The three of us— Chloe, Kristil, and I— are among the first to make our way outside. The entire complex, consisting of the main lodge and two annexes, is fully scrambled. Sirens blare and people scream at one another as everyone, from frontline fighters like Stefan to the cooks and other support staff, prepares for battle.

  That alone showcases the severity of the situation more than words or generic warnings ever could. This isn’t some one-off attack from a lone [Ooze Summoner] or some threat of a comparable level. This is an existential threat to the entire party, and possibly to the entire part of Red Clay City that they’ve signed up to defend. Despite it all, Kristil is absolutely itching to go, her fingers sparking, ready to unleash hell on a moment’s notice.

  Chloe shows equal determination and resolve. She hits both Kristil and I with her [Angelic Blessing].

  “Why us?” I ask. “Why not Stefan or Lindsey or–”

  “It only works if I share a bond with the target. It would probably work with Lindsey, but I doubt it will with Stefan.”

  Always a drawback. Some classes, to the best of my knowledge, might be better fits for certain people, with slightly higher stats or more synergistic builds available for people willing to experiment. Mine is one such example. But there doesn’t, to this point, appear to be anything far and away overpowered, with the possible exception of whatever 「Anomaly」class Dr. Chotono and the others gave to the old me.

  Such a powerful boost to all stats, available at such a low level, must logically come with a significant drawback for the purposes of balance. In this case, it’s a limitation of who exactly Chloe can cast it upon. As with my own Skills and abilities, it will come down to finding the more efficient and creative uses of our powers if we are to continue surviving and pushing past obstacles both manmade and System-driven alike.

  “Alright,” Lindsey says. “We’re dealing with three summoners. Levels each around thirty-five, as are their summons.”

  That alone gets some gasps from the crowd. Thirty-five is… a lot. The [Ooze Summoner] was only level 29, and each subsequent level means that much more [Vitality] and [Health] to absorb damage, as well as Skills and [Attack] to damage back. Worse, the scaling isn’t quite linear. In relative terms, the difference between level 1 and 2 is greater than 34 to 35. But in absolute terms, it’s the other way around. Hopefully it’s an overestimate; I really don’t want to fight something or someone approaching level 40, no matter how potent our advantage of raw numbers.

  “One of them is another Ooze Summoner, though this ooze seems to be a water-type Ooze instead of a decay and acid type. The second has an ape companion. Probably twenty-feet tall, maybe taller if it stands fully on its hind legs. As for the last one, it’s underground, so I can’t tell for certain. My guess is either a worm or a giant mole. In either case, stay on your guard, and be prepared for a surprise attack at any time.”

  I flicker on my [Ethersight] as I look around, and once more, I’m forced to curse its lack of range. I’d like to be able to leave it on longer-term, but even at its current rank of VI after some additional uses over the past couple months, it’s still too draining on me for me to use for more than a couple of seconds at a time. I have a trio of spare [Ether Canisters] in my pack still, but I’d prefer to save those for when they’re most needed.

  We wait on pins and needles, getting into a formation the leaders think best suited for the battle ahead. I’m near the back of the formation, my omnidirectional [Ethersight] giving me some ability to sense and respond to ambushes from behind. Chloe and Kristil are near the center of our group, presumably the safest place for our squishier [Healers], [Mages], [Evokers] and similar. I have my doubts with the burrowing creature, and I pay special attention to the ground just beneath their feet, ready to intercept and defend at a moment’s notice.

  They don’t appear right away. I didn’t expect they would. Tension remains high in each of us. I don’t discount that they’d feign an attack just to lure us out and force us to waste time and energy to meet an attack that will never come. But not with three summoners. I doubt the Red Pack Adventurers are the only ones patrolling such a large city, and I can’t imagine there are too many cultists at or above level 35.

  It’s odd. Too big a force to be an all-out attack, too small to be just a diversion. Hedging their bets? Sizing us up? Or maybe the cult is just smaller in number than I originally thought, their ranks focusing on individual power rather than the power of larger groups, and this truly is all they can spare.

  Lindsey fires an arrow into the distance, her [Arrow of Light] rivaling the early morning sun in brightness as it streaks off toward the east. It has no effect that I can see, and unlike the results of my [Glyphcasting], it leaves no discernable destruction in its wake. No billowing cloud of ash and smoke, no fire and flame, no explosion, nor any noise beyond the subtle whistle that follows it as it flies toward its destination in the blink of an eye.

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  As she fires a second arrow, I flicker on my [Ethersight] and attempt to trace the path of the arrow with my Skill. I know how it has to fly. Its trajectory is still governed by the laws of physics as we understand them, even if there are additional variables at play based on how the System and the Etheric force, for lack of a better term, influence the end result. I watch it as she releases, and time seems to slow down as I trace its path.

  It’s not moving at the speed of light. If it were, it would be everywhere along its trajectory at every instant, even if time were completely stopped. The projectile must, by extension, have mass and therefore follow a parabolic trajectory, perturbed slightly by air resistance. I start envisioning the calculations as they unfurl in real-time before my eyes, only stopping once I get an unexpected but very welcome System notification.

