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The symbol of the Sentinels blazed in the air above us, just barely clearing the buildings. It wasn’t particularly large, but it was bright. Easy to see for a moderate distance.

Awarthril was fancy with it. Twisting it, turning it, making it so that no matter what angle the symbol was seen from, a watcher would get a good view.

At which point, I’d hope the shimagu were vaguely normal - the city and marketplace implied, yes, they were - and people would gossip. Spread the word. After all, the shimagu might not know what it was.

The hosts would. Some of them, at least. Those from Remus. They were the ones I was trying to reach.

“Did you see that eagle?!”

Anyone from Remus would be able to guess what that was.

I’d never been amazing at leadership class.

I took the class. I learned. I tried to apply the lessons. I’d been given practical experience managing a squad in fights and survival situations.

I was solid with those parts. Give me a team of Rangers and a problem, and I knew how to use one to make the other disappear. Generally, the problem disappeared, but it was entirely possible for the Ranger team to be the ones vanishing.

Inspiring people? Big speeches? Large-scale organization?

The only part I’d managed to successfully learn was “delegate the hell out of it.” My greatest leadership accomplishment, bar none, was getting Kallisto to join me on my Sentinel missions, to handle large portions of diplomacy and wrangling.

I had nobody to delegate to here. If I considered things to be just me and the elves, I was fine. They were moderately competent, and we were a small, solid team.

Add in the angry mob that I couldn’t even speak the same language as?

With an emphasis on the angry mob part of it? Vicious, uncontrollable beasts in the first place?

“Follow me” was the start, middle, end, and epilogue of ideas I had. It wasn’t even my best idea, which was “get far away from the angry mob that might decide to turn on you for some unknown reason.”

There were a number of other factors that I should be considering if I wanted to call myself the “leader” of this group. Logistics sprang to mind first, because it was easy for me. Morale? Goals? Building consensus?

I’d rather the shimagu just kill me now.

I put all those out of my mind, figuring that it’d be a future Elaine problem. She’d hate me and curse my name out.

Oh well.

I felt a grin crack my face. She wouldn’t be able to reach me.

I ditched every problem except “How do I stay alive for the next hour” out of my mind.

First, resources.

Still had my gems, although the skills left were mediocre. They revolved around capturing a single target, or making a large announcement. I was in “kill, don’t capture” mode, and Kiyaya was a bigger sub-woofer than I could manage.

I had about half my mana left.

I had my skills and training.

I had a few little trinkets. I mentally adjusted the Deception Ring to show me as a level 128. I wanted people to think I was weak, and take a swing at me. It’d make my job that much easier. It wouldn’t flag me as the city-ending apocalyptic threat, and powerful first strikes were more likely to be aimed at one of the elves. I had no issue with that.

It’d have to be enough.

I left the market, not looking back as the warning bells continued to toll. I could feel the mob behind me, like a pulsing beacon of anger. I could see the elves out of the corner of my eye.

We turned onto a mainstreet, only to find a solid mass of guards and soldiers on the other end. They’d broken out wooden circular shields and long, wicked spears that looked like they wanted to pull and tear instead of stab and… well, more stab.

The street had been cleared of people, but I spent no time looking or focusing on that. On thinking what everyone else would do. While the elves hesitated, my training took over, I knew what to do. I simply ran.

[Running] had been one of my earliest skills, and I still loved the movement. The wind through my hair, the breeze kissing my face. It’d evolved over time, to [Rapidash], then [Talaria], and now [Scintillating Ascent].

The soldiers yelled something, and a whole mass of bows came up. Half seemed to be “going high”, aiming for the unruly mob behind me, while the rest were “going straight”.

An unreasonable number were aimed at me, and I moved.

I couldn’t dodge arrows. Even when unskilled, there was significant strength in the ogre’s arms, and I’d eat my boots if the bows and arrows were made out of mundane or poor materials. I just wasn’t fast enough, in spite of what [Bullet Time] implied I could do.

Almost nobody was.

