"Ow! No fair, you cheaters…!"
Matsumi held his shoulder before using the flash step suddenly to appear behind one of the soldiers.
"You gonna shoot your friend now?!"
The soldier yelled in fear dropping his weapon. He turned to Matsumi and threw a right hook, trying to hit Matsumi at any chance he could get. The soldiers ceased firing and started to make their way over to Matsumi, trying to stop him.
Matsumi grabbed the weapon with curiosity. He was able to easily move out of the way of his hook, stepping back just enough so it would almost hit.
After, he'd spin clockwise for a kick right to the head of the soldiers to knock him down. He looked at the gun the soldier had before.
"How does this one work?"
In his inexperience, Matsumi pulled the trigger as bullets started to spray into the sky.
"Woah!"
The recoil caused him to aim it at the other soldiers as he kept the trigger held down.
Soldiers ran through and dove in forming mana shields as they stopped the bullets with their magic, the bullets bouncing toward the ground as Matsumi shot. More and more soldiers started to flood the area, keeping the others pre occupied as they fought back against Matsumi's attack, gaining massive numbers advantages over the group.
The weapon eventually jammed, and Matsumi's fixation with it gone in an instant.
"Gets boring pretty fast, don't you think? Do you have anything else?"
Matsumi vanished from sight only to jump on the mana shield from above. Knocking on it several times.
"How do you make this? You gotta tell me!"
"Matsumi. Quit messing around."
Eraba appeared a few seconds after Matsumi on the barrier as she immediately powered up, the pressure alone ripping through and blasting the soldiers away from them.
"Huh…You want to learn about Mana Barriers?"
"Mainly just how to get outta them!"
As soon as the barrier went down, he attacked the soldiers inside with a variety of attacks. He realied on his speed to overwhelm them.
"Mana barriers are something everyone can do, even the lowest of mana users. The key is that you have to overpower them with your own Mana like I did."
"Whaaaat? That would've been nice to know when I was stuck in one!"
"Well now you know but also, it's possible that when we face stronger opponents that won't be an option for you. It's a matter of energy output."
"Doesn't sound too hard! I wanna try after we get rid of these cheaters!"
"Well thats if we can get rid of them. They keep coming out the wood works. Theres no end to their numbers, even if we wipe out multiple at once."
"Maybe they have a big boss somewhere! Like, if we take that guy out the rest will just fall over! Like a bunch of puppets or something!"
"Hm. It could be possible..but what boss are they hiding exactly?"
Eraba slammed the back of her hand into a soldiers mouth, knocking him out in the process.
"A giant soldier! Like a hundred feet tall!"
Matsumi ducked an attack from the left, letting one of their allies strike at him in the process.
Eraba's ears perked as he said that, before turning. The numbers of soldiers started to die down slowly but surely.
"Someone is moving!"
"Uh, yeah. There's a bunch of people moving. There's a lot of soldiers."
"No! Someone else!"
Eraba tackled Matsumi as a huge blast of Mana hit the trees behind them disintegrating them.
He grunted as they hit the floor.
"What was that?!"
More blasts followed as he keeped him down from jumping in the open fire.
"Let me stand up, I can take us both away for a second!"
Eraba let him go, wondering what he was going to do. Matsumi grabbed her shoulders, flash stepping them both a ways away from the sudden attacks to give them a little breathing room.
"Those attacks are easily stronger than Mammon's. If I had to guess it was one of the sins. We need to move accordingly."
"You don't think we can just go straight in? All of us can do it! Just like last time."
"I don't know if that's smart. They have soldiers and we don't know what every sin is capable of. They wouldn't send their strongest one down first to battle."
"Exactly, so since this isn't the strongest one there's a chance they are weakened too!"
"We don't know the difference in strength between the sins. We also don't know the order in which they were sent. We only know that they're here and dangerous. We're very lucky we came face to face with a weakened version of Mammon. If it were anything else we'd be in trouble."
"So, what do we do? I always just hope for the best and see how it goes!"
"We'll have to devise a plan first. Theres no way we'll be able to beat him like this."
"Okay, what's the plan?"
His eyes were full of wonder and interest, happily waiting for Eraba to tell him her awesome master plan. At least, that's what he thinks.
"Alright. We're going to play the range game. Well keep our distance as best as possible. That way, if hes physically stronger than us we can still attack."
"The range game?! Okay! I can do that! What are the rules?!"
"Don't get to close to him, and don't let him find you. If he spots you and catches you then game over!"
"Alright! I got just the thing!"
He summoned the same football from before, it had a small glow. The wounds on his shoulders were starting to heal as Matsumi was getting better and better at understanding Trops.
"Hm. Matsumi. You know…if you really want to win I would go smaller. Maybe something like a Baseball or a Softball? Challenge yourself. Have you ever played either?"
"Of course I have! If you want smaller, you got it!"
The football dissipated, only to be replaced with a ping-pong ball.
"I have a good feeling about this one!"
"I didn't think you'd go that deep..but alright. That presence is gone for now. Let's keep getting rid of these soldiers."
"I'm just excited to see what this one does! I wish I could've seen what the football did though."
Whenever Matsumi asks for a sports item from Trops, he has no clue what special thing it will do. The volleyballs multiplied and gained power through bounces, the tennis racket reflected kinetic energy imposed on it in the forms of shockwaves. It was just a guess for Matsumi everytime that he used one.
"Let's go!"
He ran out of the small cover they had, going into the open.