He was taking too long, Wantria thought.
A few minutes passed before she was successfully able to kindle a campfire, but the final result was very representative of the effort as the dancing flame rose to almost her hips’ height. A loud screech was heard coming from the woods, probably some animal scared by the sudden rise of the fire.
Wantria removed the sweat from her forehead with a dirty piece of cloth and tried to reach for her flask, only to notice that her partner for the night still hadn’t came back.
“Shit, I wonder if he managed to get in trouble… Although I didn’t hear any strange sound outside of the one when I lit the fire… Better check him, anyway. The fire is strong enough to not allow me to lose it in the darkness.”
The Stalker picked up her bag from the floor and went to the same direction that she remembers Aylen going to. Since the path was non-existent before, the lad’s crossing made a very clear disturbance on the vegetation and the girl just needed to follow the broken branches and stepped-on fruits. As the one before her noticed, it was indeed way more peaceful than the rotten woods they were inside half an hour ago.
The opening for the clearance with the pond and the scared Reaper only showed him, not the strange apparition in front of him. Wantria was ready to shout at him, but a few steps forward revealed the reason for his shock.
“What the hell?”
The man coughed a spray of blood.
“H-help… I need...”
With the situation becoming clear from the few stuttered words, Wantria advanced and tried to snap Aylen out of his fear. The man observed, whispering variations of “Help me”.
“Come on, wake up! It’s not a Raiser or anything like that. I think he needs help too.”
Slowly, the newbie started blinking his eyes and noticing the girl leaning onto him and ready to slap his face.
“H-hey! I’m fine now! It was just a sudden shock...”
“You can’t be doing a lot of these if you want to keep your character useful, at least run!”
“Err, fine, fine… But let’s not talk about that, what about the… thing?”
He pointed to the man, once again coughing.
“Let’s try talking to him. Doesn’t seem to be a player, though.”
Wantria helped Aylen standing up and went to the mysterious visage, while the other one checked if the flask had lost too much water from the fall – it was empty.
“Hm… Mister? What do you need help for?”
Until then, his eyes were focused on a distant nothingness, only looking at trees hidden by the night, but, suddenly, they turned to Wantria and intensely focused on her own pair, giving out a chilling sensation.
“Everyone… there… We were… a lot of beasts...”
From the scarce information, the girl deduced that a flock of creatures attacked wherever he lived and probably killed everyone but a few survivors. She only needed the location to, maybe, help.
“Hm, where did you came from? If it’s not very far from my path I may be able to help you – if not, you can count with the Reaper here.”
She laughed, but the bloody man didn’t move a single muscle of his face until he decided what to say.
“Travelers’ town… Linvia...”
Now it was Wantria who froze. Aylen, after recollecting the water, went to see what was the situation and found the girl in a similar situation to the one he was in.
“Hey, now it’s you who’s doing it! Wake up!”
“Shit! Linvia… It’s where the baroness lives! I need to deliver the ring to her and get my reward… So much money...”
“Uh? What’s happening in this Linvia place? Did he come from there?”
“Yes – I’m not sure of what’s happening but it seems to be some sort of monster attack. Can you give me more details, sir?”
Both turned their faces to the bloody man, with his expression unchanged by the girl’s nervousness. He didn’t seem willing to answer, but when Wantria opened her mouth to ask him again, the stuttering restarted:
“Night… The night attacked...”
For a moment, it seemed that time froze. A silent reflection took place in the Stalker’s head while her companion carefully awaited a reaction, looking at her face with curiosity. Suddenly, like the silence never happened, Wantria started talking again.
“Aylen, give him some water and refill the flask. We’ll drop him at the campfire and head to Linvia immediately… Unless you don’t want to keep accompanying me.”
“I don’t know. I’d like to keep following you, but what if the monsters attacking the place are too strong for me?”
“Well, to be honest, this looks like a low-level event – and if that’s the case, it’s probably made for you, not me.”
“Uh, that changes things then. It would be cool to get some extra experience.”
“Sure. The recommended would be resting before a possibly big mission, but the event would probably expire before the morning and I need to guarantee that the baroness is fine. If you’re feeling tired, don’t bother with it as you’ll have more opportunities for stuff like this in the future.”
“I’m actually not that tired. I could use a rest but it’s not like I can’t fight.”
“Ok, so we shouldn’t lose any more time. Let’s do what I said and get back to the road.”
Not letting Aylen say anything else, Wantria got in motion by getting the flask from the Reaper’s hand and giving it to the motionless man, who seemed reluctant to firmly grasp the bottle.
“Oh, if you don’t want to drink water, fine.”
She inserted the flask back on her belt and turned to Aylen.
“Guide him to the bonfire.”
“OK.”
He went forward and initially just raised his hand, showing the path to the catatonic man, who was still very unresponsive. As there was nothing else he could do, Aylen grabbed the hand drowned in blood and walked him through the forest path, with Wantria already ahead.
“Nice, just let him be now. We’re good to go, I assume?”
