Magicraft master a mass.., p.13
MagiCraft Master: A Mass Isekai LitRPG, page 13
One way to find out.
The acidic spittle of the creatures was on his heels. He could feel it hitting his socks and pants. The giant monstrous insects were maybe four feet away. They would catch up to him soon. In a mad rush of adrenaline, Logan practically yelled out the incantation: “Give my socks a Speed [Enchantment] so they can run faster!”
[Subclass Level Up!]
[Enchantment Level 14]
Oh, fuck. Thank Fat Buddha, that worked!
Logan could immediately feel each step push him a little further. No extra muscle power or oxygen was needed. It was as if the socks generated a force that pushed him up and forward from the ground, like a little gust of wind.
The gurgling, hissing, and skittering that had just been at Logan’s heels began to get further away. At that, Logan caught a second wind, bringing him into an elated sprint. He risked a backward glance. The corridor was full of those dog-sized beetle-fiends, their black and blue horns extended, acid spittle hissing on the floor in their wake.
Logan grinned. He loved this feeling. Just for the hell of it, he went one step further.
“[Empower]!”
[Skill Level Up!]
[Empower Level 3]
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Potency: 9]
He could feel something shift in his Socks of Awesomeness. All of the enchantments that those bad boys held suddenly became more potent—mainly the speed and traction spells. Every step forward he took was a slap in the face of physics.
Logan bolted off, the blue lines at the sides of the floor becoming a blur as he ran past Kat and then Balmer. He grinned at the shocked expressions on their faces.
“Which way?” Logan quipped to Balmer.
“Turn left in that next T and we’re out …”
Logan sped ahead and saw light. He could have slowed down to a jog or even a walk at this point. That would have been prudent. The sprint was taking up Numa charge from his Socks of Awesomeness. But he loved the feeling so much. The air on his face, the fleeting flight in the air between every step. Logan laughed and reveled in his speed. This was freedom. This was his.
Within seconds, Logan was out of the doorway. It was evening, and the sky was cloaked in a soft orange. Immediately, he sensed something was watching him. Whatever it was had been waiting at the doorway.
There was no time to wonder about that. Whatever it was, it was curious, not hostile. Logan looked around for rocks or sticks or anything to block the entrance for when his comrades came out. There wasn’t anything.
There were bushes with little blue flowers all around them, and a few trees with low branches. But hacking the branches down would take time that Logan didn’t have.
Balmer came out. He rested his hands on his knees, panting and gasping. He took a few breaths and snapped, “We need to move. They’ll follow!”
“No,” Logan said, still trying to think. “I want to fight them.”
“Are you crazy?!” Balmer rasped. “There’s like twenty of them.”
“This doorway will be our Pass at Thermopylae.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Balmer said. “There’s too many, we—”
“Shut up!” Logan growled.
Balmer did. Logan thought hard. Tumor was offering him options and they all meshed and morphed in his mind, as he tried to think about how he could block the pass. There had to be a way. This was risky. But the reward was too great. Logan wouldn’t leave empty-handed.
Kat dashed out. Logan suddenly had it. He tossed the scythe-rang to Balmer. “Take this!”
Kat turned and looked at them incredulously when she noticed Logan and Balmer weren’t running. “Come on!”
“We fight!” Logan said and crouched down on the ground before the doorway.
CHAPTER 24
Logan had Tumor drew a red circle on the ground for him. It was maybe four yards in diameter, which fully covered the doorway and then some. The swarm of beetle-fiends was seconds away. This needed to work or running away would be hard.
“Make this ground like quicksand. Soft, hard to tread, and sinking. Make it also adhesive and sticky. Make it extremely hard to move around in. Make it become very heavy once it sticks to you. Make it paralyze anything that touches it. Make it instantly blind anyone who touches it. Make it dissolve tissue into more sticky trap-stuff! Use all the tricks! [Enchantment] and [Transmutation]. I don’t care if it sucks all of my Numa dry!”
