Chương 22: Chapter 21 – Heritage

Zap, two MP. Then Battle Meditation, repeat. If Lena disregarded the blatant incompetence wrought by the two stooges, the fight was going pretty well. Kai had set two goblins on fire with his awesome flaming sword. She herself had electrocuted one hunter and incapacitated another. Tom had run too far ahead, only to get skewered by a goblin spear. Two potions later he was still limping.

Finn sat behind a fallen tree, missing every single opportunity and only taking shots whenever no goblin could potentially threaten him. It felt like carrying her guildmate's girlfriend through a high level raid. Unfortunately, the stakes were a fair bit higher than they had been in Fervent Fantasy Fourteen, and she did not have the advantage of maxed-out endgame gear.

"[Zap]." The goblin anticipated her Spell – unsurprising after she had cast it so many times – and managed to brace itself against the electric current running through its body. The result was painful, but unfortunately nonlethal. ~ MP: 3/10 An ember of frustration was snuffed out as she sank into the comfortable embrace of Battle Meditation. ~ MP: 5/10 That was good enough for now. Any more and she would lose control of the fight. The shaman fired another fire projectile at Kai.

With a thought, her second charge of Counter Shot raced to meet it, and both mana signatures dissolved.

"One charge left!" she shouted, channeling her bygone days as raid leader. At the rate things were going, she would have to sacrifice one rotation of Battle Meditation to refresh her defensive Spell, then compensate for the loss of mana with a potion. Tom took a stance, and Lena's exasperation came back in full force. He was going to use Mighty Strike again.

A great Skill with the potential to deal ridiculous amounts of damage, but it required a lengthy wind-up motion, allowing the opponent a fair bit of time to dodge. Against a nimble goblin, it was a terrible choice. Not using a skill at all would have been a better idea. Kai seemed to agree with her assessment and made a risky play. He turned away from his opponent – a level five goblin fighter with a smoldering cut on its arm – and Charge'd at Tom's goblin instead, while the Marauder was still winding up.

He took a hit from his fighter that looked like it hurt, but he clearly had expected that.

"[Zap]." Lena's spell didn't have much of an effect, but it kept the fighter from chasing Kai, who slashed at Tom's target, missed, then followed up with a nasty kick to its knee. It looked like Leg Sweep, another Skill of his. The monster staggered, and the timing worked out perfectly. Tom's axe crashed down and split the goblin's torso. From the grin on the Marauder's face, he had learnt absolutely nothing. Battle Meditation cleared her mind and allowed her to focus on the bigger picture.

One fighter left, glaring at her with baleful yellow eyes. One shaman behind the large tree to the right, the last archer on the boulder to the left. They seemed to really like rocks, for some reason. Finn peeked out from behind his cover and shot a single arrow at the shaman. The arrow would have hit its target were it not for the massive beech in its way. The shaman didn't even notice the attack, instead casting another fire bolt at Kai. She spent the last charge, intercepting it in flight.

"Recasting! [Counter Shot]." Three new orbs appeared around her. ~ MP: 4/10 She downed her second mana potion. Unfortunately, their inherent randomness worked against her this time. ~ Mana Potion+1 (Medium) consumed. +2 MP The equivalent of a single Meditation session. Terrible. This meant she had to skip one Zap to keep an emergency reserve and move. She briefly moved out of her own cover, immediately taking a shot from the archer on the boulder. She activated Counter Shot, but missed the timing.

The arrow sank into her left arm. Clenching her teeth, she ran over to the next tree, now with better vision on the distracted shaman. No time to use a healing potion. Battle Meditation granted a brief reprieve from the pain. ~ MP: 8/10"Two charges left!", she updated her party with a slight delay. Then, she charged Zap to the maximum, three MP worth of mana bringing the system-constructed matrix to its limits. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The shaman was caught off-guard by the arc of electricity, and the Spell found its heart. It died on the spot, the body still convulsing when she turned her attention to the archer. In the meantime, Kai and Tom had managed to kill the last fighter, and Finn had achieved absolutely nothing other than not getting hit. The archer fell shortly after under her Zaps and Kai's Fire Bolts. Ironically, Finn nabbed the kill by shooting it in the back when it tried to flee.

