Chapter 31 Cheating Death - Necessity (Part 3)

Staring at the enormous monster bearing down on Ava everyone held back a breath.

Daichi was well aware that not one of them could reach her or it, if it made a move at this instant.

Triggering his analyze skill Daichi stared at the huge monster trying to will it to stop from moving or thinking.

Greedy Troll

Level: 28

Description: One of the many inhabitants of the nearby river. Greedy Trolls only leave their river dwellings to hunt for treasure and food.

Daichi glanced at his window thinking that as per usual the information it gave was minimally useful at best.

The troll before them was over 10 feet tall even with it hunching it’s back to stare down at Ava. It was soaking wet and the drops of water falling down it’s slick brown skin were mixing in with the the drool falling in globs from it’s mouth.

It’s face was hideously unattractive by human standards, looking even worse than the goblins, with warts all across its face and a large crooked nose. Even though it was staring down at Ava she still couldn’t make out it’s eyes clearly because of its long straight wet locks of hair covering parts of its face.

Still panicking and moving backwards Ava was no longer stuck staring at its face, but its arms. The trolls left arm was holding a giant club.

Ava was too scared to identify it with her skill. Recognizing it for what it was (a weapon) Ava began to panic even more until her back ended up against a tree. Unable to move back any further she stopped moving and thinking all together. Panic enveloping Ava completely.

Paying attention to Ava’s panic stricken expression, Kaden leapt forward screaming trying to get the Troll’s attention “Hey hey hey! You see me here Mr.Ugly!? That’s right Mr.Ugly, where’s the Mrs? Got too scared of your ugly mug she ran away in the middle of the night!?”

Turning it’s head almost as if on command the troll gazed at Kaden noncommittally.

Noticing the trolls focus taken off Ava, Daichi called out for Hannah and said “follow me”.

Daichi planned on taking advantage of Kadens distraction to get closer to the troll, draw it away from Ava at the last second, disarm it with his ability and have Hannah deal the finishing blow.

Moving closer from the side; Daichi was trying to make sure not to distract from Kadens actions. Kaden continued to try and distract the troll by yelling profanities at it and insulting it’s appearance.

Finally noticing the trolls full attention on Kaden, Daichi put all of his energy into a crouching position and dashed forward. Just as he was a few feet away from the troll he heard crunching sounds from his surroundings and barely had time to trigger his Chaotic Eruption technique from his hand as he directed it at the general area of the troll in front of him. Just after launching his skill he became fully aware of another troll lifting his club to smash it down on him.

Feeling cold sweat pour down his back, Daichi immediately wondered what would have happened if this troll had been behind him instead of somehow hiding behind the first. Ignoring the budding thoughts Daichi pulled his swords out and stabbed out at the original trolls knees trying to pierce the bone only to feel how solid and thick the entire structure of its knees were.

Not being able to pierce through the bone Daichi didn’t think too much of it, he closed in on the troll and triggered his Chaos Erupts touch on the troll and yelled back at hannah “Finish it off” while moving on to the next one, trying to get close enough to trigger another Chaos Erupts touch on it’s leg before the 4 second effect finally wore off.

With the effect finally wearing off both trolls released mournful shrieks as if condemning these humans before them. The troll that Daichi just touched with his Chaos Erupts skill began falling to it’s knees in agony and swinging his club in front of it at random.

Trying to kill the damnable human that caused it this much pain. Noticing it’s weakened state Daichi finally caught Ava’s gaze and just pointed at the troll.

Finally coming out of her stupor, she triggered her melt skill and jumped on it’s back screaming at the top of her lungs “AHHHH!” while holding on to it’s neck, but unlike every other creature this one swung around getting off its knees trying to shake Ava off.

The melt skill going through layer after layer of skin and bone before finally hitting something vital enough to make the light go out of the trolls eyes before falling stock still face first into the ground.

Looking around at the dead trolls Daichi was breathing heavy. Two trolls took that much effort, with weapons alone they would have been hard pressed to even defend themselves much less kill these two creatures. Thinking about difficult this would have been without his skills, he immediately sat down into a cross legged position and called to Kaden “Wake me up no matter what in half an hour. Not before and not after.” and triggered his Meditative State skill.

In that battle Daichi used up almost all of his mana, on top of which it only barely helped him fend off these two creatures. The important of mana could not be looked down upon and once realizing this, recuperating his mana became his first priority.

Almost in the blink of an eye, Daichi was being shaken by Kaden.

Opening his eyes and gazing around him, he noticed nothing much had changed except Ava was looking haggard.

Kaden was staring at him, before saying “What the hell was that man?”

