Week 6 Mentoring: The Raid Battle (4)
The Goddess of War statue stood exactly where it always had, bathed in the light of the setting sun as it gazed down over the ruined temple.
Having studied it for a moment, Song Cheon-hye shot me a glance—was I ready?—and I gave a light nod.
[3]
[2]
[1]
[Start!]
🏛 Statue: 100%
⏳ Time Remaining: 9:59
The goblin horde advanced in brisk, orderly ranks. With her eyes locked on them, Song Cheon-hye walked out through the main gate.
Crackle— The ink-black gloves on her hands spat sparks, sending currents of electricity coursing across the ground.
A vast circle drew itself around her, the magic array gradually taking on light as geometric runes shimmered to life within it. Whether the goblins closed in or not, Song Cheon-hye focused solely on completing the array. Soon the finished circle erupted in brilliant radiance.
Lightning Field
The stretch of ground already dyed red by the sunset seemed to grow a touch brighter, but beyond that, it was hard to tell what had changed. The spell's true worth revealed itself only when the goblins drew up right before the temple and began their charge.
Bzzt-crack! Bzzt!
"Keagh?"
"Kik!"
The instant the goblins set foot inside the array's range, sparks burst violently from their bodies. The raw power wasn't anything special, but the field dealt continuous damage and paralyzed them, dragging their movements down to a crawl.
A zone spell.
Song Cheon-hye had admitted it herself: the reason she'd let one or two slip past her now and then on her first attempt was her own lack of control. The skill she'd chosen to shore up that weakness was precisely this zone spell—Lightning Field. Blanketing a fixed area in electricity left no room for control to enter the equation at all. All that mattered was the staggering amount of mana required to sustain the array.
And Song Cheon-hye was a mana monster whom even I acknowledged, so the cost was never going to be a problem.
"Keaagh!"
"Kerrk!"
That said, the goblins were a tenacious lot in their own right. Any creature with sense would have yelped and bolted the moment sparks started jumping off its own hide, but the [Commander] rule forced them to shuffle onward, willy-nilly. Their advance had unmistakably slowed, though—and a far more powerful lightning spell swept over them in the next breath.
Bzzt-crack-crack!
Standing at the heart of the array, Song Cheon-hye cycled through several wide-area spells in sequence, holding the main gate without a pause. While I watched her work at my leisure, a commotion rose from the flank—muffled shouting and the heavy thud of bodies ramming the wall. The breach would come soon, so I made my way over.
Rrrrumble—
The instant the wall crumbled and a hole tore open, I concentrated Wind Force on the gap. Bewildered noises drifted back through from the other side.
"Huh?"
"Kek?"
The goblins were stopped dead before they could even attempt to pour through. Under Dang Gyu-young's command they strained to force their way forward, but there are things compulsion can do and things it can't. An F-rank monster's body was simply too frail to push against wind imbued with physical force.
I kept the wind howling to plug the breach, then turned my attention back to Song Cheon-hye.
BZZT-CRACK!
She's holding up well enough.
Song Cheon-hye was roasting every goblin that dared approach, one lightning spell after another. Not a single one had made it through the main gate yet. This was only her second attempt, and already she'd patched up a good portion of her weaknesses.
🏛 Statue: 100%
⏳ Time Remaining: 4:46
Her first attempt had failed before the five-minute mark; this time she'd sailed right past it.
Smooth sailing so far.
Which meant it was just about time for the next obstacle to make its entrance. No sooner had the thought formed than a vivid presence made itself known from somewhere out there.
"……?"
Song Cheon-hye tensed, bracing for the enemy she could sense coming—yet at the same time, a puzzled look crossed her face. She had clearly felt a presence like this somewhere before, but she couldn't seem to place where.
"……!"
Before long, an exclamation point practically popped up over her head. She'd spotted it: striding boldly toward them through the goblin horde at the far edge of her vision. A creature a head or two taller than the common goblin, with a burly, muscle-bound frame and a massive kitchen cleaver clutched in one hand.
"Grrrrr……"
The Beheader Goblin. The Formidable Foe of the time-attack raid had just walked out onto this stage.
Its timing is a bit early, though.
