The Westlands Witch
[Middle Realm, Eariga, West Hubert City Westlands]
A small boy and a obviously older big sister were walking in a field of sand, if that was the view you'd normally see then this one is particularly weird. Zeke had red eyes and desperately covering his face from the sand that seems to never cease blowing against him. On the other hand Chanelle was nonchalantly walking as if she's mere taking a stroll in the park, no hints of discomfort could be found.
'Bloody hell! What's up with this sand?!'
Zeke was being accompanied by Chanelle on his first mission and the sand was getting in his way to it. Literally so, as another huge block of sand came charging towards Zeke. He tried jumping to the side but his Dexterity failed him and for some reason he ended up tripping, face first to the sand.
"FUCKING QUICKSANDS!"
After tripping Zeke found himself slowly drowning in sand, he tried to struggle but the sand was thirsty or hungry...whichever one it has. Chanelle glanced at at Zeke before sighing and giving him a disappointed look, she held out her hands prompting Zeke to grab it so he can get out.
This was Zeke's 7th time nearly dying on an unranked mission, he slowly knelt and his curly ash white hair somehow managed to darken his face. With slow steps, Zeke trudged towards Chanelle before realizing that he can't really reach her shoulders so he went for her forearms.
"Tell me, does you high level have something to do with you being unaffected by this shitty sand hell?!"
Chanelle tried her best to suppress her grin and her eyes looked joyous, with a gleeful tone she placed her hands on the boy's shoulders before shaking her head, not in a disappointed manner but in a 'finally' kind of tone.
"You finally asked me! I'm so glad you actually can ask for advice!"
Zeke was cringing and confused, did she really set aside the fact that he nearly died 7 times as a test?
'The audacity of this fucking...'
"Just tell me, HOW?"
Chanelle was slightly put off by his menacing glare and tone but she actually saw it more like a little brother that was angry because you lessened his time to play outside.
"The answer is Mana Coat~"
Zeke's cringe turned into an inquisitive look as they resumed walking in the god-forsaken sand hell. Zeke, like always was not a entirely dumb being so he naturally guessed that mana coating was literally coating yourself with mana, but his question was how? While talking he tried it on his own for a bit only to fail as there was no reaction from his mana. Did he need a certain skill or is it a skill?
'System, how do I do mana coat?'
Firaga clucked her tongue before sighing. Zeke wasn't particularly used to it but he wondered on why he was surrounded by, if not idiots then annoying sentient beings.
'Blessing of Eariga my ass, more like lose your luck to get more exp shit. I wouldn't be surprised if an important being suddenly appeared in front of me using some weird teleportation shit and drag me into whatever sort of chaos it brought with it'
[You sure you don't wanna learn it yourself? The skill points are still useful this time around.]
Zeke inhaled and exhaled, it seemed like a normal breathing exercise but for him, he cursed the system and pretty much anyone he remembers in those few moments silently.
[I can teach you but the recorded ways of learning mana coating in my database is vastly different from the normal ones]
GWOOOSH
THUD!
[...]
"..."
"...I hate sand"
The three different beings had different reactions at what just happened, one tried it's best not to morally degrade her host too much but still get her satisfied with degrading him while the other had the look of pity and was troubled about something. The last one was simply staring at the block of sand that just decided to materialize in front of him for no reason at all, despite the dead look in the eye's of Zeke it was a very cheerful moment...ok maybe not but for Firaga it was. When all of the sudden Chanelle hurriedly carried Zeke much to his shock and started running backwards.
ZOOOM
SHHHHUWING!
Sand spike erupted from their previous location and it started following popping up more and more heading for their direction, Chanelle saw this and tossed poor Zeke to the side while she unsheathed her large sword and slashed horizontally.
"Burst Slash!"
A red aura coated her sword before she swung it and the sword emitted a destructive wave the seemed to have halted the spikes. She the jumped back and inhaled large wisps of air.
"Earth Shaker!"
Chanelle stabber her sword into the ground and again the same red aura coated her sword before the ground started showing cracks in a radius of 10 meters, Zeke saw this and hurriedly ran away but the spikes that seemed to chase after him reappeared just right behind so he was in a real tight spot. Just as Zeke was about to be skewered Chanelle blinked to existence near him and grabbed him but collars before tossing him up high into the air.
'What the hell is up with her strength?!'
Chanelle looked around warily, she waited for the spikes to come up again and when it did, she raised her giant sword up past her head as her eyes glowed a bright gold tint.
"Heavy Judgement!"
Hundered of magic circles appeared in multitudes around Chanelle that stretched up to 50 meters before golden sword like ethereal stuff came out of them and rained down to the ground. Zeke was tossed high enough that the sword were exactly just below him as he was still rising in height.
DUDUDUDUDUDU
BOOM!
The swords continued raining down and the previously balance sand dunes turned into messy pieces of weird melting mana.
"7:00"
Chanelle who had her eyes closed the whole time said quietly before she disappeared yet again and struck the ground a few meters away from her at the exact position she murmured.
"AGHHH!"
A loud shriek resounded in the air, Zeke's eye grew large and Chanelle accurately stabbed a...girl? Or old hag in the shoulder as she jumped out from below the sand.
"A professional earth peak mage?"
