Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! I’M FINE, JUST REALLY LATE!

ANYWAY, as some of you might have noticed, I’m a bit late with the update this time. But it was actually only because I had to help a friend with configuring something on his computer. I May make a SS update today, but I make no promise.

ALSO, I find it kind of funny how sometimes I’m reading comments on other FF, and see people using cookies as bargaining chips, which kind of make me feel that I may be spreading this custom around the site. Probably it’s just me getting precipitated.

ALSO(2), With this, we are pretty close to finishing the arc, and then we get to see Yuu again! Hooray!

Have a good read!

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You have earned a new NPC companion: Rioreia, lvl 30 Greater wyvern.

NPC companions will accompany you around, but may not necessarily follow your orders. They are independent from you and may leave you whenever they wish, but different from pets their deaths are permanent.Rioreia is a young and playful greater wyvern. She’s still too young to use most of their magic, but her species natural toughness still makes her more than capable of surviving fairly harsh environments.

I looked at the words in the window and sighed briefly, not sure on how to react to them. Then I turned to my side, where I saw as Rio and Pea playing together, with one chasing the other around, then suddenly reversing their task for apparently no reason whatsoever.

Well, the two are kids, and since Pea seems fairly quiet with her new friend, I won’t try to stop her from playing around. Sighing loudly, I walked back to Red, who had her wolf sniffing around in search for the smell of the other culprit, as his senses were in fact a bit better than Aura’s, whom I had left guarding the two flying dragons. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I simply sighed while shrugging.

“So, do we have anything besides the smell?” She asked me and I nodded.

“Yeah. We know it’s a salamander, so it certainly didn’t fly away.” I replied.

“You seem oddly confident of that…” She said while frowning slightly.

“Yeah, I’m ninety nine percent certain of that.” I said with a sigh. “Remember what Olaf said about the salamanders?”

“Yeah… They live on the other side of the mountain and are the strongest predator around.” She said briefly and I nodded.

“And do you remember what Rathian said about the cave?” I made her another question.

“Hmm?” She said with a frown. “She said she found it and started using… Oh… I see…” She said with a nod.

“Yeah… I think that was a Salamander’s cave, since it was on the others side of the mountain. But once Rathian took it over, the beast came down to this side using the same path we took to go up there and started attacking the livestock.”

“I see…” She nodded . “It does make sense, I guess…” She said with a shrug and turned to her wolf, who looked towards a direction that seemed oddly familiar to me. “Isn’t that where you were looking around earlier?” She asked me dryly.

“I guess…?” I said with a raised eyebrow and she sighed before following the wolf. “Pea, Rio, let’s go.” I said to the two, who looked to me and nodded quickly before flying in our direction. Aura ran right behind them with Lieutenant on her back.

I followed them while Crys floated besides me with a playful aura around her. It seemed that she also liked the girls. Walking besides her I saw both Pea and Rio playing around while running behind Red. Taking this chance, I turned towards the crystal elemental and asked her.

“So, any idea of the salamander's level?” I asked her, and watched as she blinked in surprise for a moment before frowning.

“Hmm, if I think about the area's general level and the strength of the salamanders in general…” She said with a frown. “I’d say around level thirty two or something…”

“So weak…” I said with a frown.

Crys giggled a bit with this, but didn’t do anything else. Following behind Red, who was already quite a fair distance ahead, we sped up and soon were walking side by side. As we walked, I glanced back at the farm, where I could see Rathian, back in her larger form doing something. Since it was quite a fair distance I couldn’t define what it was, so I turned back to our search.

Following the wolf, we quickly reached the area I was at back when Red called me about the path upwards. And right besides that point, hidden behind a small rock outcropping, was a cave with some clear claws marks and scorched areas. Red turned to me with an accusing look and I rebutted with the fact that she had called me right when I was about to reach that place.

Taking a deep sigh to prepare myself, I started by leaving the party I had with Red, Wulf and Pea so that I could go back to realistic mode, since I had set it to change to normal temporarily while I invited them to my party, because they were all in normal mode.

As soon as I was done, I took out my sword from my backsheathe and readied it by holding it horizontally to my right. Taking a quick peep into inside the cave, I saw many small lizards, not much bigger than Aura’s passive pet body, laying around on the ground.

I was surprised, since I had half expected for it to be only a single large monster, but it seems that I was wrong.

I turned back to Red, and asked.

“So, do you want to split the monsters?”

“Can do.” She said with a nod while giving her pets a stay order. “I take the next set then.”

I nodded to her and then turned to Pea and Rio, who were looking at the cave curiously.

“You two, stay behind and let Red and I take care of it.” I told them and noticed when they frowned slightly.

“I want to play too!” My sister complained.

