Chapter 125: Skills of a Ranged Specialist

When Kerr initially relayed her status sheet information to the group, Jadis found herself wondering if there was actually any big difference between a person who had a combat class and one who didn’t. At face value, Kerr’s attributes were not significantly higher than Aila’s even though she had more than twenty levels on the redhead, only ten of which were in her powerful arcanist class. Of course, Kerr’s Dexterity stat was huge; with the bonus forty-five points Jadis had pumped into her, Kerr was sitting at one hundred and six points in the attribute. Even before her boost, the archer still would have had a score of sixty-one, which at least seemed high to Jadis, though she still lacked some context. Overall though, Kerr’s attributes looked far less impressive to her than she expected.

“With that much Dexterity, you should have amazing accuracy with your bow now,” Aila commented as Kerr took a sip of water from her canteen. “And if you have any active skills that are powered by Dexterity…”

“Yeah, it’s a shame I literally can’t use my bow,” Kerr said with a frustrated sigh, holding up her empty quiver. “If we were in a forest, I could at least make some basic makeshift ones, but there’s nothing down here to do that with. Without ammunition, my charged shot skill is absolutely useless.”

“Is the bow and arrow the only thing you can use a ‘charged shot’ on? You have your throwing axes, don’t you?” Jay asked while motioning to Kerr’s hand axes.

“Dexterity helps my accuracy when I throw them,” the therion shook her horned head, “but it doesn’t do anything for the damage. My charged shot is limited, too. Actually, let me just read it out. It’s my first skill anyway.”

If that was her primary class’s first skill, Jadis could well understand Kerr’s frustration with Jadis’ class and skills. There wasn’t much to the skill. It seemed like it would be an effective attack skill to her, since it sounded like it was adding on a static amount of extra damage per attack based on her Dexterity, but still. The skill didn’t come across as particularly exciting, not when compared to her Mirrored Body or Debauched Duplication skills.

“You have a family class?” Eir asked, perking up from where she sat cuddled into Dys’ side. “Your family clan must be old.”

“It is,” Kerr shrugged. “Most of my extended family have Nox Archer as one of their classes. It’s been a thing for a few hundred years. Nothing special, though. Barely any difference between it and other basic archer classes.”

“Are you a part of the main clan then, or a branch?” Eir questioned further, a look of interest on her face. “I assume branch since you’re so far from the Verdant Sea.”

“No,” Kerr shook her head, “I’m in the main clan. My father is the clan head, actually, Nox va Ratosh. I just didn’t want to stick around where all the trails are already walked, you know? Left the Sea years ago to travel, haven’t been back in a long time.”

At Jadis’ multi-mirrored look of surprise, Kerr blew a noise out of her lips and waved dismissively with one hand.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m number eighty-seven out of one-hundred-and-twelve children, last time I checked anyway. The old fucker is ninety and he just sired another litter with his youngest wife three years ago. Me being the chief’s daughter means nothing.”

“You have one hundred and eleven brothers and sisters?” Syd asked incredulously. “How? How the—wait, youngest wife? How many wives does your father have?”

“Fifteen,” Kerr answered casually almost bored, leaning her cheek on her hand. “I get this sometimes from people who don’t know therions, so let me give you the short version, okay? Clan and branch heads usually have a lot of husbands or wives because it shows off how strong and rich and amazing and blah blah blah they are. If a male clan head has a bunch of wives, that means lots of children because we therions give birth to litters, usually two to four brats at a go. You now get one question in response to the short version. Go.”

Jadis sat still as she thought about what Kerr had just explained about her people. She had a lot more than one question she wanted to ask but considering Kerr’s obvious disinterest in talking more about her culture, she decided to just go with the first question that popped into her head.

“What happens if you have a female clan head?” Syd asked.

“Well, since she’s only got the one breeding hole, there are a lot less children. Doesn’t really matter how many sausages you shove up there, can only get but so pregnant,” Kerr answered dryly. When all three of Jadis’ bodies gave her an unimpressed look, the therion rolled her green eyes and added a little more detail. “It depends on the size of the clan, but in the big ones like mine, if there’s a female head and she wants to have a lot of little pups running around, she will usually pick a few surrogates to breed with her husbands. Her own sisters, most times, to maintain the bloodline.”

