Waiting barely a few more minutes, the rest of the summoned arrive, signalling to start moving to where the field test would take place. Still feeling on edge from yesterday, I move my eyes to the front of the group where one of the people in robes had stepped forward.
“Heroes, as to follow his majesty's orders, we shall now begin to move you to the Fehrieal forest. You will spend five days there alternating in groups to gain real experience and to increase your level, once we arrive more will be revealed to you.”
The man then waved his hand to the groups right, where what looked like a massive energy mirror had appeared. Looking into the mirror revealed a small clearing surrounded by dense trees.
Half of the guards then moved towards the mirror and walked through it, at which point I put two and two together realising that it was a portal. Looking at the portal with interest, I follow the rest of the summoned into it.
Barely even feeling anything that would indicate that I had just moved who knows how far in a blink aside from the temperature change, we arrived in the forest.
Following us, the rest of the knights moveed into the clearing. Realising that the time for me to run was drawing near, I start to glance around to get a look at where I should run.
Seeing a few tents, along with general camp supplies, I take note of a few blind spots that I could use to my advantage. Biding my time, my attention along with the rest of the summoned is pulled towards a voice by the tents.
“Hello, hi, and welcome to my little camp heroes! I’ll be your main instructor for now. Originally it was gonna be the stick, Roland, but he was busy so the job got pushed over onto me…”
Looking at who spoke, I’m greeted by the sight of Norsin Gloommoor, whether for better or for worse. Listening to him prattle on for a bit longer about things of varying levels of importence, he gets to the main point of the test.
“... The plan for this is to let you run around the forest and get used to real fights. Of course, there's plenty of healers on standby, as well as several of my clan scattered around to help you if things get too crazy.
As the guy back at the castle said already, you will be doing things in shifts. Meaning that you will be split into three main groups that will go out in rotations so people have time to rest. The rotation will go where one team heads out, they come back and rest, another team goes out, and the last group helps around the camp.
If you have any question, you can of course come looking for yours truly or whoever else is hanging around. As for the structure of the teams, that's up to you guys. I honestly don’t care who leads each team or who is front line and back line, so that falls onto you guys. Aside from that, you have free reign!”
Quickly putting together a plan to escape, I weigh the idea of either trying to get into the second team so as to have a higher chance to escape with people being more lax, or joining the first team so I could get out of this place faster.
Not really giving a shit, I decide to go with the first team because I didn’t want to spend another second longer than I had to here. Wondering how the group would be set up, my question is answered by Norsin as he speaks up again.
“Just to make things simpler, and to also make things smoother, whoever wants to join the first team stand over there.” He says, pointing to part of the camp beside us.
Moving there, I’m joined by about half of the summoned. Knowing that not everyone in the group would be chosen, I decide to become religious and pray to be part of the first team.
To my luck, it works. Hearing Norsin call out the names of who would be a part of the first team out of the summoned that had gathered, I let out a sigh of relief as I hear my own name. Out of the ones that were chosen for team one, no one really stood out to be the leader.
Letting the summoned talk amongst each other, it doesn't take long for ranks to be determined.
“Great! Seeing as you guys are ready, you can head out immediately. You can go anywhere you want as long as it's in the forest. Good luck!” Norsin says before shooing team one in a random direction.
Setting my plan into action, I follow the group into the forest. Before long, we run into what looks like a giant snake. Wondering how the summoned would deal with it, I stand back. To my dismay, almost every single one of them just charged in with abandon.
Watching them wail on the poor snake who was caught by surprise by the large group, I slip off into the forest by myself during the chaos. Hearing the voices of the group trying to coordinate with each other and failing, I start to sprint once they were out of sight.
Planning to try and get a few kills before completely running, I slow down after a few minutes. Keeping my eyes peeled, it takes me a while to find a sign of anything. Crouching low to take a look at the bottom of a tree, I find a bit of fur from something. I had never bothered studying tracking, but I had gotten my gun and hunting licence pretty early on in my life so I at least knew what dirt was.
Keeping in the direction of where I thought the creature that left the fur might have gone, I find a small river not that much farther away.
Sticking to the tree line, I hide myself as I spot what looked like a humanoid wolf. Remembering them from one of the books I had read days ago, I identify the creature as a gnoll.