“And I can fight too!” Rio complained. “I’m even stronger than you!”

“Pea, the enemies are way stronger than you. You would probably lose before you even got close to them.” I told the small fairy, causing her to sulk. “And Rio, Lieutenant, Aura and I already have our own way of fighting together, so it may be better for you to watch us for now and later we let you come in, since you may end up making it harder for us, okay?” I told her and saw as she sulked for a moment, but eventually nodded. I smiled a bit awkwardly while I petted her. “Then, if any of the salamanders escape us, I’m counting on you to protect Pea, okay?”

These words seemed to please her, because she widened her eyes for a moment before nodding proudly and flying close to the sulking fairy. Smiling a bit at the scene, I turned back to Aura and Lieutenant and saw that the fox was already channeling her armor skill. I waited a bit until she changed into her magic enhancing water armor.

As soon as she was ready, she and Lieutenant stood side-by-side and nodded to me, so I stepped inside the cave and targeted the closest lizards, making a window pop up above its head.

Fire-belcher broodling [lvl 29]

(aggressive)HP: 400/400

-Spew-fire

-Horde call

I frowned a bit at the sight of the monsters. For their level, they had low health, but the fact that they fight as a group, helps even that out.

Preparing myself, I cast unstoppable charge on myself, the derivative version of tactical charge, and used the first form of fang-strike, which consisted of a downward vertical slash during which I use my whole body as a lever, followed by a forward stab that deals less damage but ignores armor. The only problem of these skill is that they cost fifty energy each.

So after landing the whole attack, I used a simple slash, which is the basic two-handed skill before rolling away.

-82 -45 -55

Combo! (x1,1)

-200 (200/400)

Right after I finished my roll away, leaving the lizards shocked since two of them just got attacked and one even lost half of its health, I opened up a space for Lieutenant and Aura to do their job. Aura froze the ground, leaving the salamanders locked in place while Lieutenant charged ahead with his two daggers whose blades were covered in a sharp ice, and landed a couple of strikes on the lizard I left half killed.

The moment when the lizards finally recovered from their surprise, they turned towards the cat so to attack and made a strange movement with their mouths, almost as if they were gulping food, except in reverse, and spat a fireball at the cat. Literally, they spat it.

It flew in an arc and almost landed on him, but Lieutenant quickly darted away just in time, throwing a freezing dagger at one of the closer fireballs that threatened to hit him.

-13 -1 -12-1 -11-1 -13-1 -12-1

-66 (134/400)

Barely after the cat moved away, the lizard was pierced right through the belly by an ice spike that came up from the ground.

-110 (Fatal) (24/400)

Soon after the damage landed on the small guy, the ice freezing him in place broke and it tried to run away deeper into the cave, but before he could get away, I charged at it and landed a vertical slash, finishing it.

-48 (0/400)

The other salamanders seemed to get angry with that, since they started to spew fire at me from afar, but…

-9 -8 -10 -8 -9

-44 (906/950)

Well, my basic defense plus the fire resistance from my armor pretty much set the damage to a minimum. Even when I am in realistic mode, the damage is so minimal that I barely feel it. Of course, if I were to take a physical attack instead, chances are that I would take a lot more damage, both in numbers and in actual damage to my body, so it would be better to not grow complacent.

Contrary to what I thought, taking care of low level hordes is a lot more problematic than taking on a single stronger monsters when in realistic mode, because even if they inflict little damage to you, they can break a bone or otherwise cripple you which makes surviving a lot harder.

I charged through their fire spits so that I could reach the group and landed a simple sweeping strike, hitting all of them at the same time and making the sword’s conversion ability sky-rocket, reaching the full stack.

With a quick nod to Aura and Lieutenant, the two jumped back as I activated the blade’s skill, Shatter earth.

This skill was one taken directly from Doggy. With the sword fully charged into damage mode, I use all that charge into a single attack, where I put the blade behind and to my right, cleaving through the floor, ending with my sword pointing towards the sky.

But if this was all, it wouldn’t mean much. While it shreds the earth, it fragments it into many small stones which fly forward in a storm of shrapnel. Sadly it doesn’t ignore armor like the one from the boss, but at least it’s a good AoE attack, dealing around sixty damage to all the monsters in range.

But the cool down is ridiculously long, ranging around two minutes, during which, half of that time I get stuck with the defensive sword.

Quickly finishing up the other salamanders with the help from Aura and Lieutenant, there was one single salamander that “somehow” managed to escape towards the cave entrance, where Rio immediately took action by swooping in and clawing it.

I gave her some praise, which seemed to please her as she stood up proudly. I followed close to her since the next mob-pack was Red’s, and it was a good time to recover from the slight scorch damage I had on my unprotected arm and face, as well as the light scratch on my leg, which could come back to bite me later.

