With no visible movement but a single snap from Geria, the landshark that had jumped out of the ground at the two of them was blown apart around its mouth without fanfare mid-jump, the parts of its body behind the point of explosion pushed back by the force.

“Well that just doesn’t seem fair.”

Geria grimaced. “Maybe. Four hundred fifty mana.”

“Counterpoint- That’s what? Nine seconds?”

“Seven. That is still significant; I can only use it three times in a row before running out.”

Deyana nodded. “Still, on burst regen it’s like a second and a half. Assuming yours is solo mana?”

“It is,” Geria replied. “And that was an overkill. It is using a boosted specialization, though.”

This time it was Deyana’s turn to pull a face. “I didn’t realize it was a boosted specialization. Verdict on it?”

Geria paused for a while, taking two more potshots at landsharks that popped up out of the ground around them, not snapping this time. “I think, probably… It’s very good as a secondary or surprise, but it’s not a good primary.”

Deyana glanced around. Landsharks were another one of those specialty monsters, like slimes, leaving the area even more empty than that one had been despite their higher level. Usually, she’d be grouping up with three or four people by now, but the safety Geria brought to the table would make it a lot more efficient to just keep going, jumping through specialty monsters wherever applicable.

Unlike slimes, the difficulty with Landsharks wasn’t so much the pure durability, but the combination of their mid-level intelligence and semi-intangibility. With their usual strategy, that meant waiting until they attacked, then hitting then with either a powerful burst or damage over time effect that would kill them before they resurfaced.

In her case, it would be the burst.

Specifically, she would generate a bunch of the ice bursts she’d use on the slimes, throw them into the jaws of the sharks, and wait for them to pop out of the ground in response to the damage before finishing them off with her sword.

Unfortunately, without the ability to see them through the ground or much insight into when they’d use their almost-leg-almost-tail assembly to spring forward, that was a matter of walking forwards and listening carefully for the very quiet ground-moving that preceded an attack.

When the ground shifted slightly under her feet, it was a good thing that her reactions were a lot faster than her intentional thoughts.

Deyana’s left hand flipped over and she’d dropped two orbs as the teeth appeared, turning into a bolt of electricity going straight up before they would have hit the ground.

Instead, they dropped into the gullet of the landshark and she reconstituted, activating her boots as she did to stare down at the shark snapping uselessly at air. Two seconds after it slipped back into the ground, there was a slight thump followed by the landshark, now frozen around the middle, popping back out of the ground.

It was a simple matter to teleport back down, then stab the “beached” land-fish, killing it in three strikes.

Combat Ended!

+288,781 Experience, +7148 credits

Level Up! (x2)

HP: 90 (+4)

Mana: 220 (+11)

Stamina: 45 (+2)

It wasn’t too difficult, ultimately, to repeat that process in fairly quick succession. While they were deadly if they caught their targets, landsharks’ primary strengths were their first attack and their tendency to appear in unstably-numbered groups. With Geria handling the cases of the latter where they were actually threatening, it was a quiet and quick process, if absolutely not relaxing, to push her way to level fifty.

And with that, the first rune specialization.

Theoretically, the first rune specialization was almost always in something simple. Everyone wanted to have access to the runes the specialized in due to the suite of advantages that provided, and by choosing something like an elemental or paraelemental rune, it was possible to gain those advantages for anything that allowed for their use.

Still…

Deyana could feel the dropping in her chest as she came to a decision. It was obviously ridiculous, overconfident, and entirely incorrect for the situation–

“Is that Geria?”

Deyana jerked her head away from the menus, not closing them but moving them to the corner of her vision and stepping behind Geria.

In an instant, as she turned, several of the items Geria hadn’t had equipped before appeared around her person, including a large bag hung over her shoulder, something like a mid-calf skirt, and the cloak from the first time they’d met, the latter two fluttering down even as she turned, staff in her right hand, and the left going to the bag.

“You know the answer to that, Danis, or you would not be here. And Firehand too. Were the other eight not available?”

The guy she was talking to, an obnoxiously handsome guy with what looked like a crossed double sash-like construction buttoned to a shoulderless leather jacket with split bits hanging down to his knees and holding onto a worryingly large crossbow, complete with two quivers, smirked confidently. The guy behind him, apparently “Firehand,” was burning a ridiculous amount of mana and space on his cloak to appear to be on fire, with body armor underneath having the more defensive enchantments. Deyana was sure it was supposed to be intimidating, but it looked ridiculous.

“Of course not. They’re off chasing that friend of yours. An old Third crafter, suddenly giving up their position to run off for apparently no reason? Jean’s pissed. How the hell did you think you were gonna get away with that?”

It took Deyana every bit of her learned composure to prevent her eyes from widening or a grin from showing. If that was Ell, they worked fast. If that was one of Geria’s, even better.

“I am sure that if I knew what you were talking about, I would not be telling you anything about it here.”

He laughed, without taking her eyes off of either of them or even turning, his crossbow leveled in Geria’s direction but still unfired.

Was he still wary about fighting her, even apparently two versus one? Or at least, two versus one and a half.

Good. That might make this interesting.

“Maybe. But I think you might tell us here. You’re boosting a newbie, and a particularly cute one.” His tone almost made Deyana shiver in disgust, but analysis took over first, and she subtly adjusted her posture. “Gotta admit, you didn’t seem like the type. But then, you didn’t seem like the type to kill Jennet, either. Still, how about we let her go and you tell us everything?”

