The Unmaker

“Yer wasting our time,” Amula growled, as she balanced atop the wooden pole he’d been standing on and tightened the straps on her winged beetle boots—her bright orange eyes burning in Raya’s direction. “Get out of our way.”

Raya, for his part, didn’t respond to her provocation. His stance was tighter, his muscles glistening with sweat. Even Dahlia could tell he was wary of her strength—and Dahlia had never seen him this serious before—so it was no surprise that the first thing he did was snap his wrist-mounted crossbow onto her face, firing off a quick two-round burst.

Minimal head movement. Amula dodged the hornet stinger by a hair’s breadth, avoiding getting her left eye pierced through, but they still scraped past her cheeks and grazed her skin.

Raya sighed exasperatedly.

“... My hornet stingers are all laced with a paralysing venom,” he said, yanking his spear from the ground and shaking off the tension in his arms with a small flourish; his eyes were back on Issam standing directly beneath Amula. “Issam has already been grazed thirty-one times by my spear, while you have just been grazed twice by my ranged stingers. It will take Issam approximately five more minutes to fall, owing to his sturdy build, but you, I think three minutes is more than long enough. If you want to die in a more beautiful location, leave your Swarmsteel here and–”

Amula took a step back and dropped off the wooden pole.

She kicked three times, sending three wooden pole fragments flying at Raya. He frowned and deflected them with his bare hands, taking a slow step forward.

“–I was saying, if you want to die in a nicer place, take off all your Swarmsteel and–”

She landed heels first, a small quake making the floor ripple around her, and kicked the entire rest of the pole at him. This time Raya swung his spear and cut cleanly through the centre of the projectile, aiming his wrist-mounted crossbow at her chest.

“–just leave. Go on back and help your friends or whatever in the shelter–”

Of the dozen or so metal shrapnel that flew into the air from her hard landing, she kicked half of them forward, the projectiles completely annihilating the stingers as they flew at her. Counterattack. One of the metal shrapnel hit Raya square in his left shin, making him wobble for the briefest of moments, but that was all the advantage Amula needed to press forward.

And, by ‘press forward’, Dahlia felt ‘going anywhere but forward’ was the more apt way to describe her fighting style.

Raya lunged in, spear going straight for her head, but Issam dashed forward with his blade to redirect it; the swordsman chuckled and fell over afterwards, having completely run out of strength to match the spearman. But he’d done his part. With Raya now positioned in the very centre of the room, Amula was allowed to dash off to the sides to kick up a storm… and there was nothing she didn’t kick at him. Broken hammers and blades and furniture from the mounds of scrap, fragmented wooden poles, the torn-down front door, a few firefly cages, and even a few of his own stingers that’d bounced off her shrapnel just a bit earlier—the twins fanned their mantles and threw themselves over Dahlia just to protect her from all the flying debris, and Issam half-shouted, half-laughed at Amula to stop playing around.

… Eria.

[What is it?]

Can I see Amula’s Swarmsteel description here?

[As you wish.]

It took the little black bug on her shoulder some time, but for a second while Amula was still visible—and not blurring circles around the room as she kicked everything she could get her feet on—Dahlia caught a glimpse of the status screen floating next to her head.

[2x Bombardier Beetle Boots (Quality = D)(Spd +7/7)(Tou +1/3)(Strain +333)]

[Special Qualities: Explosive Jets (Quality = D)]

[It is as I thought,] Eria murmured. [Though it is a relatively low quality Swarmsteel, it is incredibly rare that someone can get all the speed levels offered by a speed-based Swarmsteel almost immediately after equipping it.]

… Huh? But you said it’s already incredible my bracers are giving me eight levels in perceptivity even though I’ve only been wearing them for… a day?

[Generally speaking, perceptivity is the easiest level for Swarmsteel to increase. It is much more difficult for Swarmsteel to increase attribute levels such as toughness, as the toughness attributes offered are not typically evenly spread across a human body.]

She covered her ears to stop them from ringing, every kick from Amula sending shudders through her body.

Toughness isn’t evenly spread? What do you mean?