No, the key to “dodging arrows” was to dodge the archer. I planted a foot, pushing myself one way, watching the bows track me. I landed, and with my other foot, pushed the other way.

Training the ogres how I dodged.

Aegion’s arrow roared past me, a stiff tailwind boosting my speed, the arrow, and everyone else.

They couldn’t hold the arrows long, and wouldn’t. Not when me getting too close would spell certain death for the shimagu. I leapt into the air, letting the wind caress and take me as my wings unfurled, shooting me into the sky.

I timed it well. I’d gone up right as the archers loosed.

My focus lasered in, the entire world becoming just me, and the arrows trying to pincushion me.

[Bullet Time], and a wealth of experience, let me pick out exactly which arrows would hit me, and which ones would miss. It let me see which arrows were flying significantly faster than they had any right to, which ones were bending in the air, a sure-fire mark of powerful skills supporting their travel. The most dangerous arrows in the lot. With pinpoint precision, I burned the feathers of a half-dozen arrows heading towards my head and chest, Radiance rapidly flickering in and out of existence. A second set of Radiance beams sniped a few of the more dangerous arrows that I could spot. I threw up a small [Mantle] around my critical areas as I curled up a bit, reducing the area that could get hit.

Wrapping my arms around the egg, giving it a second, fleshy layer of protection.

It was like going through a hailstorm of sharp metal and long wood, arrows whizzing past me like a swarm of angry bees. I was nicked dozens of times by near-misses, arrows that I’d properly judged wouldn’t land on me.

My legs ate five arrows, but that was nothing.

Then the storm was over, the volley passed. I flew in at top speed as the archers reloaded and started firing as quickly as they could, any massed fire discipline going out the window. Panic setting in as death approached on bright and colorful wings.

An enormous crest of Lava washed under me, slamming into the soldiers. The lucky ones just got searing specks of Lava on them, lighting their clothes on fire. The unlucky ones died.

The extra-unlucky ones lived, screaming as they were coated in burning Lava, their bodies cooking under them.

I mentally cursed Serondes out. My job was going to be that much harder.

It was one hell of a distraction though. Some of the soldiers broke and ran - I was judging them harshly, that was nothing compared to what regular Remus legionnaires went through, let alone Rangers - while more were busy not dying. The amount of incoming fire dramatically decreased.

There were only three more arrows, which I burned, deflected, and ignored my hip getting punctured, then I judged I was close enough.

The day was bright and sunny, and nearly all of them were in range, and nearly all of them were out of the shadows. They were unquestionably hostile.

My quickstep through the sky ended with a [Dance With the Heavens]. Celestial power blasted out of me, washing over the combined ogre-human soldiers. I quickly flickered my eyes through my notifications, noting dozens and dozens of shimagu kill notifications.

At the same time, Serondes’s Lava crest utterly ruined my short-term plans. Between the marathon session I’d just ran, and the sheer number of badly hurt people, with the non-human penalty, distance, and severity, I’d almost zeroed myself out on mana.

By “Almost zero” I was talking about 20,000 points or so, out of my 421,000 points total. Enough for most serious injuries, barring decapitation.

Hell, I could probably manage decapitation as well, as long as I focused on just the important parts.

I shelved the thought, and the implications off to the side.

Most of the soldiers froze, regaining control of the bodies for the first time in years.

Or decades.

They were a raw pile of dried tinder, and it only took one spark. None of the hosts knew that the rest of them had been freed. One human drew his knife, stabbing the ogre in front of him in the back.

Absolute pandemonium broke out, the ogre turning his club on a different soldier, who fought back. Guards whirled with their clubs on soldiers, who wildly swung their polearms around. Archers staggered, and those with nocked arrows loosed them point-blank into the people standing next to them. Some ran away, and one enterprising individual found a torch, and started to work on getting [Arsonist] as his next class evolution.

I wanted to facepalm. I’d just purged nearly all of the soldiers of shimagu, but they didn’t know that. To them, they were now free, trapped in a sea of slavers. Slavers who “seemed to know” what had happened, and were busying trying to kill them, so they were lashing back out and-

It was a damn mess.

