Chapter 33 – The Savage Dragon and the Reaper
“The [Half-Dead Savage Dragon]….a Skill that doubles the user’s Attack and Agility. But, do you really think that something like that would be enough to face me straight on?”
Kalos just smiled at me fearlessly as I charged toward him.
The base Attack and Agility of a Heavy Knight are on the low side.
Our opponent is a Magic Swordsman, a powerful Class, and we have zero idea what his Skill Tree Build may be.
It’s clear that we are on the back foot here, but out of the four of us, only I have a chance of facing Kalos directly.
“Are you any good with the sword, Elma?”
Kalos raised his sword.
A slash using every bit of the attribute stats of a high level Magic Swordsman was coming.
To avoid directly clashing against my opponent as much as possible, I used my blade to guide the trajectory of his away from me with minor strikes.
I was using the [Parry] Skill.
“I dabble.”
“Hoh.”
Kalos let out a sound of admiration.
“[Dice Thrust]!”
Luce jumped into the air and pulled out her knife.
It seems after she determined that [Dragon Killer Thrust] would not work on Kalos, she decided to gamble on a one-in-six chance.
The floating number was pierced by Luce’s blade.
That number was 【six】.
She really tends to hit the high ones when it really matters.
Kalos quickly pulled his sword back and blocked Luce’s knife.
It was a confirmed critical hit.
The extra double damage from [Abyssal Dagger] was also piled up on top of that.
A hit with 3.9 times the Attack power and 50% pierce through damage landed in an explosive manner.
“Muh….!”
Even Kalos lost out on that contest of strength, having to jump back as he lost his balance for a bit.
“That surprised me…..So it’s not just Elma, huh. I shouldn’t be careless when blocking your attacks either.”
Kalos looked at Luce with wide eyes.
In the next moment, a single arrow came flying at Kalos from one of his blind spots.
It was shot by Celt.
Kalos dodged it by moving his head exactly as much as needed to avoid the projectile.
“That was a very simplistic attack. Did you really think that would hi—”
“[Assassin Attack]!”
Celt threw a knife from up in the air.
It’s a Skill that allows the user to minimize the sound they make as they launch a surprise attack.
To improve the effect of this Skill, Celt used the sound of his own arrow cutting through the air to hide his other attack.
Kalos quickly blocked this one as well, but he slightly missed his mark.
Next, Celt’s kick connected with the side of the head of Kalos.
Kalos immediately swung his sword at Celt, but he used the recoil from his kick to escape backwards.
“Hah! I managed to land the very first clean hit on you, you bastard! Did you think aside from Elma and Luce, the rest would be easy pickings? Let’s get this done guys! We can take him!”
Celt yelled out.
That was well done.
I don’t think much, if any, damage got through there, but it was clearly good for the Party’s morale.
Celt understood the fact that morale was one of the most important factors in this fight and acted accordingly.
So far, we were caught up in Kalos’s pace, but now the atmosphere has changed.
“Luce, get behind him! I will fight him head on!”
“Got it!”
Luce dashed behind Kalos’s back.
An offensive focused Heavy Knight at the front and a critical hit focused Clown at his blind spot.
Caught between a Savage Dragon and a Reaper.
Even if he’s a Magic Swordsman that’s a good number of levels above us, he shouldn’t be able to take it easy anymore.
This will by no means be an easy fight for us, but we do have a fighting chance now.
Kalos dodged Luce’s knife and warded off my sword with his own.
We completely seized the initiative of this fight.
Since he’s aware that he must watch out for Celt’s surprise attacks and Luce’s possible critical hits, he can’t move as freely anymore.
However, even though we have the initiative for now, I still have no idea about how Kalos’s Skill Trees could be.
High level adventurers all have a significant number of Skill Points of course.
Who knows what kind of Skills could be coming out to play.
We need to carefully uncover his arsenal next.
“You really do have a great Party….Fighting this many people at once might just be a bit tricky.”
Kalos raised his sword, a crimson light lighting up at the tip.
“Luce, get back!”
At the same time I jumped back as far as I could.
“[Crimson Wave]”
A wave of conflagration was released from where Kalos was standing.
I raised my shield to protect myself from the flames as I made use of the shockwave to put more distance between us.
That was an AOE attack Skill of the Magic Swordsman.
It takes quite a bit of MP, but it lets the user make some distance between them and their attackers.
