking to the shopkeeper.
***
As they explored the edges of the city, staying as far away from the ant colony as possible, Titus let Alice have almost all the kills. He said that she was starting to lag behind in levels again, which she had. She was nearly five levels behind, which was a much bigger deal in E-grade because of the stat points. But at the same time, she was having no trouble killing things around her level as long as she had the mana to do it.
Titus took on a few monsters to figure out his new spear and then put it away, standing back and only intervening when Alice looked like she needed help. Alice couldn't thank Titus enough for that, but at the same time, she was getting a little bored.
They found all sorts of different kinds of monsters, so many that she had trouble keeping track of all them. For the most part, their powers were rather straightforward. Mostly, it was size, strength, or some sort of elemental affinity. There were no random teleporting things or duplications or anything attacking her mind, as far as she could tell. Just big beasts that needed to be put down. Some were monsters taken right from mythologies, some were more modern, pulled from works of fiction she was familiar with, and others from bits of media she had seen. Some were just exaggerations of things from history. Most of them died with a mana bolt to the face.
All around her, the monsters in a single block radius fed her health and mana through [Life Drain]. If they were far enough away that they couldn't see or hear an enemy, they were still affected but didn't seem to notice the skill seemed to be affected by the skill. To be fair, it took her nearly two hours to kill something four levels beneath her just by draining it. When it died, it withered away into a husk that turned into a puff of dust carried on by the wind. Still, it helped her fire [Mana Bolts] with much more regularity than if she had just been recharging her mana naturally.
As they walked down the streets, she let anything within her radius, excluding Titus, feel the drain. It caused some sort of link, not quite like her pact bond with Titus, but along that vein. Something may be inherent to the Warlock class, and she was able to locate it. Once they got there, they went to it, and she put it down with a series of [Mana Bolts].
When she started this campaign of extermination, she was level 14. Three mana bolts were enough to put down almost anything at her level as long as she could hit it, and it wasn't too fast. Now she was level 15, and level 14 monsters took two bolts if she could hit critical weak points. Titus was practicing his [Critical Strike] skill by pointing them out to her. It may or may not have actually been helping him level the skill, but he was able to see the weaknesses. However, she didn't have the preternatural ability to hit them like he did when using the skill. Still, it made their hunting even more effective.
The only time Titus had to step in was after she had pumped six mana bolts into a level 20 creature, and it was getting a little too close. Titus stepped in and skewered it, and with that, she leveled up to level 16. But the light was starting to fade, and they had to call it a day. She threw her extra points into power.
Before the light fully vanished, Alice and Titus returned to the shop and picked out the wand that applied the Curse of Sloth. It seemed the best choice after their fight. If the biggest problem Alice had was hitting quick-moving targets. More levels would fix that, but as it was, her power was increasing four times faster than her speed or control, both of which would be incredibly essential for hitting hard things. But if she could apply some sort of blanket slowing effect, those abilities would become a lot less dangerous for her.
Titus had approved and actually paid her back a little extra from what the spear had cost, and she emptied out her bank account. Then they went back to find an empty room above one of the bars where they could sleep.