The reason this Old Shrine defense carried no [Formidable Foe] rule was that the Beheader normally only appeared at the very tail end—a brief cameo somewhere in the final minute. Dang Gyu-young's meddling had dragged that entrance forward. If anything, its last shred of conscience was not popping out the instant the raid began, I supposed. Either way, nothing changed the fact that it had to be brought down.
Song Cheon-hye and the Beheader Goblin locked glares for a few seconds.
"Grrrk."
Then the Beheader gathered speed and came charging. Streaks of blue mana poured from its body, wreathing the cleaver. Song Cheon-hye summoned a thick bolt of lightning into one hand, gripped it, and strode out to meet it. The distance between them collapsed in an instant, and mana-soaked cleaver met thunderbolt head-on.
KRA-BOOM!
The outcome was plain to see: Song Cheon-hye had the advantage. She stood her ground without so much as a wobble, while the Beheader staggered back several steps, currents crackling up the hand gripping its cleaver. Refusing to accept that it had lost the contest of strength, the creature let out a shriek and hurled itself forward again.
"Graaaagh—!"
"……"
Song Cheon-hye calmly drew out her next bolt and answered. Fierce clashes erupted again and again, scattering mana and sparks—and every single time, it was the Beheader who gave ground. The gap in skill was simply that wide.
It bore repeating: Song Cheon-hye was first-year Disciplinary Committee. The only problem was—
Winning or losing isn't what matters right now.
The goal of this raid was defense. What truly mattered was whether the enemies were stopped or not. Mapped onto the present situation: could she hold the goblins off while fighting the Beheader? Song Cheon-hye did hold the upper hand, but the Beheader was no pushover she could casually dismantle. With so much of her strength tied up in their exchange, hairline cracks began to spread through the once-airtight defense of the main gate.
"Kerrk!"
Sure enough, one goblin slipped past the Lightning Field, nimbly weaved through the wide-area spells, and finally, inevitably, got past Song Cheon-hye herself. A persistence and stubbornness truly unbecoming of a goblin. It even threw a sneer back over its shoulder at her before sprinting for the statue.
"Kihihik!"
"That—!"
Song Cheon-hye flared up, but she couldn't very well abandon her duel with the Beheader mid-swing to give chase. The goblin snickered on, hopping forward in a great leap. Or rather, it tried to leap.
"Kihi…… hi?"
Its body stopped dead in midair as though it had smacked into something invisible, then bounced backward and crashed to the ground. Song Cheon-hye, piecing together what had just happened, stole a glance my way.
"This should do it, right?"
"More than enough."
KRAK-BOOM! Before the sprawled goblin could even pick itself up off the ground, a thunderbolt came down and fried it on the spot. Then, as Song Cheon-hye traded several more exchanges with the Beheader, two goblins broke through the defensive line this time.
"Kek?"
"Keh?"
The pair that had slipped through tried to keep running—only to march in place. Their feet were unmistakably stepping forward, yet they went nowhere at all. My Wind Force had them pinned. I was busy plugging the side wall myself and had to cast from a distance, but even hampered by the [Close Range] rule, a brief halt to their movement was well within my power. And that brief moment was all the time Song Cheon-hye needed to seal the gap. Lightning swept across the flailing, bewildered goblins.
Bzzt-crack!
Song Cheon-hye, just moving to chain into her next spell, twisted sharply sideways. The mana-laden cleaver carved through empty air.
"Grrrr……"
The Beheader rumbled low, as if to say, quit looking elsewhere, then resumed its assault, cleaver whirling wildly.
"Tch……"
For once, even Song Cheon-hye, who had held the advantage throughout, could do nothing but defend. And that meant the cracks were widening all the faster.
"Kerrk,"
"Kik!"
Two goblins broke through the main gate's line, then four, then five…… Even when Wind Force froze them in place for a moment, more piled up than Song Cheon-hye could finish off. Much like her first attempt: once the breach began to grow, it spiraled beyond control. And the worse it got, the faster Song Cheon-hye's composure frayed and her hands and feet tangled up.
So I called out to her.
"Song Cheon-hye."
"Yes?"
"Just take down the Beheader. Show me how long it takes you."
"……! Understood."
She grasped my intent at once: concentrate her firepower, clear the Beheader quickly, and put the experience and data it yielded to use on the next attempt.
