Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 41 I Want to Change Teammates (Part 1)
Ever since we took our first step onto this snowy plateau, we have been facing two enemies at the same time: one is the Chachink Sasquatch, the violent indigenous people who have lived and multiplied on these snowy mountains for generations; and the other is the soft, cold white snow under our feet, which seems sacred and noble but is actually insidious and cunning.
Every piece of snow here is like a death trap set for travelers from afar. Every step forward, we have to put our feet into the thick snow. The snow is soft and fluffy, and it is hard to step on it, as if stepping on a thin plate suspended in the air. It always makes feel uneasy, for fear that it will not be able to withstand the pressure at that moment, and completely collapse under our feet, turning into a white abyss that can swallow up life. And every step forward, we have to struggle to pull our boots out of the thick snow. These white demons are restraining our legs and feet all the time, but we are completely powerless against them. The only thing we can do is to persist and endure.
Our opponents have no such worries at all - I once said that their naturally broad and big feet allow them to move freely on the snow, without being penalized by the terrain. This deformed body shape makes them look like a slow-moving duck when they move. Perhaps you think they are not terrible, and I certainly won't deny your wisdom. But you may understand this from another perspective - a slow-moving duck is certainly not terrible, what is terrible is that you are slower than a duck.
So, when a group of Sasquatch slowly come towards you with big wooden sticks raised high, you could have dodged this slow and random attack, but now you have to drag your disabled legs and bite the bullet to face the primitive weapons flying all over the sky.
What is distressing is that this group of uncivilized highland barbarians could not possibly have received the rigorous and harsh combat training of warrior trainers, let alone master the upright, accurate and practical combat skills of professional adventurers. The big wooden stick in their hands is like a mad snake, sometimes hitting from top to bottom, sometimes sweeping left and right, sometimes stabbing straight at you, and even very obscenely teasing from bottom to top - I sincerely warn you with my own painful experience that in this rotten fight with no technical content, the only positive thing you can do is to clamp your thighs and pray to the Supreme God with all your piety, so as not to be accidentally hit in your vital parts by this random beating - friendly reminder, especially your crotch.
At least... ow... don't get hit twice in a row...
I still don't understand what the "Warrior's Handbook" that was handed to me along with the "Warrior's Badge" when I successfully became a full-time professional was for. It had no attribute bonuses, could not be discarded, could not be damaged, and could not be traded. To be honest, I once suspected that this handbook was just a tool used by the huge trust monopoly organization, the Falvi Continent Official Adventure Qualification Certification Agency, to defraud and make money. Its main purpose was to forcibly collect fifty silver coins from adventurers like me as the so-called "certificate fee" - in fact, its cost was only slightly more than five copper coins.
Of course, after deep reflection, I finally regretted this dark and pessimistic attitude: I really shouldn't have doubted the bureaucrats of Falvi Continent with such the greatest malice - there is no need to doubt it at all, it is a fucking fact!
This hand-made humorous book with rough paper and poor printing is full of those weird and awkward truths that are completely useless to your adventure. It is full of useless nonsense such as "courage is the source of warrior's strength", "warriors believe in discipline and order", "sacrificing life to protect comrades is the duty of warriors", "warriors charge forward and never retreat", etc. If every warrior strictly follows what is written in it, I guarantee that this will be the shortest-lived profession. It will never tell you something that is really useful to save your life, such as what I am deeply experiencing now: before taking risks, you should first choose your comrades.
It was not until the rude and barbaric plateau natives came to me that I realized the following problem: in our adventure team, there were three ranged attackers who exceeded the normal proportion, a shadow thief who relied on sneak attacks and cunning traps to fight, and a poor warrior who was unlucky enough to be tricked by them and destined to be a meat target. When facing the enemies attacking in groups, our only choice was to kick the warrior whose life was worth less than paper into the crowd, and let him rely on his strong defense to attract the enemy's anger - if it was just anger, it would not matter if he attracted a little more, but the bad thing was that among the many things he attracted, anger was only the least lethal one - to buy time for other teammates to output damage and kill the enemy with all their strength.
You can find countless advantages from this simple yet effective five-person basic tactic, such as: reducing life loss, improving the survival rate of the entire team, maximizing killing efficiency, speeding up the team's advance... and so on. This is really the only choice for a wild adventure team like ours with super lethality.
This is an almost flawless tactic. If you must say it has a flaw, it has only one flaw that can barely be called a "flaw". However, this barely valid flaw is so obvious that I can't like it anyway:
The destined unlucky target is me!
Seven or eight big-bellied Sasquatch surrounded me, with huge wooden sticks flying over my head. Being surrounded and beaten by such a group of barbarians is a tragic thing for anyone. What's even more tragic is that my responsibility is to keep them firmly by my side. If any of them changes their target and stops beating me, I have to pout my nose and pull my ears to make a face at them, using this skill called "provocation" to arouse their anger and make them beat me harder, thus satisfying my professional needs.
To put it simply, my task now is to dedicate my body to a group of strong, burly, hairy and savage men, and let them use all their strength to vent and ravage my body. If they turn around and leave, I will try my best to seduce them back... I really can't say more - is being a warrior really a "noble profession" as written in the manual?
I buried my head under the shield and let the thick weapons splatter my body with blood. I was so traumatized both mentally and physically that I was about to cry. A thought that was both hurtful and dishonorable quietly grew in my heart: I wanted to change teammates.