Red aimed at the other group, deeper down in the cave, and sent her pets to attack them, hounding them up in a single line before starting to bombard them with simple but continuous arrow shots.

She didn’t really have all that many flashy attacks like me, but with her pets making sure that the monsters couldn’t get close to her, she was more than capable of sniping them easily from afar, making sure to pick them out one by one.

While she made sure to loot all of their bodies, I gathered the ones that I had killed into a corner of the cave so that I could skin them later after we cleared this cave. I am quite intrigued with their saliva, since it seems to be what they use to create the fireballs. A fact proven by the frozen mucus that Lieutenant stopped with his knife.

After that group, we each killed one more pack which made Red turn to me with a slight frown.

“Isn’t that sword really overpowered? You deal so much damage with it.” She said confused and I smiled awkwardly at her words.

“Not that much. This is more due to the fact that I’m in realistic mode.” I told her.

“I thought that made the game harder instead of easier?” She asked confused and I shook my head.

“Instead of harder, I’d say more complex.” I told her while scratching my head. “You see, just like I take extra damage from certain attacks as well as taking extra status debuffs, I also deal extra damage when certain conditions are met. In this case, the weight of my sword deals extra damage because I cleave them with my slashes. But if I were to go against bigger monsters I wouldn’t get that bonus. Also, bigger weapons makes it harder to target weak spots on bigger monsters, so less fatal strikes for me.”

“I see…” She said while nodding and then looking at my leg, where there was a fairly deep cut. “And that’s the damage you took when they land a hit on you?”

“Yeah… It’s still stinging even now.” I said with a wry smile and she nodded slowly. “Also, the heavy sword makes it harder to perform longer combos for bonus damage…” I added at the end.

As we walked a bit more, we finally reached the deepest part of the cavern. It was a larger opening where we could see some remaining bones from the cows and some smaller ones that were probably the pigs. In the middle of the cave was a single stone pillar that supported it, and right behind the pillar was a large salamander that was almost two meters long and vivid red scales.

When we were fighting the other salamanders earlier, I found their heads to be a bit big, but this one took it to another level, with its heads being almost as wide as the body and some saliva dripping from the corners of its mouth, which would burn the moment it came in contact to the ground.

It seemed to be sleeping between some eggs, probably some salamanders eggs.

I turned towards Lieutenant and Aura, looking at them for some time. They seemed to sigh briefly before nodding and taking a step back. Red raised an eyebrow intrigued by this.

“I’ll be taking the big one alone. It’s what I usually do. When I find a strong enemy for the first time.” I told her and saw as she sighed loudly and sat behind.

“Booh is going to beat big lizard alone?” Pea asked me confused.

“Yeah, I’m going to fight it alone.” I told her, and saw as she widened her eyes surprised.

“No! Big lizard is dangerous! I will help Booh!” She said worriedly, but I simply sighed while petting her head with a finger.

“Look, Booh is very strong, so no need to worry, okay?” I told her and saw as she nodded weakly.

I turned back to the salamander, seeing the nameplate appear above it and sighing.

Fire-belcher broodmother [lvl 34]

(aggressive)HP: 1200/1200

-Spew-fire

-Fire-lash

This was at most a named enemy, not even considered a boss or something of the kind. Which is a bit disheartening since I was half-expecting a boss-fight here.

Oh well, at least I can get some new materials for myself. I quickly checked my throwing knives on my bandolier and my flash bombs, just to be sure.

Since the monster was sleeping, I could take my time to land a strong blow on him… Rather, her, since it’s broodMOTHER, I guess…

I started by standing right in front of it, sword in hands as I cast unstoppable charge on myself and aimed at its head with my sword, so that I could land a fatal strike right away.

With that, I started using fang-strike first form, which hit the salamander, causing it to wake up with a cry of agony as the big numbers came up. But, as I have said some time before, there’s a small trick to these martial-arts based skill that doesn’t apply to normal skills. With forty energy left, I immediately cast talon strike, second form on the salamander.

Taking off from the stab-hit from the fang strike, I pulled out the blade from the monsters before taking a step forward while spinning and making a tilted slash that hit both of its legs at once.

-132 (Fatal) -84 (Fatal) -42 (snare)

Combo! (x1.1)

-283 (917/1200)

The first to hits being in the same place, the unprotected head, led the salamander to take twice the damage, just like a critical strike. The third hit, however, dealt a lot less damage for landing on the legs, which weren't vital parts, dealt only a fraction of the original damage, however it also applied a slow on her.

Now, if I still had some third form strike, I could combo it into my attacks. Basically, I can combo a second form after a first form for half of the energy, and from what I guess, that also happens with the third forms. I’m still not sure, however, since talon strike is the only one I have at least on the second form.