  [You have learned the General Skill [Bullet Time (Rank I)]. Would you like to learn this skill? (General Skill Slots Remaining: 2/6)]

  Always a good idea to check the description, just in case there’s some ominous foreshadowing for how the Skill can backfire to my detriment.

  [[Bullet Time]: You have studied bullets, ballistics, and other projectiles, both as a theoretical concept as well as their many practical applications. As a result of your intense study, you now have an intuitive grasp of how projectiles move— as well as how to avoid them. [Agility] is doubled against all projectile attacks, excluding beam- and ray-type attacks. In addition, at a cost of 20 [Ether] per second of apparent time, can increase reaction time and perception speed by 200% while in effect. Cost and effectiveness scale with Skill Rank.]

  This Skill is… actually even better than I’d thought. I was expecting something akin to the second half of the ability, a way to temporarily speed up my own actions and reactions, not unlike the original ability that gives this Skill its name. The passive [Agility] buff against indirect attacks is just a nice bonus. I will happily take the Skill, especially given I don’t need to give anything up to take it.

  As soon as I slot the Skill in, I feel the low rumble of the earth shaking beneath my feet. As predicted, the burrowing creature is trying to take out our casters and healers in some sort of surprise attack. The moment the ground begins to break, I activate [Bullet Time], rush in, grab Chloe and Kristil by the waist, and pull them backwards toward me. Once they’re both safe, I flicker the skill back off, feeling a trace of disorientation as time speeds up around me.

  The burrower is a giant serpent of some sort. It screeches and hisses as its head rises up into the sky overhead. As expected, there’s a rider just behind the snake’s neck riding on some sort of strange-looking harness. He— I presume, based on body shape and his short hair— wears scale armor from his shoulders down to his knees. Definitely System-registered, considering the first wave of arrows and crossbow bolts bounce off it like rubber.

  The snake counters, firing a volley of hundreds of bony shards directly at me. I grin at my fortune for picking up such a useful Skill right before the battle started as I lower myself into a fighting stance. I move with a combination of fluid grace and Skill-directed instinct, seamlessly sidestepping the first barrage before bobbing and weaving through the second. No offense, pure defense, using my [Repulsion Gauntlets] for a fraction of a second when I can’t dodge the specific patterns before me.

  Chloe has her gauntlets active as well, forming a barrier to shield herself and Kristil. Meanwhile, dozens of adventurers are swarming in on the creature, hacking away at its scales bit by bit. One heavy-set man akin to a sumo wrestler charges forward with a glaive nearly eight feet tall, tearing its scales and eventually breaking the creature’s attack. Still, it doesn’t retreat, obeying its partner’s orders to press the attack further.

  We begin to turn the tide, attacking with relentless fury. I fire [Lightning Bullets] to complement Kristil’s [Lightning Strikes], while the others launch physical attack after physical attack. Much like Alexey did before, Stefan has a [Taunt] skill to draw the creature’s ire. Unlike the Master Sergeant, Stefan relies on his agility and deft bladework to parry enemy attacks and emerge unscathed. What few attacks from the serpentine beast do connect are swiftly healed by Chloe and the other [Healer] in our group, a young man whose name I don’t remember.

  We seem to be turning the tide, only to be set back when the other two cultists and their monster companions join the fray.

  I make a split-second decision to ignore both for the time being; the ooze is slow, and the ape can be contained thanks to its relatively less impactful attacks. But we won’t survive the assault of all three of these beasts. We need to kill one of them, and the snake is the most heavily damaged of them.

  I ready a [Glyphcasting] array. Lightning seems effective, and I slot the [Lightning] glyph into the center of the formation. I decide to use a [Snake] glyph, linked together with some runes that tell the spell to use that glyph as the shape of the generated spell. I decide to maximize current and keep the voltage relatively low, remembering the maxim that volts, not amps, are what kills. Two more linking runes to specify that the shape should be malleable, along with a rough size modifier, all drawn together within the center of the pentadecagram base, and the array is complete.

  I leap up into the air and aim my attack directly at the creature’s head. It dodges as expected, winding around my arcing attack. However, the spell was made malleable in its shape and form. Before the rider can react again, I force the spell to change shape, bending backward and to the side, hitting the snake in the real target— the gashing, bleeding wound left by the wrestler currently being patched up by Chloe.

  And it devastates the serpent. Its entire body convulses, and in what can only be described as amazing luck, it writhes around and lands in such a way that the rider is crushed by the back of his comrade’s own neck. He’s not dead immediately on impact, but the following [Lightning Surge] from Kristil knocks him unconscious, then dead a few seconds later, two System notifications confirming the kills.

  I blink them out of my vision. For now, there are two more cultists and their monster brethren still to deal with. They look pissed, and they seem poised to take their aggression out on me specifically.