Buttopia
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Chapter 80: Reverse the Targets for Treasure!
🕑 Added 2025-01-10 22:06:55 +0000 UTCA loud explosion rocked the building that we were taking shelter in as the row of buildings across the street all collapsed, blowing out the windows around us and sending shards of glass flying into the room. “Everyone alright?” I called out, despite not immediately spotting anyone looking overly hurt.
“We’re fine, but what the hell was that?” Elicec fired back, and I realized my ears were ringing. So there was a downside to enhanced hearing.
“Good question, that’s a lot more force than you usually see on an early floor. Here everyone eat one of these. It should give you some extra mana regeneration so we aren’t entering the next floor entirely drained if it comes to a big fight,” Rabyn said, passing out something that looked like a baked potato, only bright orange. The fact that it tasted like peanut butter made the experience even stranger, but he hadn’t been lying. I felt my mana pool surge strangely.
“There is a gigaturtledon marching across the destroyed buildings. I don’t believe it did the destruction itself. Likely, the squads trying to take it down didn’t understand its physiology and have now created a much bigger problem for themselves,” Elody said, looking through one of the broken windows.
“Any idea how many squads are left?” Rabyn asked the paladin.
“No, but I can find out, one moment,” she answered before lifting a book to her face and beginning to read. “The visible mana signatures each registered uniquely in Elody’s mind as she counted the ones belonging to people.”
“What the hell was that?” Connie asked. Which was likely a fair reaction. I had now seen quite a few monsters and some people use their abilities, but so far, no one seemed to work remotely like Elody’s. And with Cecile’s class choice, we’d all soon get to learn if it was just Elody who was so unique or that all paladins were so unique were a bit different.
“That was one of my knowledge-gathering techniques. Gathering easily available information, such as an enemy count, when it isn’t being attempted to be obscured is trivial for me. If I can formulate a plausible way to do something with the things I have at hand, my class path will finish the linkages needed to make the attempt. Note that it is not guaranteed to succeed, but in this case it did. There are twenty-one squads and seven free agents left,” Elody answered, showing a slight smile as she did. I suspect she had just the tiniest bit of vanity in being able to use her abilities so well, which was entirely fair and deserved.
“I like those numbers. It’s too bad we have to blitz these floors. I’d have liked to search for prizes. Not that there are going to be any planet-level prizes hiding here, they announce those ahead of time, but even any crafting supplies for your new empire would be worth it right now,” Rabyn said. That explained how Earth had been won. I was wondering where the concept of prizes came in.
“Elody, I’ve got an ability that lets me target hidden opponents. It seems it's far more meant for people, though, is there any way we could combine that with your abilities to try and locate an object? It seems like a waste to just hide if there’s a potential prize nearby,” Elicec said nervously. The confidence he had shown during the desert seemed to have melted away somewhat. Remembering just how young the twins were, I looked over at Glorp to check in on him. His expression was hard to read, but if I had to guess, I’d go with extremely stressed.
“What is the name of the ability, and do you give me permission to call it forth?” Elody answered with two questions of her own.
“Unconceal, and yes, I do,” Elicec answered.
“Through the power of the Twinog Elicec’s class ability unconsceal Elody was able to scan the building they resided in and the nearby buildings for anything that had appeared to be purposefully hidden,” Elody said, reading the words from her book again. Were the words in the book before she read them, or were they created after she said them? I’d have to ask about it later.
“Woah,” Elicec said before his eyes snapped shut and he held up his hand, swinging it around the room and pointing in various directions as a golden light shot from it three times before his eyes opened again. “That was a weird feeling, but I think those lines lead to some prizes.”
“Can anyone besides us see those lines?” I asked, causing Rabyn to burst into laughter.
“We just put targets on ourselves. I’ve never seen that done before,” he said as his laughter got louder.
“Come on, let’s see what's upstairs, and we can then hit the next two that look to be outside this building. Hopefully, they go away,” I said, trying to make the best of a potentially bad situation.
“Sorry,” Elicec said meekly.
