Unfazed by Gabby’s well-timed arrow, Brance readjusted his stance before swinging his shield out to the side and colliding with another of the back liner’s heads. But, unfortunately, be it the screams these beings made as they died, or the simple fact that the steam cloud was quickly thinning, the attention of the platoon of Kobold Soldiers readily shifted from their chants and bows to Brance, Gabby, and Benny.

Like a scene from a horror movie, all 20 lizard heads swiveled and glared at Brance, sending a shiver down his spine. Brance wasn’t like Cynrik, who kept lizards and snakes as pets back on Earth. In fact, he had a deep-seated hatred borderline fear of them, ever since an incident where Cynriks pet ball python got out of its cage and wrapped itself around Brance’s leg in the middle of the night, causing the young Earthling to have nightmares for years to come.

“It just had to be **ing lizards.” Then, clicking his tongue and spitting on the ground, Brance dived back into the backline, not allowing the remaining five beings to have a chance to recover from the shocking sneak attack.

Moving like a spartan, switching between slamming the front of his shields into bodies and decapitating Kobolds with the edge of the defensive weapon, Brance quickly decimated the remaining support Kobolds.

By the time the final of the eight beings fell, its friends had entered the fray. Luckily for Brance, Gabby was doing the very thing she was trained to, picking off stragglers and slowing down the movement of the advancing platoon.

The bulk of her shots ended up being directed at the legs of the main fighting force running towards Brance, and each arrow found its mark. The knee caps were most being’s weak point. Cynrik had heavily stressed the importance of a well-placed knee shot early on in the Sanfords training. At one point, Gabby, being the only one affected by Brance’s full justice and truth routine, was the only one to speak out at the time, asking why they should fight so dirty. To which Cynrik aptly replied, “There is no such thing as a fair fight on the streets.”

The statement greatly confused the simple and pure-minded Gabby. She and Benny had yet to realize at the time that Cynrik had been training them for these very kinds of situations. There was no room for fighting fair in the sight of multiple enemies who wanted your life.

As if on autopilot, the little girl rapid fired her arrows into her targets from different angles, sometimes the front of the knee, others the side or back. Just like Cynrik had taught her, Gabby was constantly on the move, never staying place long enough to become a sitting duck.

On the other hand, Benny was struggling greatly to keep up with his rabbit-like sister, who bounced around at weird angles, following a path only she knew. Yet he somehow could step up at just the right moment and stop any incoming projectile attacks from hitting her.

Brance quickly noticed how effective Gabby’s strategy was and silently thanked her with his eyes, which didn’t go unnoticed by the little girl. With the movement speed of the platoon reduced significantly, the group of three was able to eliminate all of its members with relative ease swiftly, and it was only Benny who seemed to be out of breath after the encounter.

Bent over with his hands on his knees and gasping for air, Benny looked around for any extra enemies only to spot Gabby and Brance moving from corpse to corpse and extracting Codexes and other resources.

“Huff, huff, freaks…the both, huff of you are Stamina freaks.” Airing his complaints and eventually catching his second wind, Benny set about assisting the other two in their material extraction. Benny’s lack of energy wasn’t due to him being out of shape, though; he still wasn’t running at his best after having been nearly killed not long ago. Instead, each breath he took sent a sharp pain up his abdomen.

“Are you ok?” Brance quickly rushed to Benny’s aid when he saw the boy gasping for air slouched over. He promptly pulled out a bottle of water from his inventory and handed it over to the boy, who thanked him before chugging the bottle completely.

“Yeah, I think my insides are still banged up from that spear earlier, but overall, im fine.” Benny wiped excess water from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand before storing the empty bottle in his inventory.

“Don’t push yourself too hard, Benny; I don’t want you to re-open your wounds. Big Brother may have patched you up with potions, but they were only Small pots; here, let me use my skill real quick.” For a moment, Brance had actually forgotten that he could heal wounds as a Light Affinity user. But once he remembered, he quickly cast his Minor Heal, causing Benny’s face to regain the majority of its color, and his breathing returned to normal.

