Chapter 59 - New Lands (1)

That wasn't the case. Billy only wasn't worried because he didn't have to get hit. Besides, seeing their projectiles should be easy as long as he can see the enemies. If the worst comes to the worst, he can always dodge if he fails at blocking the attacks with his spear. Regardless, once he grabbed his weapon with both hands and then approached the river. Using Block Mastery should be possible without damaging the weapon. It was only spheres of water, after all.

The red archers approached from the side, but they were farther away from the river than Billy, thanks to that, the monsters only approached the place Billy was, and without ceremony, three of them fired Water Ball. Billy swung the tip of his spear to protect his left chest from two while he twitched his neck to dodge the last Water Ball. While he succeeded with that, his spear vibrated for a while… The power of those Water Balls wasn't a joke. The enemies opened their mouths to fire again, but three arrows pierced their mouths and paralyzed them. Much to Billy's surprise, the arrows easily pierced the monsters' heads and killed them.

Billy shook his head and touched the water of the river. By creating some small waves, he made the corpses approach each other, and then by creating a small platform of water, he made them leave the river. The Sahatir were almost as big as him from watching up-close, but they were a bit lighter. Still, it consumed some of his mana to pull them out of the water.

"Nice work…" Leo said. "Their bodies aren't that different from normal fish. Maybe they are edible."

Billy hadn't realized that, but he was right… Still, it would take courage to eat that. Even if they try it well, there was a chance that someone would end up poisoned or with one hell of a stomach ache. Billy wouldn't be the Guinea pig since he was working, but… Nevertheless, while he was waiting for the next group of Sahati to show up, Billy looked toward the elementalists and saw them working in crafting some massive bars of earth. He hadn't tested that yet, but he saw the elementalists compressing the mass of the block to increase its durability. Transforming them into iron or other sturdier material will probably require another skill, one that they didn't have yet.

"There is more coming, Billy," Lily alerted.

Billy looked toward the next targets wondering if he could impale them and pull the bodies with some earth harpoons. While that could work, it would only be efficient if dozens of enemies were around, which wasn't the case. In any case, the new enemies didn't manage to hit Billy either since his guard was up, and they soon were defeated. Unfortunately, the speed that they showed up was too slow. While Drew didn't say that they should hurry up, Billy felt like it would be a good idea to take some of those fish back home if they were edible.

"Do you think if I drop some drops of blood in the river, more enemies will come?" Billy asked.

"... Why are you in such a hurry?" Leo frowned. "The construction of this bridge will take at least six months and we will soon have to make more arrows. There is no need to hurry up."

In the end, Billy nodded since he didn't have to hurry up. He was training his physical and magical skills at the same time, after all. In any case, around the time the sun began to set, Leo decided to stop the hunt. Billy had used Meditation a few times, and the red archers that helped him had used many arrows, so they had to craft a few more over time. Around the same time, the groups that went to explore returned.

"Did you guys find anything?" Billy asked when his group reunited in the same spot.

"Nothing aside from a few trees that gave us some fruits," Alexander replied.

"... I thought they would have done a lot more, did they slack off?" Natalie asked while looking toward the elementalists.

The elementalists only made a couple of earth blocks that were like five meters long and wide and half a meter tall. Creating something like that required a lot of mana, but she was being grumpy and unreasonable, so she didn't realize some obvious things.

"Hardening earth as much as possible requires extra mana," Billy replied. "Remember, we can't let the bridge fall anytime soon. They also did some tests earlier by firing Water Balls at the same size and speed of the monsters, and they confirmed that they will be ineffective against those blocks of earth."

"For how long? That should lose durability over time," Natalie said.

"That is a good question," Billy said. "To avoid problems, perhaps some of them still stay here periodically to make the bridge larger or make some repairs when necessary."

"Putting that aside, the fish smells good… has anyone one eaten it yet?" Lily asked. "I don't want to be the one who will bite it first, though."

Billy shrugged after hearing that Lily was reckless, but not that reckless. Regardless, some brave men decided to eat the fish, and after a few hours, nothing had happened to him. So, everyone assumed that it was fine to eat the Sahati. Come to think of it. Billy didn't find any mention of poison when he used Appraisal on the monsters. Still, Billy was more cautious than them, so he waited for a few days before taking a bite of those fish. There was the possibility that their poison might be weak, but it might become powerful after being digested many times. The others didn't care much about that since they were more interested in eating some fresh rather than conserved food.. However, Billy forgot something… he could have checked everyone with Appraisal and see if they had developed Poison Resistance.