I landed with a soft thud, the soles of my boots muffled by the grass. I blinked. I had had my doubts, but the fall was completely painless.
“And that’s that. What an annoying NPC.”
“You were right, Isabella. The fall didn’t hurt at all.”
I looked back to where we’d jumped. It was about ten meters up, give or take.
“So I was!”
Ignoring the yelling on the wall behind us, Isabella brought the spyglass to her eye and scanned the horizon.
Meanwhile, I examined the lay of the land.
The area outside Roumen was a large, open plain with only a few trees dotted around it. Further out, in the distance beyond, was the dark blue outline of a mountain range.
“Akagi. I see it.”
She handed me the spyglass.
“But there’s more. Take a look, though make it quick.”
I looked.
“Woah. This magnification is really high.”
“Yes. But here.”
I felt Isabella pushing at the spyglass, adjusting it so that it was pointing in the right direction.
“I think it’s… about… here.”
And there it was. In the distance, oozing along at an alarming pace, was a giant green slime. While I couldn’t tell for sure, I estimated from the tree it passed by that it stood – or perhaps slimed… blobbed? – about as tall as the walls behind us.
It was heading in our direction, a faceless, emotionless monster on an unstoppable rampage.
But that was not all. As I focused, I noticed something running ahead of the slime.
My heart dropped. It was an armored man, and he was carrying what looked like a child on his back. The man – one of the knights, I presumed – had discarded his weapon in an attempt to lighten his load. Burdened by his charge, however, he was only barely able to outpace the slime. With the amount of distance the knight still had to cover before he could reach the wall, there was little to no chance that the pair would make it.
Not unless...
“Isabella! Let’s go.”
She nodded her affirmation, a determined look on her face. With no further prompting, the two of us darted off towards the slime.
But it was hardly fast enough. At this rate, it would be two or three minutes before we got there. And by then, it could be too late. Isabella had been thinking the same thing.
“Akagi, you know how Elves are supposed to be able to run really fast?”
“Yes.”
“Well we just proved my theory that we can safely fall from height, right? Our legs must be pretty sturdy. Wanna try running faster?”
“How?”
As far as I could tell, we were already running as fast as we were able to.
“I don’t know. Maybe… maybe just try?”
What was I supposed to do with advice like that? Try to run faster? How would that work? Could I just will my legs to move faster? There was no way that that could–
I was speeding up.
And speeding up.
Before I knew it, I was running far faster than the average Human could. Just how fast were we going? 40 kilometers an hour? That was around the record Human speed!
This was ridiculous; how was it happening?
Beside me, Isabella was sprinting at the exact same pace, a look of pure exhilaration on her face.
“This is awesome!”
“How are we doing this?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s all in the head.”
“What, like we hadn't adjusted to these bodies or something?”
“Yeah. Maybe our brains don't know what Elves are capable of, so we defaulted to what we thought would be our quickest pace. From our real lives.”
"...Huh."
It was certainly food for thought. Did Elves have other abilities that we hadn’t discovered yet? Things that Humans couldn’t do, that our Human minds would never think to try?
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
But no, now was not the time to mull on this. We had a task at hand.
“Isabella, are we close enough to get a tooltip yet?”
“No, just tried and it says we need to be within 500 meters… but we should be able to soon!”
The wind rushed past us as we sprinted ahead, drowning out the sounds from the wall, of the guards’ angered disbelief at what we had done and what we were doing.
I was actually a bit surprised that they hadn’t fired their bows at us...
“Akagi, we’re in range!”
Show tooltip!
----------------------------------------
Green Slime
Level: 23
Kept in large numbers near almost every major Human city, slimes are farmed for the sweet gel they leave behind them when they move. This gel, which is easily broken down into its component sugars, has nearly eliminated the need for the farming or importation of sugarcane. While they are usually very passive creatures, slimes are known to retaliate when attacked, swallowing their aggressors whole.
This monster is currently carrying additional loot and PVP EXP from killing the following players:
LuBuLovesYou – Level 7 Human Warrior
Tauschen – Level 7 Human Rogue
Lettuce – Level 7 Human Mage
Swordsman_Kirito – Level 6 Human Mage
Gorgon – Level 6 Human Warrior
(… and 43 not listed. Show more?)