[Cosmic Presence] started to work overtime. Vicious cuts clotted up and closed, cut muscles were quickly replaced by scar tissue. Serondes’s Lava was still searing the poor people it’d engulfed. I’d healed them entirely when I flashed my skill, but that didn’t magically cool off the Lava. They were just re-burning, their bodies going through the “heal burns” cycle at an incredible pace. Blisters formed and popped, boiling under the heat, only to immediately reform.

It was gross. Even by my hardened-by-wading-through-gore standards.

The elves ran up.

“Awarthril. Start pulling critically injured people out.” I ordered, absent-mindedly yanking barbed arrows out of my body. Annoying things. I wasn’t going to jump into the fray - [Oath] didn’t demand it, and I wasn’t going to be a complete dumbass, but I did need to stick around and heal the people I could. I needed this fight to be over now so I could get a move on. Before the shimagu managed a larger response than a few guard squads.

Awarthril snapped out a sticky tar-like whip into the crowd, grabbing an ogre that had fallen and was being trampled and stabbed in the confusion, then yoinked him out.

Causing a half-dozen injuries in the process. I refrained from sighing.

“Serondes. Please tell them that they’re all free, and to stop fighting. Then can you remove your Lava? It’s fucking with my healing.”

He started speaking, Kiyaya amplifying him without me saying a thing.

As he was speaking, the first mob, the original mob, caught up with us. They were angry. The nuances of who’d been freed, who wasn’t a shimagu and who was controlled were entirely lost on them. It was an angry mob. Reason and logic no longer applied.

They just saw the guards and soldiers, still in their uniforms and weapons, the clear symbols of oppression and the shimagu reign clear. The very same people that had just volleyed arrows into them. Them fighting each other wasn’t a hint to not fight, no. To the mob, it was like the matador’s bright red flag, shortcutting straight to the fight or flight response.

Any member of the mob inclined to pick “flight” had already left.

With a primal roar, disregarding weapons and injuries, levels, bodies, and numbers, they crashed into the former guards, wielding their makeshift weapons. They picked up half-snapped arrows and shoved them in eyes, wrestled shields off of people only to bash a third person’s head in.

Complete pandemonium.

“Aegion! Once I heal someone, shove them somewhere else!”

“Trying to keep an eye on everything else around us!” He barked back.

Shit, he was right. That would explain where Cordamo was. At least I didn’t need to detoxify everyone on top of the rest of this mess.

“Serondes then. Forget trying to disperse this normally.”

I got grumbling from him, but as Awarthril pulled the next person out, he did what I asked.

My mana was getting dangerously low. I made a judgement call.

I could perfectly heal ten people, or barely stabilize and fix everyone. I went with the second one. It was imperfect, but when had the world ever been good or fair? By stabilizing people, [Cosmic Presence] would get a chance to act, reducing the totally amount of mana I’d need to fix everyone back up. More lives saved, in a shorter time frame.

“Hiding us.” Awarthril terse bit out, and vanished. Copies of us shimmered into existence between us and the mob, and she kept fishing people out.

I felt her [Rubbery Rope] reattach itself to me. Her illusions were clever. As she pulled people towards us, she made it look like they were heading towards our fake copies, then flickered invisibility over them as they reached “us”, and kept pulling.

My mana was continuing to drop, even though I was only touching up the worse injuries. I had to operate off of memory, since the patients were being delivered to me invisibly. Had to try and remember what glimpses I’d seen with [Pristine Memories]. Awarthril was grabbing people faster than Serondes could convince them to leave.

They seemed to have some prejudice against invisible disembodied voices. I wonder why. We were also getting a bit of a crowd, invisible people bumping into each other, tripping over each other.

This was a mess.

“MOVE!” Aegion roared as loudly as he could.

Even before he was done speaking I was on the move, jumping back to avoid whatever it was that spooked Aegion. My head snapped forward and my whole body started to spin as Awarthril demonstrated her superior physical prowess, pulling us all.