With the current difference in our levels, it might even cause us fatal injuries if handled incorrectly.
“I should start by taking out one of you first. Who should be my first victim?”
Next, four masses of black flames appeared floating around Kalos.
It was [Dark Blaze].
It seems he launched that close ranged omnidirectional attack to make sure that he could activate a mid-range Skill like that.
Instead of a simple probing attack, this time I could feel his intent to kill us for sure.
He will most likely use [Dark Blaze] in conjunction with his sword skills to try to take us down.
“Luce, fall back!”
While giving out that order, I myself started moving forward.
After jumping back, Luce saw me advancing, making her gasp.
“Elma-san….!”
“I see, so you want to die first!”
One out of the four started chasing Luce.
The paths of the remaining three curved together and they came flying at me.
At the same time, Kalos readied his sword and dashed in my direction.
With [Parry], I unerringly deflected two consecutive attacks of Kalos.
Meanwhile, the mass of black flames got behind me.
Next, I pushed off from the ground, jumping over Kalos, and when I landed I slashed out at him.
My attack was blocked, but the [Dark Blaze] projectiles lost their lock on me due to Kalos ending up between us.
Losing their target, the masses of black flames fell down around Kalos.
To avoid falling prey to his own magic attack, Kalos had no other choice but to retreat a significant distance.
The best chance for safety can be found in the most unexpected places.
The greatest weakness of [Dark Blaze] is that its maneuverability is less than great, so it could easily end up catching the caster in its effect.
Charging in yourself together with the magic attack is a viable strategy, but it also carries great risk with it.
I dashed towards the recovering Kalos and stomped on his shadow, pulling it back as much as I could.
Kalos steadied himself to prevent him from being pulled along by my [Shadow Stomp], and managed to block my attack as well.
“Hahahahaha! What a surprise! Is this really the movements of a Heavy Knight?!”
“[Vital Blow]!”
From right next to him, I put my entire weight behind my next blow.
At the same time, I pulled on [Shadow Stomp] with all I had, disrupting Kalos’s balance.
Kalos tried to resist it, but he finally fell to one knee.
“Hey hey, Elma….You really intend to win against me, huh!”
Even while breaking out in a cold sweat, Kalos had a clear flush of excitement on his face.
Having shaken off her own [Dark Blaze] projectile, Luce lunged at the defenseless back of Kalos.
“[Dice Thrust]!”
I drew in a sharp breath.
That was a bit too greedy of her.
I can understand her impatience, but she should’ve chosen the more reliable [Dragon Killer Thrust] here.
Even a critical hit from [Dragon Killer Thrust] would’ve been enough to push Kalos to the edge.
However, it turned out to be the right choice in the end.
Kalos quickly stood back, shook off my [Shadow Stomp], and turned to face Luce.
A [Dragon Killer Thrust] that requires a perfect stance would not have succeeded in this case.
A floating number of 【6】 was pierced through by Luce.
Luce’s knife pushed through Kalos’s imperfect defense and impacted his torso, sending him flying back.
“Gahah…!”
An Attack increase of 3.9 times from the [Abyssal Dagger] burst out.
In contrast to monsters, high level adventurers’ HP does not increase as explosively with levels.
Even if he’s quite a bit higher than us in levels, this should be heavy damage for him.
The line about dragonkiller thrust seems odd.
That one deals more damage whether or not dice thrust rolls well, right?
I believe it’s that Dragon Killer Thrust is more reliable.
We don’t have actual numbers, but say on any roll other than six Dice Thrust (DT) does 100 damage, and on a six it does 390. But lets also say that Dragon Killer Thrust (DKT) does 100 damage, and on a crit, it does 300. DT has a 1 in 6 chance to land a heavy blow (which in an earlier chapter, Elma noted that she’d hit 6 in almost 1 in 4 rolls), but while DKT’s crit rate boost hasn’t been stated, Elma noted that with Luce’s Luck stat, it’s almost guaranteed. Let’s say 90% for our guess-timations.
I’ve never been good at chance estimations, but over ten attacks I believe DKT would probably range somewhere between 2400~3000 total on average (7 crits ~ 10 crits), while DT would go between 1000~2160 total on average (0 sixes ~ 4 sixes). DT can do more burst damage and comes out faster, but DKT is better DPS due to consistency, even if it takes a little longer for the attack to come out.