[Transmutation level requirement not met]
[Enchantment level requirement not met]
[Subclass Level Up!]
[Enchantment Level 15]
[Transmutation Level 11]
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Potency: 10]
[Focus: 9]
[Efficiency: 10]
[Class Level Up!]
[Artificer Level 5]
[Class Passive Skill Choice Available]
A massive minty fresh feeling blew through Logan as he watched the ground inside the circle turn into glossy, bubbling mud. Slowly, the circle of sticky death started even widening, as it ate away at the grass and ground around it.
The beetle-fiends rushed at them with no heed. They fell knee-deep into the sticky trap. Hissing and acid spitting ensued. More beetle-fiends rushed over their comrades, only to tumble into the trap themselves. A score of them were soon trapped in the trap. Some only dipped a leg in there, but it was enough to weaken and slow them down substantially.
As the trap’s radius widened and as the beetles struggled and splashed around in the heavy, oily substance, they succumbed to at least partial blindness and various degrees of paralysis.
It was clear the monsters still had motor functions and some degree of sight, but they had been severely weakened.
“Don’t touch the sludge!” Logan shouted. “Balmer, throw me the crystal! Kat, keep them busy!”
“On it!” Kat said as she kicked a straggling beetle with a limp.
Balmer threw the Numa crystal to Logan, who caught it and immediately ran to the closest tree. Using [Transmutation], he removed a fat branch and started extracting javelins from it. He asked Tumor for something crude and effective and got just that. He was going for mass production.
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Efficiency: 11]
“Balmer!” Logan shouted. “Here!”
Kat roared as she punched one of the beetle-fiends with her gloved fist. It was sent tumbling on its back into the now-full pool of deadly sticky stuff. Balmer was distracting three beetles, keeping himself away from their spikes and acid. His new class had clearly provided him with speed and grace he had not had before now.
It’s actually not too bad that he’s on distraction duty.
Logan threw a javelin at one of the monsters that was trying to climb out of the pit. He struck true, but the carapace was hard. However, the projectile had enough momentum to tip the monster on its back into the sticky sludge, which is where it would stay.
Logan didn’t waste time; he just kept lobbing the javelins, and when he ran out, he simply created more.
[Skill Level Up!]
[Marksmanship Level 6]
[Skill Level Up!]
[Marksmanship Level 7]
Kat was slowing down. She had a pained expression on her face and her other leg buckled under the weight of her movement. Balmer was dancing around the insect monsters with more confidence and had by now collected the attention of most of the surviving beetles who had avoided the sludge.
The young goon was fine. He was dancing around the beetles and slicing them up with the scythe-rang. He was surprisingly adept at using it. It was Kat who looked like she needed help. Logan had to give their resident [Brawler] a breather right this instant.
“Hey!” Logan yelled as he ran up to where Kat was fighting near the pit of sludge. “On me, bastards!”
He threw another javelin as he ran and then took a better grip of the club he had [Transmuted] just now. Logan’s heart was pounding, but this was the right thing to do. He took a baseball swing at the skull of the beetle-fiend closest to Kat. It cracked and the monster fell.
“Catch your breath!” Logan barked over his shoulder as he took another swing.
It didn’t take long for Logan to run out of breath. He wasn’t exactly trained in fighting and his energy was sapped within a minute of swinging and bashing. Just as he was about to take a fatal stumble, Kat came up, kicked the beetle about to assault him and grabbed the makeshift club.
“Go back to …” Kat said between labored breaths, “… tossing sticks … You wimp …”
When the last of the beetle-fiends who weren’t trapped in the sludge were dead, all three of them fell on the grass.
Everything hurt. Logan knew some of the beetle-fiends were still alive. He knew the [Enchantments] in his trap would run out sooner or later. But right now, he just couldn’t. He had no fight left in him. He had given it his all. Over a score of beetles lay dead around them. Most of them had their legs and chunks of their carapaces melted off by the death trap. Logan was gripping a half-snapped javelin against his chest.