Crackle…… The Lightning Field blanketing the main gate dimmed, then vanished altogether. In its place, Song Cheon-hye's entire body began to crackle, fierce currents igniting across her frame. She had cut off the mana feeding the array and funneled every last drop into herself. The next instant, her body shot forward as a single bolt of lightning.
Pop!
"Grrk?"
The Beheader Goblin reflexively heaved up its cleaver, but the thunderbolt slamming into its face was a hair faster.
KRAKA-BOOM!
About time I got over there and held the line myself.
🏛 Statue: 48%
In the moment my attention had wandered, the goblins swarming the statue had carved the health gauge down by half. Left alone, the rest would drain away in a heartbeat. Failure. The dungeon would reset. At the very least, I had to buy time until Song Cheon-hye felled the Beheader. I set off toward the statue at a brisker pace—though still without surrendering an ounce of composure.
Amplification
Wind Force rank increased (C+ → A+)
Advancing all the while, I cast Wind Force across a wide swath of ground. The force-laden wind swept the area in a single great pass, and the goblins toppled like leaves whipped up by a gale, tumbling off to one side. Another broad gust sent them rolling right back the other way.
"Kerrk!"
One goblin fought desperately to keep its footing and hurled the wooden spear in its hand. It came flying straight at me with startling accuracy. I gave the creature a passing once-over and kept my focus on swinging Wind Force this way and that. Just before the spear could bury itself in my chest, it bent sharply of its own accord and planted into the dirt instead.
Distortion activated.
Cooldown: 23:59:54
The goblin that had thrown it wore a perfectly blank expression, utterly failing to comprehend what had just happened. A moment later the wind caught it and knocked it flat,
"Keagh!"
and it joined the rest, rolling helplessly this way and that. With my end settled for the moment, I turned my view back to Song Cheon-hye—
BZZT-CRACK! KWA-BOOM!
She was hammering the Beheader with a relentless barrage of overwhelming lightning magic. Even while juggling the goblins and the Beheader simultaneously, the duel itself had favored her; now that the Beheader was all she had to face, there was nothing left to say.
"Grrrr……"
The Beheader Goblin's resistance was bleeding out. The mana coating its cleaver had grown faint, its movements sluggish. The way it staggered told the story: its strength was nearly spent. And just before Song Cheon-hye could finish it with one final, powerful blow—
"GRAAAAGH!"
the Beheader Goblin loosed a last, desperate roar. Gathering every remaining scrap of mana into its cleaver, it flung the weapon with everything it had left. The blue-glowing cleaver spun end over end as it flew across the temple—
KWA-CHUNK—!
—and sheared clean through the statue's waist, cutting it in two. The severed upper half hit the floor with a tremendous crash, shattered, and scattered into fragments.
🏛 Statue: 42% → 0%
⏳ Time Remaining: 1:21
The Goddess of War statue has been destroyed.
"……?"
For a long while, Song Cheon-hye simply stared blankly at the statue—now nothing but legs—as if she couldn't believe what had happened. Then, little by little, reality began to sink in, and her mouth slowly fell open.
"……?!?!?"
The shock was too great for words; all she could do was open and close her mouth, over and over, like a fish gasping for air. She went on doing it even after the dungeon completed its full reset and the statue was restored to its original form.
Dang Gyu-young dropped down lightly nearby and spoke up.
"Much better this time. Patch up a few more things and you'll clear it on the next run. Now go on out and tell Hong Yeon-hwa and Gwak—"
But the moment she saw Song Cheon-hye's face, she cut herself off and pressed her lips tightly shut.
"……"
She wore a perfectly blank expression, but she couldn't hide the corners of her mouth, which were twitching violently. Dang Gyu-young threw herself into a desperate battle against laughter, clenching her jaw and taking slow, deep breaths to steady herself. Before long, her composure was flawless once more.
And the instant she looked at Song Cheon-hye's face again—
"Pffht!"
Failure.
Dang Gyu-young slapped a hand over her mouth and spun away, shoulders heaving, punctuated every so often by tiny, sob-like sounds.
"Hnngh—pfft—hmph!"
"……"
Song Cheon-hye's face was a portrait of pure indecision: should she cry, should she rage, or should she laugh along?
[98] The Support Ate It All