Chapter 34: The Wizard's Super Save (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 34: The Wizard's Super Save (2)
Beside me lay the corpse of a middle-aged monk, his head half-bald.
And in my hands, a pair of magic wands.
Ahead of me…
“For fuck’s sake.”
The earthen wall was gone, as was the Cumulonimbus.
From the front of the collapsed cathedral, across the rain-soaked, muddy ground, an overwhelming number of Sentries began to charge.
“C-Caleb…”
Yernil’s voice trembled with fear as she nocked an arrow.
“Do you have a plan?”
Back Attack gritted his teeth and stood to my right.
“I’m going to retrieve that ossuary.”
“Then I’ll—!”
“No! Stay put! Don’t use any skills, just stay still!”
Just getting the ossuary wasn’t enough. Aimus’s entire body, including his heart, had succumbed to necrosis.
Even if his soul had been preserved, his body was a lost cause. He couldn’t be resurrected like this. So, what was the plan?
[Hourglass of the Turn-Based Cooldown: 13 seconds]
First, I had to survive these thirteen seconds.
It was manageable before when we were holding our position on the roof, but… could we do it now?
“Dust Explosion.”
I unleashed whatever magic I could.
“Lightning Shock!”
Fzzt!
Yernil fired off arrows.
Crack!
Back Attack threw a magical dagger.
But it wasn’t enough.
Hundreds of Sentries were swarming us from the front, and our attacks had only taken down a handful.
[Hourglass of the Turn-Based Cooldown: 9 seconds]
Time was crawling!
Should I leave and come back?
No.
That was the wrong move. The Caretaker was smart. It would have figured out what I was after.
It would know I might try to re-enter. It would probably have Sentries waiting right at the gate.
If I left and came back, I’d die instantly.
I had to end this here.
“Throw this!”
I handed Back Attack a bomb, one that had belonged to the beastfolk rogue.
It was the most powerful weapon we had, but…
BOOM!
…it only managed to blow away about ten Sentries.
The enemies were closing in.
Back Attack gripped his daggers in a reverse hold and leaped forward. With no tank, our rogue was on the front line. What a mess.
Should I order a retreat?
“Caleb!”
Someone else jumped through the gate from the other side.
“You must go to the temple and report to Nathaniel!”
I’d never been so happy to see that talkative lizard.
“I cannot let you die before you receive your due!”
“I can’t believe I’m back in here!” the halfling crossbowman cried, appearing with a grimace.
“My earthen wall is on cooldown. Can I use any other magic?”
The dwarf wizard had joined them.
“Out of the way, little rogue!”
And the barbarian charged to the front line.
[Hourglass of the Turn-Based Cooldown: 7 seconds]
*
This was a gamble.
In a game, I wouldn’t hesitate to make this call.
It was still the early stages; if the game went south, I could just restart.
But now, I was betting my own life.
This was insane.
Think rationally.
Wasn’t it better not to have come back?
It was true I saw a way to save the monk. But the chances of success were ridiculously slim.
But…
[Hourglass of the Turn-Based Cooldown: 2 seconds]
Still, a father of three is practically a national hero.
I saw the face of that mother who came to see the monk off.
How could I go back to her with Aimus’s corpse?
Can you even imagine the look on her face?
Do you have the courage to face that?
Sink or swim, I had to pull this off.
[Hourglass of the Turn-Based Cooldown: 1 second]
Why did the retired Aimus join this dangerous journey again?
Because he was the party leader.
Back Attack’s party leader.
Sure, he had officially kicked Back Attack out by the time he was consumed by madness.
But we all know.
The human psyche is bound by things that go far beyond such paper contracts.
The reason I jumped back in here was something like that, too.
[Hourglass of the Turn-Based is now available.]
I had to admit it.
Both with Yernil and now.
Sometimes, I’m not as cold as I think.
*
“Back Attack!”
I barked out orders like a machine gun.
“Leaping Ambush on the Caretaker!”
I knew all his skills. He’d tried to use them to tear out my throat, after all.
