Killed Lv.2 monster, Excelia +0.1
Killed Lv.2 monster, Excelia +0.1
...
Killed Lv.3 monster, Excelia +0.1
...
Tucked away at the very rear of the formation, Leon steered his ice clones through their rotations maintaining the Blizzard, watching the kill notifications flood across his panel, and it felt so good he could hardly stand it.
"Heh... now this is more like it."
One hand pressed to his forehead, head dipped slightly, only his eyes showing, blue light endlessly swirling in them, his whole body quivered nonstop as though in a fit.
"Kyehehehehehehe!"
"Bwahahahahaha!"
Without so much as a glance, he casually flicked out an Ice Lance, skewering the skull of a Minotaur that had all but charged clear of the blizzard's range, and chuckled under his breath:
"THIS is how a mage is supposed to be played!"
"Burning them down one at a time with Fireball is way too lame."
"Not one bit elegant."
Behind him, the others fell into an odd silence.
Laurier rose up on tiptoe and whispered in Iri's ear:
"See? Leon gets like this the second he enters combat mode... he's clearly gone and gotten carried away again."
Jeanne watched his back, the corner of her mouth twitching, and after a long moment spat out two words:
"Total nutcase."
Rose, though, just smiled.
She had already taken her stance, all set to stage her "lone guardian at the gate" performance, so the rookies could see it with their own eyes, so they would understand what a top-tier vanguard could accomplish in a massive Monster Party like this one, steadying their morale so they could chant with greater calm and conviction.
But she'd never imagined that before she could even make a move, Leon would go and "book out" the entire monster wave.
"Seems I won't be needed for now..."
Before the words had left her lips, Rose slid sharply sideways, shield coming up to cover Iri and Margaret.
An instant later, a crushing force slammed into the shield face!
A resounding clang!
Rose's left foot gave back half a step, a flicker of surprise crossing the eye visible past the shield's rim.
"Such heavy force..."
"Is that a Lv.3? No, Lv.4 at least, and one with some serious buildup behind it."
The attack out of nowhere set everyone else's nerves on edge.
Laurier all but cried out.
Iri and Margaret went dead pale. They had sensed no warning of any kind, hadn't reacted in the slightest.
Clearly, their attacker was viciously cunning. It had smothered its killing intent and every trace of itself before striking, and only once it had closed on its target did it lash out, faster than anyone could blink.
If Rose hadn't reacted in time, two squishy Lv.1 Mages like Iri and Margaret would likely have been obliterated before they even knew what had happened.
Jeanne swung her Banner Lance around, barring the way in front of Margaret, Iri, Aura, and the others. The banner unfurled with a snap, the Familia Crest across it shimmering with light.
"So you've finally shown yourself... Strengthened Species."
"We've been waiting quite a while."
"It's just a little surprising... it actually broke through the cordon of Leon's blizzard?"
Rose held her shield at the ready, her right hand slowly drawing her one-handed sword and giving it a light flick at her side, her gaze nailed to a hidden silhouette in the monster tide ahead:
"It used the other monsters as cannon fodder, hid beneath its larger kin, and crept close under cover of the corpse piles, striking the instant it came into range. Strange, isn't it? Of the Strengthened Species we've run into, apart from that Infant Dragon earlier, whether the Moss Giant or the Light Quartz, they all seem cunning to a ridiculous degree."
With that, a trace of amusement surfaced on Rose's face:
"It seems that 'good luck' a certain someone went on about was purely his own fantasy."
Listening to his companions' murmuring, especially that last line of Rose's, the veins on Leon's forehead pulsed, practically bulging into tic-tac-toe grids. Like hell was he going to admit his luck was garbage!
"Hah..."
White frost spilled from his mouth, drifting back along his lips.
Leon narrowed his eyes and locked onto the target in short order:
"Breaking through my blizzard's cordon... you've got some skill after all..."
He drew a deep breath...
"Frost Armor..."
First he wrapped himself in a fresh layer of ice shielding, then stepped out on his right foot, drawing the Scholar's Staff from his hip as he went. The staff's head rose and locked tight onto the concealed figure within the blizzard.
"Quite the hider, aren't you?"
"Using your own kind as meat shields, sneaking closer under corpse-cover tactics."
"I'll give you that."
"Scorch!"
No projectile, Instant Cast, with the Ignite effect attached...
A hissing screech!
In the swirling curtain of ice, wind, snow, and mist, roaring flames burst suddenly across some monster's hide, glaringly bright!
None of them were blind. The instant Leon finished "marking" it, they picked that figure precisely out of the monster tide: wings beating frantically as it thrashed violently in midair, wracked by the searing agony of Scorch.
Persephone pushed up her glasses, a glimmer of realization flashing through her eyes:
"So that's it. It's that species' Strengthened Species. An ambush of that caliber makes perfect sense, then."
The Lance Dragonfly!
A monster shaped like a dragonfly. Modest in size, no hard shell, no impressive musculature... but none of that mattered.
What mattered was that it was one of the very few monsters in the Great Tree Labyrinth capable of flight. And the Lance Dragonfly didn't just fly; its speed was nothing short of astonishing, a flying monster specialized for Agility. Most lethal of all... it also possessed a similarly rare capacity for ranged attack.
It could launch spines from its tail and strike its targets with near-total stealth.
Who knew how many adventurer parties had gone deep into the Great Tree Labyrinth to gather recovery-type materials, betting on one big payday to make up for three lean years, only to be whittled away by its treacherous ambushes.
Flight, blistering speed, ranged attacks.
Any single one of those traits was headache enough, and the Lance Dragonfly had all three.
It was, quite literally, the Great Tree Labyrinth's apex "adventurer killer."
Except this "killer among adventurer killers" was in a rather sorry state at the moment.
For all its flight, its silent ranged strikes, its unmatched agility and speed, under the lock-on of a cheater like Leon, it couldn't put up any resistance at all.
Scorch. The spell's damage was negligible; its real purpose was applying Ignite to amplify the power of follow-up fire magic. But that projectile-free, Instant Cast profile made it exceptionally useful for "marking" an inconspicuous target in the middle of a monster tide. Especially amid a full blizzard, burning all alone.
Add the unrelenting agony of Ignite on top...
You could safely say the first attack magic Leon ever drew was dirty beyond all reason.