Dung Sweeper hurled through the air as though shot from a bow. Leaving behind a good chunk of the dripping excrements.
At the same moment the system chimed, letting him know that he had a new notification he could access at any time. He’d not experienced that before but was glad that there wasn’t anything occluding his field of view right now. He’d look at it later.
The cat sized swiftclaws didn’t pay attention to him, until it was too late. The newcomer, maybe ten steps away from Max was impaled by two out of the five metal spikes. As though uncomprehendingly it tried to zoom around its rival, held firmly to the ground by the metal poles anchoring it in place. The back feet didn’t move, and the front paws clawed uselessly on the ground. Each scratch was growing weaker than the previous.
Seeing how it helplessly tried to crawl away, Max’s heart sunk into the ground. He’d just killed something so cute and adorable. Before he could shed a tear the other swift claw was dashing towards him for a second. Then it crouched down. Max braced for a jump, that never came. Instead, the monster looked at the chicken, back at Max, then at the chicken. It feinted towards the cadaver, traveling twice its body length before turning around in a heartbeat and charging at Max.
He realized what it must think. It wanted to defend the chicken. That was more than fine with him.
He wanted to kick at it, but as he extended his knee the small thing was already on the side of his foot. Leaving his entire left side open to attack from the vicious creature. Max morphed the force of the kick into a less than elegant jump over the swift claw. It hadn’t expected that. Observing his jump with a confused expression on its cute face.
Max landed and instead of paying attention to the cute mammal behind him dashed towards his still stuck and slowly falling over pitchfork after finding his balance. He tore the weapon from the ground and dislodged the still stuck to it swift claw at the burrow in a crossing swing.
He turned around, using the momentum of Dung Sweeper, only to face a furious swift claw not a meter from his feet. He angled the remaining impulse of the pitchfork downwards. The creature jumped backwards and to the side in a burst of speed, causing the pitchfork to miss its target and strike the ground with a force that sent a flurry of moss flying into the air.
Max felt more confident with the pitchfork than he had ever before felt. He knew how to angle it to have a higher chance of getting the swift claw momentarily stuck between its tines. Not precisely what he wanted but good enough. He followed the strikes, swings, and thrusts his mind was making up on the spot, but none had the desired effect. He was too slow, not agile enough, not quick enough.
That didn’t mean he didn’t hit, but mostly he missed his target by too large a margin to matter. He had scored a single gash along the monster’s back. He hoped that would be enough to slowly whittle it down and to see the debuffs in action.
Bouts of inspiration kept hitting him, until he couldn’t quite follow one of the movements his mind was recommending to him. He overextended and had to take three steps to gain his balance again. When he turned the swift claw as just a pounce away. A twitch of his foot was enough to throw it back several meters. It must have not seen the kick coming focused on his arms and pitchfork.
Expanding on the sudden advantage, he bounded up and kept attacking the swift claw from its right. Not three seconds later did he stood victorious, the swift claw impaled on his pitchfork.
Grinning he turned around towards the hip high pile of wood.
> Swift Claw – Floor One
There were four almost identical copies of the creatures he’d just fought and one slightly longer copy poking it’s head out of the small burrow.
> Swiftest Claw – Floor One – Level One
Max turned away, grabbing the closest chicken and ran up the slope. He might have a chance to fight the group in a more controlled setting, but he needed a break. They stopped following soon, instead carrying the two killed swift claws and the chicken with them.
Further up the hill he inspected the prompt the system had awarded him earlier.
> Pitchfork Wielding (Novice) – You have used a pitchfork in the way it is intended as well as woven the most common spear fighting tactics into your fighting style. Your understanding of the Pitchfork grows, so does your might and ability with it.
> Equipment Mastery Bonus – As this is an equipment skill you have gained an inspiration through increasing in rank. Driving and improving your attacks with the Pitchfork for the next 7:47 minutes. Special bonus to hurling Pitchforks for the duration.
>
> If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Max breathed a few times deeply. There went his break.
He had experienced some sort of inspiration during the fight, but now it was gone, as though it had never been there in the first place. It was hard to tell how much it had helped, but there was little doubt in the fact that it had helped.
He tought that he had made the first throw without any inspiration but managing to one-hit his opponent on a first try, was a bit too lucky.
Unless… The hurl had felt better than any of his previous. But then causality wasn’t directly related to the rank up of the skill. Max saw the timer ticking down. He knew what he had to do. He would have to try and find out why he hadn’t gained an ability the way Jamie had when her skill leveled up.
