With a sigh, Paul dashed in, trampling and crushing elementals around the screaming adventurer and finally cut the vine-cord between the hook and the nestling.
He grabbed the glaive guy and put him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and then brought him to the back of the shield.
“Th-thanks. Thank you.” he breathed for a moment and caught his breath.
Seeing the battle rage on without him, the glaive guy finally got up and went to re-join the formation - but he was stopped in his tracks, a hand grasping his shoulder firmly. It was the other guard.
“Huh?” Glaive guy said.
“Nope. You had your chance.”
“B-but, they let me freaking die!!”
“No, they didn’t. You’re dismissed.”
“Dismissed? What do you mean dismissed?” he angrily questioned, not believing it.
“Dismissed as in go home, you’re done for today.” the guard said sternly.
The glaive guy looked at Paul, hoping he would change his mind.
Paul only smiled, “Go home mate.” he pointed to the back of the field.
The glaive guy grumbled angrily as he went to the back of the field, kicking sticks and rocks as he went.
The mace-shield guy returned to formation with a grateful smile - he nodded at Jay, realising what he did for him. Jay’s simple, decisive words had made him realise that he had to abandon the glaive guy.
Truly, Jay didn’t do anything but help the mace-guy to open his eyes to the situation he was in; either he would cut loose the weak link, or perish with it.
This is what would have happened in a real dungeon, and both of them realised it.
Jay didn’t expect a reward or anything, he was just glad to still have his battle formation.
“Think you can switch out with him for a while?” Jay asked sabre-girl as the mace-shield guy came back.
“Sure.” she nodded. The sabre girl had her own shield so she could deflect the flying hooks as well.
“Ah shit, I need a hand!” Conroy (sword-shield guy) said, trying to stay calm, however you could tell there was some urgency in his voice.
A hook had dug into his leg, causing him to stumble for a moment as he was pulled.
“Just a sec.” Dan said, deflecting a hook with his axe.
*Shwoonk~*
He stepped forward with a quick swing, and the cord was severed. Conroy and Dan hastily moved back into formation.
“That’s what should have happened before.” the dagger girl nodded approvingly.
Jay was just glad that at least a few people on his team were competent. The mace-shield guy wasn’t even that bad, he just had a bad team mate.
“Hmm… It’s interesting how one idiot can turn a simple problem into a life threatening situation.” Jay thought, casually slashing the stick-balls.
Throughout this whole fight, Jay had kept his cool. Even when he was being drained and he couldn’t see anything he stayed calm, still slashing away.
Jay had even gained Paul’s recognition during the fight - taking a leadership role, making a formation, checking on members, and allowing the glaive guy to perish in order to preserve the rest of the party.
The dagger girl realised she was wrong before, when she was thinking about the negative things adventurers would say about Jay when he looked weak.
She now realised it wasn’t the display of weakness that mattered, but it was how one responded to it - and Jay responded with a calm attitude, getting himself back into top condition so he could fight as quickly as possible.
After all, everyone would show weakness from time to time, even she did during this fight when the treant slashed her face off.
It seemed the qualities of a good leader were resilience.
Together they continued to cull the elementals, hundreds of them - but soon enough they were beginning to tire; each of their weapons feeling much heavier.
Seeing that the other fields had no enemies left, Jay made a decision.
“Paul, we could use some backup.” he pointed at the other fields.
With a nod, Paul went to grab some adventurers from the other fields.
Four adventurers followed him back - he brought enough to take some pressure off but not to make it boring.
With him, Stephen tagged along, following them was a ranger to replace Peter and three more melee’s.
Approaching the group, Jay had the three new melees replace himself, the axeman and the mace-man. The fresh ferocity of the new adventurers gave them all some breathing room.
Now that the team was larger, Jay had control of over 11 people, so he decided to make a new formation.
Jay moved safely behind the formation and began to organise them all.
For a moment he considered a triangle formation pointing into the swarm, opposite to his V formation. It would break the tide of elementals easily - but that would only be effective for strong enemies that wouldn’t die in one hit. What they needed was simply to increase their killing area.
With Stephen, Dan, Conroy, the mace-shield guy, the new ranger around him, he started to tell them the new battle formation.
He expected Stephen to challenge him, but to his surprise, Stephen stayed quiet and simply went along with it, nodding each time.
“Huh…” Jay thought, surprised at how different he seemed.
The .V. formation turned into a .-.-. formation with Stephen and his turrets in the middle.
Jay, Dan and Conroy would be in the left melee group, while the maceman and the three new melee guys would be on the right.
The sabre-girl and dagger girl would act as support to them - either cutting off hooks or filling in for exhaustion. The rangers would be divided evenly on either side.
Jay switched out the others who were still in the V-formation so they could learn the plan. After that, it was time to execute.
“Ready?” Jay called out.
“Yep” “Yes.” “Yeah.” “Yep” “Sure” they all responded.
“Alright, now!” Jay ordered.
There was a little confusion as they moved between each other, but in a matter of moments the new formation took shape.
The adventurers seemed to have small, proud smiles as they moved themselves into a different formation in a matter of moments, but Jay seemed unimpressed.
“Hmm. Good enough.” Jay thought, knowing his skeletons would have made them look like bumbling toddlers.
***I forgot that golden tickets refresh monthly, so instead, we're going to do a bonus chapter for every 100 golden tickets over 500. Bonus G.T. Chapter 1/3***