Replying in an even tone, Daichi replied “I needed to meditate to regain my mana. Those are trolls, and we either have to avoid trolls altogether or only fight them if we’re the ones sneaking up on them. Weapons won’t work by themselves, only skills.” then getting up off the ground he picked up his backpack and asked everyone if they were ready, getting no replies just nods, he began walking forward.

Talking a low voice “When it was still alive I used my skill on the first troll and it said that these trolls come from rivers, so we should definitely avoid anything resembling a river for now. I don’t know if there’s stronger creatures away from the rivers, but these are already enough of any issue.” Daichi calmly said.

“Yeah no kidding, what the hell was up with them? At first it didn’t even look like it wanted to kill us, it looked like it wanted to eat Ava” Kaden said in an even softer tone aimed at Daichi and not the girls.

“Maybe. They leave the river to hunt for treasure and food… In that scenario, I would think food would still be better than the possible alternative…” Leaving the implication in the air Daichi gave Kaden a meaningful look

“Are you saying what you think I’m saying?” Kaden replied even softer with a questioning gaze.

“I’m implying exactly what you think I’m saying” Daichi replied with a flat expression still weary of what had just happened to him only moments ago.

Steeling himself and making a very dark expression Kaden looked at Daichi but not at him but rather through him.

Wondering what that look meant but not wanting to ask Daichi said nothing and continued walking.

Opening his Status screen he confirmed he’d regained all of his mana, making him wonder how much mana he regenerates while in his meditative state. Clearly it was enough for now, but if he only had a few minutes of rest of he had more mana, there were too many variables.

Daichi decided at that moment that when he got the opportunity he would have to test how quickly he regenerated his mana. It would be crucial to staying alive and calculating his growth. He also felt like he would gain some form of insight from this.

With Kaden walking right next to him, Daichi asked him “How is Ava doing?”

Looking at him a little oddly but no longer like before, Kaden replied “She’s shaken up. Honestly I’m surprised she even got it together quickly enough for her to react in time to kill that troll. If I was in her shoes I don’t know whether I could have pulled myself back together that quickly.”

Glancing at him again, “So what the hell was that dude? You’ve been holding back on us like crazy” Kaden said.

Pondering on what to say, Daichi stopped walking and waited for the two girls to get closer as Kaden stopped next to him as well, when they got closer he continued “I have a skill that allows me to stun opponents, it’s the one I mentioned would be useful if we ran into a lot of opponents. I can change the range and direction a bit but it drains my mana by a lot. As for what you saw me do to the other troll. That was an acupuncture point. I attacked it based on what my analyze skill had told me” Daichi finished speaking and looked up, not wanting to meet their eyes.

He finally talked about the specifics of his stun based skill, but he still felt uncomfortable talking about his Chaos Erupts skill. It was too powerful and something inside of him was telling him that if Hannah felt she should hide her death attribute, he should definitely hide his chaos attribute.

He’d at least heard of the death attribute that some beings had, but he’d never heard of the chaos attribute. Without wanting to think about the implications he just left it at that, he had a feeling and he followed it.

Daichi was used to making decisions based on logic, but making decisions based on instinct was fairly new to him, thinking how it had served him well thus far since this huge mess began he decided to just go with it.

Suddenly thinking up to that point, he looked at the others and spoke up “I think we should come up with a name for what happened when this all began. Something we can just call it so we’re not just saying “when it began” what do you think”.

Looking around everyone was a little confused by the change in topic.

Kaden couldn’t tell if he was trying to change the topic so they wouldn’t focus so much on his skills or not.

Ava was still a little overwhelmed and had only registered the information he’d said up to this point without thinking too much about it.

Hannah narrowed her eye and gazed at Daichi but not wanting to push too much into what he wanted to keep to himself. She nodded “Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot, constantly even about the “event” and almost overtime I come up with a different name for it, what do you think we should call it?”

Kaden playing along despite his annoyance at the change of topics “Why not the apocalypse? That’s what it basically is right?”

Daichi looked back up and then back at the group “It doesn’t look like every thing ended, it just changed. Maybe not for better for us, but for others. Why not The Change?”

“Ehhh?! That’s it? Waaayy too…. normal and un-…big.” Kaden exclaimed

“Big?” Daichi retorted confused

“Yeah “big” this was huge, it should sound more… Big.” Kaden pointed out

“There was an announcement from the gods, so why don’t we say, since the gods woke up?” Ava softly said.

Finally hearing her speak after all this everyone stared at Ava for a long while

“Yeah! That’s perfect! It’ sounds huge, I mean sorry… For all we know that’s exactly what happened too!” Kaden almost yelled before realizing where he was and calmed it down a bit

Appreciating the meaning, both Hannah and Daichi nodded in agreement.