The Challenger's Return: Rebirth of the Rainbow Mage
chapter-37

Otto surveyed the area around his stone house.

Seeing nothing, he cast the spell 'Sense Life' to ensure the Throskarts had not yet arrived.

No nearby signatures were detected.

Otto's eyes gleamed as he started his preparations for his new and improved trap.

He decided to call it the Trap 2.0.

He began, of course, with [Foggy Mystique].

[Foggy Mystique]

Water Element

Level 10

Turn an area of 200m around caster into dense fog, hindering enemy vision.

Mana Cost: 80

Duration: 1 hour

Cast Time: Instant

No Cooldown

When the area was fully obscured after multiple casts, Otto got to work.

He took out two types of magic arrays from his spatial storage ring.

The first array was composed of two delicate circles surrounding an intricate series of six connecting runes in the center.

Otto ran around and placed a total of twenty of them onto the fragile ground.

They were each spaced one hundred meters apart, lined in an enormous circle.

Together, they covered the entirety of the collapsing ground.

Otto activated all of them with a quick flex of his mana.

Each emitted a dim glow in the twilight. But the glow quickly vanished, as if it wasn't there.

Night had almost arrived.

Something in Otto's brain niggled at him.

He had the same dim feeling that he was forgetting something.

Only, for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was.

He took a second to try and recall.

Nothing.

Otto just hoped that whatever it was wouldn't interfere with his plan.

He cautiously tested the ground, stepping lightly in front of him.

It didn't give, and it didn't break, sending him careening into the swamp below.

The arrays worked properly.

The arrays he just activated were called 'Pressure Platform Arrays.'

Their function was to create a small, invisible platform over the ground to walk over.

Normally, they were used to build a bridge when the ground was hard to walk on.

To cross a raging river, slippery ice, a patch of lava, or even to stabilize the terrain in tough to traverse areas like mountains.

Otto's version of the array was even more advanced.

It created a much larger platform that always evenly dispersed weight, greatly enhancing its stability.

He used this so that the Throskarts who set up an 'ambush' for him would not immediately fall underground as soon as they stepped near his stone house.

Otto's lips curved as he took out a second array.

This array was composed of a single circle, surrounding eight conjoined runes that were unevenly glowing and dimming in an uncertain rhythm.

It was called the 'miniature explosion' array.

Its effect was rather straightforward.

When activated remotely with Otto's mana, it would create a miniature explosion with a small radius.

This array didn't usually have much use in combat.

Its formation was simple, so its power was somewhat small.

But in a situation where Otto only needed to briefly disrupt the mana of the platform causing it to fail for a scant few seconds, this array was perfect.

Moreover, Otto's variant version allowed him to remotely control it after he input his mana.

A single mental command was enough.

He would send his would-be ambushers into hell soon enough.

Now he just had to wait until they arrived.

****************************************************************

Otto patted his stomach with a pleased expression and looked toward Jackal.

He took the chance to fill his stomach with some of the food he had stolen from the camps.

Jackal meekly stood next to him with a fearful expression.

Right now, he basically wasn't any use to Otto at all.

He was very afraid Otto would turn around and suddenly decide to kill him.

But Otto only looked at him and threw out a small pot of stew with a single word.

"Eat."

Jackal hurriedly ate. The stew was gone in under a minute.

Suddenly, Otto's eyes brightened.

He heard some footsteps.

The first wave had arrived!

His audience was very quiet in the stream.

They seemed to be waiting for something.

Otto's face revealed a sneer.

He would give them a good show.

Since, to properly delay the time until the remaining camps showed up, there was no doubt he'd have to engage in battle.

Otto ordered Jackal,

"Come with me."

With no choice but with fear in his eyes, Jackal could only agree.

Luckily, Otto cast [Shadow Stealth] on him so that no matter what, as long as he didn't make any noise, he couldn't be seen by the enemy.

Otto quickly took Jackal and blinked up to the roof of his abode.

[Lesser Blink]

Space Element

Level 10

Instantly teleport to any location within 50 meters of caster. Bring up to two additional passengers.

Mana Cost: 225

Cast Time: Instant

No Cooldown

Otto scoured the surroundings vigilantly.

Even with his highly enhanced perception, he could make nothing out.

But he had definitely heard footsteps!

Otto's eyes gleamed in the darkness.

Jackal thought that Otto looked like a wolf trying to sniff out a particularly tricky rabbit.

His legs trembled a little involuntarily.

Even though he was a nominal ally, Otto was really too scary!

Otto, meanwhile, dutifully ignored his cowardly partner, and cast [Sense Life].

Immediately, almost a thousand signatures arranged themselves in his vision.

Moreover, when he spread his sense out further, he caught another two groups of around twenty thousand Throskarts each heading in his direction.

Otto's brows slowly rose.

They truly went all out this time.

Even he felt a bit surprised by the great success of this plan.

He'd anticipated catching 10,000 or so Throskarts at most.

It seemed the spectators really worked overtime to help his cause.

Otto supposed some 'thanks' were in order after he cleaned up here.