At least, I assumed that’s what was going on. The invisibility wasn’t helping.

I didn’t even hear it coming. One moment I was looking at the brawl, the writhing mess of flesh and blood, anger and hatred, intent on tearing each other apart. The next, a massive pillar crashed through where Awarthril’s illusions of us were, stone and dirt exploding in a powerful wave over us.

Only once the pillar landed, and the rocks got thrown out in all directions at high speeds, did [Bullet Time] kick in again.

The rocks were significantly scarier than the arrows had been, in spite of the directed versus undirected nature of them. The rocks had significantly more force behind them, and there were more of them. I couldn’t carefully snipe rocks out of the air, and my mana was on the low end.

The metal pillar was wider than I was, and was red-hot. Little sparks played along it, although I was more focused on the shrapnel spray heading our way.

I snapped [Mantle] into place, knowing it wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Knowing that I didn’t have enough mana to heal through the rocks that were about to turn me into swiss cheese. I spared a quick thought to everyone who’d been on the other side of the pillar, who’d been much closer to the ground zero of the attack. I kind of wanted to go back and help them out, but I wouldn’t deny that I thought Awarthril physically pulling me out was good for my health. I breathed a sigh of relief as Serondes summoned a half-dome of Lava to shield us.

I could hear the rocks impact on the shield, sounding like a giant with a pair of stone drumsticks performing a solo.

“Bwooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuarplh!” Awarthril… well, not said. Those definitely weren’t words coming out of her mouth. “What was that!?”

“That was it doesn’t matter we need to keep running!” I was already moving, Ranger training kicking in. Movement was life. Stillness was death.

I’d been trained how to instantly assess, react, and move. The elves had better skills, more levels, and higher stats.

I had better training.

“The Lava shield told them exactly where we are!”

Comments

Håvard

I am constantley getting reminded about how easy this fight whould have been if she where with night in place of thise tourists. Well there is the language problem and the fact this whould not be an daytime operation...

luda305

You know, I'm starting to see how that one political incident occurred. She's not good as socially sneaky. Physically... she's okay with sneak. But socially? Nope.

Shoto

I read the chapter in 3 minutes, it's so good to see Elaine in Sentinel mode~~, and with everything going on, how many levels has she already broken?? With these guards alone, there were dozens of level 300 Shimagus, but without a doubt the biggest difficulty here is the language difference. If it was Remus, a Sentinel telling you to shut up and be quiet, everyone would obey. And it would be a good idea if the Elvis gave Elaine some Arcanite to regain her mana.

Giperman

She's no way physically sneaky. THat's one of her worst qualities

Michael

Elaine the diplomat strikes again!

fennek

Right, didn't that caster from last chapter have some Arcanite on him?

Shoto

I believe so, and Elaine will need the most mana in the group, Serontes and Aegion's mana regeneration should be good, and Awarthil seems to be the control type, so she doesn't spend a lot of mana on her moves. mirage. if it was just killing the Shimagus it would be ok, but Elaine is having to heal the friendly fire that happens after she kills the Shimagus. The plan should be, Elaine goes ahead trying to heal everyone, the elves must support, trying to calm the released people. And when some high-level opponent appears (probably a shimagus befriending the body's owner), the elves kill.

Kalel

I think the Shimagu did that first when they enslaved citizens of Remus.

BlodWedd

sub-woofer

Julie

I truly laughed out loud when I read that one.

Julie

Here comes another shimagu mage. Will the group fight or flee? I’m guessing run to a safer spot, then snipe some more shimagus.

Cirvante

Let Aegion snipe him. He and his noodle should be on mage-killing duty from now on, while Awarthril handles stealth and movement and Serondes defense and some offense.

Alexey Gladkich

@Kalel I wouldn't say so. As they done so without Remus' knowledge and it is unclear whether or not Remus would retaliate - at least in short term. Now Shimagu might attack Remus.

Alexey Gladkich

This plan isn't good. Elves aren't ready to fight the top-tier Shimagu, and their preparation for population recovery is non-existent. I think they should seek assistance from armies of Remus and plan the war carefully.

