Chapter 96

Although they had support from the system, players still grew at a much faster rate when compared to NPCs, but Jom and Terry still weren’t that high-leveled, they still had a long way to go before they reached the level ‘Extraordinary’, unbound by the restrictions of the mortal plane .

Jom and Terry were happy that the villagers rushed back to help after changing their minds, but really, they couldn’t help that much—with weapons from the stone age and non-specific equipment, the cavalry units would completely overwhelm their foot soldiers .

After their initial shock from the sudden appearance of the villagers, the mountain bandits once again began their charge!

Most of the villagers were only equipped with hoes, sickles, and pitchforks as weapons and had basically zero armor, a few hunters had bows as weapons, but even then the bows they used definitely weren’t made for battle…

They were relegated to expendable minions on the battlefield, only useful to distract the enemy or to exhaust the enemy’s stamina and resources while Jom and Terry dealt damage . It was sad, but that’s the way things worked .

“Don’t come over!” Jom had no choice but to command the villagers . “Find cover, those with bows fire at will, those without shouldn’t group together either, you’ll make easy targets!”

There was no other choice, this was the real world after all, even with the system’s auto-targeting, most abilities still needed the player to manually aim it themselves .

As a warrior and cleric duo, Jom and Terry didn’t have any real AoE damaging abilities, but skills like Divine Earthsplit Blade could easily hit more than a single target, even players would sometimes get hurt by friendly fire from the explosive abilities of their teammates, and these yellow-titled neutral villagers weren’t under the protection of the system…

Although the villagers didn’t really understand Jom’s reasoning, with the mental stress of so many enemies barging towards them, they all followed Jom’s orders without question, all seeking cover to hide behind save a few hunters continuing to fire their arrows .

With the power of many times more chocobos than there were during the afternoon, the snowy landscape was covered in a cloud of white dust, under the gleam of the moonlight, their army looked even more formidable .

Jom’s eye twitched, his hair stood on end as he felt magical energy coming from behind enemy lines .

“Careful, they have a mage!”

As he said those words, a fireball erupted from within the herd of chocobos . Terry wasn’t able to dodge in time and took a direct hit . Along with the intense booming sound, Terry was flung into the air with a spray of snow, landing hard on the ground and rolling a few feet away before he came to a halt!

Terry struggled to lift his head while lying in the snow and coughed out a puff of smoke . “You could’ve told me earlier…”

Normal cavalry units were already a pain to deal with, but they didn’t expect them to have a mage within their ranks, and with a casting speed that fast they were probably a high-level mage too… Just who were these mountain bandits? Jom couldn’t help but wonder .

As he did, Jom glanced over to Terry and noticed that even though the explosion looked pretty intense, it didn’t pack too big of a punch . Terry still had more than half of his health bar left…

Even so, Jom quickly tossed a health potion to Terry .

Terry saw and quickly jumped up to catch the potion midair . He chugged the potion down with big gulps, letting out a satisfied burp when he finished .

Somehow, Jom felt like he was just cheated out of his potions .

But as things were, they didn’t have time to care about these details . “I gained a level a while ago and finally got to Level 15… I was going to wait to see if there were going to be any new class changes released, but I guess this will do . ”

He took out a small pouch and accepted the Class Change Quest on his system’s menu .

There was only one class cleric’s could change into, and that was the Aquatic Angel!

[Ding! You have activated the Class Change Quest—Aquatic Angel]

[Explanation: Through much training, you are now ready to receive the blessings of the ocean, but before that, you must possess the ability to hear the ocean’s voice, as well as sign a contract with the powerful, beautiful, and mysterious beings of the sea . They shall lend their aid to you in your future conquests should you decide to call upon them . ]

[Requirements: 1 Listening Conch (1/1), 10 Skins of Oceanic Beasts (10/10), 30 Evergreen Kelps (30/30), 1 Length of Coral (1/1), 1 Red Freshwater Cuttlefish (1/1)]

[Rewards: 1 Cloak of the Ocean (class specific equipment, does not take up an equipment slot), ∞ Oceanic Contracts, 1 Coral Pen . ]

[Note: Quest items can be found by exploring the ‘Gray Fjord Port’ area . ]

“Everything’s already prepared!”

Jom took out a small pouch from his bag filled with his already prepared quest items—since there were already quite a few players who had already reclassed to Aquatic Angel, the items required to complete the quest had been circulating through the Cleric players . A couple of these items were difficult to find too, for example, you’d think a ‘Length of Coral’ would be easy to acquire, but the system only accepts coral with very specific dimensions… Still, most Cleric players held on to a set of these items regardless of whether or not they planned on reclassing, just in case they needed them .

This, Jom felt, was definitely a ‘case’ that he needed them .

The mountain bandits let fly a few more fireballs, all flying towards Jom and Terry . Even if they were able to roll out of the way, the shockwave from the blast would still knock them off their feet, leaving them to be trampled by the oncoming chocobo stampede .

Even though they looked cute, the Chocobos boasted a hefty two-hundred something kilograms of weight beneath their feathery exterior . With their armor and the fully equipped bandits on their backs, they could easily exceed three-hundred kilos, getting stepped on by one of them was either death or a life lived crippled!

But just before the fireball came into contact with the two boys, a swarm of blue light surrounded Jom .

The next moment, the fireball hit, bursting into flames and causing a thick combination of smoke and mist to cover the scene .

Oceanside areas weren’t lacking in the wind department during winter .

Valley winds swept away the smoke and mist, uncovering what had happened .

Appearing from behind the fog was a huge… clam?

“Just in time…” Jom spat out the bottle in his mouth and let out a deep breath .

He had seen a recent wardrobe change .

Around his neck was now a scarf with blue and black stripes, if you looked closely you could even see a scale-like texture on it . A sea snail brooch was attached to it as the scarf whipped in the wind, adding an air of heroism onto the young boy .

His white robe didn’t change much, but he had an extra pouch attached to his belt containing the Coral Pen and his ‘Oceanic Contracts’ .

“Sprite?” Terry asked, looking at the bottle Jom had spat out .

“It’s ‘Water from the River Lethe’!” Jom corrected .

“Isn’t that sprite?! Wow, those things are so expensive!”

“Well, I need to change my skill points a bit after reclassing . ” Jom canceled his clam (?) summon . “Anyways, now we can finally start our second round . ”

Following his words, many small octopus tentacles started crawling their way up from the ground, inching their way towards the mountain bandits that stopped their charge at the sight of the clam…