Anyway, this exchange did wake up the monster, so she started by turning around and making a bulge on her jaw before spitting a huge ball of fire in my direction. I barely managed to roll away with my remaining energy but the splat from the saliva managed to stick to my leg.

It didn’t actually start burning, but it didn’t let go even after I shook it away.

I didn’t exactly have the chance to try and take it out, since the salamander immediately ran at my direction and tried to head-butt me. I managed to use the large blade to somewhat divert the impact, but I was still thrown backwards and took some impact that left my arm stinging.

-22 (928/950)

I quickly recovered from the impact and jumped aside to avoid another attack from the salamander, at the same time doing a downward slice that hit its tail, followed by a sideways slice that I then used the inertia to follow right behind my swing and not stay in the same place for too long.

-39 -83 (Critical) (bleed) -8

-130 (787/1200)

I smiled at that as I ran back to avoid a claw that came at me. Sadly, I couldn’t quite land the attacks on a weaker part, but at least I managed to land a critical strike, and since my weapon is a cutting one, it have the chance to add the extra bleeding damage.

Piercing weapons and blunt weapons also have their own effects, piercing having the chance to deal damage based on the enemies’ armor and blunt weapons have an extra chance to deal a more powerful status effect, like broken bones and so on.

The salamander growled angrily at me before trying to jump at me with its short legs. I rolled away and turned just in time to land a vertical slash that landed on its tail.

-29 (758/1200)

-8 (750/1200)

Dammit, so the tail doesn’t take that much damage, huh? I sighed annoyed for that, and lost focus for a moment. A single moment that the salamander took to twist its body enough so that it could bit its tail, leaving it covered in a slimy substance that ignited the moment it came in contact with the air.

Being caught by surprise, I didn’t manage to run away when it lashed the tail at me, hitting me in the chest, knocking all of my air out and throwing me against the wall.

-106(critical) (Crushed) (822/950)

I cringed in pain as I tried to move away from the area before another attack came. And crushed? What’s that? Maybe it’s similar to th…

“Booh!” Pea shouted loudly as she started to release hundred of different light-balls in the direction of the salamander. This caught Rio by surprise, and so she also started spewing fireballs everywhere in the cave.

“Wait! Stop! You two!” I yelled, but sadly, the damage was already done by then.

Some peebles fell on my head and on the salamander's. I looked upwards and saw that with all the spells running amok on the ground, the cave's ceiling started to get many cracks running through it. I didn’t need to be a genius to know what was happening.

“Rioreia! Take Pea away from the cave! Quick!” I shouted at her, and saw as she stared at me surprised for a moment before nodding and passing beneath pea and making her sit on her back before turning away and darting out of the cave.

A quick look at Lieutenant and Aura showed the two preparing to run away, a soft white mist enveloping them. Red had already started to run away by then, so I started to run behind them while I felt the mist from Aura also enveloping itself around me.

But moving was hard, even more when the bleeping lizard slammed into me, trying to attack me and taking a good chunk of my health.

-43 (779/950)

Lieutenant and Aura turned back to try and help me, but I send them away with a quick look as I kicked the salamander away from me and took one of the flash-bombs I still had with me, blowing it right in its face.

The salamander jumped backwards in surprise, which I took the chance to throw a freezing knife on its feet, freezing it to the ground. I quickly turned back and tried running away, but every time I moved, I felt a sharp pain on the right side of my chest, almost as if I had a broken bone, so the most I managed to move was at the pace of fast walking.

Thankfully, Aura managed to freeze the ceiling for a moment as she passed, giving me some extra time to walk through the cave that threatened to fall on me. As I walked past the bodies of the salamanders that I killed earlier, I felt as pain covered my heart at the lost materials.

I got out the cave with around ten seconds ahead of the collapse and fell face-first into the ground as slowly got used to the pain in my chest. Pea and Rio looked at me worried for a moment, but before I could do anything, a message popped in front of me.

QUEST:

Livestock disappearance.Not only you found out what was hunting the livestock, but you also managed to find Loran a new worker, satisfy a Greater wyvern with your methods and end the other offender with incredible speed.

Olaf and Loran will be glad to hear the news, so talk with them to receive your rewards.Rewards:

Talk to Loran or Olaf

I saw the window and sighed loudly, just like when I dinged level twenty nine, probably due to the death of the salamander. Still, I got up slowly when I felt that the pain wasn’t all that bad anymore and turned to the two young dragons, who were looking at me worriedly.

I smiled at them, but they only cowered at that, trying to shrink their bodies even more.

“Geez, I didn’t expect to see the general so soon again.” Red commented between breaths.

"Now... Booh is going to teach you two about being careful when attacking." I said to the two, who were barely managing to stand still by then.