Party chat opened in front of her. ‘They will not let us go without a fight. I will ask about the Third member later. You should run.’

‘Probably should. I won’t, though. They could beat you solo.’

‘Maybe. He’s probably prepared for me a little, but Manifested Force is versatile. Firehand will be nearly useless.’

‘Which means he’ll go after me.’

‘Probably.’

“Ooh! Chatting about things! How ‘bout it, arm candy? Feeling the pressure yet?”

Deyana had to turn away to hide her laugh, simultaneously using it to call tears to her eyes before hesitatingly turning back around.

“I… I d-didn’t… sign up for this… if you want her…”

“Don’t worry about it. Firehand here’s gonna stop you from running, but you’ll be fine as soon as your girlfriend here gives us what we want.”

‘Shouldn’t’ve confirmed that. Dumbass. I can probably give you the 1v1. Win it.’

Taking slow steps backwards, Deyana intentionally dragged her heels through the dirt, simultaneously making a lot of noise and throwing her balance noticeably off. By the third step, her foot caught on something and she started falling, turning her head to the side.

The spinning of Firehand’s staff into position in her peripheral vision was her cue to teleport to the side, letting the beam of fire shoot through her former position.

By the heat coming off of the miss, she could tell it was scaled to the power of a lategame raid.

Idiot. She was level fifty. Even a defensively equipped, boosted person for her level would have been killed if it had hit, and her being dead would have let Geria only defend herself.

Deyana was glad to see that the crossbow bolt, launched almost at the same time as the fire attack, got deflected up and to the side.

Luckily for her, Danis made the same connection, yelling at Firehand to tone down his attacks before she could think of a credible way to explain that to him within the role she’d taken up.

Geria had already thrown two stones out of her pouch, and though she didn’t seem to be walking or running anywhere the same could not be said for Danis, who appeared to be trying to line up to pin her in place, lest any undeflected shots would hit Deyana.

Firehand had switched strategies, two walls of flame hemming her in, just the heat coming off of them already eating into her health bar, and a second wave of fire at her shins forcing her to squeak and teleport up to avoid it, twisting as she came out and throwing two ice bursts down at him.

He completely ignored them, flashes of heat turning the ice to steam as they exploded.

Meanwhile, Geria continued throwing those stones, heat-haze styled walls going up around her in growing numbers even while Danis continued to fire.

Suddenly, Deyana saw her teammate teleport before one of the shots, landing on top of one of her walls.

The next bolt, shrouded in something dark, went straight through all of the manifested force walls, nearly glancing Firehand.

Deyana started the ten-count in her head.

This time, it was a swarm of fire bolts that came for her, and the falling off of her boots’ platforms was only mostly fake.

Still, somehow, unaccounted for, which meant none of them had been aimed below her, instead fanning out to the sides and above, confirming a lack of recent PvP experience.

Seconds five and six were spent avoiding two more swarms, “accidentally” stumbling behind one of Geria’s walls and visibly panting well before her stamina ran out while Firehand rose into the air on two columns of flame.

Danis was running some other kind of movement, and she caught his new position out of the corner of her eye while he fired twice more offhand, then took time to set his feet correctly, taking careful aim as something invisible caused a huge flareup of his defenses, lightning and something dark striking whatever it was Geria had tried to hit him with.

She teleported well in advance of Firehand’s incoming wave of flame, activating her armor as she did.

As before, the two’s lack of PvP experience nearly killed her again.

Only a quirk of the angles of Geria’s walls stopped her teleport before Deyana could actually reach the now-vacated position she’d been aiming for. Her expectation had been that Danis would take even the most basic of preventative measures, aiming just enough to a side that physical dodges would have been caught.

But instead, he shot right down the center.

It crossed her armor’s proximity trigger, but while it had been enough for Geria’s testing, the throughput and storage of the {Metastorage: Monodirectional Transfer Contiguous} connected to [Absorb] wasn’t nearly enough to stop the bolt in the air.

It visibly slowed, still moving well more than fast enough to kill her, but flew harmlessly over her head.

“Careful there, princess! Wouldn’t want you to get shot hiding behind her!”

Did neither of you even notice the slowing?

Now within Geria’s labyrinth, her options were partially cut off by default and seeing exactly where was already somewhat difficult.

Partially in her favor but mostly against it, Firehand was doing his level best to fill every one of those sections with flame.

Another quick teleport up, followed by two more to get closer to Firehand, when another blast of flame forced her to drop the boots’ platforms for a moment, falling beneath it and running towards him.

He hadn’t expected that, made obvious by the fact that he was scanning the sky above his blast instead.

Deyana got way too close for her own comfort before letting her armor’s charge go, fully expecting it to glance off of a personal shield or pass through him as he turned to fire or something.

It did… one of those things.

Just not the way she was expecting.

The spike flew through his body at an angle, entering near his waist and exiting around his shoulder blades, leaving a somewhat-censored hole behind. A moment later, Firehand visibly shattered, leaving behind a few items that started falling to the ground.

Deyana froze for a second, her mana draining more quickly than she’d like but still keeping about a sixth of a pool. Then she wheeled around to face Danis, gesturing angrily in the direction of his dead ally.

“Are you all idiots!?”

He didn’t really have the ability to answer her before several of the shimmers in the air suddenly shifted angles, crushing him between them.

Geria hopped off of the platform she was crouched on, landing gracefully and lifting up the stone-bag, everything she’d tossed lifting up from where it was on the ground and flying to the top of it before dropping down.

“We should run now.”

Deyana couldn’t argue with that.