Shoto

I didn't say to have Elaine eradicate the entire city, but Elaine needs to fight her way out of the city, but it gets complicated because Elaine is trying to save the freed. And even the elite force of Shimagus hasn't arrived, I believe that the strongest either are together with mages, or are controlling powerful dinosaurs.

Shoto

but the problem is that the Shimagus' elite strength hasn't arrived yet, and Elaine has already spent all her mana healing the idiots who made friendly fire. it would be better to open an escape route

Cirvante

I'd argue that moving around the city invisibly while creating as much chaos as possible would be the best course of action. To that end they should give Elaine the canceler's arcanite bag. Basically move around, hit-and-run style, while healing shimagu and sniping enemy mages. Escaping the city will only see them being chased down and killed. Not to mention they wouldn't get another shot at the city, since the shimagu would up security and ambush them. They just really need to avoid getting bogged down. As Elaine said, movement means life. And the more chaos across the city, the lower their chances of being pinned down and slaughtered.

Shoto

that's true. Elaine's current mana regeneration is about 180 per second, in 1 minute she heals 10800 mana. I don't know how much she's leveled out yet, but she needs 40 minutes to regain all her mana. Making chaos and running away is the best choice. And teaching the elves some teamwork, Serontes keeps screwing Elaine with his magma, he could try sand or sound, magma does a lot of damage.

Joshua Little

Thanks for the chapter.

SuperiorFreak

Honestly, the Elves seem to be more of a hindrance than anything else. Likea arent they supposed to be intelligent and pretty old? Shouldnt they understand the concept of overkill? They are doing way too much damage to people and making Elaine use way too much mana. Heck, almost all of the people arent even a threat to them, so them doing so much damage doesn't even make sense in my opinion. Thats like me going into a day care and swinging a sledgehammer at some four year olds.

mike

It's pretty well established that it's possible for people to punch up in this universe, it makes sense that a tiny force would use shock and awe when they are in a city surrounded by, literally, thousands of hostiles. Is it optimal? No, but it makes sense given the situation and the urgency. They need to neutralize as many shimagu as possible as quickly as they can. Carefully measuring the injuries you inflict to the level of "just barely enough to incapacitate them" on an entire cities population simply isn't feasible here. It'd be nice if they could, but it would take way too long. Too many shimagu would be able to flee, even with this method some are getting away.

Vesperius sage

to be fair the elves are rational ones here, elaine is pretty idealistic. But surrounded by hostiles of unknown strength in a unfammiliar territory they are acting propperly, if a bit overboard but it is understandable

Anonymous

well, we're sorta viewing it from the MC's POV and they just found out abt the existence of her issue, let alone details or working it into strategy..but the biggest issue is their arrogance curse means they don't fraking think/do so handicapped by all sorts of judgement biases. So, from our semi-om POV, yeah, it looks like a total cluster (presumably the author's intent). But the MC sorta screwed the pooch by going into messy conflict under op rules (that don't even really make a whole lot of sense sometimes) she never shared w/ most of her team, and w/o even being clear on "what's right" in her own head. Odds of a bunch of op, juvenile (old by our terms, young by theirs!), arrogant twits spontaneously all coming up w/ a strategy to navigate her poorely disclosed constraints? yeah, zero on a good day. That said, I'm not 100pct convinced it was portrayed in a way to make the (reasons behind the) whole train wreck as clear as it should be for readers? idk, i'll reread it later. It's ez to throw stones, hard to write messy stuff in idiot-proof ways (and I'm an idiot). :)\

