[SD:M/H] Wind Blades Till You Can't - Chapter 10

Gem rolls their eyes, “This situation is completely different! The monster below us doesn’t know we’re here this time. Makes things a lot easier. No, the real question should be, where are we going after getting out of this situation?”

June looks over to the side and points, “How about there?”

Gem glances over their shoulder and then does a double take. Right behind them is a town. Not only that, but it seems their predicament has gathered a bit of a crowd. There are mainly children pointing at them, but also a couple guards making sure nothing goes wrong.

Gem frowns, “That makes this harder.”

June nods, “Can’t exactly cause too much chaos or it would reflect badly on us. Going by those really long spears with the boar stops, these tortoises, turtles? Eh could go either way. Whatever, I’m guessing they’re used to them.”

Gem, “I’m not sure what the boar stops has to do with it, but sure, a spear that long would mean they don’t have to get close. Though I’d debate that for the locals, that’s a good idea no matter the beast.”

June shrugs, “Well, if they’re anything like a snapping turtle, they’ve got a bit of a neck and can snap out at speed. You’d want something to stop them from taking you out after you’ve pierced their head with your readied spear.”

Gem, “Huh, I hadn’t considered that. I guess just jumping down there and fighting the turtle would be a bad idea. Do we have absolutely zero idea on the critter’s level?”

June, “Well, it can’t be too high, otherwise those guards would be moving the kids away. So, at the very least, they feel confident about being able to take the thing on without any accidents.”

Gem blinks, “Wait a second! If a town was so close, why didn’t you bring us there? What’s the point of resting in this tree?”

June avoids Gem’s stare, “I uh, would have needed to know there was a town first. Like, we came from that direction and noticed the land.” She points over to the side where the flat plains turn into rolling hills.

June, “So, yeah, I didn’t see the town when I was looking for a place. Then once I got to the tree, I was quite knackered and didn’t bother looking for anywhere else. We were up the tree and a quick nap before I noticed. Even with that, it was mostly because those kids are moving around a lot, which makes them easier to notice.”

Gem nods, “I can see that. So, let’s go over what’s known and we might spot something that can help. One, the monster should be aggressive. The guards are too on point for it to not be. Two, we can’t be certain that it is actually asleep right now. Three, what the case might be with number two, getting out of the tree will force the situation. And four, while it might eventually wander off, that could take a lot longer than we can afford to wait.”

June, “I don’t disagree, I just also don’t see anything.”

Gem, “No, it has to have something. Which is the most wishy washy?”

June, “Number two? Well, I guess number one as well.”

Gem shakes their head, “No, it should be your first pick. While we can’t be 100% certain it is aggressive until it attacks, most of the guards on the wall are keeping an eye on it. At least, I figure that is what is happening with how they keep turning this way.

“Plus, the guards with the children are staying between us and them. The weakest is the second. After all, even if it was napping, we can’t be certain it still is. Sure, we’ve kept our voices down, but we don’t even know the tortoise’s level compared to ours. And is it actually a tortoise?”

June frowns, “I think all tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises? Though those feet look a bit flipper-y, so I’m guessing it isn’t.”

Gem, “Okay then, almost certainly not a vegetarian.”

June, “Wait, you don’t know the difference between them, but you do know which is vegetarian?”

Gem shrugs, “I know a bunch of random facts. They simply aren’t all connected, you know, because they’re random. Anyway, I think it’s actually weak. Err, well, not weak.

“Rather, I mean that while it will be high defense and any bite attack will mess you up, the normal attacks should be weak. Oh, and it is a turtle and thus slow moving, even if the bite attack might be lightning fast.”

June, “Sure, but that doesn’t help us much. As we already went over, simply running away might cause problems for that village and we wanted to prevent that.”

Gem shakes their head, “You aren’t picking up what I’m laying down. Sure, we could run away, but the bite is the primary threat and it is probably slow in more than just moving forward. We stand on opposite sides of the thing and circle around to stay out of attack range.

“With that, the person not being focused on can attack whatever the most vulnerable spot is. And since it is acting like it is asleep? That allows us to line ourselves up before dropping.”

June, “How am I supposed to attack? You might not have noticed, but I don’t have a weapon, at least not anymore. Dropped the staff to climb that original tree. And my magic is all buffs.”

Gem, “Huh, any natural weapons?”

June, “I’m human.”

Gem scratches their head, “Ah, right. So uh, maybe I can solo it? Or at least, I can aggro it and you can run away. Should be able to survive long enough for you to get away.”

June shakes her head, “Back to the start. We don’t want to agitate it!”

Gem shrugs, “I guess we just have to get down there and hope you can aggro it with some unarmed fisticuffs.”

June sighs, “Sure, why not.”

Gem smiles and holds up three fingers, two, one, and they drop. Gem’s wind blade leading the way. Said wind blade lands a solid hit on the turtle’s neck.

This doesn’t do too much damage, but it certainly makes sure that if it wasn’t awake before, the turtle certainly was now!

Gem smiles wide as the turtle rounds on them. The wide open mouth, aiming to snap them something fierce is just an open weak point for them to send winds blades at. A one, two strike, forming a bit of an ‘X’ as they overlap.

Gem dances back as the turtle bites through the spells, but is distracted as June bangs on it with a stick she picked up. The stick doesn’t do any damage, but it does cause the turtle to look back. Bamn, Gem sends another wind blade into the side of the turtle’s neck.

