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Volume 7 Chapter 7 Part 2

Translator: Kell

Having said that, Sandstorm is not something to make light of—other defensive spells don’t work against it. Magic with wide area of effect has too much energy to begin with. Force-field type spells will get shattered in an instant, killing you.

Before all that could happen, I cast the spell I had prepared in advance.

“Magic Wing.”

Magic Wing is a mobility spell that allows you to fly over short distances. A ranged attack magic like Sandstorm has a weakness in that its position can not be adjusted after it has been cast. If you avoid it the moment it’s cast, it won’t be able to follow you.

Indeed. The enemy’s Sandstorm is an incredible offensive spell with a wide area of effect, but only if you look at it purely as an attack magic. While there are several spells that can reduce you to ashes at a range of several meters, there’s barely any that has a range of hundreds of meters. The enemy cast the Sandstorm not with me at the center, instead he cast it in a position where the edge barely reached me.

One of Sandstorm’s weaknesses is its slow activation. It lasts for several seconds, but it takes a few seconds after it is cast before it reaches its peak power, giving me some window to work with. So if you use a high-speed mobility spell, getting out of the range during that window is not that difficult.

As a result, by the time the Sand Storm was activated, I was a few meters ahead of its attack range. I then dodged to the side of the Sandstorm and caught sight of the two hostiles.

“Ridiculously powerful explosive magic…” one of the muttered. “It’s Eld! The guy we’re supposed to look out for the most!”

“Damn it… He dodged the spell at first sight. He’s much more powerful than the rumors said!”

Apparently, the enemy knew about me. As a matter of fact, I was the number one guy they had to look out for. It looks like they’ve even prepared a special strategy against me, but we’ll see how far that goes.

What about the other guy? I guess he’s not coming at me.

After dodging the Sandstorm, I decided to watch how the enemy would make their next move. They had prepared countermeasures especially for me, while I know basically nothing about them. Fighting them like this would only put me at a considerable disadvantage. I don’t know anything about these guys other than ‘at least one of them uses Sandstorm’, so I’d like some more information.

There are only two enemies left, and from the looks of their gear, they’re both Sages. However, only one of them used Sandstorm.

Magic Wing doesn’t allow me to move very far. If the other Sage could also use Sandstorm, it wouldn’t have been difficult to shoot a second one at my landing point.

And if both of them were Sages, it’s unlikely that only one of them can use Sandstorm. While there are some tiresome conditions that need to be fulfilled before you can learn Sandstorm, as long as you know what they are and make sure the requirements are met, learning it itself is not that difficult.

If one of the Empire’s soldiers has acquired it, if the Empire knows the conditions for learning it, it should be safe to assume that almost all of their Sages can use Sandstorm.

Yet despite all this, the enemy did not cast the spell on me, presumably as a precaution.

Like my Steam Explosion, Sandstorm is a spell that requires time before it can be cast again. Its cooldown is exactly the same as Steam Explosion’s—that is, sixty seconds.

If both enemies used Sandstorm and I managed to evade them, my second Steam Explosion would hit them before their spells could come off cooldown. If they can defeat me with other spells by then, then there won’t be a problem, but that would put them at a severe disadvantage, whereas all I have to do is survive until I can cast Steam Explosion again.

Steam Explosion and Sandstorm both have almost same kill range. If both are level one, then Sandstorm has an advantage, but my Steam Explosion is level two. What it lacks in attack range, it makes up for in power.

Sandstorm can be evaded, but that’s only if the situation is stable and you can focus solely on evasion. You can’t use Magic Wing to fly through the blast produced by Steam Explosion. Hell, if they cast Sandstorm at the same time I cast Steam Explosion, there won’t be any time to fly away to safety.

In short, if the enemy is preserving their magic spells, there is no chance for me to kill them.

But if the enemy misses their spell, I can close the distance and blow them to pieces as soon as I can use Steam Explosion again. Unlike Sandstorm, it only takes a moment from casting for Steam Explosion to reach its peak power. Even if you use mobility magic, you will not be able to escape the blast wave.

If that happens, at least one of them will die. They might survive if they’re lucky enough, but they would be out of commission. In order to avoid such a situation, one of the two is saving their Sandstorm while they both wait for the other guy’s Sandstorm to come off cooldown.

“Sticky Bomb.”

“Sticky Bomb.”

While waiting, both of them cast spells at the same time, and one of them—the one who didn’t use Sandstorm—began closing the distance between us. They believed they could get close to me without being in danger since I just cast Steam Explosion.

I can keep my distance if I retreat at the same speed as the enemy is walking towards me. To stop me, though, the enemy cast their Sticky Bombs as if to block my path of retreat.

A Sticky Bomb’s area of effect is really not that huge. I can easily avoid it if I wanted to. Rather than making me step on the Sticky Bomb, the enemy probably shot the them to take advantage of the moment when I would check my feet to avoid it.