Chapter 60 Why They Are Angry
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"Are you sure about this, Marcel?
" A woman in the group who wore a light cloth suit to facilitate the movement of her arms and not to tire herself during the Fortress raid, who explicitly said that she was a Blessed mage, asked Marcel about his decision.
nShe didn't think it was right to put the group's survival at risk in the hands of a Blessed stranger, especially after she saw how young he was. She had no confidence at all that he would be useful.
nIn her mind, she thought, 'If you're going to make him die, let him die alone. Don't risk my life just to prove whether he's strong or not.' But she didn't say that out loud.
nMarcel already knew what she was thinking without her saying anything out loud, but he pretended he didn't know so as not to create any unnecessary discord.
"Don't worry. I just said that to put pressure on him and see if he works well under pressure. Jasper will probably be able to handle both of their work alone throughout the Fortress, even if it affects the speed of the group as he will need to do twice as much effort, but that's just what will happen. Maybe we will lose a little time, but nothing more. The Fortress is only complicated for those who are Blessed from the bottom of the rankings. For a team like ours there will be no difficulty, even if the new boy is useless.
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nHearing Marcel's explanation, the woman became more composed. She had already gone to several Fortresses with the group and knew firsthand how skillful the entire party was. She trusted each of them with her own life when it came to terms of skill. If someone in the group claimed that he would be able to protect her, she would believe that person and would not bother to defend herself. However, this new boy who arrived did not give that impression to her. While everyone else had an aura of a strong and powerful person, this new boy, mainly because he was much younger than everyone in the group and had only a Rank F Blessing, he seemed nothing more than a burden in her eyes.
nShe wasn't the only one with that thought. No one treated Noah badly, but everyone was prepared to see him fail and potentially die in the Fortress because he was unable to do the tasks he was supposed to do.
nNoah was clearly not paying attention to what the group thought. Everyone was treating him with doubt, and he understood that side of people, since they would be depending on him to survive.
nOnly one person in the group was not seeing Noah's age as a bad thing, and that person was Jasper. Since he saw Noah using his ability against normal goblins as well as the goblin Boss, Jasper had a completely different view of Noah. Noah's age, instead of being negative in his view, was extremely positive, since if he was already that powerful at this age, what would he be like in ten years?
nUnfortunately, only Jasper thought so, and he knew very well what others were thinking about Noah, but he couldn't do anything about it. Now it was just up to Noah himself to change his image to others from useless trash to one of great potential talent.
nAfter doing all the pre-Fortress procedures, the group of 15 people went through the portal and on the other side they came across a different forest. The Fortress of the Angry Birds was known for its vegetation which was very different from the other Rank E Fortresses.
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nOn the other side of the portal, the land had become red and dry and the trees reached heights of more than 20 meters, but because of the slightly greater distance between them, they did not give off a claustrophobic feeling to whoever was there, but still it felt like being enclosed in a red forest with several thick pillars that supported a roof of red leaves.
nNoah saw that the place was slightly dark and what he noticed was it was as if someone had applied a slight red filter to his vision. He could still see in the distance quite easily, but in a slightly more reddish tone. Unfortunately, that warm light tone was not good for the Blessed, as they had to work harder to see from afar, and felt the view making them tired more easily.
nNoah on the other hand felt that he was at an advantage in an environment like this, because he knew that they were not the only ones who saw this
"filter
" of red light. The monsters of the Fortress also had to adapt to this vision, so Noah, who had fire-based attacks, would benefit greatly from the visual coverage he would have because of the filter.
nThe group went into formation and just like in the goblin forest Fortress, Noah stayed in an intermediate line between the frontline and the backline so that he could attack the monsters and protect the backline at the same time.
nEven though the people in the backline were clearly not feeling safe with Noah
"protecting
" them, because they thought he was just a Blessed person who just reached Rank E, Noah didn't care about it and kept continuing cautiously so that nothing bad happened to these people.
nStrangely, after 10 minutes of walking, the group still had not found any groups of monsters. Normally, the Angry Birds always flew with a companion, but so far the Blessed Ones had seen none at all.
nAnother five minutes of walking passed until finally they heard a shout in the background. As they had researched the Fortress, they knew that this cry had come from one of the birds. Preparing for battle, the group immediately went into formation and each held their own weapon.
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"Noah, let Jasper do it first so you can learn how it is,
" Marcel said out loud. He had no confidence that Noah would be able to do what was necessary even if he knew what he was supposed to do, but he also wouldn't be dishonest to the point of just sending Noah alone first without even knowing what he would have to do.
nNoah just accepted this and remained positioned to protect the backline.
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nSuddenly, the source of the noise finally came. There appeared two birds that were screaming and shouting, clearly irritated, but not with each other, but with some other monsters that were trying to ride them.
nTwo blue-skinned boars were trying to tame these birds by brute force. This was why the Fortress was called Angry Birds Fortress, because every bird they met was screaming in anger at having to carry a boar on its back as a mount.
nThe group, instead of attacking directly, actually stayed as quiet as possible while Jasper used his own Blessing to run at great speed through the red forest towards a screaming bird.
nWhen he entered the bird's range, he quickly climbed a tree and gave the bird a slight push. At that, the muscular boar that was sitting on the bird's back began to fall to the ground with increasing speed. Even if he survived the fall, the Blessed Ones who were prepared for it pointed the tips of their swords at the boar, just waiting for it to hit the ground before finishing off the monster. The archers and wizards were focused on the bird that kept screaming, but that angry bird, instead of taking the opportunity to escape and get rid of the boar, did something completely against common logic.
nInstead of leaving, the bird started to scream with even more anger, but this time, the bird's anger was being directed at the humans who were taking down the boar on its back.
nThe rage of these birds worked like this, they always needed to have a target to vent their own rage, and as the boars tame them to use as mounts, they always had a target to direct their rage, but when humans would knock down the boars, the birds would end up using them instead as a target for their anger and launch irrational attacks on the humans.
nHowever, as desperate as it may seem to be targeted by a crazy and rampant bird, wild boars purposely knew how to redirect the birds' rage toward humans, and being attacked by a crazy bird controlled by a conscious monster was even more frightening than being attacked by an irrational and rampant bird.
nWhen the bird started flying towards the backline in a straight line, the wizards and archers took advantage of the opportunity that Jasper had created and focused all their attacks on that bird. Unfortunately, as everyone knew, the spells and arrows were not as effective against these birds as they were against the monsters of other Fortresses, because the feathers of these birds produced a kind of mucus that apparently made the surface of the feathers smooth, and in addition to redirecting part of the impact from the arrows, it managed to also contain much of the firepower of the spells.
nThe party's attacks caused major injuries to the bird, but even with more than 8 Blessed attacking the bird, it still survived and continued to fly with even more anger towards the humans it saw as prey.
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nDespite this, the Blessed Ones were not so concerned because Jasper had already appeared again and with a quick jump he managed to cut off a piece of the giant bird's wing, causing him to lose his balance and start to fall to the ground.
nThe Blessed Ones knew that Jasper would be back in time because of the synergy they had. They knew the boy's speed and knew they could count on him, so when the angry bird hit the ground, the mage prepared magical attacks while the archers prepared arrows to finally eliminate the bird.
nBut before they could do anything about it, an orange fireball was faster to connect, and when it came in contact with the injured bird, it caused the creature to cry out in pain and despair to most everyone's surprise.
nPlease read author notes ↓↓↓
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