The turtle rears back a step and focuses fully on Gem. No more distractions. Which is unfortunate for Gem as they find themselves unable to keep up with the rapid snaps and bites.

Gem doesn’t worry though and shouts to June, “Give me a refresh on the buff and get out of here. I got this! Hahaha haha! My blood! Oh, is it flowing!”

June shakes her head, but does lay down the buff again. Not that it would do much good with how recent the last casting was. “Just make sure too much blood doesn’t flow out or it will stop flowing entirely.” And retreats behind the tree.

Gem ducks under a bite aimed at their head and grabs the turtle’s neck. They don’t notice, but as they put their entire strength into the grip, claw-like spikes come out of the end of their fingers. Almost like a cat’s claw, except without a hook, being entirely straight.

These claws, however, make themselves known right away to the turtle as they slice right through the turtle’s leathery skin. Gem releases one hand and charges up a wind blade before slamming their hand down. The wind blade is forced into the neck and blood spills.

With a hiss, the turtle draws its head back into the shell. This forced Gem to let go and dodge away. A good choice as the turtle doesn’t stay turtled up, snapping out again.

Gem’s lips pull back revealing their teeth have come to a point, losing any hint of belonging to an omnivore. They charge a wind blade in both hands before springing forward to deliver them directly. Gem doesn’t manage another neck shot, but one wind blade slams home into the turtle’s eye, blinding the beast.

The turtle does not like this. Not at all. Though Gem doesn’t like the follow up either. The turtle ignores the damage to its eye and with a quick twist of the neck, snaps at their arm, taking a chunk out of it.

Gem falls back and holds their unhurt arm out to cast a wind blade.

Nothing happens.

Gem’s eyes go wide and they try again as they dodge to the side. To the same result. Well, this time they can feel a sensation in their chest. As if they were trying to draw a breath, but can’t draw any air in, except with Mana. “Well, that’s not good. No reason to hold back, I guess.”

Gem holds their hurt arm out as bait. 

Bait that the turtle is more than willing to take. Head snapping out to take another small chunk out of the arm. Gem only just managed to pull the arm away and prevent a complete loss.

This wasn’t because they didn’t see it coming or the turtle was quicker than expected. Rather, they were too focused on their follow up. Gem had already landed a good number of spells on the turtle and so it couldn’t have too much gas left in the tank.

So as pain radiates out from their arm, Gem ignores it to jump onto the overextended neck. Their claws come out again as they grab on. Except this time they go further.

They had convinced themselves that the turtle couldn’t have too much health left and so went all in. Their legs reach up and dig their more normal claws on their feet into the neck as well. This secures their grip on the turtle’s neck. Though they pause, a bit at a loss for what to do now.

A bit? What about a bite? They rear their head back and open wide, their mouth hinging open wide enough to actually do a proper bite attack. Chomp!

The turtle hiss-squeals and writhes, its legs losing strength as it collapses to the ground. Gem ignores this and flexes their jaw. They can’t quite take a literal bite out of the turtle, but it certainly isn’t comfortable. Proven as within moments the turtle bursts apart into a cloud of pixels, leaving behind a couple drops.

Gem falls to the ground and lands on their back. They blink rapidly for a moment, “What happened? Where’d it go?” Then they get back on their feet with a single hop.

“Guess it died.”, Gem glances around to see if anything else wants a piece of them before kicking at the loot on the ground. “A little disappointing.”

June comes out from behind the tree. “Give it a second for us to leave combat. It takes a moment so people don’t cheese out of combat recovery.”

Gem shrugs and grabs up the shield, scroll, and three pieces of gold. Though the gold vanishes when they touch them. And with a ding, the fight officially ends.

{

Unknown Turtle defeated

Wind Blade Level Up x2

Lesser Mana Control Level Up

Level Up x2

Body degrades to B-

Mana is maintained

Stamina is maintained

}

Gem pouts, “Ah man, my body degraded.”

June shrugs, “That will happen early on. You get levels too quickly if you punch too far above yourself. Kind of surprised that only your Body degraded. Most people lose at least a rank by level ten.”

Gem, “So, what else do I get? You made it sound like I would get something more than the loot and a couple levels.”

June, “Well, you’ll be able to cast more spells for one. Guess you didn’t get taught about your limits. Anyway, the important part of the battle ending is you can identify the loot now. You might be able to pick it up beforehand, but no one knows how nice the stuff is. I think it’s to make the ninja-ing of loot harder as there isn’t some obvious visual effect to point out the good stuff.”

Gem tilts their head to the side, “Visual effects?” And they look down at the shield, which now sparkles a bright green. The scroll is a more subdued white.

June whistles, “Nice, I’m guessing that’s D+! Seems a bit too bright to be just D rank.”

Gem frowns, “So they’re using the conventional color ranking? I never liked that because green and blue are my preferred colors.”

June shrugs, “Eh, once you have a convention, you need a good reason to change it. Oh, though I will note that for S rank, it isn’t just gold. S rank instead of using intensity is copper, silver, and gold.”

Gem rolls their eyes before checking the shield and scroll.

{

Lazy Turtle Buckler [?] 5D+

Scroll of Rest 5E

}

And as the screen pops up, the sparkles fade away.

Ejection Completed Without Error - Chapter 9

Checking Stuff - Chapter 11