The hag slowly backed away from Chanelle while grasping her bleeding shoulders, no one told her that there was a terrifying person in the Westlands right now!
"I beg your mercy o' great maiden! This sand witch was severely mistaken to attack you!"
She knelt and slammed her forehead into the sand, Chanelle let her guard down for a bit but in that fraction of second the witch was once again connected to the sand. She formed several sand tentacles that bound Chanelle much to her surprise.
Zeke was silently watching while cursing when he saw Chanelle lower her guard.
"YOU FUCKING TWIT! DON'T BELIEVE THE WORDS OF AN ENEMY SO EASILY!"
Zeke focused his mana into his palms shaping like a ball while filling it with fire element, he then inhaled making the fireball grow as big as a basketball.
"FIREBALL!"
A ball of fire hurled towards the witch, she stared at the boy before snorting and saying something like 'insect' before creating sands to block it...but... well Zeke was actually a genius in the most widest of terms.
The ball of fire changed it's shape into a spear slowly, the witch couldn't see this as she was focused on Chanelle and the sand was blocking it. In mere seconds she felt numb on her stabbed shoulder as well as the accompanying pain soon after.
"GAHH! WHAGGG!"
She dropped to the floor holding her hands and lost focus making the sand tentacles disappear, she stared to her sand wall only to find it pierced in the shape of a trident?
"YOU SHITTY BRAT!"
The witch used her bits of focused and controlled the sand to encase and crush Zeke but she felt weird somehow, it's like she was flying or some....
DUG
SWISHHH!
Blood spurted from her neck after her head flew down to the sand with a strangely ecstatic face. Beside her was an angry Chanelle who had blood on her face, Zeke felt himself shiver. Not because of Chanelle, no...that's not even gonna scare him but instead the fact that he was gonna die for, like the 8th now since a certain somebody threw him really high up in the air and is now falling and breaking his momentum with the fireball. Along with his panic was the system ringing.
[New Skill Learned: Fire Shapeshift]
"Oh?"
[Skill Point +2]
"Cool...now then, SAVE ME YOU FUCKING DONKEY!"
He shouted at Chanelle earning her sharp glare that quickly shifted into a panicking look as she hurriedly tried to catch Zeke, she jumped and luckily caught him in the nick of time. As you would expect however, they landed in an awkward position. Chanelle found herself hugging Zeke tightly while squishing him on her booms, his knees were luckily placed just right on her spot making her moan a little.
"..."
"GET OFF YOU PEA SACK OF SHIT!"
Zeke angrily pushed her off and snorted, Chanelle was still dumbfounded.
'Did I molest a child? Or did the child molest...no wait, what?!'
She drifted on to her day dream world as a pretty wild fantasy of Zeke pushing her down made her blush like a tomato while wiggling like...an idiot. Our poor young Zeke didn't even put the situation on his mind, or so it seems. He is a big boy after all.
'I-I-I-I-I felt her...'spot'...'
Zeke lightly pinched his nose, after he realized that he was actually having a nosebleed.
"This is bullshit..."
[Gained 400,000 EXP]
In the midst of her wild fantasies, Chanelle heard her system ring but it was only a shitty amount of exp so she ignored it after a while she slowly slapped herself.
'I forgot to party with him... he could've gotten some good amount of EXP'
Chanelle sighed and went to Zeke who she found cute pinching his nose while swearing in a high-pitched voice. She blushed, like, again realizing that she called him cute. She shrugged it off and explained to Zeke about partying in which he agreed it with no problems, a wave of blue energy enveloped her fingers as she pointed to the forehead of Zeke to her own.
"Oh, Gods of Eariga! Grant me the authority to bond myself as a comrade to another, sharing our gains with all fairness"
...
[New system detected....Would you like to absorb this primitive system?]
Zeke cringed before agreeing, afterwards he felt as if an invisible thread was bound between him and Chanelle. They were really in a party just a like an online game!
'If the extra mini HP bar didn't give it away though'
In the top right corner of Zeke's vision was a mini HP and MP bar with the name 'Chanelle' on top of it along with her level. Aside from that a degrading thought towards the system surfaced from the back of Zeke's mind.
'How useless, doesn't even have it's own party feature'
[Uga... I want to know why as well, but if 'It' made me this way then there's no complaining, maybe it's for the balance or something? Who knows?]
After a brief confirmation from Chanelle they decided to stop for a while and rest in a sand cave which was seriously out of place but upon setting inside, they found out that it was the lair of the Witch so they deemed it a safe place to rest for a bit and think of how they are going to collect 50 Sunshine Petals before dawn... Zeke was about to speak when a loud growl reverberated inside the cave.
RAWRRRRR!
Chanelle's eyes turned serious and she went in front of Zeke in reflex, Zeke gulped and from the shadows of the cave a 4 meter tiger-like beast emerged.
"What the hell is a Sand Panther King doing in here?!"
Chanelle took Zeke and ran, even if she was a high leveled person who can probably solo the Sand Panther, Zeke would disappear in one shot so she wasn't going to risk it in a confined space. She thought about what to do next but not shortly after a large paw could be seen heading towards her.
Two choices, take the hit and save Zeke or Save herself and let Zeke take the hit. A test of trust, would you be willing to die like that for a stranger you're not even related to? What will Zeke do? Will he get betrayed or will it be a happy ending?