----------------------------------------
Isabella laughed and drew her sword.
“48 players! That’s almost two-and-a-half grand’s worth of characters right there. From a slime!”
Grimacing, I reached behind my back and removed my staff from its sling,
I feel for you, friends…
We could now barely make out the knight’s face; he had seen us, and he looked on the verge of tears from relief.
“I think we’re just over 100 meters out now, so let’s stop here! I’m going to try using Hellfyre on the slime.”
“Alright!”
As I readied my staff, Isabella waved her sword over her head, motioning for the knight to run towards us. It wasn’t entirely necessary, as he was already doing so, but...
“Hey, over here! Over he–”
Isabella stopped as a shrill whistling sound met our ears. It came from behind us and, though it was no louder than a whisper at first, it was quickly growing in volume. Isabella turned around to find its source. I would have done so as well, were it not for the approaching slime…
The sound reached its peak as it passed overhead.
I looked up, and my eyes found the cause.
“No way.”
The spear fell short of the slime and struck only meters away from the knight, raising a shower of dirt where it tore into the ground. The knight lost his balance from the shock... and fell.
No!
The whistling started again.
“Are you fucking serious?! A ballista? They could hit us!”
My mind was racing. It seemed that as far as the guards were concerned, there were three enemies out here, along with only one ally. With odds like that...
The slime was gaining on the knight. Meanwhile, he was struggling to pick himself up, and there were only a few precious seconds left.
“Isabella, get to him! I’ll stop this thing!”
I whipped myself around.
Hellfyre!
Though I hadn’t had time to aim, the giant cloud of flame was able to catch the incoming spear in its wake. The whistling stopped immediately.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
However, I stayed on guard, and tightly gripped my staff. And just as well – only seconds later, the whistling began anew.
“Akagi, I’ve got them!”
Good.
I readied myself, listening to the sound of the approaching spear, judging the distance based on the volume…
Hellfyre!
Again, the spear was turned to ash.
I glanced at my mana bar. Unfortunately, I would not be able to keep this up. At this rate, I would only be able to stop ten or more shots. And there was still the monster behind us!
The whistling started again, and another spear was on its way.
Wards, wards. Was there a way to lay a static ward?
“Akagi, we’re reaaaally close to you now! The slime is… not far behind me! Either you kill it or you have to start running!”
If it came to it, I would have to focus on the slime first. While the spears were terrifying, they posed a lower risk than the slime.
But wait. The sound. Was it… layered?!
Shit!
They’d fired more than one ballista this time. But perhaps the slime still posed the greater risk? No, I couldn’t count on that!
I was at wit’s end; I was not a gambling man, but there was no way I could avoid this bet. A bet that would likely doom us either way I chose.
But then again. Why was I getting so panicked about this? As real as it seemed, this was all just a game. The knight and the child were nothing more than lifeless NPCs. The only things really at risk were Isabella and my's characters.
“Akagi!”
Isabella reached me, the child on her back and the soldier at her side. I glanced at them.
The child. It was a girl, with dark red hair and emerald green eyes.
Somehow, I remembered the elderly man crying out near the gates.
“My granddaughter, my son! Please! Please, someone help me find them! They both have red hair… and green eyes… Someone…”
My vision blurred.
A gamble? Betting?
If Emi’s life were placed in someone else’s hands, I would kill them if they left it up to chance.
In that moment, all reason disappeared. In that moment, I forgot I was in a game.
Fuck.
Everything.
I raised my staff and brought it down with all my might, plunging its base into the earth.
Ward! Ward! Ward!
Light engulfed us.
And now…
I was gripping my staff so tightly that my fingers were beginning to ache, but I continued pushing down, driving the staff as deep into the ground as I could.
Lowering my head out of instinct, I prepared myself for what was going to happen next.
Time itself seemed to stop.
The sounds around me… of the spears whistling through the air; of the ground rumbling beneath us as the monster approached; of Isabella, the knight, and the girl, crying out in terror…
All of it faded away.
I could hear nothing, nothing but my own beating heart.
I closed my eyes.
...
Hellfyre.