He also figured out why the Throskarts that were already here were difficult to catch using his vision alone.

It wasn't because they hid extraordinarily well.

It was the opposite.

While a few indeed hid, many of them were standing right in front of him in the clearing.

But they were invisible to the naked eye.

It could only be the work of the audience, providing them with one time use magical tools that allowed them to hide in plain sight.

Otto suspected they were directed only to use these before the ambush.

As soon as everyone arrived, they would have to remove the tools and have an all out battle!

After all, the audience wouldn't be able to bear it if all the ambushers were invisible.

If they couldn't see the attackers, where would all the excitement come from?

Nevertheless, the spectators hadn't fully captured the essence of human, or rather, Throskart nature.

When the first wave of ambushers caught Otto's lithe figure standing on top of his stone house, some were immediately enraged.

They immediately began to attack!

Those few arrows and spells flew at Otto on the roof.

It also set off a chain reaction in the remaining Throskarts.

Some were blinded by their hatred as the poison was still making waves throughout their abdominal regions.

A few men had suspicious looking dark patches on their pants.

Others couldn't bear to see someone else taking the last hit and stealing Otto's accumulated points. They immediately joined in, too.

Still more simply followed the crowd, and naïvely thought the leaders were giving the signal to attack.

Archers lifted their bows and shot arrows with terrifying sharp heads that honed in on Otto's position.

Mages carried wooden wands and fired colorless, condensed bolts of mana to block off all of his escape routes.

Melee combatants made as little noise as possible and charged at Otto under the cover of their invisibility tools.

Yet Otto remained motionless, as if he didn't see the giant threat to his life looming ever larger in front of him.

Right before these projectiles looked like they were about to turn his body into a sieve, a colorless barrier emerged in front of his body.

The arrows and spells collided with the barrier.

But all of them, with no exception, bounced right off and were deflected onto the ground, robbed of their penetrative power.

Nothing could pierce this barrier.

Otto's eyes glowed as he inwardly roared in satisfaction at the might of his powerful defensive spell.

Sure enough, despite its vaguely cringe inducing name, his class wouldn't let him down.

[Force Field]

Space Element

Level 10

Separates the target's space from the rest of the world. Nothing may enter or exit the separate space.

Mana Cost: 885

Duration: 90 seconds

Cast Time: Instant

Cooldown: 120 seconds

This spell was perhaps Otto's favorite in the list of spells he'd received from his class.

It was because whereas other spells could 'block damage up to xx,' this spell had an absolute effect.

'Nothing may enter or exit the separate space.'

Which meant that, no matter how powerful, as long as this space remained, it was absolutely impossible to hit Otto after he'd cast force field on himself.

Even if it took a projectile that could destroy a world, as long as it didn't have a spatial attribute, Otto would still remain unharmed.

Physical attacks and other types of force also wouldn't be able to reach him.

A situation like Otto casting a 'mana shield' to block off Zeller's attack in the tutorial, but still getting pushed back by the residual force wouldn't happen with [Force Field].

It was an 'absolute defense,' a spell so rare and powerful that Otto was astounded that it was marked as a First Circle spell.

Perhaps it was due to its significant drawbacks.

Force Field could only be used on a single target.

Even after reaching level 10, where most spells experienced a significant evolution in their attributes, this did not change.

Second, while in this separate space, others could not hit him, but he could also not hit others.

Third, its mana cost was astounding. One cast would take around 6% of his total mana.

He could only count himself lucky that his mana would regenerate completely and then some by the time the spell ended.

Fourth, it was currently the only spell in Otto's arsenal that had an actual cooldown.

This meant that had Otto been a typical mage, this spell's cooldown would be on the order of days to weeks of time.

It was likely intended as a spatial mage's ultimate trump card, one that wasn't used until they found themselves in hopeless circumstances to potentially save their life.

Fifth, after using this spell, Otto would normally be essentially immobile.

The space covered him like a glove, tightly, without letting him move even a finger.

Fortunately, Otto had discovered a way to skirt around this problem.

He found via rigorous experimentation that [Lesser Blink] could still be activated while under the Force Field.

Perhaps it was due to their synergies as spatial spells.

So although Otto couldn't move his body, he could still take advantage of lesser blink to maneuver all the same.

But he didn't bother doing so, for now. Why waste his mana?

In any case, he couldn't be hurt at the moment.

Jackal behind Otto also breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

Since Otto's barrier seemingly couldn't be penetrated, it meant Otto himself formed a barrier between the attacks and him!

The Throskarts only grew more agitated as their attacks all seemed to have no effect.

It was then that the melee combatants arrived.

Jackal was forced to back off, still in stealth, for fear of being hit by stray weapons.

They cut, smashed, and bludgeoned at Otto ferociously, assuming that they had a shot of breaking his defense where the long-range combatants did not.

But their disappointment only grew as Otto's barrier showed no signs of faltering.

All of them found themselves wondering what odd spell the humans had conjured up this time.

Was there such a spell that provided an impenetrable defense?

