Number One Dungeon Supplier

It might have been seen as an improvised route going down the forest clearing but the two hunters were not that inexperienced to leave everything to just one shot in getting the herd.

Prior to their attempt to lead the War Boar Herd to the Lord's Manor, they had already put up quite a number of magic circles in various possible paths the Herd could take as they move down from the forest hill to the opening where the Manor would eventually be.

And the magic circles were all incomplete ones as they needed magic to work. Also, their magic circles were not drawn manually or else the time required to do so would have far exceeded the time they had to get the herd down to the Lord's Manor. After all, they only have a few hours to play with.

Instead, Ress's science teams, especially the team that King Jin personally supervised, were able to create something much more practical.

Magic Circle Stickers.

Just by peering the paper off, the magic sticker can be stuck to any surface regardless of its roughness or unevenness. The sticker would 'imprint' itself to the surface that it was closest to and that was part of the armoury stockpile that they had discovered in the cleaning room.

This allowed the hunters to paste stickers prior to the hunt and use them only when they needed to. If mana does not flow in those stickers in a couple of days, the magic circle will be rendered useless. Jin stated that he does not want a situation where years later, obscure magic circles could suddenly explode because of environmental mana changes.

This directive also enabled the magic circle stickers to be cost effective since the ink used did not need to be long lasting. As long as it can be conducted with mana, it would work and that was the utilisation objective of it. But the advantage that these stickers bring is that they are small, compact, and still worth their salt in terms of firepower or support capabilities.

Hence, the Commando Mages brought not just a stack of it but more than plenty per soldier so that they are able to use it in tandem with the bullets in case what they needed was something more…out of the box.

Obviously, this was one of such situations where they thought that the hunters would think that they needed to use the magic circle stickers to divert the attention of the War Boar Herd to the Forest Clearing. Never did they expect that those magic circles could possibly be their saving grace against the Shadow Panthers.

This was because the magic they can infuse in these magic circles can be delayed.

Usually, magic circles are instructions on how the mana power would be converted into something tangible but those magic circle stickers were more universal in nature. Surely, they have certain conditions they had to meet such as completing the magic circle with the allocated mana power prior to its activation.

However, the science team under King Jin aka the System Science Department had devised it based on Ress' knowledge of magic and magic circles that the mana power transferred had the user's intent inherited into its power too.

As abstract as it sounds, the mana power that was transferred into the circle had been prefixed with a particular intent, reshaping the universal magic circle to something that the user had intended.

Because of that, it does take a little more magic power. Because if the mana merely flowed into the magic circle, all the magic circle would do is glow with the mana inside. That was also why Jin was afraid that nature's occasional magic upset or outburst might potentially cause the magic circle to actually magnify the magic distortion if the circle remained for a long time.

So, with No. 7 busy killing or injuring the Shadow Predators, No.2 not only controls the War Boar Leader's sense of direction but also checks his own surroundings, seeing where were the traps they had laid prior to this incident. It was a little mind straining but compared to the training and torture that the Royal Advisor had given to the Commando Mages, this was considered a walk in the park.

Hence, with No.7 misdirection and with No.2's attempt to coordinate with No.7 shooting, they had successfully lured the Shadow Predators to where they wanted them to be without them knowing that those 'traps' were predetermined in advance.

The Predators assumed that the Mages were able to perform high level multi casting as explosions occurred in places they did not expect, or vines appearing from behind trees and bushes to grab the Shadow Predators in place, enabling the herd to open up a little more distance than usual.

This small breather was what No.2 needed to ensure that he could focus and plan ahead while No. 7 was able to reload despite having two Wand Rifles with her. (No.2 temporarily lent her his Wand Rifle so that she could apply more pressure to the Shadow Predators.)

Yet, the Shadow Predators were not giving up such a luxurious set of meat right in front of them. They had been eyeing this herd the moment they chance upon it within the forest. To the Shadow Predators, it had been a while since they saw such sumptuous looking pieces of pork as the Forest tends not to have such prey within.

If there were any such as the War Boar Herd, they would already have eaten them a long time ago, indicating that their presence in the forest was fresh.

(Obviously, this is a dungeon instance but the Shadow Predators had been programmed to think that way.) So, despite the losses they had suffered from the incessant magical shooting by the humans who were tagging along with them, the Shadow Predators felt that they had to be not just more aggressive but also to work more as a team so that they could corner the War Boar Herd before they got out of the forest.

So, one of the best bets was to combine so that their size would be threatening enough to scare the War Boar Herd and scatter them so that they could once again split up and chase the War Boars individually. Find your next read on empire

And thus, they did. Becoming a chimera rushing from behind the herd in hopes of reducing casualties from the magic circles and lessening the damage taken from those bullet shots.