– Your party member Cynrik Jetlensr has killed a Tier-1 Hatchling Reptilian Kobold-

– Your party member Cynrik Jetlensr has killed a Tier-1 Reptilian Kobold-

– Your party member Cynrik Jetlensr has killed a Tier-1 Reptilian Kobold-

– Your party member Cynrik Jetlensr has killed a Tier-1 Hatchling Reptilian Kobold-

– Your party member Cynrik Jetlensr has killed a Tier-1 Hatchling Reptilian Kobold-

Brance, Gabby, and Benny all stiffened upon receiving the notifications of Cynrik’s achievements. Their eyes lingered on the ones about Cynrik killing Hatchlings. None of the group was stupid, and they all knew what those words signified. Brance especially became increasingly worried as the notifications continued to come in, one after another. Then, turning his body and looking in the direction he knew his older brother was fighting, he wore a pained expression.

Seeing Brance look off towards the village center, Gabby walked up and held his hand for comfort.

“Big Bro Cyn will be fine; he’s the toughest of us all.” Although pure and kind-hearted, the little girl knew full well that Cynrik was doing the job no one else in the party could. Gabby herself knew that she wouldn’t be able to fire an arrow at a child, let alone hack them down with a sword.

“Although I wish he wouldn’t try taking on so much by himself, he knows we are all here for him, so Brancie, we need to get back to our job so that Cynrik can get done sooner.”

Brance looked down at Gabby, who was a full head shorter than him, and smiled weakly. “When did you get so mature little bunny.”

“CHE, SOMEONE has to be, I mean you see how Big Bro Cyn is, just like Auntie Cinyah always says, he’s a trouble-making rascal, and you only seem to enable that behavior.” Then, releasing Brance’s hand and putting her own on her waist, she struck a pose reminiscent of how Cinyah did when she was scolding Cynrik.

Benny and Brance chuckled lightly at her antics for a second before getting serious again. Hidden by the steam cloud, the sounds of approaching armor clinking together and feet stomping were heading their direction.

“Time to go, same strat as before.” Brance tilted his head downward, popping his neck, and scanned the surrounding area with his Mana Sight. With the skill active, he could clearly see that both the platoons had merged into a large group and were approaching like sharks who could smell blood.

“The two platoons have merged into a single unit and are heading our way, 54 Kobolds in total. Our previous strat won’t work this time around. Gabby, I need you to post up further back, keep up the slow down attacks; Benny, you’re with me; we will try holding them off; how much XP do you two still need before you reach the cap?”

Brance tossed one last glance at the incoming enemies before redirecting his attention to Gabby and Benny, whose eyes were looking off into the distance, a clear sign they were looking at their Status panels.

“We took out 28 Kobolds in that battle, because of that, and the XP earned by Big Bro Cyn, we are bout 25% of the way done with P18.” Benny was quicker to respond than his sister, who got distracted by the significant increase in her stats.

Between Brance’s double XP buff and the double reward buff from killing several Kobolds twice their level, they rapidly gained stats and XP.

“Right, Gabby, scratch my previous statement, go for headshots, you guys only need a few more kills before our checkpoint is reached, and we can call over Big Brother. I want you to pick off the Kobolds who look weaker. Speed is everything.” Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Brance dished out his orders and turned towards the large group of Kobolds, who, by his estimate, was only about a hundred meters away.

Thinking on his toes, Brance did something he felt was slightly stupid and started channeling his Wind Mana. Unlike Cynrik, he wasn’t as good at coming up with effective plans on the fly, but seeing as they were pressed for time and the Kobolds were approaching, he came up with an all-or-nothing strategy.

During their previous battle, Brance had noticed the steam cloud was breaking apart faster than he anticipated initially, partner that with how good the Kobold’s sense of smell appeared to be, their ability to hide in the steam effectively was dwindling fast. Thus, he decided to blast away a portion of the mist to save some time, concealing the incoming forces. Although it was a double-edged plan, since the enemies would have a clear line of sight on the party, it also would allow Gabby to see all her targets clearly, allowing her to fire off her arrows more accurately.

Bringing up his shields like arm-mounted cannons and using the concaved center as an aiming sight, Brance fired off two large Air Missles, which tore through the steam cloud, creating two wide-open channels.

“NOW!” Brance shouted, making six arrows whiz past his ears less than a second later.

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