If You Can Avoid It, Do So
If you can avoid it, do so.
The spear was already accelerating after curving off course, as if it had grown a will of its own.
In Ho-yeong’s words, it looked like a guided missile, and the soldiers let out cheers.
“Eat this, you monster bastards!”
“What, you think we can’t hit a target that big just because you’re dodging?”
The principle behind the guided projectile was an application of the same spell Macdonaf had used earlier to remove rust from the short spear.
It’s a spell that draws together substances with similar structures... Then could we sprinkle iron filings over a Foghog and make the spearhead fly toward them?
At Ho-yeong’s question, Macdonaf had looked troubled.
It is possible, but in that case I would need to add a high-speed transference spell. Making light things gather toward heavier ones, such as using the spearhead as the point of cohesion and drawing the iron filings together around it, is easy. But doing the reverse is difficult....
As he always did when he thought of an easy route, Ho-yeong had grinned.
We don’t need any fancy high-speed transference spell. Mr. Macdonaf, just cast the cohesion spell at the right moment.
What? Then you intend to leave the transference spell to another mage?
No. I’ll give the other mages different jobs.
And now Macdonaf was laughing awkwardly.
“So all we had to do was have the soldiers throw the spears hard and fast instead of flinging them with magic... The idea that mages are often clever in all the wrong ways really does fit, doesn’t it.”
High-speed transference spell, physical version.
The Rainpa guards, who had spent more time doing labor than fighting until now, were a perfect fit for it. Their strength, honed through work, the Blooming-enhanced throwing ability, and the height advantage of standing atop the carriage roof all worked together to push the spear’s power to the limit.
“[Cohesion Guidance]!”
Macdonaf was deeply grateful for their fighting spirit. He didn’t have to worry about linking it to a transference spell, so he could focus entirely on cohesion. All he had to do was connect the overflowing kinetic energy to magic, and that made things easy.
- Fwoog!
Like a beak pecking at grain, the tip of the spear shot toward the iron filings.
The Foghogs could no longer endure it and charged toward the war chariot.
“Stop the javelin throw! Evasive maneuver!”
Watching from above, Ho-yeong immediately issued the order.
- Minoho! (Understood!)
The minotaurs turned the chariot and drove off.
Just as I thought. No matter how important the watchtower is as a target, they’re not stupid enough to just stand there and get beaten to death. However strong the Totem of Unity may be, it can’t overpower instinct for survival.
Ho-yeong had already predicted the Foghogs’ sudden movement. He had also prepared a countermeasure for it.
“Right, circle around them!”
The Foghogs were large and heavy, so they turned slowly. Every time the chariot shifted direction, they ended up tangling with one another and slamming into each other.
“All of you, lie down and throw!”
At Ho-yeong’s command, the javelin throwers on the carriage roof dropped flat. When the carriage was stopped, it was better to stand and use the whole body to throw, but at high speed there was a real risk of being thrown off.
“Aim for their bellies!”
Short spears weren’t very long to begin with, so even throwing them one-handed while lying prone was easy enough.
- Foooog...
The Foghogs were being forced through a one-sided hit-and-run assault.
“Ha. No matter how strong Akan is, he can’t handle Vulture-style chip damage.”
The damage from each individual spear was not that great to them. But the repeated pursuit and bleeding piled up into severe exhaustion.
“Huh? They’re not chasing us. Chariot, stop maneuvering too!”
Rather than keep chasing pointlessly, the Foghogs huddled together in a circle.
“What are they doing?”
They pressed their snouts together and exhaled at the same time. The breath they released all at once billowed together like they were raising a wall of steam.
「Warning! The Foghogs’ life force is recovering rapidly. Also, while the creatures remain inside the snort mist field, the following stats are greatly increased. Bleeding/disease/poison resistance, physical defense, attack speed.」
The snort mist buff could stack. On top of that, because they were blowing it out with full force, the self-heal effect was terrifying.
“No way, how many buffs can one skill have? Attack speed up, defense up, self-heal, and now resistance up too?!”
If the buffs were the only problem, that would have been nice.
“What?! The effect of the cohesion spell is dropping!”
Macdonaf suddenly panicked.
「Debuff warning! The hot steam in the snort mist is causing the mana resonance in the surrounding area to decline sharply.」
Ho-yeong clenched his teeth.
“Anti-magic field too? How is that even possible....”
He already knew the snort mist had several debuffs attached to it, but generating a magic-disrupting field was beyond what he had expected.
“Stop the javelins! Pull back for now and put some distance between us.”
Ho-yeong judged that throwing spears now would do almost nothing, while only wasting mana and weapons.
What now? It’s still too early, but do I have to use my trump card?
As he grew anxious, he spotted Meyril standing by at a distance. Ho-yeong’s decisive backup plan was Meyril’s weather magic.
No. Even if I pour magic in there now, it won’t matter. They said mana resonance is dropping around the snort mist.
Magic manifested when the mana arranged in the atmosphere responded to the caster’s power. In other words, if either the caster’s output or the atmospheric arrangement of mana went wrong, the response broke down.
Damn it. Then that snort mist field isn’t just a magic-disruption debuff, it’s basically a buff that raises those pig bastards’ magic resistance too! If enough time passes, it might as well make them immune to magic. Shit.
