Seoyoon’s image didn’t fail him this time either.
‘Hmm, this sculpture doesn’t affect combat performance much, but it increses experience gain, which is not bad as well.’
And he also got a new attribute that influenced Weed’s sculpture skill, an unexpected but pleasant gift.
“Hmmm...”
Weed tried to examine the reflection of his face in the knife’s blade to see if it changed after the new attribute appeared.
Then he took his best-looking pose and addressed his soldiers.
“Gather everyone. We’re moving out!”
Weed and his army headed out into plains to hunt giant ants.
“Priests, prepare for battle, bless the warriors.”
“Yes. Freya, please give your faithful servants power to fight against evil, Bless!”
Priests used group blessing. Order of Freya have sent their best priests with Weed so blessing 400 soldiers at once wasn’t a problem for them.
But Weed still decided to act careful. He believed that if he was to throw simple soldiers into the fight from the start there’d be no way to avoid losses, despite the support of Freya’s priests.
“Knights move ahead with me, the rest of you follow us at a certain distance.”
The Royal Knights were grumbling but still following Weed’s orders.
“We will obey for now.”
“Until we finish our mission we have to listen to you. But don’t get the idea that we do it out of respect.”
Weed was ignored in the village! Now he was ignored here as well!
Weed sighed to himself and witohut a word let the knights ahead to search for the ants.
When he was listening to Kokun he didn’t take him seriously. Well, the ants were big, they were hard to catch, so what? However after seeing those monsters he couldn’t hold his surprise:
“Woah, they’re really huge!”
Though ordinary ants were 1 cm long, the monsters that were running around the plains in front of them were easily over a few meters long. And they were moving extremely fast!
“Don’t get bothered by their size, go! Attack!”
Accompanied by knights, Weed rushed towards monsters. But they were moving just too fast. In one step they were passing a few meters and were often making sharp turns.
Knights had to be extremely careful to avoid a frontal attack of moving at top speed ants.
Weed couldn’t help but feel frustrated.
‘I spent so many reputation points on them, and this all I got...’
Knights weren’t able to kill even a single ant! The brave warriors were just running in circles trying to dodge rushing monsters.
“We need to slow down the ants! Priests, use slows!”
“Will be done, oh devoted one.”
Thankfully, Weed’s faith helped him to command the priests. They were executing his orders quickly and accurately.
50 priests simultaneously recited prayers:
“The beauty of Freya stops everyone in their steps. So be it! By the power of our faith, Slow!”
Bizarre anti-blessing of priests started to work. The movements of giant ants started to slow down more and more. The prayers of 50 priests added up and the resulting spell was a lot more powerful than the prayer of a single priest.
After a few seconds ants froze in place.
“Knights, attack! Archers, start shooting! The rest, guard the priests.”
“Yes!”
A hundred of soldiers pulled their bows and released a swarm of arrows at the frozen monsters. Ants were so big, that it was very easy to aim at them.
The remaining 300 soldiers were guarding the priests. And Weed rushed to attack the ants.
They had to hurry, as priests had to constantly spend mana to keep the slow spell up.
‘We can’t let this drag for too long.’
Archers’ attacks were gradually reducing monsters’ health.
‘They’re so big that arrows are like mosquito bites for them...’
Along with Weed the knights rushed to attack the ants. They were climbing on top of them and breaking open their shells with swords. Some were cutting off their legs.
Weed followed others’ example and climbed on the ant’s head. That was dangerous but danger didn’t stop him. He was hacking the monsters along with the knights.
Giant ants were holding for a long time.
Sometimes they were managing to weaken the slowing spells of the priests and shake the knights off them. Every time that happened Weed’s heart was skipping a beat. Fortunately Knights weren’t dying so easy, so after the fall they were getting back up, receiving some healing from priests and going back into fight.
In such manner an hour since the start of the fight Weed’s little army finished the last giant ant.
Level up.
You receive giant and chitin shell.
You receive giant ant antennae. You can use them to find the cave where the queen of giant ants is hidden.
“Excellent.”
Only after defeating the ants Weed realized that their level was over 350.
“They’re ridiculously strong.”
It took quite a lot of skill to fight such strong monsters. It was fortunate that because of his high fame and previously completed tasks his level was quite high.
After gathering all the loot and leading his army back to their hideout Weed headed back to the village of exiles.
There he showed the ant shells to Kokun.
“I didn’t expect much. Thought you were just another braggart. But I was wrong, you really defeated the giant ants.”
Kokun carefully examined the ant shells brought by Weed.