When people are suffering, what they need most is the support of their companions. There is a proverb that goes: when someone shares the pain, the pain is only half. When I think of my comrades who fought side by side with me, my depressed heart finally ripples with a trace of warmth: at least when I was suffering, my comrades were still fighting tenaciously and tirelessly. They would not waste my sweat, blood and tears. They...
"Wow..." Just when I had high hopes for my companions, a biting chill brushed past my shoulder, and a sharp blue ice spike appeared in my field of vision. The sunlight refracted , emitting a colorful halo, which shot directly into the lower abdomen of a Sasquatch.
This gorgeous and dangerous attack was a level 50 powerful single-target ice magic "Ice Crystal Projection". It was the most powerful offensive spell that Feiyin had mastered so far. It not only had the additional effect of slowing down the opponent like most ice magic, but also caused penetrating damage, further increasing the damage on the basis of the original magic damage...
"Pop." Just when I had high hopes for Feiyin's powerful magic that spared no expense, a small blood flower like popcorn shyly bloomed on the Sasquatch's head, followed by a data of "-76" - even if I took off my shoes and smashed it, the damage caused would be more than this.
"Why is the power so weak?" I turned around and cried out loudly, risking being beaten to death.
"I don't know either..." Fei Yin was also angry, "... maybe these fat white guys have a high resistance to ice damage!"
"Why didn't you tell me earlier!" I yelled while hiding under my shield.
"Didn't I just find out about this too?" Feiyin yelled back even louder than me - this woman never seemed to worry about avalanches.
"What should I do? I can't hold on any longer!" I swung my sword wildly to fight back, giving up even the chance to witness the results of my battle.
"Hold on, I still have a way!" Feiyin did not give up. She chanted in a strange tone for a while, and a cold and misty white gas gradually condensed in her hand. After a moment, the sound of her chanting suddenly disappeared, and the gas floated towards me like a meteor, and then attached to my body. Then, I heard the teeth-grinding "crunch" sound when the air froze, and then a magic armor shining with ice formed outside my body.
This magic armor made of frost greatly improved my defense, and at the same time did not hinder my movements at all. What was particularly practical was that every time the Sasquatch's stick hit this armor, it would suffer a certain amount of rebound damage - more importantly, the freezing effect of the ice magic would reduce the speed of movement.
I was immediately energized by the help, and fought back twice, then continued to ask Feiyin for support: "Great! Very useful spell! And now!"
Feiyin told me calmly: "Then, just pray."
"Pray?" A cloud of uneasiness rose in my mind. "Pray for what?"
"I pray that this layer of ice armor will not disappear before you die..." Fei Yin said very seriously.
"Can't you do something more substantial besides asking me to pray?" I sputtered.
"I've never been idle for a moment!" Feiyin looked aggrieved.
"So what else did you do?" I was furious.
"People are praying for you..." The president clasped his hands together and looked at me with compassion.
"Don't put your hands together, I'm not dead yet..."
Wuuwuwu...I want to change teammates...wuuwuwu...
It seems that this is the limit of the help I can get from Feiyin. Although she is still trying hard to attack the group of indigenous bandits with ice magic, the weak killing power makes it impossible to have any hope in her. This means that one of our main members with the best equipment and the strongest killing power can no longer be counted - fortunately, not all of my teammates use ice attacks.
"Xiange Yayi, where have you been? Why haven't I seen you attack yet? I'm dying, come and save me!" I shrunk my neck and shouted at the top of my voice.
"Stop making noise, I'm dying!" The Elf Archer screamed in despair. His scream sounded like someone was tearing a piece of rag. The scream on the verge of collapse made people feel miserable. If the more miserable the scream, the more enemies you will encounter, then even if we use the most conservative method to estimate, the enemies he encountered were at least ten times as many as mine.
But the actual situation is that there is not a single savage there.
Our handsome, elegant, pure-blooded elf archer is now kneeling on the ground with his legs, sticking his butt up high, and trying hard to shove his handsome, thin head into the snow, as if he wants to bury his head completely in the permafrost. It looks like he is waiting for the spring to take root and sprout, and then branches will grow out of his vertical buttocks, and grow into an evergreen tree with leaves in the shape of elves' long ears - this way of ending life is indeed in line with the elves' worldview of advocating a return to nature.
The problem is, this guy now doesn't seem to be doing anything of great significance related to his racial beliefs: his whole body is shaking uncontrollably, and the armor on his body keeps making a "rustling" sound, which sounds like it is going to break all the bones in his body.
“What the hell are you doing in that damn place…” I was so angry that I wanted to kick his raised butt hard - in fact, if it weren’t for these tangled Sasquatch in front of me, I would have done it a long time ago, “…We are here to save the world, not to sunbathe your butt - and even if you really want to sunbathe, at least you should take off your pants!”
“Help me…” Xiange Yayi howled miserably with a thick crying voice. His voice sounded so weak that he was almost on the verge of shock. “…It’s too high here… Wuuuu…Mom, I’m scared…I want to go home…”
…
I glanced behind me speechlessly: we were on a steep hillside, bare except for large patches of white snow, with no trees blocking the view. Below the hillside, the vast expanse of wilderness stretched to the endless distance. Even with this casual glance, I couldn't help but feel excited for the magnificent mountains and rivers of my homeland, as if a winter bird that has always been homesick was overlooking the earth.
The most difficult problem is that among this group of winter birds overlooking the earth, there is one that seems to be suffering from an incurable fear of heights...
Almighty and omniscient Supreme God, please give me the courage to face this cruel reality: I have definitely lost one more teammate I can count on.
I want to change my teammates, really, I want to change my teammates...
