Chapter 13 : Squads and Classes

  “Still here, huh?” Max thought to himself as he made his way over the debris. A gruesome sight greeted him. Blood and organs were strewn about in the dust and stone. He couldn’t tell you which belonged to whom though, orcs, beasts, or men. It was hard to differentiate with so much overlap. ‘Reality of war huh?’ With the rebels, he mostly abandoned the allies where they fell or had been knocked unconscious and had not been there to see much of the aftermath.

  ‘The reality of war? But he strangely found himself disconnected. He didn’t barf or feel repulsed. It was as if he was in a movie or something. The fight did have a lot of Lord of the Rings vibes.

  A faint rumble could be heard far off in the distance. In their bloodlust, the orcs hadn’t stopped to loot or even make sure that all of the creatures here were dead, which seemed incredibly stupid on their part. He could expect it from a random horde but not from something called an army. That was when he heard another groan.

  -----

  K was happy, really happy. He was a people person, and he had absolutely hated the 3 days he had spent alone. Carl screamed, “On your left K!” K broke out of his reverie and spun the shield around to face the goblin but it was too late, at least it looked like the anime goblins, the official name being Grokants. The little cretin had already jumped upon him and had stabbed him with a small knife in its hand. BRRR the barrier vibrated and sprang to life signifying the successful hit and teleported him out of the fighting range.

  “C’mon K! Fuck!” Carl cursed. “Concentrate fire near me and Lenora!” He moved forward to take K’s place beside her and the golem while the rest of the 7 party members rearranged a bit. But they weren’t a coordinated squad yet so it took only around 2 minutes for the next person to fall which made a domino effect and their squad got annihilated.

  Carl wordlessly admonished K as he drank a healing potion but the big bodybuilder just smiled. After a few seconds of glaring Carl also just sighed and smiled like one smiles when a little kid does something stupid and smiles at you. “Next time, also look around you.” Carl was actually 25 so K was still a kid to him in a sense.

  “I’ll try!”

  They had lost every time since they had challenged the first group combat but the squad was actually in high morale since a few hours ago when the system spaces of the chosen squad members were combined to form a single round hall. One half of the hall was a communal area with sofas and a dining table along with a kitchen. The circular walls on that side had 10 doors that led to separate bedrooms with adjoined bathrooms. The other half had 2 quadrants with one being individual training and other being the group combat. They could pick to challenge creatures in any team size or combination. The terrified people were just happy to not be alone anymore. But what had made them truly happy was the squad itself.

  It looked like instead of throwing people randomly, the system went with the nearest first. That meant that K was teamed up with Lenora, Thea, and Miles. Sure there were some strangers too but you usually are standing close to people you know. So, most people would probably be more comfortable with their squad. The four friends had spent the whole first half of the 4th day chatting up and getting to know the strangers.

  After sharing their worries about their families and futures and everything in between they had started on Origins and classes. K was a Vanguard(4 of Blades) with a huge shield and a Mace. Lenora was a Ranger(6 of Blades). Miles had chosen Alchemist(3 of Pentacles). They were joined by an old woman, Gia who was a summoner and had summoned(4 of Wands) the stone golem in the trial. It was a rough stone golem that looked like 6 stones placed together. Slow to move, but it was extremely durable at their levels.

  Carl had a buffing class of Captain(5 of Wands). He had strategic knowledge as well as speed and strength buffs. He was using a bow too.

  The rest were another group of college friends namely Jessica the medic(3 of Pentacles), Joe the healer(4 of Cups), Janine the lightening mage(3 of Wands), and Jackson the Gunslinger(4 of Pentacles) with his revolver. They called themselves the J-squad on account of their names and a movie reference from the Edge of Tomorrow.

  They had all been practicing to work together in preparations for the trials. After all, team evaluation was also a factor in whatever the hell was the system trying to do. The system had also added another feature now which was Class Change. Apparently, before they became Initiate Seekers, they were all seedlings, and their class and origin could be changed. Classes had a simple mechanism, on the 6th and 9th day of the tutorial, there would be a class reassignment like the first day. Following this on the 12th day they will elect their final class. They would qualify to become Initiate Seekers on reaching Seedling level 10 which will push them to Initiate Seeker level 1.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  This was to optimize them for Origin ascension. The Origin was supposed to ascend and become activated on reaching Initiate Seeker according to their own potential. After which it is very hard to change but their performance in the trials could increase or decrease their Origins as well as classes majorly. For the fortunate few creatures who actually did manage to perform over and above expectations, it was almost the only time that their Origins changed significantly as they were still newly awakened. But after the trial’s bestowals, the Origins will be almost set in stone.

