Akira, crouched, approached step by step the skeleton warriors whose centre was a mysterious chest, and despite not having to face such enemies back in the game, his prediction about leaving the «chapter area» had been successful. But one problem remained when he got there: there were four skeletons warriors protecting a chest.
Since Akira had learned magic, he had discovered that the foundation of magic in this world was different from the Fire Emblem's world's magic. Not only it was broader unlike what others may not think but it was also more profound depending on one's knowledge about the subject of the magic.
Per example, a magician whose element was water was most proficient with water magic. And the more knowledge this magician had towards the water element, either it was the compounds necessary to create water or the difference between liquids, then the stronger the water elements spell were.
To even explain it in an even simpler and easier way, if you imagine your water forming a dragon before turning him into ice and then imagine him attacking people, then you have created on your own a new magic spell which was something impossible back in the game.
In Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, magicians had to focus their magic on their fingertip and must to accurately form a certain drawing in a certain order to then incant the spell which was already stored in the book that one holds with its other hand.
And since Akira had discovered these changes, he had also predicted that it was the same for the «chapter area» which had effectively been confirmed. Now, the question was: what was inside this chest? He did not know the answer but the magic power contained in the chest before him was, without a doubt, abnormally powerful.
「I don't have a lot of arrows with me… I have to use magic.」
Muttered Akira as he closed his eyes. He then imagined four arrows appearing on his bowstring and prepared to shoot them. Once he opened his eyes, ready to shoot, he noticed the skeletons warriors approaching him. But it did not matter to him, the arrows were ready to launch.
Clang!
Four Light Magic Arrows fled towards the skeleton warriors. The barrage of arrows, made from light, pierced through two skeletons warriors' head, killing both but the two other arrows failed to land on their target. Akira grith his teeth and jumped backwards, shooting an arrow during his jump.
He then rolled backwards, regained his balance, and dashed towards the last remaining skeleton warrior. The skeleton warrior swung in a slow-motion his sword, aiming to slash Akira horizontally but the latter had predicted the direction of the swing and slide on the ground to dodge the attack.
Once Akira was behind the skeleton, he then shot a Wind Magic Arrow to propel himself towards the chest behind him and shot another one, this time a Light Magic Arrow, during the thruster to kill the last remaining skeleton warrior. Felling on the ground, Akira stood up, walked towards the chest, and opened it.
Inside, a beautiful orned purple crystal ring leaked magical energy. The sight, rather appealing, was mysterious and unknown to Akira. At least in his memory, he had never heard nor seen such item back in the game.
[You have obtained a space-ring.]
Learning its purpose, Akira equipped the ring and returned to the lost fortress.
* * * * *
「Something's wrong.」
There was not a single sound nor a single living being near the abandoned fortress, no corpses, no blood, no traces at all. It was only after he arrived at the entrance of the abandoned fortress that a message notification appeared.
[First Wave: 04:00:00]
The moment the notification issued, spectral creatures, wearing black-armoured knight suit appear one by one from the ground. It was a matter of time before these spectral creatures surrounded Akira. He shot a Light Magic Arrow to one of these monsters, but it did not work, even if the arrow pierced through the monster, he did not seem to feel any pain.
「Tch, they are more annoying than I thought.」
Not only did they multiplay, but they were also unkillable. Akira could not find any solution to either it was to stall enough time until the timer ended or to kill all of them, none effective approach appeared in his mind.
「If Light Magic does not work, then what about fire?」
Akira concentrated his magic power in his fingertips. A Fire Magic Arrow appeared on his fingers as he released the bowstring and shoot the arrow at the line of spectral knights before him.
The might of the arrow was twice stronger than usual which not only consume his endurance by a great margin but since Akira was also not used to use fire magic element, he burnt himself on the process as well, injuring himself.
But this arrow should work, thought Akira.
*swoosh*
The arrow pierced the enemies frontline with ease before impaling the dozens of spectral knights, disintegrating them upon touching the tip of the Fire Magic Arrow. Its power was devastating only at the cost of a horrible burning. It was definitely worth it, not that he was a masochist though.
The chain-kill triggered enough experience for Akira to level up, recovering his strength back to full.
「I can do it.」
As long as he bore the self-pain brought by the Fire Magic Arrow, it was possible to clear the stage. It was difficult but not impossible. But…
「[Open: Status]!」
[Name: Okamura Akira
Class: Strategist
Affinity: Anima
Level: 4
Health: 20/20
Strength: 5
Skill: 10
Speed: 7
Luck: 1
Defence: 2
Resistance: 3
Sword Mastery: E
Bow Mastery: C
Anima Magic: E
Light Magic: E]
The problem was Akira's health which was far too low. He had lost almost four-fifth of his health after casting such a powerful Fire Magic Arrow. He had to be careful when using it.
In the beginning, Akira did not have any problem to keep a safe range from his enemies while shooting the spectral knights. But it was near the end of the timing when there as only thirty minutes left that he started to struggle against them. Even now, he was running away from the endless army of spectral knights chasing after him.
「The reward gotta be a legendary weapon.」
Akira lamented while having blurred vision. He felt the world twisting around but he knew it was due to the fatigue. Running without a break for four hours was exceedingly exhausting. He slowed his pace and unsheathed his one-handed sword.
「I kept it in an emergency, but I have to use it.」
Akira took out a canteen from his jacket's pocket. Inside the canteen was a mix of medicinal herbs and hot water to make a medicinal tea which regenerates health and stamina. It was a homemade medicinal potion that he had created and had intended to sell it on the next city.