That was certainly one solution to what Jadis wasn’t entirely sure was a problem. Kerr’s answer created even more questions about Therion society that Jadis wanted to ask, but she restrained herself. They were, after all, supposed to be talking about Kerr’s class, not her people’s strange culture. Pushing her curiosity to the side, she motioned for Kerr to continue her description of her primary class skills.

With a nod, Kerr began rushing them all out, delivering a dizzying array of skills that while a lot to process, did give Jadis a lot more context for how martial classes typically worked, especially when compared to what she’d learned from Aila.

It seemed to Jadis that Kerr’s class was designed to do one thing well while doing practically nothing for anything else. On an extra second’s thought, she realized that since Kerr had no doubt been offered choices as to what skills she chose as she leveled, same as her and everyone else on Oros, that meant the therion had purposefully made herself into a one-trick pony. Jadis had seen just how good Kerr was with a bow during the various fights they had been in, and she had no doubts about the deadly efficacy of her skill. Still, without her bow, or in their current predicament, without any ammunition, Kerr’s build was essentially neutralized with six of her eleven class skills made temporarily worthless.

As wild and carefree as Kerr made herself out to be, Jadis knew the woman wasn’t a fool and she definitely wasn’t stupid. She was an experienced mercenary who had the kind of forethought to invest in her own backup business so she could retire regardless of how much gold she might end up earning through her bounty hunting work. There was no way Kerr didn’t know going in about the weaknesses that came from the kind of hyper-focused role she’d made for herself.

As Aila and Eir asked a few questions and Kerr discussed answers with them, it became clear to Jadis that Kerr did in fact know exactly what she had been doing when she made the class. She just hadn’t had all that many options, either.

“I ended up choosing Nox Archer’s Trick Shot for the extra accuracy,” Kerr said as she brushed out the fur on her dog-like tail. “If you’re going to be reliant on a limited amount of ammunition, you want to make sure every shot fucking counts, yeah? My kin back home don’t have to worry about things like that since they have access to a ready supply of arrows from the clan and can take skills for what the Nox style is known for, shooting multiple arrows at once. I don’t usually have that kind of luxury when out on long trips, so I didn’t go down that route. Don’t find too many fletchers out in the wilds.”

“It’s not that different from Imperial crossbowmen,” Thea softly added, barely loud enough to be heard. It was the first thing she’d said in a long while, the quiet guard having gone practically unnoticed while the others talked. Jadis had a feeling the woman preferred things that way, not seeking any kind of spotlight and mostly staying to the background. Still, even if Thea was an introvert, Jadis didn’t want the girl to go unheard when everyone else was talking, so she made sure to engage with her.

“So the crossbowmen in the army have similar skills to Kerr?” Jay asked, making eye contact with the shy guard.

“S—sort of,” Thea briefly stumbled over her words. “It’s, um, not exactly the same. Kerr is, ah, a lot more focused on a single attribute than the army typically allows, but yes. I think her class would probably be a, um… tier one, possibly tier two, maybe? But more likely tier one.”

As she spoke, Thea became lost in thought, her expression turning calm and absorbed, like she was putting a lot of effort into her consideration of Kerr’s class. After a moment though, she glanced up to see several sets of eyes on her and she flushed pink, looking away.

“N—no offensive, of course. It’s j—just my opinion and it’s probably wrong anyway.”

“Eh, none taken,” Kerr assured the timid woman. “It’s true enough. It’s not a shit class or anything, but it’s basic. My secondary class is a little less common, but it’s still nothing special either. Knowing you military types, it’d probably be called a tier one too.”

“Tier one?” Dys asked, looking curiously between Kerr and Thea. “What’s that?”

“It’s an imperial rating system,” Aila ended up being the one to answer. “The military uses it to rate the combat potential for classes and their skills. It’s not exactly fool-proof and you can’t apply it to every class, but it’s how they generally judge the military worth of a class so they can better guide their soldiers on which classes to choose.”

“The Empire chooses your class for you?” Syd exclaimed as her gaze snapped to Thea, shock in her voice.