The Foghogs were crouched in place, not moving an inch.
They’re not blowing out more mist. Do they think they don’t need to? No, they already blasted it out all at once, so they’ve probably spent themselves.
Snort bursts consume stamina in proportion to their intensity. In other words, while they were out of stamina, they couldn’t exhale any more snort mist.
But if I let them rest like that, they’ll recover not only life force but stamina too. I need a way out. A way to drag those bastards out of the mist.
Just looking at them dug in inside that hot haze made him furious.
“Now that I think about it, this pisses me off. Why the hell are those pig bastards doing the defense I’m supposed to be doing? If you’re the attacker, act like the attacker. They lose the advantage and just hide in a zone stuffed full of buffs and debuffs, then start doing hit-and-run from inside it. If I have to go break that myself, this stops being a defense game and becomes an offense game!”
He shouted it for the system to hear.
“Give me a timeout. Pause! P-pause! PPP!”
But time kept moving without mercy.
“This is really too much. When I looked like I might get away with something earlier, you people paused time on your own and broke the flow! But when I desperately want a timeout, you don’t even pretend to hear me? Are you really angels? Not demons? If you’re angels, shouldn’t you show at least the bare minimum of mercy!”
Only then did the timeline stop. Apparently one of the system staff had been a little guilty.
The Guardian’s request has been accepted. Stage progression will resume in 180 seconds.
“Phew, thanks.”
With a breath of relief, Ho-yeong cooled his head and reviewed the situation.
Right, this is a defense game. I’m the defender, and the monsters are the attackers. So why are those pig bastards abandoning their attack and hunkering down like that?!
At first, Ho-yeong had thought it was because of survival instinct.
The premise is wrong. If their lives matter that much, then the normal thing would be to run the moment they were summoned, not whirl around a few times and then charge straight at a watchtower just to smash it, would it?
The more he thought about it, the less it made sense.
Maybe their aggressiveness was increased by whatever evil this world has, but that alone doesn’t explain it. Unless those bastards have gone nuts in a pack....
He hadn’t realized it when he saw the game on a mobile screen, but experiencing it firsthand made the monsters’ madness feel vividly real.
No, they really are insane. Because of that totem! The Totem of Unity that leads the monsters, that’s how strong its effect is. Otherwise why would they keep gathering there, staring endlessly at the watchtower in the sky? They barely have a way to attack it, and yet they’re still there. But what does it mean that they shifted aggro toward us after the javelin attack?
When he thought about it carefully, he started to have a guess.
They didn’t give up on the watchtower, their highest-priority target. They were just attacked while they had no useful action available, so they shifted priority for a moment. From destroying the objective to eliminating the disruptor.
Ho-yeong remembered how the monsters in the game had programmed behavior priorities.
Right, they’re the same kind of monsters as the ones in the game. Just like the Stalkerdale doesn’t sit around blankly when there are no heroes nearby.
The monster he had in mind, Stalkerdale, attacked hero units first above all else, and even if its target ran, it would chase them to the end.
That said, if there were no heroes on the map, it did not stop attacking; it simply targeted regular units instead. If there were no regular units left, it attacked buildings. And if there were no buildings either? In a blockade mission, it tried to break through the defense line, and in other missions, it hid somewhere on the map. It stayed that way until a new target appeared, meaning until the player spawned units or built a structure.
Then the answer is simple. All I have to do is put their priority order back where it belongs.
Having found a breakthrough, Ho-yeong shouted,
“Please un-pause! And does the remaining time on the pause get stored up if you do that?”
「No. We’re sorry, but we can’t honor the Guardian’s thrifty request.」
“Damn. I asked for a little mercy and you really only gave me the bare minimum.”
In any case, time flowed again. So did the heavy clouds in the night sky, and the dust-laden wind wandering across the wasteland.
Clouds that had somewhere to go, and wind that had lost its destination, had no choice but to keep moving with the current. Only the hot mist hovered in place, as if it had nowhere to go at all.
“What a filthy snort mist. I see. So it doesn’t scatter or move unless you really force it.”
Ho-yeong spat out the dirt that had gotten into his mouth and muttered,
“Fine. If you want us to come to you, then we’ll come. Vulture, move!”
- Giiik, gwak! (Understood!)
The eagle that had been transformed from a hogryphon flew away carrying the watchtower.
“Land!”
He set down carefully not far from the Foghogs.
“You huge, useless pigs! Hey, F*ckHog! We came down exactly as you wished!”
The Foghogs raised their heads at Ho-yeong’s bellow.
“What are you doing, not coming to smash the watchtower? Scared? So you’re just a bunch of uncivilized things from the wild with nothing to eat but fear! The name Foghog is wasted on you, so go ahead and rename yourselves Puppy-pigs!”
It was a perfect insult, striking at both the pride of their species and their sense of home.
The Foghogs all sprang to their feet at once. Not only because they were furious at the slur “dog-pig equals crap-pig.”
- Foooog?!
The biggest reason was that they had witnessed the watchtower touching the ground.
Seeing them leave the mist, Ho-yeong bared his teeth with delight.
“If I can’t move the mist, then I’ll just move the boars.”