Shoto

Yes, I also think the elves are being very silly, but what can be done?? they are adventurers, the only thing they know how to do is kill, and even more they are not used to risky situations. By the looks of it they spent 500 years leveling up their classes in easy mode, killing lower level monsters, slowly leveling things up. The only reason Elaine is delighted with their abilities is because they're top-notch and nothing more. It's like giving a war tank to a group of recruits. They just don't know how to control and they do shit. And that's exactly what happened, the weakest elf (Aegion) was at level 560 when Elaine found them, and the 3 idiots just started attacking with all their firepower a square where there was no one above level 400, it was just low-level people, and they just lashed out, basically screaming to the whole town "THERE ARE INVADERS HERE!!!!!!!!!" and created real chaos. The elves are very unprepared, an example of this was in the fight against the dinosaur, Serontes was the strongest of the group, and was simply eliminated in a shameful way, it seems he had forgotten that the dinosaur could fight back. If it was Night, Huting and Arthur with Elaine the 4 would make a real controlled chaos in this city, killing Shimagus, killing enemy mages, saving mana, creating escape routes.

Cirvante

Night wouldn't do shit in bright daylight. And you need to remember that things can punch up with the right skills. Even a level 300 classer could shank Aegion and Serondes with the right skills. Arthur is a great example, murdered a level 900+ monster at sub 256. Elaine killed a level 750 Royal Guard before her level 256 class up using her gems. Even Iona with her monstrous physical stats got injured by some dark attacks. Going easy on a horde of unknown hostiles while surrounded by thousands more is a good recipe to get yourself killed. And considering that Elaine was actively sandbagging by insisting on self-defense even though Oath wouldn't have punished her for simply healing her targets. She suddenly sprung her restrictions on two of the elves and then failed to give them useful directions. Shouting "Stop! Let me handle this!" and then flying off to taunt some guards into attacking her was dumb as shit. I honestly can't blame the elves for their actions, they even saved her from the canceler. When everything around you goes to shit, all you can do is fall back on your training. And theirs is to kill shit.

Melting Sky

The biggest problem with the elves is the fact that they should be playing defense and precision sniping long-ranged threats instead of crippling their party's best offensive option. So long as she has mana, Elaine is basically an uber-efficient giant walking sphere of instant death for any parasites that come anywhere near her. Instead, the elves are wasting their own mana on indiscriminately maiming and killing huge swaths of people that are half enemies and half allies that Elaine could have handled much more cleanly for a fraction of the cost. Worse yet, they are forcing the God-tier glass cannon that can auto-kill only the enemy portion of the thousands of people around them to stop killing their enemies. Instead, she is being forced to blow all of her time and mana on healing their newly acquired allies that the elves keep shredding. I honestly think they may succeed in getting themselves killed. Once Elaine's mana bottoms out I don't think the elves have a solution if some level 1500 shimugu shows up.

Flying Goat

The elves have never gone out into the world, and there's apparently some set up for power levelling without risk back in the city they came from - or at least that's my understanding.

WANDERING LOST

Not really, it is not about using just enough but rather enough to do the job. Sandblast their feet and go for broken limbs. It is much easier for her to fix shattered bones than it is to grow back limbs and heal constant lava damage.

mike

They do need to incapacitated because they will fight back if they are able to. There was even a mention of a mortally wounded shimagu still trying to attack, she would have to heal the lightly injured from a distance to do it safely. And if I'm not mistaken she probably saves more mana healing a severe injury by touch than she does healing moderate injuries from a safe distance because of the penalty. It would just take too much finesse to pull off in the situation, it isn't feasible for 4 people and 2 animals to make it happen without putting themselves at a hugely unnecessary risk.

Shoto

It's doable if the elves knew what to do, but they don't. Serontes is an idiot who only knows how to use lava, since he has sand and sound that would be more useful, Awarthil at the beginning of the fight was cutting people in half forcing Elaine to spend ton of mana. The problem is not the elves react, but how they react. They just started a kill and forgot to protect Elaine at first, Elaine being the healer (slayer of Shimagus). Elaine almost died from it, and they literally were killing little kids and shopkeepers at the beginning, low-level people. And don't even mention that they were surrounded, because the elves were much stronger than the enemies. Spending mana like that, and forcing Elaine to waste so much mana, is pretty dumb. And Elaine had already given the warnings. Now that Elaine is in Sentinel mode, she's getting better at maneuvering.