Chapter 266: Perfect Plan

The rest of our journey to the Fields of Lightning was less eventful than the first portion. At least, there were one hundred percent fewer attempts on our lives.

As the hours went by and we continued down the road, we passed a few people along the way that were going in the opposite direction as us—back toward the city. But so far, all of them were empty-handed. Seemed like they’d either gotten to the Fields and realized they wouldn’t be able to kill any Thunderbirds, or they hadn’t even gotten to the Fields yet and realized they wouldn’t be capable of getting there and back in time for tomorrow. I hoped it was more of the latter than the former; if it turned out that the Thunderbirds were way more powerful than we thought, that’d cause some problems. So I was pretty eager to finally see the damn things, hoping that Sylvie had just been exaggerating the tales of their size and power.

It didn’t take long before that curiosity was sated. After the desert dunes had slowly shifted into savannah plains beneath our feet, the Sand Hive monsters thinning out and being replaced with all-new species wandering around in the distance, eyeing us warily, we eventually crested a hill and I spotted a dark, intense storm brewing off in the distance. It wasn’t even close to evening, much less nighttime, so the spot of blackened-out sky looked extremely unnatural, surrounded by a bright, sunny day.

At first, I just thought it was some sort of freak weather, but then I spotted the birds flying through the clouds. Lightning arced off their wings as they soared, each bolt seeming to invigorate them with newfound energy, with which they’d flap hard and fly further up into the sky. And below them, I could see a small crowd of Classers, standing in the fields and staring into the air. That was our destination.

But it didn’t seem like anyone in that crowd had any idea how they’d be claiming a Thunderbird pelt for themself. They all stood around, taking no sort of particular action, as if they were just waiting for one of the monsters to drop out of the air on their own. I imagined everyone who had come with an actual plan had probably already killed one, skinned it, and headed out before we even arrived. And all that was left were these people. I hoped we wouldn’t be stuck in the same crowd.

As we approached the crowd, I looked around at everyone more closely. Some had bows on their backs, others seemed to be Magic-Types, and the majority were outfitted with swords, spears, and other melee weapons. The Melee-Types were clearly the most unfit of everyone present to take down a flying enemy, but even those with long-range weaponry seemed lost as to how to approach the problem. At first, I was confused as to why, but then I remembered just how big those Thunderbirds actually were. Up in the air, they didn’t look any bigger than a normal animal, but they weren’t. They were massive. Which, if they looked that small, meant they must’ve been insanely far away. It was likely that even people with powerful ranged options wouldn’t even come close to reaching them.

My Spells certainly wouldn’t be able to. Erani’s Firebolt range wasn’t much longer than my longest range, and Sylvie’s bow probably wouldn’t be capable of firing an arrow so far straight up. So, would we just need to wait for one to land?

I looked around at the crowd of people. Seemed like they were waiting for the same thing.

“Hey,” I said to the person nearest to me—a shorter woman wearing a belt with axes dangling from it. “When was the last time one of those birds landed?”

“Haven’t seen it happen,” she said.

I looked over at another nearby man. “How about you? What’ve they been doing all day?”

He waved his hand dismissively at me. “Mind your business.”

I frowned. Seemed like they wouldn't be much help. Turning back to my allies, I saw Ainash staring pointedly upward at one of the birds, like she was trying to formulate some sort of plan on how to leap into the heavens and strike her target down. Erani was looking at the ground, chewing on her lip and muttering softly to herself—likely some series of complex formulas regarding Firebolt force vectors and whatnot. And Sylvie had sat down in the middle of the field, staring off into the distance like she was thinking of nothing at all.

“You’re not gonna figure out a plan?” I asked her.

“And how do you expect me to do that?” she responded. “I don’t have any idea of your capabilities, and you don’t seem keen on informing me. So, I’m happy to sit here and let you do all the thinking, which you’ve brought upon yourself. Have fun, and tell me when you have your foolproof plan on killing a billion Thunderbirds and smothering Emperor Etrin himself with the feathers or whatever.”

I sighed. “Right.”

Glancing up at the birds soaring through the air, I sank into thought. So, we’d not only need to figure out how to get up there and kill four of those things, we’d also have to figure out how to transport them all the way back in a timely manner. Plus…I looked around at the crowd, all standing around like they were waiting for a bird to fall from the air. Yeah, there were probably a few scavengers among them who’d try to take the pelt after we did all the work of killing it.

When I first read through the announcement this morning, I’d assumed this was a pure combat challenge to test our fighting prowess after the less directly confrontational crystal challenge. But now, I realized how much more there was to this than just killing a monster.

I turned to Erani. “You got anything?”

“I was just trying to figure out whether we would be able to reach them with anything. I don’t think any of us have the capability, but…”

“But?” I asked.

“But, Ainash might.”

“What are you talking about? She doesn’t have any ranged options at all. Unless you count the few paces of her whip as an effective range. Which…” I gazed up into the sky, where the distant birds channeled lightning from the clouds. “I’m not sure her whip would quite reach that far.”

“I’m not talking about her whip,” Erani said. Then she frowned, muttering to herself, “Well, actually, using the whip in addition to everything else would likely improve leverage by quite a bit, so I should probably factor that into—”

“Hey,” I interrupted. “The plan is?”