Akira gulped it down, stored the empty canteen in his storage ring.
「It had a nice colour but medicine is still medicine. The taste is awful.」
Akira was not as proficient in swordsmanship as he was in archery so it did take him more time to kill the lined up army of spectral knights before him even after enchanting his sword with fire magic enchanted on his weapon.
When the last spectral knight had been slain, the timing reached 00:00:00, the First Wave ended and Akira sighed in relief. It was finally over or at least the first round, Akira thought as he finally relaxed, dropped his weapon on the ground, and felt himself on the embrace the earth.
Akira had run, had fought, and had struggled. And it had lasted for four straight hours; he had never done something as tiresome as this. He gazed at the beautiful night sky, disappearing and slowly replaced by the setting sun, as he breathed in and out heavily.
But Akira had over underestimated this mysterious trial he was currently facing — the message notification, right after the first one ended, had changed. The written words inside the box had changed into [Second Wave 04:00:00].
「This is really bad…」
Akira voiced out his thought as he stood up and surveyed his surroundings.
The same spectral knights from before started to reappear from the ground. Even worse, a new spectral knights' specimen had appeared as well. Equipped with a book releasing magical power, it was not hard to guess what kind of abilities they had compared to the former.
The second wave had started... and this quickly...Akira started to have doubts. He did not know the reason he was here nor the reason for this trial but one thing was certain: he was not certain to succeed the trial as easily as he had thought in the first place.
* * * * *
Why? Why do I have to do that?
[Tenth Wave: 00:20:58]
Akira took a quick look at the timing and eyed the army of monsters before him. He was not a hero, why does he have to do that? he had enough of it… Despite thinking that, his body still moved on its own. He slew the spectral lord before him with ease and smoothly danced within the group of monsters, showing them his sword's dance.
It was only until a massive shadow appeared underneath his feet that Akira swiftly escaped from the group of monsters and looked above his head.
「Oh, the boss this time is a giant skeleton warrior.」
When he had met the first giant boss, appearing before him, it took Akira a lot of efforts to kill it. But even if he called them «boss», the size and the huge health they had was the only major factor it had, apart from that, his fighting abilities were not high enough to threaten Akira.
「I should've been happy to level up, but it seems like I don't care anymore about it.」
Once Akira defeated the boss, his level rose up and he reached level 10. But since his class was strategist, he was not even sure that he could change his class and upgrade to a higher class, unlike others. Reaching level 10 however, was still useful to him since it allowed him to increase his stats.
Since the appearance of the waves, he had been fighting for 40 entire hours without break. His mental had broken long ago but he had sealed his emotions to feel the shorter sleepiness imaginable, thus, allowing him to lose its sensation and increasing his fighting capacity to fight without being exhausted.
When the sun announced the morning, Akira's surroundings broke into thousands of pieces of fragments like a mirror breaking on the ground, his entire world shattered as he all of a sudden woke up inside the abandoned fortress, in his bed.
Having used his [Open: Status], Akira had confirmed that it was not a dream. The sensations were far too real and the ring he had obtained was still on his finger which proved what in fact happened was the reality. But it was not the time to think about it yet because a knock resounded in his ears.
「You can enter.」
After the door opened, Lyn, Florina, Sain, Kent, Nathalie, and Dorcas entered the room.
「Did you sleep well? We had succeeded to defend the fortress and we had followed the plan you had instructed. It did work pretty well.」
The first one to talk was Lyn as she came towards Akira with a faint smile on her face.
「Can you… tell me what happened? I also have something to tell you. But I need all of you. Let's talk during breakfast.」
Akira suggested.
Lyn nodded her head and left the room with the others. Akira wore his clothes and joined them at the entrance of the fortress. And while they were eating the picnic, Akira had explained the mysterious «trial» that he had done to his group.
「This is the first time I've heard such a thing.」
Lyn commented.
「And did you get anything out of this trial?」
Kent Asked. Akira nodded his head.
「I had checked it and it's in my inventory. And they are quite something.」
Akira did a few movements with his fingertips and a bunch of equipment dropped in front of him.
「Wha—」
Lyn grabbed a piece of equipment but a notification message then appeared out of nowhere and startling her.
「These pieces of equipment are quite interesting. This is my first time seeing this.」
Kent grabbed a piece of equipment as well. His eyes were intensely locked on the equipment's status.
[Pendant of the Lost Soul
+10 Health
+5 Strength
-20% Magical Damage Reduction
Passive: Every magician killed gives the user a stack. Upon 10 stacks, summon a Dark Magician to protect you. The passive can only be used once per month.
Active: Use a stack to strengthen the user's physical strength by 20%.]
These mysterious pieces of equipment did not exist in Fire Emblem nor did the trial Akira had done. The world was certainly the Fire Emblem's one but there were differences such as the representation of magic or the trial and these pieces of equipment. There may be some other differences as well. He had to have to do some research about it, Akira thought.
After Akira had recruited Dorcas and Nathalie to join the group, they headed further on the west and arrived at the border of Bern. Once the border reached, Lycia was not far from it.
The meeting between Lyn and her grandfather was approaching and so was the rebellion that Akira had to stop with her and his group.
The battle this time will be different from bandits. Royalties and Nobles are included as well. And Akira had to stop one of the approaching rebellion...