Of course, he couldn’t kill the Caretaker. But that was fine. The goal was to get behind it.
“Then use ‘Plunder’ to steal its staff!”
He had snatched the healing potion from my belt in an instant. With that same skill, he would now steal a weapon.
“Then use Shadow Leap to get back here!”
I had given him a cooldown reduction elixir to refresh his Shadow Leap.
The problem was the high failure rate of Plunder.
It was easy to use on a squishy wizard like me after I’d been subdued, but against a boss monster like that, it would be difficult.
But that was fine, too. Because…
“Yernil! Ready a lightning arrow!”
I had bought her a ton of special arrows.
Trust us, Back Attack.
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 60 seconds]
[Action Points ■■■■]
*
Sally’s magic wand contained psychokinesis.
The physical force of magical psychokinesis is trivial.
So weak it couldn’t even pull a backpack off a spider web.
Just like in the Venomic Spider boss fight.
Even after I cast the spell and pulled with all my might, didn’t the backpack remain stuck to the web, refusing to follow the wand?
The most psychokinesis could do was something like untying Yernil’s hair tie.
Or, perhaps, moving an unbroken ossuary with a glowing green light, lying in the middle of the enemy camp.
“Move.”
The Hourglass’s introductory skill, ‘Direction Controller,’ cost no action points to move the wands.
Psychokinesis was an instant-cast spell, just like Lightning Shock.
If I activated psychokinesis during my turn to grab the target and then moved the wands…
Clink.
The ossuary floated into the air.
Slowly, over the course of sixty seconds. As carefully as possible.
I brought the ossuary toward me.
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 52 seconds]
[Action Points ■■■□]
The action point I just lost wasn’t because I ‘cast’ psychokinesis.
Psychokinesis has no casting cost.
Instead, it continuously consumes action points while you manipulate an object.
It made sense.
It wouldn’t be logical if lifting Yernil’s hair tie and lifting a one-kilogram ossuary cost the same amount of AP.
It was the same in the game.
When using psychokinesis, the spell doesn’t end when you click on the target. You have to input additional commands to proceed.
And it consumes action points according to the degree of manipulation.
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 27 seconds]
[Action Points ■■□□]
Slowly. And carefully.
I still had plenty of action points.
I had to get it here within four bars.
I could do it.
I was already halfway there.
“Now, Yernil. Shoot the Caretaker with the lightning arrow.”
So Back Attack can steal the staff.
[Your Turn. Time Remaining: 10 seconds]
[Action Points ■□□□]
Aimus.
I will absolutely not let you die.
Do you know what the game calls it when a character protects an ally who’s about to be attacked?
A Super Save!
That’s what flashes on the screen.
Aimus.
You saved our party with a super save several times, and now it’s my turn.
[All Action Points have been consumed.]
[Ending Turn.]
[The Hourglass has been flipped again. Cooldown: 60 seconds]
I clutched the ossuary to my chest.
This was the wizard’s super save.
*
BANG!
The special arrow, its tip wrapped in a scroll and crackling with magical current, struck the Caretaker of Rest.
Normally, a high-level boss like the Caretaker should resist being electrocuted.
But right now, the monster was in a ‘wet’ state.
“Grrrkkk!”
A strange noise gurgled from the boss’s throat as its legs gave out, and it collapsed to the ground.
Slash!
At the same moment, Back Attack’s dagger scraped the back of the Caretaker’s neck.
It didn’t do much damage, but what mattered was that Back Attack had moved into position.
Plunder.
Against the Caretaker, incapacitated by the electric shock, even the skill of a much lower-level Back Attack could work.
The massive magic staff—a wand to the creature, a staff to us—teleported into Back Attack’s arms.
Then, another Shadow Leap.
“That’s it! Let’s go back!”
With the barbarian and Bernard desperately holding back the enemies at the front, and the halfling Remus and Astin firing their crossbow and magic from the rear…
Leading the entire party, carrying Aimus’s body…
We leaped back through the gate.
*
“Hah… hah…”
That was fucking exhausting.
