The Amber Sword
chapter-164

TL: Some important stuff that I want to talk about after the intro notes.

TL: As you know, I tl TSTBGAM along with TAS regularly. The reason why I tl TSTBGAM is mainly because I wanted something to distract myself from TAS ‘serious’ plotline. In the past TAS took just slightly more than 3 hours, because I didn’t really need to worry about the format of the skill names or search for continuity checks.

However, like I have explained a while ago, the time to TL has gone up. Not only do I have to make the sure the action scenes are making sense, I have to check the skill names in the past and (future) to make sure there’s no TL errors, squash redundancy lines and format stats descriptions. Now one chapter takes 4-5 hours.

As for TSTBGAM, the recent chapters are killing me. It used to be around 1k words per chapter, but it suddenly ramped up to 3.5k to 4.5k words. What used to be 2 hours per chapter, turned to 7-8 hours. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun to watch Sue making life miserable for a bunch of people, but I’m pretty much sitting on the chair without a break for that 7-8 hours.

For those of you who always wanted more TAS chapters, well, you’re probably going to get slightly more for the near foreseeable future. Note on PROBABLY, so don’t get excited.

In the mean time, I want to TL a R18 JP series (the series is probably targeted towards the female audience? Haven’t really read it…) that’s going to replace TSTBGAM. If I’m going to spend 7-8 hours to TL then I’ll want to do to improve my kanji dictionary instead.

How long will the hiatus be? Probably 1-2 months, with a freeze on donations too. Right now it’s at a pretty good point for me to stop because the plot won’t move till a few chapters later.

Finally, this chapter is brought to you by donators. Thanks for your constant support. Next regular update will be on next wednesday.

Chapter 109 – Looting the body and an accident

“Mana Arrow!” The Dark Bishop screeched as he launched it towards Brendel.

Brendel clenched his teeth and evaded the arrow by twisting his body, letting it slide across his chest. The hellfire scorched his skin and he felt like his whole body was set ablazed. Even though there was damage done, the outcome was much better than having a few of his ribs broken.

[Damn it. Even though I was on my guard against the Dark Bishop’s Cast Invisibility spell, I still got damaged.]

In the game, the tanking professions would usually take this damage, but Brendel was certain that he would not get caught by it with his reactions and was not disappointed by his agility.

If he failed to evade it, then the next few attacks would be a set of combination spells from the Dark Bishop. He would not get killed by that, but would definitely suffer for the next few days.

[But this is the only time where I can get full solo XP, since the Nightsong Tiger and the others will probably rush to help me out. In any case, now that the Dark Bishop has failed, it’s going to be my turn for a counter-attack.]

Brendel leapt and immediately got behind the Dark Bishops’s back with another swing of his sword.

As he expected, the Dark Bishop flung his arm in an arc and allowed the black shield to intercept Brendel’s sword, while a pile of black flames appeared on his left hand again.

[Although my attack only took 1/3 of the durability away, do you really think I can’t break your Shield of Darkness that only has 10 points?]

Brendel scoffed as he jumped backwards to avoid the second Mana Arrow. There was no need to be impatient.

The exchange of attacks took place during Brendel’s Charge ability. The Lizardmen realized their target had disappeared, and paused for a moment blankly before they started to search for him. When they spotted him again, they saw him attacking the Dark Bishop with a sword that was shining brightly—

He had called out the Stats Window during his retreat, and raised Frontal Assault to level five. At that level the defenses would be weakened by 10 OZ, and was effectively the bane of warriors who wore Heavy Armor as well as wizards with high level barriers.

Brendel’s sword started to vibrate intensely as the blade reflected the moonlight, and making it seem like it was clad with light.

The sword went in a straight line.

[Power Break, Frontal Assault, activate!] Brendel felt as though all his strength leaving his body and poured into the thrust.

The results did not disappoint him. The Dark Bishop stared at his shield which was breaking into a shower of fragments in great disbelief. That ordinary looking sword emerged past his abdomen and back without stopping, and once it did so, Brendel immediately released his sword and went behind his back.

When he did so, the Dark Bishop screamed loudly as excessive quantities of dark flames poured out from his eyes, nostrils, mouth and injuries. The strength of the flames which were more than ten times stronger than the Mana Arrow, caused Brendel who went behind his back to feel the Dark Element boiling in the sky and made his skin prick painfully.

Burning life points and converting them into Mana. This was the last defense of any Elementalist. It could be used instantly, but only someone like the Dark Bishop was insane enough to use every bit of his life force to kill Brendel along with himself.

Brendel had suffered this suicidal move in the past so he made sure to avoid it. If he took that head on, he was most likely going to be dead or at the very least near death.

That well made Whitesteel Longsword was probably destroyed. Unless it was a magic artifact, most of the normal artifacts would be destroyed from the Mana Explosion. He was not even sure if there was anything going to be left from it.

He then turned around and smiled at the Lizardmen who were planning to surround him.

He felt that his smile was quite sincere and friendly, but the Lizardmen looked at him like he as though he was a horrifying monster. Even someone as strong as the Dark Bishop was killed by the youth in an instant, while they were just insignificant minions who would not make a difference in this battle. They could not help but look at each other with doubt, then quickly turned around and ran away.

