The Support Ate it All-Chapter 561: Finals Week 17–18 (16)

Two of the gigantic fireballs flew at Group A and Group C. The other one came straight for our main base.

Song Cheon-hye shouted like she was screaming.

“B-Barrier! Do we have a barri... er...?”

But the farther she got into the sentence, the smaller her voice became, like she didn’t believe it would hold.

We got the performance test result almost immediately.

The moment the gigantic fireball touched the barrier, an explosion worthy of its size went off.

KWA-KWA-KWAAANG—!

It looked like it held for a split second, but then—

CRASH!

—shattering like glass, and smaller fireballs scattered in all directions.

In an instant, the base turned into a sea of flames.

Staring at the lodging burning down, Han So-mi screamed like she was wailing.

“No! My nice house!”

But that was only the beginning.

The flames churned violently, and monsters of all kinds of shapes burst out from inside.

“Spirits!”

“Block them!”

“Protect the tower, the tower!”

The chaos worsened, and scattered fights broke out everywhere.

It’s called <Fire Dragon’s Nest> for a reason.

A place where an S-rank dragon had taken up residence.

The Flame Emperor Dragon had entered a dormant phase, but that didn’t mean even its subordinate dragon-tooth soldiers had stopped moving.

They were watching it all.

Humans showing up, setting up a base, then roaming around, beating up monsters and collecting crystals.

There’s no way they’d just keep letting it happen.

The more crystals ran dry, the wider the humans’ activity range became—and the more territory got intruded on.

Around now, they’d have decided it was time to wipe us out.

And if they feel like it, they’ve got plenty of ways to do it.

Even the monster wave that happened in the morning had been half artificial.

If it solved the problem, great. If not, it was a probe—meant to gauge our strength.

And this is the second one.

They gathered the energy generated by the volcanic eruption, launched ultra-long-range bombardment, and even sent spirits along with it.

And even that wasn’t the end.

FWOOSH,

Not long after the fighting started, there were ones that strolled out of the flames, completely relaxed.

Half-human, half-dragon—bodies ridged like claws.

Dragon-turtle soldiers.

They looked a little different from the ones I’d seen at <Craft Haven> because the materials were different, but their combat power should be similar—about the lower-mid tier among third-years.

A couple of them were floating in midair, scattering fist-sized fireballs like they were sowing seeds.

The moment they hit the ground, they burned even fiercer—and a spirit was born.

Spirit summoners.

If we let them be, they’d multiply without end, so the best answer was to take them out as fast as possible.

Seo Ye-in and Hong Yeon-hwa must have been thinking the same thing, because they focused their attacks on them.

TUDUDUDUDU—!

PUH-PUH-PUNG!

One dragon-turtle soldier fired back with flame magic, while another one slowly descended to the ground.

Even after landing, it kept summoning spirits without pause.

Yeah. I need to kill that one.

I started moving in that direction, and Song Cheon-hye dropped down beside me with crackling electric current.

“I’ll join you.”

“Good. We go in now.”

We kicked off the ground shoulder to shoulder.

“......!”

The summoner reacted instantly.

It pointed at us with a finger, and the newborn flame spirits charged all at once.

Even so, we didn’t slow down at all—and when we collided, compressed wind exploded outward.

PUH-PUNG!

Spirits toppled in heaps.

In that brief opening, Song Cheon-hye forced her way in.

She closed in on the dragon-turtle soldier in an instant and scattered electric current.

PZZZ-TZZZT!

Electricity ran all over its body, but it didn’t care. It swung a burning hand like a club.

At the same time, with its other hand, it gestured at the spirits—like it was trying to call them back in.

Of course I wasn’t going to let that happen.

KU-KUNG!

I raised [Ice Wall] wide and blocked them off.

“Sep↗️a↘️rate.”

Then, while creating distance from the spirits surging in, I cast ★Blink★ into the air.

Shuk—I appeared right over the summoner’s head and slammed Wind Force straight down.

PUEONG!

The bastard hit the ground hard, slid back, and forced itself up.

But before it could do anything, Song Cheon-hye was already glued to it.

With electric current wrapped thick around her, she rammed her body into its torso.

KWA-RRREUNG!

The summoner went flying again.

It got up again—got hit by Wind Force—went flying again.

Even while getting pounded senseless, it gathered flame in its palm, but in the next moment, a streak of cold shot in.

PUNG!

The flame went out. Its hand froze solid.

As it tried to pull back, a whirlwind bound it in place.

Then a thick bolt of lightning slammed down.

KWA-RRREUNG—!

In the end, the dragon-turtle soldier summoner turned to a fistful of ash and scattered on the wind.

Song Cheon-hye picked up the item card it dropped.

“That was surprisingly easy. Even considering it was a summoning-type.”

“We’ve grown a lot, too.”

In specs, and in experience.

TUDUDUDUDU—!

PUH-PUH-PUNG—!

Seo Ye-in and Hong Yeon-hwa were also almost done locking in the win in their bombardment fight with a dragon-turtle soldier.

Its body was basically rags. It looked like it would go down soon.

On one side, Go Hyeon-woo and Han So-mi were pressuring another dragon-turtle soldier.

Every time it swung its burning greatsword, they lightly deflected or dodged, alternating to stack up sword aura.

During midterms, it took three or four of them working together to barely take one down.

Now, the two of them looked like they could handle it.

If they raise their skill more, one-on-one will be possible, too.

And later, they might even be able to fight multiple opponents alone.

To help them finish more smoothly, I placed [Amplification] and Imbue on Go Hyeon-woo, Seo Ye-in, and the others, then scanned the battlefield to see if anyone needed support.

That was when a thunderous roar came from somewhere.

“Kuh-heoong—!”