  But the range of classes they could unlock in the tutorial was supposed to depend on their battle scores or Creative scores right before the Reassignments. So they all had an incentive to work to get better classes or to switch classes according to their need or preferences or the needs of the squad. As long as they were seedlings they could be molded into anything and all they would have to do was start their leveling from Half of whatever it was before, Which wasn’t much for seedlings. With Linear progression with Level 1 wanting 100XP and Level 2 wanting 200 for Seedlings, A total of 5500 XP was enough for them. That could be collected from the battle area in the last 6 days very easily as it issued additional XP for clearing stages.

  One could say that the tutorial assigned the class, and trials gave the Origin.

  Joe began, “Dude we need more muscle on the front lines. We are like a glass canon with almost all ranged.” This was a truly major problem for most squads. No matter how you cut it, we don’t really like risks. So when given the ultimatum of fighting, we chose relatively safer or exciting avenues like mages, healers, gunslingers, and archers. Nobody wanted to face an enemy up close and personal. Except maybe people who knew martial arts.

  “Well, why don’t you change to a warrior or something when the reassignment happens?”, Lenora shrugged in annoyance. They knew the problem, but the point was nobody was really picking anything melee.”

  “Man! I told you, we are from a medical college, who do you think will be better for Healing?”

  “Yeah but your Origin is Cups, don’t you think that in a world of magic, a wand healer would be better!”

  “Calm Down! Let’s not start fighting amongst ourselves. We still have almost 2 days to decide this. We’ll figure something out.” Carl had taken up the leadership role inside and outside the battle simulations. Maybe it was his class but he was naturally good at leading and calming people down. Everyone had naturally accepted his leadership especially since without him issuing commands, the Grokant wave battles were a complete nightmare.

  “I agree that we need another tank but I also see Joe’s point.”

  They had going in circles for a while now in this discussion and were getting frustrated now.

  “I think, at this point, one of us will have to bite the bullet and take one for the team.”

  Murmurs of assent came from the team.

  “Well, boss who should it be then?” Jackson snarked. He had been butting heads with Carl a little on some things. It was nothing serious just a bit of Ego clashing. “All of us had good reasons to pick the classes that we did”

  “And I respect that. But that does not change the fact that we do need a frontline or we all will be out before we can actually do the job we’re supposed to. And so, I propose that Miles or Janine take up the role.”

  “What why m…”

  “Before you object,” he interrupted Janine, “Listen to my reasoning please, Miles, I know you are good at chemistry and theory but even the system said to pick combat classes first. I know you said that since you are a Pentacle the best thing for you is a similar job but we’re out of options buddy.”

  Miles wanted to argue but Carl made valid points.

  “And why me?”

  Carl turned to Janine.

  “I saw a lot of classes of wands that can also serve as tanks, shifters, druids, and indirectly summoners. That will fulfill our needs without stunting your Origin. Ideally, it should have been a Swords guy, but the only other Swords is Lenora she is actually trained as a Ranger back home so the compatibility is too high. On the other hand, I am needed in a tactical role considering none of us have military training and we will need fighting expertise which the Captain class is providing. Now, I am not telling you to do it now, I am just asking you both to consider the options and the situations for the next 2 days and then make a decision.”

  The groups had serious expressions as they weighed his words. That was when K’s stomach loudly growled like a small beast itself drawing everyone’s attention. “What? I’m a big guy I need my carbs! It takes a lot of fuel to have 20 points in Strength.” Everyone laughed and the tension broke.

  “Yeah, All that exercise must have made us all hungry. Let’s have food first. It’s important for the future but let’s table this discussion for later, nobody’s dying today at least.”

  -----

  The man in front of Max coughed up and died. Max held a half-drunk potion in one hand. He sighed and got up. The man had been too far gone for the potion to work. ‘What a waste.’ For a moment Max found himself shocked at his thought. But then he realized that that half potion may have helped him survive down the line. Logically it had been a waste to put it in the dead man’s mouth but for some reason, he still felt guilty for having that thought.

  “Hey! Max! How is he?” A soldier yelled from a few meters away where a group of 20 was sitting around and nursing their wounds. Around 20 more were searching around the rubble for more survivors. That was the extent of the people who had escaped the massacre that had claimed thousands of lives.

  Max just looked up and shook his head. The soldier made a somber expression and made some kind of a gesture like the Christians making a cross and turned away. After Max investigated that first groan, he found a man heavily injured lying nearby. On seeing Max he pointed to his coat pocket which had a potion bottle. The higher officers all had one or two different potions. They did not magically heal all critical injuries but were good enough. After gulping it down and recovering Max and Kato began to look around.

  They found a few more survivors and officer dead bodies to loot for potions. Max still had one more to spare other than the one in his hand. His HP wasn’t full but it was now half and gaining. They tried to heal if they thought someone could be saved and now they had gathered 40. It was not even half a century, but it was something.

  “Okay! Men! Fall In! That’s enough searching. Let’s fall back to the main defense line!”