[Say, the pine sawyer beetle chestplate you are wearing. Right now, your toughness level is not getting increased because you have just equipped the chestplate—and it would take time for your body to acclimate to it before you start getting bonus attributes—but would it be accurate to say your 'toughness' has not at all changed just because your toughness level has not biologically increased yet?]

That… oh.

Wait.

How do you show it on the status screen, then–

[Like this.]

[2x Cave Cricket Tibia Bracers (Quality = F)(Per +8/17)(Tou +0/1)(Strain +186)]

Her status popped up next to her head again. In the shadow of the twins’ bracing mantles, she scanned the words and numbers quickly before realising she’d never read it ‘properly’ in the first place, ever since she equipped her cave cricket bracers.

Down there, next to the Swarmsteel name. It says… plus eight out of seventeen perceptivity levels next to my bracers, but there’s also an additional toughness number next to it?

[That is because all Swarmsteel garments have an inherent toughness attribute, while all Swarmsteel weapons have an inherent strength attribute,] Eria explained. [To reiterate, the first plus eight-seventeen is the perceptivity levels you gain from an incomplete meld, but the plus zero-one in toughness is how tough your bracers are inherently. You are not receiving any increase in overall toughness levels from your bracers yet, but the ‘one’ in the second part implies the bracers themselves still have an inherent toughness of one attribute. Now, onto another example–]

[Pine Sawyer Beetle Chestplate (Quality = F)(Tou +0/3)(Strain +89)]

The words and numbers changed again.

[Your actual toughness level may not have increased yet,] Eria said, [but if someone were to punch you on your chestplate, you would likely be able to endure it because the chestplate itself has an inherent toughness level of three. It would take a Swarmsteel weapon or an attack with at least three levels in strength to shatter it.]

Dahlia blinked, and turned to look back out at Amula again.

That… makes sense, I guess. That all Swarmsteel have their own inherent toughness level.

But we’re getting off-track. I wasn’t asking about the toughness.

For Amula, you were saying–

[That girl’s beetle boots can offer her a maximum of seven levels in speed, and though she has only just now put them back on, her overall speed level has already increased by seven.]

[Those boots are hers, and hers alone.]

[Who knows just how many hundreds and thousands of hours she has trained with them?]

…

A mixture of awe and astonishment coalesced inside her.

Maybe the twins weren’t really watching while they were protecting her with their mantles, and maybe Issam wasn’t really watching because he was lying flat on his back, breathing heavily, but it was all Dahlia could do to keep herself from cheering for her senior.

This was the strength of the strongest student, ‘Winged Heel’ Amula.

“... These pointless things won’t reach me,” Raya murmured, sounding almost disappointed as he sliced everything that flew his way apart, not having moved a single step from where he stood. “This isn’t interesting, either. Ranged battles are boring. If you’re strong, then come into melee range and fight me like the bug-slayer you are. Or are you scared? If so, feel free to leave your Swarmsteel by the door before you–”

Provocation may not work on Raya, but it definitely worked on Amula.

She kicked a whole closet at his face and he cut it apart without much effort, but she was right behind the closet, a beetle prowling and leaping with both knees pulled up. Her snarl was real. She bowled straight into Raya’s head and slammed him into the ground. A grunt of pain escaped him as he quickly wrestled her off with his spear and spun onto his feet, but his head swivelled left, swivelled right—Amula’s boot smashed into his forehead and she kicked him through the chalkboard, through the wall, before she curled her leg and dragged him back in with his neck wrapped under her knee.

The fight ended when she tossed him to the ground and drove a heel into his spine, metal plates unfurling in a blossom around the point of impact.

[... You really have strong, strong allies.]

While the twins dropped their mantle, Issam sat up straight, and Jerie continued searching the mounds of scrap for his Swarmsteel, Amula turned to shoot a thumbs up at Dahlia.

Not knowing the exact reason for the kind gesture, Dahlia returned one of her own—though hers was weak, trembling, and not at all sure of what it was doing.

She just thought… for many, many moments there, that her senior was rather cool.

Well.

Raya wasn’t bad at all, either.