They finished up their task by thrashing the crude tents placed around a smoking firepit and setting the remains on fire. ~ Quest complete: Destroy the goblin outpost. ~ Reward: 5 SP ~ Goblins slain. 32 EXP awarded. ~ Congratulations! You have reached Level 7. ~ 10 Attribute Points available. At least something good had come out of this mess. = = = = = Laura's car entered the driveway just in time for her to see Daniel land with Kai and Lena in tow. She parked, then went to greet her family.

"Back already? How did the quest go?" From their expressions, not very well.

"Killed some goblins, got five SP, I hate our party members," Kai grumbled.

"I levelled up," Lena stated.

"Got Strength to three and Dex to four. I also hate our party members." ~ Wizard, Level 7"I'm proud of you, sweetie," Laura smiled.

"But what happened?"

"Tom and Finn are liabilities," Daniel replied for them, preempting the sarcastic remark already forming on Kai's lips.

"I will no longer tolerate them on this team." Laura winced.

"They're that bad?"

"Yes."

"Yes." Kai and Lena said in unison, looked at each other, then grinned.

"Technically, I'd call them about average for beginners," Daniel began, "but that's not good enough." Crap. I need to keep the Hofstedts and Pfennings happy. They own most of the dairy cows.

"Let's talk in the kitchen," she offered. Daniel readily agreed, but Kai went off to practice magic and Lena just left without a word. Probably better this way. The two of them sat down at the kitchen table with steaming cups of coffee.

"So, you're booting them?"

"Yes."

"No way to… I don't know, fix the situation?"

"No. They are holding our kids back. That won't change. Just like I said from the beginning."

"But–""I gave them another chance, like you asked. They did not measure up." Laura sighed deeply.

"Alright. I'll… try to package it nicely." Daniel's eyes shifted slightly.

"... Honey?"

"I already dismissed them." Shit. She leaned back in her chair. Another problem on her ever-growing pile of problems.

"How are your Druids doing?" Daniel asked in an obvious attempt to change the topic. Laura obliged.

"They're… doing their best."

"How would you rate their competence, generally speaking?" Utterly disappointing.

"... Suboptimal. Only Kerstin keeps up, to some degree."

"She's your second cousin." Was that a statement or a question?

"She is." Daniel paused for a moment. She knew the way his brow furrowed – he was trying to translate a complex situation into simple terms.

"From now on, you should operate under the assumption that 'suboptimal' is perfectly normal. You are the outlier." Laura's mind felt like it had just skipped a step.

"You mean I'm… better at being Druid than them."

"You are very talented, in my admittedly amateurish estimation."

"... And from your question about Kerstin, I assume that means talent is… hereditary in some form."

"It is. In the other world, talent was the foundation of nobility. Creating powerful bloodlines was their top priority. Think selective breeding on a societal scale."

"That's…" Very disturbing.

"Quite distasteful from your point of view, maybe, but a necessity of life from theirs. They need to handle threats far beyond anything our world offers so far."

"... I see. What exactly is talent, though? It seems like anyone can become a monster with enough SP."

"The system rewards persistence more than anything else," Daniel confirmed.

"If you put in the effort, you will see results. Tom and Finn can become monstrously powerful if they keep fighting and invest their SP wisely. Talent… Talent is about the things not directly handled by the system. How quickly you understand freecasting or the best use of your Skills. In some cases, how easily you unlock class upgrades."

"So, whenever I talk to the plants–""–that's not a feature of the system. It's a feature of druidic magic itself, which is connected to the system through the Proficiency framework and– it doesn't matter," he interrupted himself.

"You got the gist of it." Laura nodded.

"So I shouldn't be upset with the others for being unable to communicate with plants without touching them."

"Exactly." She ruminated over that revelation, more and more questions forming in her mind.

"My ancestors were Druids, then?"

"I doubt it," Daniel hesitantly replied.

"With the pathetic mana density on earth, even small-scale rituals would have taken decades to manifest. But I have no idea how bloodlines work in the first place. All I know is that they are consistent and measurable." …Does cutting slugs in half count as a ritual?

"Do you have a bloodline?" Daniel blinked, then chuckled.

"When I was summoned, I was chosen out of billions of people on Earth as the person most suited for wizardry." Laura readily believed that, given the supernatural feats she had seen him accomplish. Still, that made her most important question even more pressing.

"What about Kai and Lena?" Daniel stilled. He set down his coffee mug and folded his hands.

"Unfortunately, they are horrifyingly talented," he sighed.