Chapter 49: Operation Schoolyard Rescue (6)

Reidar crouched behind the twisted remains of a concrete wall, watching the school grounds in front of them.

The rest of the group was scattered, so that everyone could hide. Malcolm, Kate, and the core people were close to him.

The sight made their stomachs clench into a knot.

The Rift-Sprites were everywhere. They swarmed the playground like a living carpet of porcelain and malice made creatures.

They scuttled between rusted swing sets, clustered around collapsed monkey bars, and prowled the area of the school building itself.

They were too weak physically to bring the doors down, which had been visibly reinforced by the teachers still inside the school, and they were too stupid to use their magic to bring it down.

<Well, at least some good news.>

The system wouldn’t have given them the quest if the kids were dead.

“Jeez,” Malcolm said. “There’s got to be thousands of them.”

Kate pressed her face against her binoculars, counting the monsters, or at least tried to do so. “I see groups of thirty, forty… they’re everywhere.”

George wiped the sweat from his forehead. Since he was slightly overweight, albeit he had lost quite a lot, running around made him susceptible to overheating. “How many do you think there are?”

“More than we accounted for,” Kate said with a not so pleasant tone of voice. “Reidar was right.”

Reidar studied the swarm with unease. The creatures moved with far too much purpose they should have, not the random wandering he’d observed in smaller groups, or in the large clusters on the highway.

These sprites had organization and hierarchy.

In fact, Reidar saw quite several rift sprites sporting the Elite tag on the side of their names. These were larger than the other specimens, and likely stronger based on his understanding of the monsters’ tags.

They also seemed to be redirecting the movements of their smaller kin.

<This will be problematic…>

“Twenty-five hundred,” Kate said after finishing his own count. “Maybe more. It’s Hard to tell with all the movement.”

Malcolm’s jaw tightened. “That’s more than double what our scouts reported.”

“Your scouts need better training,” Reidar said, not bothering to soften his tone. “This kind of error gets people killed.”

The rebuke hit its mark. Malcolm’s face flushed, but he nodded. “You’re right. After this operation, assuming we survive it, I’m completely revamping our reconnaissance protocols. Besides, I think there would be a couple of people with enough survival points to buy some skills. Based on what we have seen your summon do, I bet most will want to get their hands on them.”

“Good, but be sure to warn them. Summoning skills are pricey.” Reidar turned to Kate. “What levels are we looking at?”

Kate adjusted her binoculars again, focusing on the nearest cluster of sprites.

“Level eight minimum,” she said. “Most are nine or ten. I can see several elevens mixed in.”

Linda looked at them with dismay. “That’s much stronger than anything we’ve fought today. Shouldn’t they have been level 5 at best? That was what you said.”

“They shouldn’t be this strong,” Malcolm said. “It’s clear something is happening.”

Reidar agreed. The situation made no sense; the levels even less. Town monsters should have stayed weak because of human proximity. At least, that was the consensus.

The monsters got stronger because they got mana from the surroundings, but if there were humans siphoning it unconsciously, the level of the monsters nearby should have been far less.

But then Reidar remembered something.

“I think I know why they are this strong.”

“What?”

Reidar grimaced. “When I first woke up, I went to the highway to escape some Rift-Sprites at the gas station where I was hiding. There, I found thousands of Rift-Sprites. They were level 2 and 3 at best, but there were some level 4 and 5 in the sea of monsters.”

He paused.

“Curious about the why, I stuck around there to see what they did… and well… They killed each other. My guess is, that the monsters are actually breeding en mass, and killing each other to get stronger. That would explain the levels, would explain why there are far too monsters than we thought, and it explains why even the areas you cleared had sprites within. Most likely, most of the weaker Rift-Sprites fled the nest to survive their kin feeding on them.”

“That’s… messed up,” Linda said.

“But it’s their… society? If we can even talk about one. That’s what these things are… There is no point in imposing our human view of how things should be.”

Malcolm studied the situation with a soldier’s eye. “We’ve got eighty-three fighters in total. Fifty from the main group, ten from the core team, six from your group, plus you and your fifteen summons. Against 2500 level eight-plus enemies.”

“Thirty to one odds,” James chimed in. “Those aren’t good numbers.”

Kate pointed toward a partially collapsed apartment building about two hundred meters to their left. “We could use that structure as a chokepoint. Lure them into the adjacent street, fight them in smaller groups, maybe collapse the buildings.”

“Won’t work,” Reidar said. “The Rift-Sprites have ranged attacks. The ones in the back will just bombard us while we’re trying to fight the front line. Our rear will be sitting ducks, and there is not a single one of us with something that might protect us.”

The group fell silent. 2500 monsters. Eighty-three humans. The numbers didn’t balance.

Malcolm turned to Reidar with desperate hope in his eyes. “What do you think? Can we do this?”

Reidar started thinking. His summons were powerful, but fifteen creatures against thousands was still overwhelming even if he one-shotted them, and given the monsters’ strength, it was unlikely to happen.

His own magic could thin their ranks, but not fast enough to prevent casualties among the humans. Though, there was something they might be able to do, but it hinged on luck.

“Maybe,” he said.

“What’s your plan?”

Reidar remained silent.

“Let me check something.”

Reidar opened his skill interface, pulling up his proficiency ratings.

—[«SKILL PROFICIENCY STATUS UPDATE»]—

Summon Rift-Sprite Squad 57,5%

Fireball 44,85%

Aqua Pistol 48,3%

Stone Bullet 44,85%

Wind Blade 48,3%

Summon Guardian Shade 5%

Summon Bone Militia 8%

Mending Touch 0%

—[«END»]—

A grin spread across his face as he read the numbers. Summon Rift-Sprite Squad had reached 57% proficiency. Finally.

<I can use Skill Sharing.>

He then went through the calculations. Sixty-six people he could share the skill with, excluding himself. Ten mana per target per shared skill.

The Summon Rift-Sprite Squad skill would cost him 660 mana points to share with everyone.

He had 1030 mana total. It would drain him quite a bit, but his Guardian Shade and Arcane Leech would regenerate his reserves during combat.

Each person could summon five Rift-Sprites with their base mana pool. If they had 1 point in A.C.U.M.E.N. they should have had around 100 mana points.

Sixty-six people times five summons equaled 330 additional fighters. Combined with his own fifteen summons and the eighty-three humans, they’d have over 400 fighters.

The odds suddenly looked much better, but not THAT better.

“I have a solution,” Reidar said. “But I don’t know how good it will be.”

Malcolm straightened. “What kind of solution?”

“I can share skills with other people. Temporarily grant abilities I’ve learned to willing allies.” He gestured toward the school. “I want to give everyone my summoning spell.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”

“It’s my trait. I can share any skill I’ve achieved decent proficiency with.” He paused, meeting each person’s gaze. “With this ability, each of you could summon five Rift-Sprites to fight alongside us.”

Frank did the math quickly. “That’s over three hundred additional fighters.”

Reidar nodded.

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