Chapter 89: Search Skill, The Right Material

The massive beast wielded a heavy club and had players quivering in their boots before Faust arrived. He shot towards the monster, jumped on its club mid-swing then slashed through its skull with Annihilation, Dark Maw and Flowing Viper.

The rest of the monsters were easy kills with so many high-levelled players.

The formerly overwhelmed players looked at Faust and the others with shock.

"He cut that troll apart like it was nothing," one of them said.

Another player whispered. "It might have just been weak..."

"It ’might’ have been weak. But you ’are’ weak," a female mage said beside him.

"Shut up and let me cope."

The hunt for fragments was slow. The knights came in groups of two or three. He got a fragment with each kill, but he wanted a game-altering amount.

"So," Thalia’s voice cut through his thoughts. "Did you get the fragments? I left the kills to you, despite Zen’s grumbling. You’re sure they’ll drop the fragments for you."

She was kneeling against the ground setting up one of her Trap zones. It was an obvious attempt to seem casual. But Faust knew she was trying to learn more about how his powers worked.

"If you really want to know my Schema, you should just ask," Faust said casually.

Thalia shot up with an excited look in her eyes. "You’d tell me?!"

"No, but you’ll waste less time asking me directly." Besides, the drop rate for the fragments was affected by his system, not his Schema.

Thalia deflated instantly. "Everyone is against the search for knowledge."

"What you need to be focused on is the search for Puppet Knights," Faust grumbled. "We need to find a lot more of them. More fragments puts us ahead of anyone else that might know about them."

"Oh. That’s not a problem," Thalia said. "My Search skill showed a large number of them marching to the eastern safe zone."

"Wait. What?" Faust’s forehead scrunched up. "You have a what skill? And why am I only hearing this now?"

"Because I just came here to tell you," Thalia answered blankly. "I got the Search and Interrupt from Knowhere, a sponsor. Search shows the positions of monsters on my Appraise mini-map. But I have to have killed one of them recently and it doesn’t last very long."

Faust absorbed her words for a second before laughing. "You left to find a Puppet Knight to kill. I noticed you were missing for a short time, but it didn’t change much so I ignored it."

Thalia punched him, but her expressionless face didn’t even twitch with annoyance.

"I wanted to confirm what you said about Memory fragments. I didn’t get one, but the system did notify me of the kill which I found strange, so I concluded you weren’t lying."

"There’s no way you killed a Puppet knight by yourself. Did Zen help?" Faust said, rubbing his chin. Zen never left, but she was hiding something.

Thalia actually smiled. "Can’t a woman do anything without a man? Don’t worry about that, our real problem is the number of knights going east."

"How many?"

"Almost fifty."

Faust did a double-take.

Thalia grinned. "I killed some other monsters and confirmed they have a large following of goblins with them. Not as many Kobolds or Midnight Lynx. As for Trolls, Dugbugs and Void eaters, i couldn’t kill any to check."

Faust didn’t care how many mobs they had with them. Fifty knights was fifty fragments.

If he could kill them all by himself of course. He doubted that but he would try.

"I’ve already warned Diego," Thalia added. "It was not easy... assholes. But they’re preparing to move the best players they can muster there."

Tch. It would have been better if I was the only one there.

Maybe that was his greed talking, because the safe zone would be overwhelmed while he focused on the knights.

But stil...

He sighed. "Whatever. Let’s go."

◇◇◇

The jumps between different zones was getting a bit jarring to Faust, but he liked being able to outmanoeuvre the enemy like this. Thalia had begun appreciating the safe zones again, albeit more quietly.

He would like to add more offensive abilities to zones though. Like the turrets he saw on one Novice Villages stream. But he had been thinking more about defense when he proposed these safe zones.

He never expected the system would force them into a fight with aliens while the fourth wave waltzed into the village.

But with Thalia’s search skill they were able to see how the monsters were moving and counter them.

They went on a small scouting mission to hunt monsters for Search and check how the knights were moving.

The monsters were following a small squadron of Puppet Knights almost docilely.

Faust, Thalia and Zen watched them from a distance, hiding and following the small army of creatures.

"Why are they so quiet?" Zen asked nervously. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Even the goblins held their tongues and just marched. Something felt wrong till one of the goblin riders started to stray from lines they were walking in. The monster’s mount, a bronze jackal, sniffed the air interestedly.

"I think it’s smelling us," Faust said, cursing under his breath as he felt the wind. "We’re downwind."

But before the jackal could follow on this scent, a whip cracked.

The sound was like a gunshot in the silence.

One of the Puppet Knights wielded the whip that struck the goblin. And silently, the goblin reigned its mount back in place while flinching.

Not a single complain in their snarling language. It just obeyed.

"Those knights are fucking creepy," Thalia muttered. "Are we done?"

Faust scanned the arrangement of the Puppet Knights first. They stood in formation and marched like a toy army. He noticed the mages, spearmen, and swordsmen.

But at their back marching, while performing a strange salute with its elbow, was a taller Puppet Knight with a different mask. Instead of a smiling gold, this mask was crimson and vengeful-looking.

A knight captain?

He was too far to appraise. But he was going to get that kill no matter what.

Faust got up, smiling. "Yeah, let’s go."

They returned to the eastern safe zone quietly. All the players were still preparing for the coming fight—getting healed, planning among their groups and taking short breaks to eat and use mana potions.

Faust moved within the crowds of people. The smell of blood and piss was getting a bit too strong here. People watched as he passed, malevolence and fear mixed in their expressions.

He was getting a bit famous here.

Nirvana met up with them and chatted casually before following Faust so they could talk alone.

"Did you find anybody?" He asked quietly. "Someone that can control or launch metal attacks at a high speed?"

Nirvana nodded. "I did. But he’s wondering why you want to get shot at. So am I actually."

"Trade secret," Faust said, shrugging.

He needed something similar to Fix’s attacks for Distance-Damage Amplification and Narrow Path. Heavy Fireball lost heat as its speed increased, making most of the power dissipate before it even left the Narrow Path.

Maybe that was why Kalans, Fix’s race, used metal bullets and had the Steel Reinforcement skill. If the material couldn’t take the speed and damage amplification then it would crumble away before it even hit the target.