A New Mission

The next day, John once again made his way to his teammates. When he got into the room, he felt a faint feeling of uneasiness when he entered the room. Nobody was acting strangely, but he could feel his danger sense going off. It wasn’t a particularly strong feeling, but he could feel it nonetheless. The worst part about it is that it wasn’t coming from Sarah but Captain Rico. What did I do to get on his bad side? Rico didn’t portray any of these feelings as he announced that our squad had a mission. He said that we had to escort a transport vehicle to Riverdale. It holds some relatively important supplies that the government doesn’t want to trust the adventurers with. It’s only a couple of hours away, so the mission shouldn’t take long. However, John had a bad feeling about what’s going on. There’s was no time to wonder as everyone got ready to complete their first mission. John saw the carriage that they were protecting being filled with various boxes labeled food, potions, and medical supplies. Nothing particularly valuable except for the potions, but it wasn’t my place to question our mission. Everyone except Sarah mounted their respective horses as we surrounded the carriage on the way to Riverdale. Rico took the front, Sarah and Janet took the left, and John took the right.

There was nothing worth mentioning for the first hour of travel except for Sarah screaming after getting bitten by a bug. Sarah was being a bit overdramatic for such a small bite. Either way, everything seemed normal until he was hit with a massive amount of killing intent from his right.

John screamed, “Enemy attack” as a wind blade missed his head and took part of the roof of the carriage off. Danger sense really saved him there, it was worth the investment. A normal human man walked out of the forest with an evil smile on his face.

“All you are scum, complete scum. To get in my master’s way with your nonsense is unforgivable. I will purge all of you.”

Wind surrounded the man as he locked eyes with me. John pulled out his sword, got off his horse, and looked back to an unbelievable sight. Sarah's eyes were dead as she clashed blades with Rico. Janet was on the floor with a giant wound on her back and her bow completely destroyed. She needs help but he can’t go help her with this crazy guy in front of him. Rico can’t give her a potion with his hands tied as well. He should’ve given us potions in advance. No time to worry about that now.

The guy sent another wind blade in John’s direction. John quickly dodges out of the way and circles around the guy, so his wind won’t hit any of the cargo.

The guy sends another wind blade at him. It seems that it’s the only thing this guy can do. John charges at him while deflecting or dodging any wind blades coming at him. He quickly closed the distance and slashed at the man. The man used the wind to push himself back, but he still got a cut across his chest.

“Making a fool of me.”

He held his hand out towards Janet and started charging up his wind for a big attack. John dashed in front of Janet and activated his copycat skill since it was a good a time as any. However, the skill he copied was not the one he was expecting.

Parasite (Active): Create a bug capable of entering a creature’s body and multiplying. Once it has multiplied enough, it will connect to various parts of the brain and control it from the inside. It’s easier to control the body directly than to mess with the host's emotions and memory. Users can connect with the bugs to give commands on what to do. Feeds on the victim’s mana to survive and carry out orders. The skill could be inhibited by a variety of other skills, stats, resistances, and willpower. Costs 200 Mana to create (Max: 2).

It’s not what he was expecting to get. This must be the reason why Sarah started attacking Rico and apparently, why this guy was attacking us as well. John felt the stats boost from his desire to protect Janet, but he needed more insurance, so he activated his mana drain skill. The guy flinched and grabbed his head. For a second, his eyes lost their murderous intent as they flashed back to normal. He fired a massive blast of wind that John managed to block but knock him off his feet. The man lunged at him at this time, but Rico came out of nowhere and slashed his head off. John looked behind him to see Sarah **** and Janet looking rough but not in any serious condition. Rico must’ve knocked Sarah out and stabilized Janet, but what were they protecting that warranted this attack. The mastermind didn’t appear and it’s clear that the other guy was a disposable pawn though it might’ve been better to capture him rather than kill him.

John examined the carriage to see that other than the roof being slashed off, nothing else was damaged. All our horses ran off in the confusion, but the one being pulled by the carriage stayed since it was the captain’s horse.

“Unfortunately, all the horses but one are gone but we can still ride to Riverdale to complete the mission,” said Rico as he looked at Sarah’s **** body.

“We’ll also need to keep a close eye on Sarah until we arrive back at the capital so someone can identify what skill has done this to her,” said Janet as she examined the remains of her bow.

“Captain, I don’t mean to question our orders but are you sure there was nothing in the cargo that warranted that attack.”

“Sorry John, but orders are orders.”

Rico picked up Sarah and placed her in the carriage. He got some rope and tied her up in case she tried to do anything after she woke up. Everyone else joined him, and we made our way to the city of Riverdale. The rest of the journey was smooth sailing, nothing worth mentioning. When he got to the city, we handed over the cargo and immediately turned back around to head back to the capital, Skyrise. On the way back, Sarah woke up with no memory of what happened and was in total shock after being tied up. After being explained about the situation, she quieted down and stopped making a fuss. John couldn’t tell them that he knows it was an Insectomancer otherwise he would have to explain his class which he obviously couldn’t do. It’s annoying though that we have no idea what they were after or who his master was? Even though he expected it, he gained another level in my hero class and multiple in his subclass when that guy was killed. The only other thing that was good about the whole thing was the new skill he got. He could use that skill to manipulate people like he wanted, but he would have to be careful who he infects. It won’t work against anybody high level, and I’m still kind of weak. He could infect one of his teammates, but they’d be on the lookout for anything like that after this. It would be easy to infect one of the classless citizens without anyone noticing, but he doesn’t go to many areas that the classless live in, so it would be suspicious if he started hanging around them all of a sudden. John going after his own family would practically be suicidal since there all stronger than him and he’s sure that his dad would discover it before any meaningful changes could occur as long as he isn’t super busy. He guesses he’ll leave it up to chance who he infects next. The next time he finds a perfect candidate, he’ll test it out. On the way back, John took the opportunity to upgrade some skills and pick new ones for his main class and subclass. They dismissed everyone but Sarah since she needed to get checked out. John didn’t have anything left to do, so he went home.

John Wonderworth (Lv. 7 Hero [Sub-class: Copy Lv. 4])

HP: 400/400

Mana: 300/300

Strength: 80

Dexterity: 70

Constitution: 60

Intelligence: 75

Wisdom: 70

Charisma: 60

Hero Class Abilities

Master of Many Pathway

Skills:

(Passive) Enhanced Danger Sense v3

(Passive) Greater Swordsmanship

(Passive) Sense Level

(Active) Enhanced Mana Drain

(Active) Enhanced Speed Boost

Subclass

-Copycat v3 (Max:3): Parasite v3

-Enhanced Learning

Available Skill Points: 2