One Throskart, named Khana, looked on at the scene with cold eyes.

Khana hadn't even bothered to attack the human just now.

He had a feeling it wouldn't work. This human was much stronger than he looked.

Just his incomprehensible spells alone alluded to his vast might.

Actually, Khana hadn't wanted to ambush this human in the first place.

He smelled something fishy from the whole scenario.

Why did the human need to visit every single camp in the surroundings just to hoard a bit of food?

He suspected they were being treated as walking points...

It was only after being bribed, cajoled, and eventually threatened by those fucking stupid spectators did Khana agree to take part in this ambush with his force of 48 elite Throskarts.

But he couldn't feel at ease: the human still gave him a feeling of extreme danger.

Alas, now that he was here, he'd already made his bed.

Even if he didn't want to, he'd have to lie in it.

Khana calmly estimated the duration of the human's spell.

Such a powerful method couldn't last forever, no matter how strong this human was.

Khana was planning to aim for that gap.

After 89 seconds, Khana caught a barely detectable flicker in Otto's barrier.

His eyes glinted.

He nocked his bow.

It was now or never.

Khana entered a state of intense concentration and prepared to aim for the fraction of a second between the end of the spell and the human's next cast.

Right before the barrier disappeared, Khana shot his arrow.

Otto didn't seem to notice Khana's odd behavior.

It was, surprisingly, Jackal who noticed it first.

He screamed at Otto,

"Watch out!!"

But Otto didn't react.

Jackal could only watch as the blazing fast arrow shot through the air, pointed directly at Otto's heart.

His eyes showed panic and terror.

Jackal looked down for a split second.

When he looked up again, his eyes firmed before he made a ruthless decision.

THWAK

The arrow penetrated deeply into a shoulder.

Bright red blood streamed out of the wound.

Otto looked over at Jackal, who now sported a serious injury.

Yes.

Jackal had jumped in front of Otto right before the arrow hit him.

Or, looked at another way, Jackal had successfully passed Otto's test.

Khana sighed in disappointment, though, in truth, his hopes hadn't been high in the first place.

'Seems like…we're all doomed.'

Meanwhile, Otto's lips curved up.

His eyes narrowed to a thin slit as he smiled at Jackal, looking like a handsome, almost beautiful, benevolent Buddha.

No one could tell what he was thinking.

But Jackal wasn't mesmerized in the slightest. Instead, he shivered in fear.

He understood the murderous heart underneath.

"Good save."

Then, Otto blinked his way back into his stone house, with Jackal in tow.

****************************************************************

It didn't take much to heal Jackal up after Otto removed the arrow from his shoulder.

Jackal wasn't particularly strong, so one cast of 'Heal' did the trick.

When he looked up, he saw Otto gazing at him solemnly.

The atmosphere would have been tense if not for the constant banging and booming coming from a series of attacks on the stone house.

Otto just shook his head and answered his unspoken query,

"They won't be able to enter for now."

What a joke. He had hardened the stone using level 10 'Condense Earth.'

The stone on this building far surpassed typical stone.

Still, they both knew that no matter how sturdy, it was only a matter of time before the Throskarts broke through.

But Otto didn't seem worried about this point at all, so Jackal also subconsciously relaxed.

After a second of thought, Otto spoke again.

"Since you are willing to take an arrow for me, I can now accept you as part of my team."

Jackal's eyes brightened immediately.

"However, you will still have to pull your own weight."

His bright eyes dimmed. Jackal didn't really have anything to offer Otto.

Otto seemed invincible.

But he… was weak. He could only receive help, not give help, to Otto.

"Don't be so quick to disparage yourself. You will be in charge of all miscellaneous tasks from now on, including collecting coins, gathering food from forest plants, cooking said food, obtaining goods from the store, etc."

"10% of the coins you collect you may keep. The rest should be stored and given to me to convert into points."

"As for the items you need to perform such miscellaneous tasks, you must buy them yourself. I won't pay for them."

"In return, I will protect you and guarantee your life."

Otto saw no dissatisfaction on Jackal's face, but he still carefully reminded,

"Don't think of me as a miser. I require an enormous collection of points for undisclosed reasons. Furthermore, your life should be worth these few points, correct?"

Jackal was indeed not upset at all at being treated like this.

Instead, only like this would he feel more secure!

He wasn't as strong as Otto.

It was only natural that he submit.

By giving up almost all his points to Otto, he'd feel more confident in Otto protecting him.

Jackal thought keeping 10% of the coins he collected was already very generous!

Meanwhile, the collisions from outside suddenly stopped.

The duo heard low murmurs that came from outside the building.

Otto instinctively used [Sense Life] to detect the signatures in his surroundings.

His eyes glowed as the information appeared.

The next wave, this time of over 18,000 Throskarts, had arrived.

The audience must have successfully corralled them into waiting for the final wave to arrive before attacking, as both the collisions and the murmurs soon quieted.

It was partly because Otto's figure wasn't even visible, so there was no 'worry' over who got the last hit.

Otto smirked lightly inside his sealed stone house.

Only ten minutes left…