The Latest Game Is Too Amazing

Among the classes in Another World, Magician is one that excels in wide-range destruction ability.

…That said, at the start, when your level is low and there aren’t many skills available to you, all you have are single-target attacks. The Fire Arrow skill I learned before is a projectile with a small area of effect (around two meters, and leveling up the skill can widen it to around five meters at most), so it was hard to call it a wide-range destruction class when I only had skills like this.

Until I learned a certain skill, that is.

I fire Mana Bolts at five little goblins – though, I call them little, but they come all the way up to my chest – and get their attention. As I keep moving back, the band of goblins continues to approach, and, estimating that they’re within effect range, I use the skill.

This skill takes seven seconds to cast, which makes it surprisingly difficult to use. At first glance, it seems short, but that time can be a matter of life and death, so even though I got far enough away from the enemy, watching the enemies close in on me makes me impatient, hoping it’ll activate soon.

As I panic and wonder, ‘Is it ready yet?’ the goblins group up where I’m aiming for and the skill finally activates. A ball of light comes out of my staff and towards the goblins. As it approaches them, the ball emits light and the area is engulfed in an explosion. An area of over 15 meters is enveloped in blue flames, and the sight of it is breathtaking. The goblins all seem to have gotten swallowed up in it, and there’s no more sign of movement.

This is the Magician’s most powerful skill, the wide-range attack skill, Mana Explosion. You might see the flames and mistake it for a fire elemental spell, but since it’s detonated by mana, it’s different from normal fire, so it’s actually a non-elemental spell. Also, it’s a Rank 1 Magician skill, and there are more powerful skills if you become Rank 2, so it’s only the most powerful at Rank 1.

Even so, it’s more powerful than I imagined. This skill is still at level 1 since I only just learned it, so I should measure how powerful it gets after I level it up. And since it was that big of an explosion, it feels a bit strange that there was no shockwave even though I was close by, but that’s probably because it’s a game. It makes sense that a skill this strong would have to have weaknesses so it wouldn’t break the game’s balance.

As it turns out, I can’t fire them in rapid succession. The MP consumption is a problem, and there’s also the recasting delay. Since this spell consumes one third of my current max MP, if I used it three times, I wouldn’t be able to use Mana Explosion for a while afterwards considering the autorecovery rate. Up until now, I’ve been mostly raising my Intelligence stat every time I level up, so my MP should be pretty high, but it has a huge MP cost if it still takes a third. And this skill needs a 45 second recasting delay, so it can’t be used at all in that time. If you level the skill up to 5, the maximum level, the recasting delay can be shortened to 30 seconds, but there’s no way to shorten it more than that (there is no effect to shorten the recasting delay among the enchantments currently confirmed on the wiki). As I said before, the only ways to recover MP are autorecovery and mana potions, so I use mana potions.

By the way, this is changing topics, but can you guess how potions are used? You’re probably imagining that it’s either poured directly onto the affected area or taken as medicine.

The answer is that either one is effective. You may be tilting your head and wondering if there’s even an affected area for recovering something invisible like mana, but if the mana in the atmosphere is thicker, it has the same effect as a mana potion, so it seems that your skin will absorb the mana to recover it.

Incidentally, if you take it as medicine, potions taste like sports drinks and mana potions have a sweet and sour citrus flavor. I wonder what elixirs taste like. If it tastes like veggie juice, that’d be like torture.

But there are times when you can’t leisurely drink or apply medicine in the middle of battle. At times like that, there’s the Emergency Use method. It’s a method that allows you to use an item directly and immediately, without taking it out of the item window. It’s just like the shortcut function in other MMORPGs, which allows you to use a specific item by pressing a single button instead of opening your item window and selecting it.

When you use potions through Emergency Use, you can recover HP or MP without taking an item out. However, there are restrictions to Emergency Use. Once the item is used, you can’t use it again for 60 seconds, so there’s the risk of not being able to take that item out either during that time. You have to be careful when you use this function.

That aside, I gulp down the mana potion and recover my MP. This is the real thrill of being a Magician, wiping all your enemies out at once with one spell. It’s a good feeling, nice and exhilarating. When I first used Mana Explosion, I was taken aback by the sheer power of it. Actually, I’m still not used to it, but it makes me feel a bit proud to have finally become a full-fledged Magician.

There’s four days left of the closed beta test. All of our data is supposed to be erased after it’s over, which is a bit sad, but I knew this would happen, so it was inevitable. I’ll just have to make a new character when the open beta test starts. Maybe I should try making one that’s not a Magician this time. I could choose a crafting class, or maybe a Healer.

