[NR] But Is He Right? - Chapter 458 (Patreon)

Jason shrugs, “While an attack that covers miles can be useful, that is for smashing the weak. Oh sure, it can be useful against stealth or speed, but after a certain point AoE attacks are inconsequential. The damage is comparatively weak.

“A fireball that can kill a thousand mooks might not even break through the resistance of a single enemy of equal level. Right now? Sure, no one around our level will be able to shrug off a fireball. Give it a hundred more levels, though?

“If you want to fight on an equal level, a single target spell is going to be what you want. Sure, keep a fireball in your back pocket in case you run across a swarm of vampire mosquitoes, but it isn’t going to be a game changer.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow, “That does make some sense, but I know there are some spells meant to hit a large area and still get heavy use at the high end.”

Jason snorts, “Waste of resources. How long does it take to channel those spells? Besides, I’m willing to bet they’re all siege spells.

“Which, by the by, once again gets back to my previous point. That aside, though, what is the point? Take the fireball. Big area of fire and explosion. Fun all around, but only a small percentage of the potential damage is hitting an enemy.

“All that Mana wasted! Point for point, that fireball loses out to a fire bolt that was powered by an equal amount of Mana at an equal efficiency. It is only that last bit which makes some people look kindly on stuff like fireball.

“A fire bolt is harder to make efficient compared to a fireball. It all comes down to that focus which the bolt requires. Power will be spent to keep the bolt focused, whereas the fireball can literally just explode. The thing is that the power spent focusing the spell isn’t going to outweigh the gain in damage.”

Rosha laughs, “I guess even if we didn’t know already, it would be obvious that you’re a martial artist after this. Of course irl the balance is a little different so people are a little too focused on massive explosions. Personal power and defense doesn’t scale like it does in most games.”

Jason laughs as Courtney frowns. They both know that might not be so true anymore. Well, Jason knows while Courtney has been falling down into the knowledge the more she puts resources into researching what Jason had told her.

Time passes, and the group makes it halfway through the fourth floor before things get interesting. The theme for the fourth floor was simple enough. It was a bunch of acute angle corners with the tardigroids right around the bend. Though it sort of takes the surprise away when they’re around literally every corner.

Not too interesting, at least not until the first variant that Courtney had mentioned, showed up.

The group turns the corner, ready for a fight and at first they don’t see a thing. This throws them off as a whole and gives the lone tardigroid a chance to attack. A chance which the monster takes full use of, if only the target hadn’t been Jason.

The glass tardigroid’s movement reveals it as refractions begin to happen within, but not soon enough to dodge. Instead, Jason gets his arms up in front of himself.

Syrup-like blood spills out as bone deep cuts appear on Jason’s arms. The glass tardigroid, however, is not able to finish the slash. Not because of Jason’s bones, so much as the fact that his very flesh has the toughness of wood, so while the scalpel sharp glass claws are able to cut, only the force behind it allows it to bite so deep. Still, this hit tanks Jason’s hp and removes his ability to attack with his arms.

Then an arrow cracks against one of the limbs that attacked, shattering it. This reveals that calling it a glass tardigroid has more meaning behind it than just the fact it was transparent. It was literally made of glass.

A fact that made Jason’s counter a lot less effective. While his war stomp can deal a lot of damage, managing to crack the other limb that hit him. It doesn’t do more than that as even when the runic bloom wilts; the glass remains sturdy against the ravages of decay.

The two attacks however are enough to cause the glass tardigroid to rear back and reveal itself. As cracks spread through the monster’s body, the party can see that this one has a stranger form than previously seen. Sure, other tardigoids had various shapes from nearly human to completely like a large tardigrade.

The glass tardigroid eschewed such simple forms. Instead, parts were mixed to a finer detail than ever before. It was hard to see, but things like human feet with tardigrade toes and human joints attached to tardigrade legs are evident. Then Jason slams another war stomp right into the center of its way too human belly.

Though since runic bloom didn’t work too well, Jason had gone for never ending threads. The change didn’t really matter, though. With the bloom, the wilting was unable to affect the glass and the threads had a similar problem in that they couldn’t find purchase. That didn’t stop his stomp from shattering something important.

Despite the glass tardigroid not exactly being flesh and blood, there were still some sort of organ analogues in there. Also, whatever Jason shattered must have been holding it together in some way as moments later the entire body came apart at the various join points between humanoid and tardigrade.

As the last of the glass tinkles to the ground, Rosha rushes up to Jason and grabs his arms. “My goddess! Quick, Courtney, we need a heal here!”

Jason lets out a stuttered breath, “Well, it certainly isn’t comfortable.” Then, as Courtney’s healing spell takes hold he turns to look at where the monster had been. “What dropped? A variant like that should give us something fancy.”