“Yeah, I don’t need anything right now.”
The awkward necessity to urinate unexpectedly popped on his mind, but it would be best keeping his mouth shut after already saying that he was fine.”
“So, I guess we’re going back to the road. The forest trails around here are scarce and the ones that exist are usually specific hunting routes that won’t serve us – and just rushing through raw vegetation is clearly not an option.”
“Is there any risks of going through the road?”
“The open roads are the preferred places of bandits and other scum to ambush people like us, but I don’t think they’re very active around here, specially at this hour. I’d say we’re safe enough.”
“If you’re fine with it, I am too. Let’s go.”
Once again the two started walking. They took a route opposite to the one they used to get inside the woods, always paying attention to their surroundings, specially when they started getting back to the road in fear of people hiding around to ambush travelers. Fortunately, as Wantria predicted, there wasn’t a lot of criminal movement in the area and they were perfectly safe throughout the whole journey, at least when they were far from the town of Linvia.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“So… What do you think is attacking the place? Some sort of forest creature?”
“Well, from the man’s state, I think it’s difficult to imagine that mere goblins or lizards attacked them. Actually, to your luck, it may be an attack of the undead.”
“If the quest is only happening because of me, you may be right. I actually hope that they are undead as it would really help me to get the hang of it. Unless they’re Raisers...”
“Eh, if it’s Raisers not even I will be able to do anything so let’s just hope that it’s like we expect it to be.”
Following the short talk, the two went back into silence. Wantria started planning the actions they would take when reaching the town since she had already been there before and Aylen went back to checking his player interface, fiddling around with the configurations and battle settings. After a lot of strange pointers started appearing on his screen, he thought it was better to just leave it be and spend the rest of the travel thinking about what he would do in combat. When closing his windows, he noticed that it was very dark around them.
“Hey, Wantria, what about that flame you were using as a torch? Don’t you want to see what’s ahead or around us?”
“We don’t know the enemy’s position, they may be advancing towards us and we really don’t want to alert them. It sucks to have low visibility but maybe they won’t even notice us to make an ambush.”
“Are you sure? Well, since you’re leading us and helping me, I can’t complain.”
Wantria sighed.
“You can, but make it reasonable.”
Silence returned and they calmly walked along the carved dirt road, noticing that the ground started to get lower and possibly letting them see far ahead if there was some light in the sky. Wantria remarked that them not being able to see the town’s lights ahead, which are supposed to be strong after an invasion, was quite strange and that they should hurry if they had any hope of controlling the damage. Aylen quietly nodded as both started a light run, sparing most of their stamina for the possible upcoming fight.
“Get your scythe ready, Reaper. The attack on the town being over means that the enemies are running away from the scene, possibly towards us. Of course, we don’t know if the attack really is over, but being careful is never enough.”
Following the order, Aylen grabbed the grim reaper statue from his pocket and tried moving it quickly to trigger the transformation, although he wasn’t sure if that’s what transformed it before. Clearly, it wasn’t.
“Jeez, you’re stupid, dude. Just command it on your mind.”
“Oh, right.”
He really felt stupid. After thinking of “Entering combat”, the statue started vibrating and a slight movement activated its expansion. The scythe was now fully transformed. Only then Aylen noticed how heavy it was, making it really hard to carry it until reaching Linvia.
“Damn, this thing is heavy. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get there with enough energy to fight if I keep it this way.”
“Hm, you’re right, I forgot to consider that maybe your weapon is too heavy to keep it prepared all the times as you don’t always have the adrenaline of combat to make it easier to handle.”
“I’ll get it back to pocket mode then...”
“Wait!”
The two had stopped to talk about the weapon’s weight and the Stalker barely noticed a presence from the woods, made very clear by the strange sound of leaves being shaken by the wind – while there was none per se.
“There’s something in the bushes; right there.”
She pointed exactly towards the spot where the sound was coming from. Aylen raised the scythe again, now getting a good grasp on its handle and feeling a much lighter weight as his heart started beating faster.
“W-Wantria! I-I’m feeling weird... it’s like I can sense something about the enemy.”
“Really? Then maybe they really are undead. Although I believe that Reapers feel not only undeads but all kinds of corrupted creatures.”
“Wow, do I have any sort of advantage against them too?”
“Err, you’re the Reaper, not me. Pay attention to the movement, try to identify if it’s aggressive.”
Aylen advanced one step – the shaking intensified.
“Wait, I hear new sounds around it. More of them are coming, get ready for them jumping on you.”
He firmed his feet on the ground and smiled with confidence, a good scythe swing could kill many creatures and he only needed to line up the cut perfectly.
Wantria too prepared herself for the advancement, readying her kukri for the possible confrontation and covering her companion’s blind area as he was focused only on what was in front of him. Their battle-ready stance startled the beings hidden in the shadows and the noise went to torturing levels, aiming to affect their concentration.
