Overlay - Part 20

The time ticked down slowly in my vision but soon enough it was almost time. During the last minute I had to count the seconds myself because the menu only showed minutes. Five, four, I dodge the last series of attack, three, then booked it through one of the passages, two, I needed to get as far as possible, one. Hopefully I had timed this correctly.

Zero.

I heard the words from the other passage shout, “Great Inferno!”

As that happened I continued to run and I could feel the fire from behind me and the intense heat of that super powerful spell. The blast wave knocked me more forward sending into another wall. It sent the wind from my lungs when my mp hit zero. What a sucky time for that to happen.

As the first began to die down I could hear Veronica calling my name.

I tried coughing out, “here” but it was muted and raspy. The poison must have been worse than I thought. In my blurry vision I could see a figure approaching me.

“Veronica, is that you? Sorry but it seems that I am out of mp.”

And with that I fainted.

Chapter Break

Lanette’s hp was quickly dropping from what could only be poison. Without pondering the cost I pulled the mana potion out of my satchel and swigged a big draft of it. My mp was mostly empty as well and without enough mp to cast healing spells Lanette would certainly die.

As my mana began to surge, well a little bit anyways mana potions were not that efficient because of my large mana pool, I began chanting the words to the only antidote spell that I knew. There were all kinds of specialized antidote spells but the generic all purpose one was the one I had learned. It was mana inefficient but it worked against basically anything.

However that wasn’t enough to keep the hp loss from stopping so I activated duel casting and used a healing spell in addition. While I normally specialized is slow mana-efficient healing spells I did have an emergency aid one that I practiced and that was what I was using.

With those two combined her hp stopped dropping and I finally I could freaking out. Once the hp was stabilized I was able to switch to a better healing spell. The antidote was working but it was much slower than I had hoped. She must have gotten a large dose of the poison.

Finally after what felt like ages the poison had been neutralized. I took a deep breath and relaxed. Lanette was finally safe.

Then I turned back to the room where the explosion had gone off. I had one more thing to do. I drank the last of the mana potion before dropping the empty vial on the floor. I began casting as alternate version of the antidote spell which provided high resistances to poison.

I entered the room and the large squirming body began to move. While the spell had ruined large parts of the body it had protected one of its heads and it was still alive.

“You hurt Lanette. I’m not letting you get away with that.” I said staring at the beast who had realized that I was there to finish it.

Its last head had already begun to snap at me but I brought up an earth shield protecting me from the attack.

While the earth was crumbling under the assault I began chanting. I need to time it exactly right. Then as the earth wall crumbled I yelled, “Fire Lance” And a single ray of fire burst through the last head of the hydra and it collapsed onto the ground.

Then to ensure it was truly dead I called one last spell. Turning its corpse to ash.

My log printed out. ‘You have reached level 25’.

“Good.”

With that done I returned to Lanette. She was still unconscious. I wasn’t the strongest but I was able to sling her over my shoulder and head back to the room. I wanted to keep an eye on her in case more problems happened. With that I temporarily sealed off the entrances with earth magic so that we would be safe.

Now all I needed to do was keep a eye on Lanette until she woke up. While I could have possibly gone out to search for Sterling and Chisomo I didn’t want to leave Lanette alone or have to carry her while searching. This was the best option.

A while later Lanette finally began to regain consciousness.

“Wake up Sleeping Beauty.”

She groggly looked at me, “Veronica, I’m sure you are trying to mean something but that is completely lost to me.”

“A story from my world. There is a beautiful princess who gets poisoned by her evil step mother and there are a bunch of dwarves who act as her servants. Something like that.”

“Sorry I fell unconscious like that. How long was I out for.”

“A couple of hours. The poison you were under was mean. Nothing a little life magic couldn’t handle.”

“But your mana…” She was realized what must have happened. “Sorry to be such a drain.”

“No need to apologize. Your alive and that is what matters. Although if you want to apologize I’ll you work that crank over there instead of me.”

“A cruel master as always.”

I snorted, “You know as well as I do that I removed your slave contract ages ago. Now get to turning.”

She stood up before staggering a little bit. I shook my head, “Uhh, so useless. I’ll have to do it myself then.” I pushed her back down before walking over to the crank and beginning to work it myself.

In the previous world it probably would have been an impossible chore but I had been training in this one for a long time. I didn’t know if it was due to my level or just practice but exercise was no longer a big issue for me. Sure I still wasn’t a strongest but something like this was basically nothing.