“Oh, right. The plan is, you sink every bit of Mana you have into buffing her with Expedite, then she goes all out in launching a stone projectile at a weak spot on one of the birds—assisted in both power and aim by your buffs—which could possibly cause it to fall to the ground and become vulnerable to attack.”

I stared at her. “So your ultimate plan is…throwing a rock?”

She pouted. “It doesn’t sound very good when you put it like that. But if our issue is reaching them, we will likely need to stoop to unsophisticated methods such as that in order to bring them down to our level.”

“Well, I can hardly think of something less sophisticated than rock-throwing,” I said. “But you’re right, we don’t have much else of a choice. And I can see it working. Worth a shot, at least.”

So, after ensuring we were far-off from anyone in the crowd, we enacted our plan. First, I asked Ainash to throw a heavy stone as far up as she could as a baseline. It went quite a length upward, but not near high enough to hit any of the cloud-soaring Thunderbirds.

Obviously, some people in the crowd we’d splintered off from glanced over at us when she made such a scene, but nobody made any active moves against us. Once the rock fell back down, I laid my hand on her arm and reached into my mind to cast Expedite. I didn’t want to overdo it and accidentally mess with her coordination—especially when we were on a time limit and messing up meant needing to wait until my Mana regenerated—so I started low and slowly worked up from there, asking Ainash to let me know if she felt like I was pumping her Dexterity too high.

After ten casts, she messaged asking me to stop and let her try with that amount. At 90.2 Mana each, it dropped my reserves down to 1.29k/2.19k, but with ten individual boosts of 36 Dexterity all stacked on top of each other, she’d have quite the insane Stat spread for the next minute or so. 

And using that boost, she wound up, stone gripped in her hands, and then in a burst of speed, flung it upward. It soared much higher than before, garnering a collective grasp from the crowd across the field who was already gazing into the sky. However, even that didn’t seem like it was enough. Before it could get high enough to hit the Thunderbirds, the stone came to the crest of its arc and started plummeting back down to the earth. 

“Damn,” I said, staring at the inert rock. “Ainash, will you be able to handle more?”

“Do not know,” she responded. “Maybe little.”

“We have no choice but to at least try,” Erani said. “But if that wasn’t enough, she’s likely gated more by not having enough Strength than Dexterity. It may not be possible without more raw power pushing it upward.”

“Yeah, may as well…” I stopped, looking at her. “Wait. We might have a little more power we can feed into it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you both ready?” I asked Erani and Ainash, the two of them standing side-by-side in front of me.

They both nodded. Ainash held the largest, toughest rock we could find in her hands, ready to throw it as high as she could. And Erani had her hands pointed straight upward, ready to assist.

“Okay,” I said. “Try to sync up as well as you can. Ready, three, two, one, go!”

Instantly, Erani shot a Firebolt into the air at the exact angle we’d determined beforehand. Mostly with the help of Index’s infinitely accurate eye and infinitely quick math skills, we’d set her hand up at the precisely perfect angle. The Firebolt, enhanced with Elemental Embrace, was larger and brighter than ever, packing with it the most power we could possibly put into it.

“Now!” Index said to me, which I immediately relayed to Ainash. It’d counted out exactly 2.47 seconds—or perhaps a little less, to account for the delay of me sending it through the Bond—which was the mathematically perfect amount of time to work with this angle in order for our plan to work.

Ainash threw the stone upward as hard as she could, her absurd Dexterity working to help her throw it at the perfect angle, as well. And, as it flew upward, it quickly caught up with the Firebolt, soaring up alongside it, before the Firebolt just barely collided with the bottom of the stone, exploding and throwing it even further upward.

The additional force gave the rock’s upward momentum a newfound resurgence, and it flew far higher than it had before. High enough for it to touch the clouds, and thus, the Thunderbirds. We’d timed everything correctly, too, it seemed, as the stone found its target, colliding directly with one of the winged monsters’ eyes.

It screeched, a high-pitched caw that could be heard even from down on the ground, tipping in surprise from the sudden hit. It lurched downward in the air, snapping its head to the ground in search of its attackers. In no time, its eyes were on us, the only group of people directly below it, and to my delight, it tilted forward and began descending.

“It’s working!” Erani said with a gasp. “I honestly thought it might just run away.”

“Nah, we look too puny to that giant thing. As high up as it is, we’re the size of ants out in these plains. Plus, it’s big enough to literally make us ants in comparison, too.”

“Holy shit,” Sylvie said, having been sitting on the ground cross-legged, watching us the whole time. She quickly scrambled to her feet, grabbing her bow from her back. “I did not think you’d actually manage to do that. Been saving my strength for a dejected walk home.”

“Well, get ready for a triumphant one instead,” I said. “We’re getting a few of those pelts.”

Sylvie tilted her head off to the side, and I looked to see what she was nodding at. The crowd of people were all murmuring among themselves, pointing up at the descending bird and over at us.

“Either we are,” she said, “or one of them.”

AN: Sorry for the late chapter everyone! I managed to get this one written while procrastinating on completing my final projects/studying for my final exams lol; all of those due dates are in the next few days. But the moment I'm done with that, I'll be totally free to put my focus back into writing, and my schedule should even out again. Thank you all for being patient with me!