Before they could even notice the impulse, one of the monsters jumped at Aylen’s back. Although the Stalker was watching a different spot, her reaction was quick enough to stab the aggressor mid-air. Black ooze splashed in a very wide radius, sticking to Aylen’s hair and getting at Wantria’s eyes. It clearly was the creatures’ plan: many more of them came right after the liquid explosion and from both sides.
“Aylen! My vision is compromised, you need to cover all the sides!”
“...What?!”
Dealing with the ones he was already expecting proved to be no problem. A single precise slash traversed all of the strange beings attacking his front, creating a spitting line of the same black blood from before which adhered to Aylen’s clothes and weapon. The girl’s alert about the enemies coming from his back reached his ear right at the movement’s end, when he had lost most of his momentum. A piercing scream of otherworldly evil was becoming closer and closer until something grabbed the Reaper’s neck.
“Fuck, what are these?!”
Before anyone could say something, more creatures started jumping at Aylen and grabbing his clothes, hair and skin. His scythe movement was being limited by one of them holding his right arm with the strength of a very tight chain. Trying to fend them off with his free hand proved to be worthless as they merely ignored it or even tried to grab it to limit his other arm. While the shadows stacked on his back, Aylen felt little hands advancing through his head and reaching his cheeks.
“Wantria, help me!”
She really wanted to help him, but the slime was more annoying than she thought. Her left hand was now glued to her right eye, connected through the black blood. It had gotten a very sticky texture after she desperately tried pouring water on the ooze and now she wasn’t even able to help her traveling companion.
“I can’t! Shit… I guess I need to use it...”
Calming down and leaving the sticky blood by itself, Wantria focused on her body with her eyes closed and whispered the words:
“Shadow Dive.”
One of the circles engraved on her left forearm disappeared with a burning effect, leaving only a grayish shadow behind, but there was little time to observe it as Wantria’s body started to became more ethereal and translucent. Slowly, her height started to diminish – although she could appear to be shrinking at a first look, her legs were being consumed by the shadow on the dirt ground and in a seconds matter the Stalker had disappeared. Curiously, the only thing left behind was the creature’s blood, now glued to the earth.
The creatures, focused on taking down the male, didn’t realize what had happened and Aylen only noticed that she had disappeared, panicking after thinking she had escaped. Shortly after, his eyes were covered by hands completely empty of color and a notably smaller shadow was reaching his scythe’s pole, ready to make it free from his still firm grasp.
Three seconds had passed since the Shadow Dive.
“Shadow Leap!”
A black hole appeared right behind Aylen, although no one noticed it. Milliseconds after, a more cohesive shape formed from the pure shadow and a pale face started to come out from the mysterious pit. A silver light struck one of the monsters grabbing Aylen’s leg, getting split into two pieces in result. Now the whole upper part of Wantria’s body could be seen coming out from the hole and the ambushing shadows finally noticed it, too late to escape from the furious kukri, drowning in dark blood. The Reaper could only hear the slashing noises, but the situations was clear to him and a sigh of relief escaped when the monster who was choking him was suddenly removed.
There were reinforcements watching in the woods, but when the scythe’s hand was freed and Aylen killed at least three enemies in a single blow together with Wantria stabbing multiple shadow bodies in an inhuman speed, they retread in silence, hoping to not be noticed after their equals had been completely reaped.
It didn’t take too long. After the two started fighting in unison, the creatures fell without reaction, becoming mere bubbles of the mysterious ooze. Aylen’s speed increased as it exploded on his face and adhered to his weapon’s blade due to one of his skills. When the last one finally dissolved, the duo lowered their weapons while breathing heavily and with their dropping sweat wetting the land.
“For a moment I thought you had ran away. I’m glad you stayed, haha.”
“Do you take me for a coward? As you may have observed, I just used a skill to get rid of that awful black stuff covering my eyes. If that’s what you think then maybe I should’ve left you behind and gone directly to the town.”
“Whoa, I said it was for a moment… And I couldn’t even see what you were doing, you presence just disappeared… And came back right after.”
“Ah, forget it… Let’s just move on, we can’t sit here after such an attack. The situation must be really bad there and it makes me worry about my mission. By the way, do you still want to come? Based on this encounter, it might not be suited for your level and they kinda hurt you, didn’t they?”
Aylen quickly checked his health status with a command.
Health: (Somewhat Bruised, Tired)
Spell Circles: 2/2
Stamina: 72%
When looking at the screen, he also remembered that his experience wasn’t too far from the next Class Rank, so he issued another command.
Experience: 95%
“I think I’m fine. The little beasts were annoying but I guess they didn’t hurt me too much outside of some scratches. What really bugs me is that I only got 20% experience for the next level… Only 5% left.”
“Haha, sorry then. Experience is divided when you fight alongside other people. Also, if you think you’re okay I won’t stand on your path so let’s go before they send more.”
Aylen only nodded and started walking besides her, putting the scythe over his shoulders. The adrenaline was still pumping through his veins so maybe it wasn’t going to weight too much on the travel, at least that’s what he hoped.