Harder than any winter military training I’d ever done.
“Just in case, I’m saying this now. Nobody else has any weird critical injuries or curses, right? If you do, speak up now, dammit!”
“N-No!”
“I’m fine! Just a few scratches.”
“I’m okay!”
After hearing answers from all around, I took a moment to catch my breath.
With a heart full of gratitude for the generous Sally…
[Raise Up Dead Body Scroll]
I took out Sally’s necromancy scroll.
Why did she have something like this?
Considering her party member was a puppeteer, their group of marauders must have used disguised monsters when hunting the third-rate adventurers on the 1st floor.
They probably made it look like combat dolls and undead were the monsters.
They’d send them charging at a third-rate party, then approach under the guise of saving them, only to wipe them out.
It was so obvious.
Well, thanks for the scroll anyway.
“Rise, Aimus!”
I turned Aimus into an undead.
You can’t die yet.
Strength-based monks are too valuable to lose.
And then…
“Undead Restoration.”
Using the bastard Caretaker’s staff, I cast a healing spell exclusive to the undead.
It was to restore Aimus’s necrotic heart and tissues.
To think I had to resort to such an insane method because we didn’t have a high-tier priest.
Even I thought it was absurd, but it was better than being dead.
Right, Aimus?
“Undead Slumber Scroll.”
I had one more, besides the one I used on Back Attack.
These things were cheap, so Professor Isilof had given me a spare.
“Now, I’ll use this to put Aimus into a deep slumber, then resurrect him just like I did with Back Attack.”
“B-But…” Bernard said.
“We don’t have a resurrection scroll, do we?”
A very valid point.
Unlike Undead Slumber scrolls, resurrection scrolls were incredibly expensive, and their distribution was strictly managed by the temple.
I had received one for this project, and Bernard had received one for his mission, but we had used them both.
On Back Attack and Astin.
And the ossuary would shatter the moment we took it out of the Labyrinth.
So it would be difficult to get a new resurrection scroll from the temple.
But the Labyrinth always provides what an adventurer needs most.
More specifically, the Labyrinth’s treasure room does.
[Compass of Greed]
I took out the artifact and gauged the direction indicated by its beeping signal.
We weren’t far from the treasure room.
What do you think, Yernil?
See? It’s always best to save the treasure room for last, right?
*
Paladin Bernard’s party followed Caleb’s.
Caleb himself had said it wasn’t necessary, but Bernard wanted to stay by the genius wizard’s side a little longer, especially now that he had no front-line fighter.
The mysterious wizard possessed a legendary-grade artifact.
A compass that located hidden treasure rooms within the Labyrinth.
He said it was something he received from Professor Meldini.
I see.
Bernard was starting to piece things together.
Just as he had heard from the high priests of the temple about how to descend to the 1.5th Floor, Caleb had received support from the professors of the magic university.
Information about the Caretaker of Rest, the location of the ossuary…
And the compass.
The magic university and the temple had a friendly but competitive relationship.
Perhaps the magic university knew far more about the inter-floor spaces.
But none of that mattered now.
What Caleb had just accomplished was on a level beyond mere knowledge or information.
Truly…
Bernard’s shock had passed the point of singularity.
His depths are unknowable.
What were the limits of this wizard? How was it possible to save someone who had died from a Tier 3 necromancy curse like this?
The battle at the cathedral and the method of escape.
He had not only succeeded in retreating from an impossible fight against far stronger enemies, but he had also completed his own mission and even had the presence of mind to save the fallen Astin.
And on top of all that…
“What… what the.”
He had even saved Aimus.
“How… is this possible…”
By throwing himself back into that inter-floor space.
He had risked his own life to retrieve the man’s soul and the means of his recovery from hell itself.
It’s staggering.
As a fellow adventurer, Bernard felt like he was looking at a colossal wall.
Though the wizard was so young and small, he felt even larger than the barbarian.
“Haaa.”
Caleb crouched in front of Aimus, resting his weary head on his knees.
“You can give him back the pendant yourself.”