Their actions certainly fit the actions that stereotypical bandits would make.

They were able to relish that the fact that the youth did not go after them. The truth was Brendel was actually in a weakened state. The combination of Power Break and Frontal Assault had used up fifteen times the Stamina required to use a full swing. Even though he still had stamina remaining he felt quite exhausted.

[Whatever. This battle is at its end anyway. Let’s see. I got 4200 points from the Dark Bishop, and my current XP is 5645/13600, oh, it’s still going up huh……]

He looked up and saw the Silver Elves breaking the Lizardmen’s formation wide open, and chased them to paths that were narrow and complicated. When the Dark Bishop died, the Lizardmen were unable to form any resistance any longer and started to flee.

In the beginning, there were still some resemblance of a defensive formation, but it quickly descended into a chaotic retreat.

[The only thing left to do in this battle was to just wait for the XP to come in.]

Brendel went ahead and sat beside the Dark Bishop without touching anything. Since he was unlucky in finding good loot from the bodies, he wanted to wait for the older Elementalist sister to handle the corpse.

He took out a Moonlight Crystal out, activated it and threw it up into the air. This was the signal to inform the mercenaries they no longer needed to support the battle with ranged attacks, and they should regroup with him.

Since it was boring to wait for them, Brendel started to study his stats.

[Strength and Physique are over 25 oz, agility was added by 3 OZ from the level up. I’ve definitely reached the minimum qualification for a Silver-rank fighter. Adding my other abilities like Power Break and Frontal Assault will allow me to reach the top tier fighters of this rank.]

“That’s two months. Do you believe that, old pal? You turned from a common militia to the level of an Apprentice Knight with the strength of a Silver-rank fighter. Even the formal Bucce guards can’t even compare to you now. Trust me when I say our road is still far ahead-” Brendel smiled a little as he placed his hand over his chest and muttered. The Brendel from the game world felt a surge of emotions within him. It was true that level 25 was really nothing to him.

The mercenaries made their way down from the forest, and the former Grey Wolves Mercenaries were especially excited. They knew very little about their new lord compared to the others. Even though Brendel said he would bring them victory, they did not realize that it would be won so easily and without casualties.

They were outnumbered by nearly seven times, and there were Silver-ranked demons and the Dark Bishop who constantly hounded them in the past like an unending nightmare. Sanford was still a little agitated when he ran to Brendel’s side, and he suddenly felt there was something different about his lord, and caused him to forget his manners. He approached close to him and asked excitedly: “My lord, did you break your limits?”

Brendel nodded.

“The lord is only twenty years old, and he attained the might of a Silver-rank fighter,” The Grey Wolves Mercenaries looked at each other and murmured amongst themselves. “We are fortunate enough to witness the birth of two prodigies.”

“Two?” Brendel said.

“The member within our former Grey Wolves Mercenaries. His name is Eke.” Sanford replied.

“So it’s him.” Brendel raised his eyebrow. He was not really concerned with that name, so he quickly looked for that person amongst the mercenaries, spotted the Elementalist older sister and immediately beckoned his hand in that direction: “Over here, lucky babe, come over here and loot this body!”

Everyone stopped talking when they heard him —

They first looked at where Brendel was looking at, hesitated for a while, before putting their eyes on the older Elementalist sister. She looked at the people around her before pointing at herself: “Me?”

“Yeah, didn’t I ask you before to do this task?” Brendel pointed at the Dark Bishop: “Loot the body…. No, I mean, tidy up the victory items.”

The girl’s pretty looking brows frowned as she bit her lower lips, while she glared at Brendel: “My lord, my name is Felaern, and not l-lucky babe!” Her heavily accented tongue caused her to nearly bite her tongue. She was looking coldly at him as she thought he was trying to cause trouble for her.

“Ah, no, you see, Felaern, lucky babe is something we say to praise someone in my hometown.”

But he immediately saw her looking back at him with suspicion.

“My lord, I have also been to Karsuk, but the locals have never said something like that before…..” Sanford reminded him from the side.

“No, this talk is between us wizards.” Brendel’s recovery was very quick.

“What does it mean?”

“It means that the person’s luck is very good, very moe, and a totally hot girl.”

Even though the Elementalist sister did not know what moe meant, she understood there were some ill intentions somewhere. She glared at her lord as she confirmed in her heart that all human males were certainly lustful beasts. However, she was a subordinate to him, so she did not make any disrespectful actions, nodded and did what she was ordered to.

Suddenly there was a series of soft bangs in the east hills. At first the sounds continued with low rumbles, before clear cracking sounds mixed with thunder-like booms could be heard. The ground where they were standing trembled.

Brendel looked at the pebbles at his feet which moved like they were dancing.

[Why are these sounds so familiar. They sound like Exploding Crystals used in the second Madara War. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard these sounds in the game for decades. How nostalgic…… Wait, what?!]

Brendel’s expression changed and immediately looked up. Indeed, the cliffs in the east were being destroyed in a pile of rising dust clouds.

Everyone stared with gaping mouths as they watched the rocks fly everywhere —