Blacksmith vs. the System

I took my first step before he could even realize what was going on. I focused on my Mana, doing my best to replicate the effect of the Fleeting Step. With the skill completely blocked, it was nowhere near as smooth as I had hoped, but I still managed to move with a big burst of speed that carried me a hundred yards, even if I ended up falling down at the end.

Once again, Dexterity saved me. I rolled back on my feet with the smoothness of an Olympic athlete, and repeated the same trick, but I was aware that he would catch up to me, and soon. Unlike me, he still had access to his skills, and moved far more smoothly than I could.

He wasn't as fast as Mercurial Movement allowed me to go, but under the circumstances, it didn't matter.

As I fell again, I could see my enemy approaching. By the time I was back on my feet, he was merely five yards away, leaving me in a bind. Using the fake Fleeting Step again was not a good idea, as he would catch up with me before I could stand up. I wasn't afraid of fighting with him, but he had the advantage of mobility, which meant he could delay me until the reinforcements arrived.

However, even as I struggled to decide what to do, I didn't regret attacking the first group. The ability to block my External Skills was a nasty surprise, and things would have been far more terrible if they had been patient enough to wait until they had a sizable force surrounding me.

It wouldn't have killed me. My connection with the dungeon was still in place, meaning even if their ambush hadn't been ruined by my — admittedly reckless — strategy, I could have still escaped. But, not before potentially revealing another secret.

Of course, they knew that dungeon gates were possible, but there was a good chance my 'retreat' would convince them that I didn't have the ability to open them outside.

With that in place, the best thing to do was for me to deal with my pursuer before he could slow me down. I reversed the direction and covered the distance, switching to my spear halfway, which gave me the range necessary to tag him with another blast of decay, ruining his armor even further.

Then, just as he tried to retreat, I used my poor imitation of Fleeting Step again to cover another hundred yards.

There were two benefits to my decay attacks. First, every hit weakened his armor, making him less resistant to physical attacks. More importantly, the enchantments were anchored to the armor, and damaging it significantly weakened the enchantments as well.

When I rolled, he was on top of me, too close for me to use the spear, and not giving me a chance to switch weapons.

Too bad for him that I didn't need to. I didn't even bother trying to stand up. I just grabbed his leg and pulled him down, pumping his armor full of decay mana, and fast. His armor resisted it well, but at this distance, the dungeon replenished my mana pool every two seconds.

In grappling range, he wasn't able to use his sword, leaving him bare-handed. And, unlike me, he didn't have any tricks as his armor slowly turned to dust around him.

I pinned him easily ... For a moment. Once the part of the helmet was gone, I was met with a scaly skin. For a moment, that scaly skin merely looked like poor skin care, but that was only for a second. The scales started to gain prominence, rapidly transforming into the same bright red color the lizards had. Not only that, but his teeth were also getting sharper, and more monstrous.

His desperate wail suggested that it was not an intentional transformation, but a side effect of losing his armor. Some of the ruined enchantments must have been suppressing that transformation.

It reminded me of the unfortunate assassins that had been transformed in the dungeon once their armors had been damaged by ballista attacks … only, the transformation he was showing was far faster.

It was bad news, especially since his Strength was spiking as well, so much so that it was enough to take away my advantage when it came to grappling, suggesting that he would soon turn the tables.

Unfortunately for him, I still had my tricks. I hit him with another blast of mana, this time directly using my Mana Forge, transforming the joints of his armor like I had tried earlier. With the protective enchantments weakened, it was enough to lock him in place.

As I stood up, his damaged armor was already creaking under his strength, suggesting I only had a second to deal with him.

It was enough for a decapitating strike.

I immediately turned and jumped another hundred yards, not even bothering to loot his body. My decay trick had been useful, but it was also enough to ruin anything else that was in his possession. I might have taken the risk if my External Skills were accessible, but without it, I didn't want to carry any extra load.

"That was close," I said as I repeated the same move three more times, switching to ordinary running once I had noticed the reinforcements on top of the flying lizards slowed down. I was still prepared for the ambush of their hidden spies, but either they were already extracted, or they preferred to stay hidden.

Which meant that I was free to watch the effects of my shelling attack on the main force of the beast wave. The shells rained, and the smaller lizards were shredded down by a touch. Unfortunately, the same didn't apply to the larger variants, some tanking multiple shells before going down, some shrugging it off completely.

Not that I was unhappy with the results. The smaller variants still made up the clear majority, and without them, we could focus on the boss monsters once they approached.

Even though my sudden trouble with the blocked External skills. It made using ranged attacks troubling, but melee attacks were still an easy option. And, unlike the human opponents, the giant lizards couldn't dodge me.

Was it ideal? No. But it was far better than the alternatives.

When I returned to the defenses, the first line of the main horde was already at the outskirts of the mountain despite the constant shelling, accompanied by a cloud of flying beasts. "Sir, is everything alright?" Harold asked, no doubt concerned with my performance.

"I'm just faking weakness to draw them closer!" I said loudly even as I gave him a discrete signal to reflect it was not the case. It was a lie, but a useful one, enough to ease the worried expression of the surrounding Farmers. "Now, what's the situation," I asked.

"The shells are working even better than we had expected, sir," he admitted. "Once they start climbing the mountain, it'll turn into a natural chokehold. Combined with the other weapons, we should be able to hold it … as long as the boss monsters are not a trouble."

"Good," I said. "You still have the command. I need to go back to my workshop for a few minutes to fix …" I started, only to stop when I caught his worried expression. "What's wrong?"

"Can you make the necessary changes using the emergency forge, sir?" he asked as he pointed to the field forge that was there for repairing cannons. "Your absence might impact morale negatively."

My eyes widened as I realized that he had an excellent point. "Excellent catch," I admitted, realizing that I almost made another spectacular mistake, one that would have probably had worse consequences than my blunder with the guards.

I might be a decent fighter, but I was truly a terrible commander.

Luckily, what I lacked in those aspects had been compensated by my core competency as a researcher. I was very glad I had worked hard to understand the interplay between Wisdom, Skill, and weaponry in the context of ranged attack.

It meant I didn't need to fumble desperately in order to find a way to fight without my External Skills. I just needed to modify one of my weapons using my Reformation skill, empowering its conceptual weight at the cost of its other features, maximizing the ease of ranged attacks.

"Who here is dealing with a non-critical task," I bellowed loudly as I approached the forge. Normally, I would have been more kind, but the situation was more urgent than I wished.

Several hands rose, and I moved to the closest spot. "Pass me the hammer," I ordered. He did. I grabbed the handle, thinking about which weapon to modify.

In the end, I decided to modify the sword. With my accuracy suffering, the wider range of the attack would inevitably be more critical. I doused the sword with mana as I rapidly worked to change its nature, taking some really dangerous shortcuts as I empowered the conceptual weight of the sword at the cost of durability and ease to wield in melee.

These ugly compromises, but ones I needed to make as the beast wave got closer and closer, not slowing down in the slightest. The first line was merely half a mile away when I finished my modification despite the constant shelling.

I just hoped that their hurry to capitalize on my weakness meant that the block was temporary. Explore hidden tales at empire