Chapter 420: Beginnings of an Ambush
"Why can’t we deflect it?" Astrid asked. "We get all our players to use a water blocking spell and bam."
Samantha looked at her as though to say, "Are you stupid?" Being the kind woman she was, the blonde ended up with, "I did a headcount of the players that are either enrolled in school or magic users and came up with twenty-three. Unless we learn a Cooperative Spell for a waterfall, it won’t be enough."
"So...practice?"
"You think three weeks is going to be enough for twenty people to synchronize, you dumb bitch," is what Samantha wanted to say. Being the kind woman she was, she smiled and shook her head. "We won’t have enough practice."
"Think of a band," Kazi explained. "It takes a lot of time and hours to understand each other’s roles, get together, and then execute them. We always hear about the best bands but we never hear about the failures. About the thousands of musicians that fail when they come together. Teamwork is harder than you think and talent can’t always bridge it."
"Ohhhh. That makes sense." Astrid nodded, yet still questioned, "Can’t we, I don’t know, shoot it from a distance? Actually, no wait, that would be boring, never mind."
"Arrows do not work because of the heat it emits. You shoot a hundred arrows and it will blast them away with a hot mist," Mikinosuke explained. "It is as though it knows the arrows are coming before they touch its skin. An impromptu armour, as it were."
"Even though it doesn’t have eyes?" Astrid questioned. Mikinosuke gave a nod. "Okaaaaay. So how did Sasaki Kojiro stop it?"
"Sasaki Kojiro wielded the fan and mask of Fujin the wind god. Both the mask and the fan were broken during the clash," Mikinosuke informed them.
"So we can’t ask for last second help from Sasaki Kojiro either, huh?" Astrid threw her arms up in the air. "I’m all out of ideas! Skullmask, any ideas?"
"We kill it before it can launch the attack." Skullmask sat casually with a knee raised and an arm dangling off of it. "It lost a fin. Its movements are limited. If we ambush it, we can kill it quickly. Find openings and, if we’re lucky, I’ll personally be able to slash its innards. If I cut enough, I might be able to cut the mechanism that causes it."