“You okay, Kat?” Balmer said weakly.
Kat let out a pained grunt. It had all been a blur. Logan wasn’t sure, but he thought Kat was wounded. No small wonder. He felt a little guilty. He could hear his father’s voice ringing in his head.
IRRESPONSIBLE!
“Shut up,” he muttered to himself. With great labor, Logan struggled to his hands and knees. Every fiber of his being was miserable and hurting. He had never physically exerted himself like that before. It had been a true battlefield of chaos and death. Fortunately, not theirs. He noticed Balmer was already on his feet, as shaky as he looked.
Logan had a few burns here and there from the acid, as well as a scrape on his arm from a charge attack. Mostly, he was afflicted with exhaustion. Despite that, he finally forced himself to his feet.
With some wobble and panting, he had to try to remember how to human again. But in the end, he did manage. Logan dragged his feet to Balmer and grabbed the scythe-rang from him. After that, Logan rummaged through his pouch and gave the young goon a bundle of bandage cloth.
“Fix her up. I’ll practice my aim on these bastards.”
With a serious nod, Balmer took the cloth and went over to tend to Kat. There wasn’t blame nor anger in that gaze. More like comradeship. Logan wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about that. Gratitude toward this person was hard. But he wasn’t as bad as Logan had initially thought. Somehow, he felt that was exactly what Balmer was thinking too. Logan reciprocated the nod.
With a flourish, he took aim at one of the beetle-fiends. As he threw, his father’s voice thundered in his ears.
IRRESPONSIBLE!
Logan threw javelin after javelin until he ran out. Then he grabbed the Scythe-rang and smashed the rest of moving beetles into bits. His lungs burned and his muscles ached, but he kept hacking. When there was only death and stillness around him, Logan fell to his knees.
Balmer turned to him in horror.
“Logan,” he said. “She’s not breathing!”
CHAPTER 25
Freya brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and sighed.
There was a lot to sigh about. She was worried about Logan and missed him terribly. She was hungry. She hadn’t slept that well. And the bugs pissed her off too. As did that bitch, Kat. But most of all, Freya felt like a fool.
She was doing a menial errand. That in itself was fine, she supposed. With this new life, menial errands were a part of life. She was crouching on the ground and collecting petals of a specific white flower for Dr. Rosenberg. The [Healer] was testing all sorts of plants to make medicine. Freya figured the flower wouldn’t amount to anything but a bitter taste, but what did she know?
She sighed again. It wasn’t fair. She knew she was a good person. She knew she wasn’t a gold digger. She had loved Logan long before she even understood the full scope of his family’s wealth.
But dating the son of a billionaire since you were a kid came with certain perks. Such as getting pretty much anything you wanted by just mentioning the thought. Freya had long ago promised herself not to abuse that power. It wasn’t her money. Well, it would be some day. Kind of.
Bad thought! You dumbass. It’s not like any of that matters anymore.
But she did still love Logan. That made her feel better about herself. Logan had changed a lot since coming here, and Freya had to admit it might have been for the better. As much as she adored his free-spirited, openhearted confidence, he was a child just like she was in many ways.
“Maybe that’s why we’re good together,” Freya said to herself. as she plucked the petals in her hands. The squirrel-monkeys that were observing her with great curiosity made noises that sounded almost questioning. Freya smiled at them, but her heart wasn’t in it. Not like she needed to impress a bunch of monkeys.
“But the difference between Logan and me is that irresponsibility that Malcolm doesn’t understand. I’m here sitting on my hands, trying to think of what’s the best way to go forward. Logan just goes forward. Sure, he could think more, but that man acts with no hesitation. He’s brave.”
The monkeys had nothing to say to that. But one of them made a screech and showed Freya its butt. The other monkeys laughed and then left to go on about their monkey business.
When Freya came back to the camp, she wasn’t surprised to see Malcolm Specter talking with two new people who were being offered some berries and mushrooms to eat. They ate them with such overt gratitude, it almost broke Freya’s heart.
