Particularly the orcs were troublesome. The last one was unarmed, but these guys were well-equipped. Hell, one of them was using a torn-off car door as a shield, and an orc with a shield was the last thing that Ashton wanted to deal with right now.
But then, his eyes landed on one of the plastic bottles with a bright red goo within it. The plastic was already weak because the slime was in there for a while, so he would have to swap it out soon anyway...
"... Fine, I'll do it," he groaned a bit. It was a little annoying since he wanted to use it for a combat potion, but it's not like he just had one or two. He had around five right now, so even if he used a couple, he would have more that he could use for that potion, too. Plus, with the soda slimes now being a thing, he hopefully wouldn't run low on generic slime...
Actually, now that he thought about it, this was probably the best way to use the red slime after all. Ashton asked the backpacker to give him three bottles, a few of the prepped distraction-coins, which he was really running low on as well, and the soda slime's old can. The slime was in a closed bottle now, but Ashton kept the can exactly for this purpose.
One of the main ways that the coins actually made noise was by hitting the ground and bouncing around the whole time. They crackled on their own even if you just held one in your hand, but they weren't nearly as effective. And with all the sand and grass around here, they just wouldn't make enough noise.
Ashton carefully placed the coins into the can and then bent the top so that they couldn't fall out again, before taping the can to the red-slime bottles that were barely holding on now.
He took a deep breath and tried to aim as well as he could, throwing the makeshift slime bomb into the centre of the large group of monsters. It hit one of the goblins in the head and fell down. One of the bottles seemed to have already broken from that, but the others held on while the coins in the soda can started making noise, attracting the other goblins.
As they gathered, Ashton climbed out from the castle and called on the wisp and the salamander's flames, fusing them together. Ashton had the wisp grow as large as it could, and once he was close enough he made the wisp slam down as hard as he could right onto the bottles.
The blunt impact from the wisp was enough to break apart the bottles and throw the slime around, covering the wisp itself. Ashton felt bad for that, but that was only for a moment anyway, since the flames currently within the wisp almost immediately exploded outward. The red slime now covered all of the monsters that had huddled together, and since Ashton had aimed right for the orc with the car-door shield, that was covered in quite a large amount as well.
The slime immediately started eating away at the metal, but it wasn't like the flesh that was hit was unaffected. While red slime was the most effective when dealing with metal, it was extremely potent against biological matter as well.
It was just a bit weaker in that aspect since most of the slime he used came from the one Ashton took down during the tutorial. But even so, at the very least, it made the monsters more vulnerable.
Ashton pulled back his hand to get the wisp to come back to him, having the elemental force their way through the group of goblins standing in the way. Though the explosive effect hadn't recovered yet, the wisp was still red hot and burnt all the monsters they touched even slightly.
"I'd give you a kiss, but I rather like my face the way it looks right now," Ashton smiled a bit, trying to stop the wisp from getting closer. They liked snuggling, but that could be fatal if it happened right now. That being the case, it was time for Ashton to continue attacking. His mana was still in the staff, so he just had to quickly change its pattern to make the wisp switch over to being channelled through it instead of Ashton's hand.
He told the wisp to shrink back down, and then, the true barrage began. The monsters, panicking because of the slime, were taken out pretty easily. Especially the goblins that stood in the way between him and the orcs. Though, the orcs weren't just going to stand there.
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At some point, they forced themselves through the crowd, actually killing some of the injured goblins for Ashton in the process by throwing them away to the side. Them being as pissed off as they were after the slime attack was great for Ashton, actually. Usually, they might have worked together a bit more, but right now, they wanted to individually and personally kill Ashton. They pushed it each other to the side and messed up attacks that the other wanted to make.
And since one of them was holding a sword — it was generally pretty large, but due to the towering the size of the orcs looked shockingly small — Ashton was able to have the wisp impact the side of the sword. The consequent explosion shot it right through the throat of the orc next to it, who proceeded to use its dying strength to smash the other one over the back of the head with its club, something that Ashton took advantage of.
He was already there and ready to go with his staff, hitting the orc in its face. The monster's skull was crushed from both sides and the two orcs fell to the ground, leaving just the orc that was still carrying a shield. And, of course, the dozen or so injured goblins.
Since this one wasn't hit by the slime directly, instead blocking it all with the shield, it was a bit more level-headed and knew that pushing in like that when Ashton was already basically surrounded wasn't a good idea. But now that the other two were dead, it also decided to attack him directly.
Ashton continued dodging out of the way. The annoying part about using slime this way was that he couldn't even attack the shield directly anymore, or else the steel-caps of his staff would start breaking down. But for that, he obviously had the wisp.
And so, Ashton focused on the rest of the goblins, fighting in a way where he could continue hitting the car door with the wisp. It was a bit awkward, but much more effective than before. Like this, he could at least fully focus on fighting with his staff as he was used to, and just had to add in some useless or otherwise awkward moves sometimes to direct the wisp where it needed to go. Usually, he had to somehow figure out how to properly use his staff with one hand and direct the wisp with his other.
And luckily, he knew what these guys were like. The shield was this orc's 'weapon of choice'. It was going to use it as much as it could. Of course, a shield wasn't a weapon, it was meant for defence. So, if a shield-bearing monster, especially one that was carrying just a shield and nothing else, was attacked, it would do everything it could to use that shield as intended, so it was pretty easy to distract this orc.
And before long, as the last goblin was killed, Ashton saw that the shield, turned into a fragile mess by the slime, finally just shattered apart instead of being dented in by the wisp the whole time.
The orc seemed confused at what happened and stared at its precious car door for a moment, before finally falling into a deep rage. It yelled out loudly, seeming even more upset than when any of the other monsters were killed. It held onto the rim of the smashed window, and instead of continuing to use this as a shield, no matter how broken, the orc slammed the door down onto the ground, swinging it around wildly.
"Whoa there, big guy! No need to get upset, there's so many cars out there!" Ashton continued to jump backward, dodging out of the way of the car door. The orc started smashing the bodies of the goblins that were strewn around on the grass, and splatters of blood flew around. Ashton spun his staff around and used this small, mindless rampage to keep hitting it with the flaming wisp.
Before long, one of the attacks caused it to let go of the car door.
It flew through the air and hit the swing set, actually breaking the seat of the swing.
"Dude, come on! I wanted to clean this place up and let the kids play again, now the janitor will have to repair that!" Ashton clicked his tongue, pushing his staff forward to hit the orc in the stomach. It was still distracted from throwing away its precious shield, so it was a good opportunity.
It buckled slightly, and Ashton quickly pulled the staff back and up to hit the orc into the back of the head.
An unarmed, injured orc was an easy enough opponent for Ashton right now. And soon, the spoils of war came to him.
[You have killed an [Orc]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 26 Coins]
[Contract | Lesser Salamander - Level 5 -> Salamander - Level 6]
[Skill | Channelling - Level 6 -> Channelling - Level 7]
[Class | Summoner - Level 6 -> Summoner - Level 7]
The last of those messages came as a surprise. He had just levelled up when he was out with Sam earlier, so rising up so fast was great. Usually, it was supposed to take around a week of constant effort to reach level 10, but Ashton was scheduled to get there in probably half that time.
Ashton took a few deep breaths. He was done with this wave for now, and honestly, would love to take a break. But Ashton probably didn't have more than a few minutes until some more goblins came to take a look. He didn't want to deal with the monsters right here. Rather, he had been working on a much better plan after the honey plan worked so well earlier.
Ashton sat down on a bench at the side of the playground and asked the Backpacker for a bubble of the paralysing venom from the Blue Moondew.
"Let's try to knock those guys out."
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