From what Jadis had understood of the Empire up to that point, people were free to choose what classes they wanted and classes were thought of as a private matter, one that was extremely personal. The idea of the military telling its soldiers what classes they had to choose seemed to fly in the face of everything Jadis knew about the society. It also pissed her off a little to think about a governing body just straight up telling its citizens what they were allowed to be and what they weren’t.

Before Jadis could get too worked up over the idea, Thea rapidly waved her hands back and forth in denial, her expression a little scared as she looked up at the three giant’s stormy expressions.

“N—no! Not at all! You can’t be forced to take a class, that’s wrong!” Thea shook her head vehemently. “They just tell you what the different classes tier ratings are so you can make an, ah, informed decision.”

“Yes,” Aila agreed. “If you’re going to be in the military, you need a combat class. You can’t expect to join the front lines if you choose Baker as your primary class at your unlocking. But if you want to be put in some kind of special assignment or the like, a higher tier class will help you with that, since it would generally mean you’re more powerful and therefore more capable of accomplishing more difficult tasks.”

“Yup,” Kerr chirped, her chin resting in her palm now. “It’s a whole lot of imperial philosophy about how strong classes are. And as fascinating as all that bullshit is, how about I tell you about my secondary class before I fall asleep?”

They had gotten more than a little sidetracked, Jadis realized. Again. There was just so much she didn’t know about Oros or how things commonly worked, so it was easy to go off on tangents if she didn’t stay focused.

“Well, hey, I get it. If even this extremely minor talk of philosophy makes your head hurt, maybe you should go rest for a while, recover some of the little brain power you have,” Syd addressed Kerr with mock seriousness. “Feel free to take a nap.”

“Shut up,” Kerr growled, baring her fangs at Syd. “Don’t make me come over there and bite you. I’ve got more than enough brains for imperial philosophy.”

“You sure?” Dys asked with genuine sounding concern. “I’m pretty sure I fucked most of your brains out a few hours ago.”

“Ah fuck,” Kerr sighed. “You’re right. All my brains poured out of my ears between orgasms number five and six. I guess I don’t have enough left up there to read out my secondary class.”

“No, no,” Dys laughed, “I’m sorry. Go ahead. We’re all listening. Tell us what your secondary class is about. It’s called Far Wilds Traveler, right?”

“Yeah,” Kerr said, one side of her mouth going up in a half-smile, revealing one fang. “It’s a hybrid class. Has some combat utility but it’s more focused on travel and exploration. With the skills I chose, it helps with my stealth and scouting, too.”

“Practiced Polyglot?” Aila asked, her eyebrow raised questioningly at Kerr.

“Yeah, what of it?” the archer said defensively. “I like to learn new languages. Helps me invent new and interesting ways to curse people out.”

“Fair enough.”

Looking at the whole picture, Jadis could see that Kerr’s class combo had made her into a highly specialized scout archer who could deal a lot of ranged physical damage as well as move stealthily through most terrains. While her effectiveness was reduced due to her lack of ammunition, she still had a great deal of utility for the group since she could still act as a scout and guide. While it wasn’t relevant to their current situation, Jadis could see Kerr using her skills to great effect in combination with Aila and herself when hunting demons. If they managed to find their way out of the caverns, she was seriously considering broaching the subject of making their temporary partnership a more permanent one with her. Not only did she seem very strong under the right circumstances, but Jadis liked Kerr. She was fun to be around, if a little rough around the edges.

On a more immediate note, Jadis wasn’t sure Kerr should have put her boost into Dexterity considering how she couldn’t make much use of it at the moment. Maybe strength would have been a better choice, so she could do better in melee? Or maybe Vitality, for survivability. Then again, with her over one hundred points in Dexterity, Jadis was sure Kerr could put one of her axes in the eyeball of a fly from a hundred feet away. Considering she was a ranged attack specialist, forcing her to get up close and personal when she wasn’t trained for it probably wasn’t the best idea. At the very least, Jadis resolved she needed to get Kerr more things she could throw at any monsters or demons they encountered on their way out of the caverns.

“All right, that’s me,” Kerr abruptly slapped her knees. “Who’s going next?”

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