Picking up himself and the smelly Dung Sweeper he’d stared at the weapon in contemplation.
I didn’t get a warning. Wait. Is that because I was in combat? His mind raced as he ran down the hill. He would have to be careful and make retrieving the pitchfork his highest priority.
Despite the pressure he had created for himself, his face spotted a slight smile blossoming.
As he got closer, he picked one of the swift claws eating the chicken all by itself on top of the lumber pile. It wasn’t moving and wasn’t even looking at him. Max considered his options. Hurling was the riskiest, but he could amplify a throw even further by using Sprint.
Max smiled.
He liked a little bit of risk.
The next instance he charged with his entire body, faster than should be humanly possible, at the nest. When he felt like he was close enough he threw his arm back, drenching the entirety of the pitchforks handle and his arm in soiled liquid, and hurled.
The weapon flew drawing an arc through the air. Max had begun stumbling as he had fallen out of his sprint and tried to desperately save himself from the embarrassment and danger of falling face first to the ground. But it seemed as though he had managed a decent throw.
He didn’t manage to find his footing, instead he drew his head in and pushed himself into a roll. Landing roughly on the ground, his hands just barely protecting his face from being solidly placed in moss.
The largest creature had noticed his stumbling and turned around at the noise. Before it could react a lance coated in light-brown splashed into its back, throwing it off the pile.
Noises of indignancy came from the other side of the pile as Max was pushing himself back up, heaving heavily.
He couldn’t be sure whether he had managed to take out the larger rodent. As it had most likely been the level one monster instead of one of its smaller compatriots. But it should be at least significantly damaged.
As Max was evaluating the situation he had already gotten up and began running towards the pile. With the two swift claws that had just come around either side of the heap, faces slightly bloodied, he had to pick up pace.
Did they seriously eat their nestmates? Max couldn’t help but be grossed out. He didn’t know what he had expected, but not that. He had just about reached the pile of wood when another one of the small beasts exited the borrow from somewhere within. Seemingly alarmed by the noises.
He’d never really done parkour, but like most sane boys he liked climbing on things and traversing things fast. So he kept running straight at the burrow. He jumped from log to stump. His previous abilities would have allowed him to traverse the wedged pieces of wood, but not at such a speed, something was picking up slack. But he hadn’t gained a new notification.
The wiggling wood handle came into view. With a constant stream of light-brown liquid dripping down onto the creature below trying to get up. Max breathed out in relief as he jumped down the last few stumps in haste. Once on moss again he reached towards the handle and tore at it.
He held it upwards, throwing a glance over his shoulder. The swift claws were approaching, but they’d be too late. Using strength gained from years of track and field and athletic training and the amplification of Dung Sweeper he jammed the weapon down. Ending the creature’s life.
For the next few minutes, he fought a fighting retreat back up the mountain. Fighting all the monsters at once would have been a death sentence – without doubt. Constantly on his feet dancing around the monsters bustling around him he managed to get away with only two bites that barely phased him and had resulted in the immediate death of the offending creature.
When he was only fighting against two creatures, he began throwing Dung Sweeper. A total of two times.
Both hits had completely and utterly wrecked the smaller creatures.
He almost sat down exhausted when the last one was dead. Turning around he decided against that. He’d gotten rather close to the forest, a place that looked a little too eerily up close. On his way down into the valley he checked the notification that had appeared.
> Your increased Mastery with Pitchfork Wielding (Novice) has awarded you the ability Hurling (Beginner).
>
> Hurling (Beginner) – Hurl a Pitchfork or similar object with increased force and precision at an opponent. This ability may not exceed the parent skill Pitchfork Wielding.
Max smiled. Maybe getting the ability had just been an issue with not having done enough of a specific type of combat action with a pitchfork. But there seemed to be a relation between skill level and ability. In the future he just had to worry about retrieving his pitchfork. Though, maybe he could hurl other stuff as well or find a few spears and such. He’d see about trying it out, after he had rested.
But most importantly, he had inspected the corpse of the level one monster behind the nest. Confirming his suspicions, he quickly found the core below the ribs of the Aberrant monster – confident in the classification as his quest had ticked up to (2/1).
He didn’t want to feel around the corpse himself, so instead he tried something new. After jabbing Dung Sweeper into the cadaver a few times he simply placed his shoes to the opening and tried to touch the shard. With a smile he accepted the prompt.
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