A small trickle of people had started to come to the camp, most likely guided by the smoke of the cooking fires. Each one looked more haggard than the next. They all practically ate right out of Malcolm’s hand. Freya smiled to herself. Logan would hate to see that.
They see a strong and stern leader. Of course they flock to Malcolm in a situation like this.
Freya brought the flower petals to Dr. Rosenberg. He was an elderly man in his early sixties. Long horse face and a receding gray hairline. His ever-creased forehead was of monstrous proportions.
“Freya,” he said and offered a tired smile. “Good girl.”
“You’re welcome,” Freya said with a smile of her own. Albeit hers was strained. He clearly didn’t mean it in a demeaning way, but right now it felt like that.
“Freya.” The powerful, sonorous voice of Malcolm Specter came from behind her. Freya turned.
“Hey,” she said.
“Good job on helping our [Healer]. What are you going to do next?”
Freya knew this line of questioning very well. If she didn’t have a plan, Malcolm would give her one. She just wished he was nicer about it.
“I …” Freya started, trying to come up with something. “… Don’t know.”
There was the slightest flicker on Malcolm’s face. Freya had years of practice, so she knew what this particular lapse in poise meant: displeasure.
“Take some food and water to Simmons and ask if you can help him,” Malcolm said. “If not, go collect rocks for us.”
“Got it,” Freya said, trying to sound confident. From the look on Malcolm’s face, he wasn’t impressed. It hurt more than it should have.
He is actually trying to be polite. Logan would get reamed for this.
After getting food and drink from the gatherers, Freya sighed as she made her way toward where Simmons worked. It was easy to follow the line of stumps left behind him. That man was methodical. Simmons had always been a nondescript sort of guy, who kept any emotions he had close to the chest. Even more so than the average agent. But he had found a strange passion for chopping wood. Freya wished she had something she felt that way for.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! she screamed internally. WHAT CLASS AM I SUPPOSED TO PICK?! I’M NOT GOOD AT ANYTHING!
She saw the shirtless Simmons swinging his stone axe in a wide arc. With only a few deft strikes, the young tree he was cutting was almost done. Classes were amazing. Simmons’s single-minded enthusiasm had gotten him to at least level 15 already in his [Lumberjack] subclass.
Meanwhile I’m not even level 1 in anything.
She greeted Simmons, brought the food and water to him, and sat on a stump for a while to watch him work. The man was so engrossed in it, he didn’t even stop to eat. His built body shone with sweat in the morning sun. Resting her chin on her fist, she watched him for a while, then brought up her class selection window for the umpteenth time.
I know what class I want to pick. I think … Well, technically there’s a few. But that one would just be so COOL. But it’s weird, right? Logan would just laugh and tell me to pick it anyway. But he’s the kind of person who could get away with it …
Soon enough, Simmons wiped a sheen of sweat off his face that could qualify as a miniature monsoon rain. He was as blunt as ever when he thanked Freya, but there was satisfaction in his eyes. Freya asked what he needed help with, and soon enough she was carrying varying pieces of wood back to the camp for building and crafting materials.
It was a morning of menial tasks and incessant worrying spiraling into bottomless despair. So a regular Tuesday? Well, not for Freya. She was used to private jet planes, fancy dinners, and expensive clothes. She could live without, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss some of that.
Well, that stuff’s gone now. Better start letting it go. Also, are we going to need weekdays and calendars?
Freya spent the rest of the morning lugging lumber to the [Carpenter] and [Builder] who were building a pier by the river. Malcolm had insisted on one for washing, fishing, and water-gathering. Freya could only marvel at its many potential functions.
It was hard work, but at least she was being useful. After an hour, she was so exhausted and sweaty that she had to stop and take a rest. She plopped herself onto a smooth rock next to the food and water supplies that one of the agents was guarding. Freya thought it excessive, but then again, if more people flocked here, there were bound to be bad apples. Maybe Malcolm had a point there.