“Not your fault, we didn’t know this would happen either, so now we just fix it,” I said back to him. The reality of trying out new things was you screwed up constantly; the important part was you fixed them. We followed Elicec’s line up the stairs and into one of the empty rooms up there. It was pointing directly at what should have just been an exterior wall. Rabyn shrugged and took a swing at the wall, punching straight through, revealing another small room that couldn’t possibly exist within the space.
Well, it was as good a time as any to learn Euclidian geometry was not a hard rule for the Arena. The line pointed into the small room directly at a pouch lying in the center. Rabyn reached in and tossed it to Elicec. The moment he had it, the line disappeared. “At least that gets rid of the lines. Don’t look so morose, kid. This is going to be incredibly useful as we climb,” Rabyn said.
“Should I open it?” Elicec asked.
“No, stash it in your storage until we get some free time. We don’t want anyone to know what we’ve found,” Rabyn answered while Elody nodded. The next closest destination for the line was through the window into the window in the next building over, directly pointing at a pillow on a bed.
Suddenly, a booming voice interrupted our hunt with three words: “NO MONSTERS REMAIN!”
“Damn, we need those lines gone now,” Rabyn said.
“Corey, go grab the pillow. Where’s the other line going?” I asked, scanning the room as I heard Corey smash through to windows.
“Back into the street, come on,” Rabyn said, leaping through the broken window into the alley below. Surprisingly, everyone followed him, I went last, watching Corey manage to get the pillow case wrapped around itself before floating down into the alley to rejoin the group, finally leaping after them. Elicec grabbed the pillow and ripped it apart, finding another pouch that immediately vanished into his storage. The last line pointed across the street directly behind a group of something that looked like a cross between a bear and an ant.
“Go find another squad to pester. We don’t have time for your worthless hides!” Rabyn yelled.
“It’s the two-headed thing and the human. That has to be the squad!” one of the people yelled. Several members of the group smiled. They all drew weapons. I knew where this was going and quickly switched to my fire elemental orb and fired off several fireballs before they had a chance to act. The few standing after my attack scattered as Elicec fired off small blasts of energy from his fingertips at them. None of them escaped. I noticed Rabyn giving me a curious look. What was that about?
The final hidden pouch was in a trashcan behind where the other squad had been standing. Seconds after Elicec had moved it into his storage space a familiar experience notification popped into me view.
Not the worst experience, especially considering it was just floor one, and had been surprisingly easy. Had we really been that much stronger than the competition? The landscape around us disappeared into a black void. All that remained was a single door in front of us.
“Come on, before they send in the janitors. You don’t want to see that,” Rabyn said opening the door. I immediately spotted Mel floating near the top of the room, likely to get a good look at us. His color rapidly shifting back to the normal green.
“Grab the food, and do any healing ya need, ya ain’t got long. Finish the next one as quick as ya can though, that should buy ya more time,” Mel ordered from across the room, managing to carry the aggression straight toward us. Happy to see us or not, he was still Mel. I caught a strange look from Pryte as he spotted both of our companions, for a split second his eyes had gone wide, but then he managed to hide it.
“The More Heads, the Better, please come with me,” Floor Master said, only Rabyn and the twinogs had made it to the food table, but they had managed to move a ton of it into their storage. Hopefully we could take out the big monster quick and have a little more time.
Becoming an Arena referee is a job some of the climbers retire to, but not many. For one thing you have to get far enough up the Arena for it to be viable, and most would rather continue that climb, but sometimes the lucrative salary is enough to tempt a few out of it. It’s one of the few reasons anyone stops their climb at those levels short of death.
System Paths, Careers in the Spiral by Glarppp
Comments
Ian Weidner
As long as I'm not asleep I try to be reasonably quick to fix issues
David Ellis
No biggie! And you are *fast* to respond! 🙂
Ian Weidner
Thanks for letting me know, it's fixed now. Sorry about that.
David Ellis
Nit: The link to the next chapter is labeled 80 but correctly goes to 81. I forgot what chapter I was on and was confused, though.
viperfan7
I like Rabyn, he's cool