“Princess, are you ready to go?” I said jokingly.

“Maybe you should carry me? If I’m a princess I’m sure that is fine.”

I threw up my hands, “Alright, fine, you beat me. I’m teasing you too much. As funny as it is I’m not carrying up up those stairs.”

We shared a little laugh and then walked up the stairs together. Hopefully nothing will have gone wrong for Sterling and Chisomo while we were down in that hole.

Chapter Break

Everything was going wrong.

I help up my shield and blocked another attack from one of the scaled monsters called a dinosaur.

Chisomo was behind me granting me support with what little buff spells that they knew.

The magics were helping however I was able to keep back the monsters and occasionally get in a good attack sending them flying. Chisomo had a few attacks spells but nothing compared to Veronica’s offensive capabilities.

At times like this is was excellent that Veronica had ensured that I trained in ‘tanking’ which made it easy for me to protect Chisomo.

After the stone had closed between us and the other two we had been forced to backtrack and head back out to the jungle. Looking for the two of them would be a basically pointless endeavor so instead we had pulled back to the camp site that we had selected.

Unfortunately on the way we had attracted the attention of these dinosaurs and we were now having to fight our way through them to get to the more protected camp site.

To make matters worse the dinosaurs’s boss seemed to have joined in the battle. It was a larger frilled lizard that was standing near the back of the horde. It occasionally make whooping sounds which must have been instructions to the other monsters.

Chisomo spoke from behind me, “I think if we cal kill their leader then the rest of them will flee or at least be more disorganized.”

“Any plans on how to do that which do not involve killing everything to get to it. It seems to be maintaining a set distance from us.”

“Yes, sound.” they said, “They are communicating through sound but all of it is fairly low volume so they must have great hearing. I’m going to create an extremely loud sound. Then in the confusion we will need to rush the leader.”

“Any way for you to prevent both of us from also going deaf?”

“Nope, but we will have the warning and they won’t.”

“That is a terrible plan. However I don’t have a better one so we will have to go for it.”

“In 3… 2… 1… Echoing Cry!” As Chisomo cast their spell.

There was a horrible giant sound clap and I almost fell over. Then there was ringing, endless terribly painful ringing. Nothing else, just that sound.

But if it was bad for me it was worse for the dinosaurs who had all collapsed to the ground in pain. I didn’t wait more than a moment from the pain and ran toward the larger reptile. Normally I would listen to ensure that Chisomo was following me but that was impossible now. I just had to hope that they were keeping up.

The leader seemed to be recovering faster than the others. It was going to try and run away but I slammed my sword against my shield triggering an anger inducing move. I didn’t know if it would work without and audio component but I was trying it anyways.

However it did seem to have an effect. The monster delayed for just long enough.

Then I was on top of it and it was too late for it to escape. I started with attacks aimed at its legs attempting to either hobble it or keep it from trying to escape. As long as an opponent was with reach of my weapon it was easy to keep them engaged with me.

There was still the problem of the giant dinosaur. It’s shoulder was just a little bit lower than my shoulder and it had a big maw full of sharp teeth.

But that meant nothing to me. My defense was my best stat and while I might not be the best offensive something like sharp teeth would no get past my armor. I felt a speed boost effect me, Chisomo must still be supporting me like I expected.

I swung quickly with my sword. It took many swings but eventually the dinosaur leader fell. As it dropped I wheeled to the other side putting myself between Chisomo and the rest of the horde.

I didn’t need to have done that. With the leader down the rest of the monsters we fleeing. I was able to release my breath and begin to relax.

I spoke attempting to said, ‘We did it’ but no words that I could hear escaped my mouth. The ringing was still horrible but a little less so than it previously was. I still couldn’t hear anything though.

Still we needed to get to the camp site so I tapped Chisomo and pointed toward the ridge where the camp site was located. They nodded and together we made our way there.

The camp site was well fortified and was suggested by Stella as a good camp site in the jungle. Now that we had made it back all we needed to do was wait for Veronica and Lanette to find their were way here. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to worry about them.

I while later as my hearing was almost beginning to return to me they came back.

Veronica tried to say something to me but she was too far away.

I called back, “Sorry, I basically can’t hear you. Chisomo cast some spell against the monsters but it effected us too.”

Lanette seemed to have some smirk on her face but I wasn’t able to understand her quip to Veronica.