But I’ve worked hard on this character, so I want to try doing something reckless at least once at the end. In that case, maybe I should try taking out the boss. The test ends Monday morning, so I’ll play as long as I can on Saturday and Sunday. Well, there’s also travel distance, so my goal will be to defeat a nearby boss. I’m kind of excited now. I’ll go use all my money and stock up on potions right now!

The audience chamber of Castal Kingdom’s royal palace is one of the most extravagant halls in the kingdom. The chamber was built from marble, with its floor and pillars polished enough to be reflective, which, at first glance, creates a cold and majestic atmosphere. However, its walls and ceiling are painted with the great kings and queens of the past, and it’s decorated with high-class furnishings. Even the candlesticks have intricate gold craftsmanship. Rather than being so flashy that it lacks dignity, the overall impression it gives is one of magnificence. That’s the sort of room the audience chamber is.

However, that majestic atmosphere is currently being drowned out by an uproar.

“The band of orcs menacing our northern lands has been confirmed to be roughly a thousand or more in number. We estimate heavy casualties in the northern cities and towns if the orcs continue southwards,” reports a knight who’s in his thirties.

The audience chamber breaks out into a cacophony of voices. The elderly man sitting on the throne, Wilfred III, takes command of the room with his gaze alone.

“We have heard that these orcs differ from others in that they are following orders rather than following their instincts and attacking sporadically. Is this the truth?”

“Yes, that is true. According to those whose villages have suffered damage from the orcs, they surrounded the villages first rather than attacking from out of nowhere. Villagers who were prepared to risk their lives left the village to call for aid, but in addition to surrounding them, it seems that the orcs also stationed ambushes as if to block their paths. Knights were dispatched, but the village had already been destroyed by the orcs. If all of this is true, we can no longer think of this as a mere band of orcs, but something closer to an army,” the knight reports, and there’s an uproar in the audience chamber once more.

Until now, it was common for orc attacks on villages to be brute force attacks that relied on their strong bodies, and there were heavy casualties among the orcs themselves as well. They were known as monsters of low intelligence that were satisfied as long as they were able to steal food for sustenance in accordance with their instincts.

“Sir Lilburn, these actions diverge far too much from the orcs we know of. Are these truly orcs? Haven’t the villagers mistaken a coincidental encounter with a band of orcs for an ambush?” the old man says in disbelief, representing the views of all of the surrounding voices.

“Judging by the few corpses left behind in the village and the group that was identified by a scout, they are unmistakably orcs.”

‘That’s ridiculous, it’s impossible,’ they say, causing another commotion. Deep down, even the knight giving this report, Sir Raphael Lilburn, couldn’t believe his ears when he first heard this, thinking that there must be some mistake. A civilian who normally doesn’t come face to face with any monsters surely wouldn’t be able to believe it.

However, these orcs have already caused harm to the kingdom. It’s easy to imagine where they’ll bare their fangs next. Not only is there a huge band of over 1000 monsters being led through the kingdom, orcs also have an especially high reproduction rate. The longer this goes on, the more their numbers will increase and the surrounding towns and cities will soon fall. If that happens, even the royal capital will eventually suffer damage.

The capital has a standing army of 3000. However, for the sake of defending the capital, they can’t send out all of their soldiers at once. If they’re dispatching troops, 1000 to 2000 at most would be a reasonable number. In that case, their numbers would be equal to or greater than the orcs’. This level of military strength may be overkill for ordinary orcs, but these orcs that receive commands can cause quite a bit of damage.

“We should organize the army to subdue these orcs at once!” one of the courtiers suggests.

“That’s true. However, there are many things that are mysterious about these orcs’ actions. Shouldn’t we reinvestigate why they have such leadership?”

“More importantly, we need more troops. We should ask neighboring countries for reinforcements to resolve this situation.”

“You mean for us to show weakness to other countries? This many orcs shouldn’t be a problem. We can simply recruit adventurers to subdue them.”

“That won’t work. These are one thousand orcs that behave no different from a human army. We must unleash our entire army on them.”

“That’s outrageous! You intend to leave the capital defenseless?!”

“Then, why not supplement our troops by recruiting adventurers?”

“That may work when it’s only a few of them, but if we recruit them in large numbers, what would we do about the chain of command?”

Starting with that first person, opinions fly one after another. However, they show no sign of coming to an agreement.

“Silence,” Wilfred says, and with that single word, all of the heated discussion settles down in an instant. “Lilburn.”

“Yes, sire!”

“Recruit adventurers immediately and organize the combined army with two thousand troops to subdue the orcs.”

“Yes, sire!”

Bowing deeply, Raphael exits the audience chamber. Even with 2000, one small worry remains. The adventurers are their last hope, but what sort of adventurers will they assemble? He couldn’t let his worries show on his face. He has already received the king’s orders. As a knight, his job is to execute his mission. And, in order to execute that mission, he starts running.