I looked, and Park Nari was facing off with a dragon-turtle soldier.

Beomi leaped nimbly and swung its front paw, while Chaemi circled fast and clipped past it in quick passes.

But the dragon-turtle soldier, in a martial-artist-like stance, blocked every strike without missing—and was even counterattacking.

Park Nari alone had to be struggling.

As I moved, I left Song Cheon-hye a short line.

“I’m going first.”

Then I used ★Blink★ and shot ahead.

A frantic shout came from behind me.

“L-Let’s go together!”

“Clumsy Song Cheon-hye, you should use ★Blink★ too.”

“I’m not clumsy!”

“Hurry up, clumsy~”

I pushed my speed harder, cut into the dragon-turtle soldier’s side, and whipped Wind Force into it.

PUEONG!

Even though it was a sudden attack, it seemed to block it decently.

But it still got shoved sideways—couldn’t help that.

And in that gap, Beomi and Chaemi rushed in all at once.

“Kuh-heoong!”

“PPIIIEEK—!”

*****

Once we cleared out the most dangerous dragon-turtle soldiers, the remaining dragon-tooth soldiers and flame spirits were cleaned up quickly.

[Side Quest: Finals Week 17–18](In Progress....)

▷Objective 2: Eliminate dragon-tooth soldiers

dragon-scale soldiers:26

dragon-tooth soldiers:12

dragon-turtle soldiers:6

Soon, the survivors spread out through the base, checking the damage.

After hearing the detailed report, Song Cheon-hye’s eyebrows pinched slightly.

“At this level... we held out pretty well, right?”

“From what I see, yeah.”

The ones who became combat-incapable were mostly the lower-mid tier.

All the main forces above the 900-point range survived.

Considering we got hit by something close to an ambush and fought in a messy melee, we endured well.

I added one more line.

“And it’s relative evaluation. The other groups are probably worse off.”

“I think so too.”

Since one or two prospect / disciplinary committee club–tier fighters had dropped, their damage would be that much bigger.

Meanwhile, Han So-mi, unusually gloomy, stared at the hut that had turned into ash.

“My new house...!”

A bombardment hit the lodging last night, and now a gigantic fireball had fallen.

Go Hyeon-woo forced a bitter smile and soothed her.

“Lady Han, do not be too disheartened. A house can always be built again, can it not?”

“......Is that so? You’re right!”

Like she’d never been gloomy at all, Han So-mi’s expression brightened.

Then she looked at Song Cheon-hye with an unsettling intensity.

“Build again? Build a new house?”

“......Uh, yeah. This much will be restored.”

Song Cheon-hye answered, looking a bit uncomfortable.

A lot of facilities—starting with the lodging—were destroyed or had their ranks drop, but the crystals dropped by the dragon-tooth soldiers and spirits weren’t few either.

Not completely, but we should be able to get close to our original state again.

And on top of that, a lot of item cards had dropped as well.

First, we gathered only the basics in one place.

The ones we got while working on Hidden Piece, and the ones we ripped off Geum Johan and Lee Seul-bi too.

If we excluded [Observe] and [Recon] that we’d used to track other groups’ movements—

[Return] *19

[Observe] *7

[Recon] *6

[Discharge] *16

[Protection] *11

It was practically a pile.

Even so, Song Cheon-hye didn’t look bright.

From everything we’d experienced so far, Dragon Slayer Academy’s policy leaned toward pushing students to the limit.

Meaning there was no way they’d design this to let us use items generously.

“Looks like something else is going to happen.”

“We’ll have a real clash once.”

To the point item cards would be flying around everywhere.

That guess became even more certain when we checked what the dragon-turtle soldiers had dropped.

Since the kill difficulty was high, the card tier was also one or two steps higher.

[Bombardment] *1

[Duplication] *1

And among them, there were ones appearing for the first time.

[Concealment] *2

▷Hides the appearance of allies within range.

▷Duration:1 minute

▷Not detected by radar below B-rank.

Area stealth.

With a single card, dozens of people could be covered by the effect.

One minute looked short at first glance, but to superhumans who’d surpassed human limits, it was more than enough time.

Enough time to approach from beyond sight, climb a hill, and arrive right in front of a main base.

With this card, a big part of the attacker’s terrain disadvantage was solved.

Song Cheon-hye’s face hardened.

“The other groups got it too, right?”

“At least one, for sure.”

Each group had the same six dragon-turtle soldiers appear.

Their losses were bigger than ours, but with dozens of first-years, they’d still have managed to ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) kill them somehow.

So system-wise, one was guaranteed—and there was a pretty high chance of extra drops too.

This time, I asked the question.

“What rank is the radar?”

“It’s C, but raising it more is...”

“Yeah. That’s a waste.”

To block [Concealment], we’d have to raise it to B-rank, and from that point on, the crystals required weren’t a joke.

Which meant we’d fall behind in the tower race.

“So it’s better to just endure, right?”

“Probably. They won’t just charge in blindly either.”

To raid an enemy base, they’d need to invest people and cards close to an all-out war.

But doing that right now, with this many cards in circulation, the odds were too unclear.

Song Cheon-hye let out a small sigh.

“Still, I don’t feel at ease. It’s one more thing to worry about.”

Even if the probability was low, there was always the ‘one in ten thousand.’

And if that one in ten thousand happened, the target would almost certainly be our group.

Because the other two groups were bound by nonaggression.

But I answered lightly.

“You think we’re the only ones?”

With [Concealment] appearing, the loss of terrain advantage applied to the other groups too.

If anything, they’d feel more pressured because they couldn’t predict my movements.

Since we were talking about it anyway, I called up the side quest.

▷Objective 3: Destroy the competitor team’s Crystal Tower(-/1 time)

I’ll have to deal with this soon, too.