To my luck, I recall that gnolls mainly travel in packs, saving me from getting jumped by another gnoll as two more join the one by the water. Not knowing how well I’d fare in actual combat, I decide to run in and get the jump on them.
To my luck, they don’t react fast enough as I leap out of the treeline in a low sprint. Catching the first one trying to turn around, I grab the spear it was holding with my left hand. Pulling the spear and the gnoll along with it, I twist it around to block the attack of one of the other gnolls with the body of the one I was grabbing.
Annoyingly, the attack was pulled back just at the last second, making it not lethal. Throwing the now impaled gnoll that I was using to body block at the one who stabbed it, it collapses to the ground with the spear still in its stomach.
With one of them pinned down by its soon dead comrade, I use the momentum of the throw to spin on my heel, splitting the head of the pinned down gnoll down the middle. Ripping the axe out of its head, I bend myself backwards while kicking the chin of the last guy mid flip.
With the last one stunned, I crouch low and rush forward. Taking an arcing swing from my left to the middle of the gnoll, I cut it clean in half.
Stepping back, I take a breath and marvel over how easy it was to do what I just did. Feeling pleasantly surprised, considering I had never been in a proper fight, I scavenge the gnolls for anything of interest.
Taking a crude bone knife, a few pieces of scrap copper, their belt bags and some of their armour, I equip myself with the gear. Wearing the belt bags, I put on their shin armour and one of their pauldrons. With nothing else fitting me or being of use, I leave them to find more dance partners.
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As I’m walking away, I pull up my stats to see if anything had changed.
[Name: Erja
Race: Soul-Humanoid
Class:
Level: 03/15
Vit: 21
Agi: 19
Str: 18
Mag: 16
Def: 18
Status:
Innate Ability:
:Voice of nothing: lvl 2 - (Hidden)
Skills:
Inexperienced water affinity: lvl 1, Inexperienced blood affinity: lvl 2, Axe handling: lvl 4,]
Happy that I had levelled up, I grin at the idea of hitting my current level cap with ease. Though I might have to work on the incessant checking of my stats. Following the river, I realise that I hadn’t looked at the stats of the gnolls, meaning that I didn’t know what level of enemies to expect.
Kicking myself, my mood takes a turn for the worst. Luckily, it's short lived as I run into another of the big snakes that the summoned had run into initially. Due to walking along the side of the river and being in plain sight, the snake notices me from miles away.
Taking the time that the snake was using to see if I was hostile, I look at its stats.
[Scanning. The following information belongs to the: Young Green Forest Adder.
Race: Green Forest Adder
Class:
Level: 07/18
Vit: 16
Agi: 22
Str: 18
Mag: 11
Def: 18
Status: Fine,
Innate Ability:
Hydras lesser regeneration.
Skills:
Shed skin:4, Coil:2,]
Not seeing much to note aside from its innate ability, I lunge at the snake.
Realising that I was hostile, the snake rears its head. Waiting for me to close the distance, it prepares to strike at me.
Seeing its intentions, I opt to get in a hit as it passes after striking with my high agility. Reaching the snake, I bait it into attacking me head one, which it does. Lunging forward, it tries to bite into me and misses.
Using the fact that it couldn’t hit me at its current angle, I swing at the side of its face, hitting it right in between the upper and lower jaw. Using its speed and my strength stat, I dig my feet into the ground as it's moving and pull my axe through its skull and almost cut it in half.
Due to the pain and massive damage to its bones, the snake stops in its tracks and starts to writhe and twist about on the ground. Abusing the fact it wasn’t moving away, I move in and sever its head from its spine, killing it on the spot.
Now covered in a considerable amount of blood, I wonder what I would do with its corpse. There was no way I could carry it, and if I could, what would I even do with it? With the fact it was a snake and probably poisonous, there was no way I could eat the meat of it.
Leaving me with no choice, I move away and glance at my stats, assuming that I had probably hit level four or five.
As I turned away from the snake, I find myself unable to move and with a hand on my shoulder. Taking a moment to realise what happened, I cough up a mouthful of blood.
“Hello hello Erja, nice to see you here!” I hear Norsin say.
With my body catching up with my mind, I feel a pain in my lower back. Looking down, I see the tip of a dagger sticking through my stomach.
“Ugh- what…?” I manage to say as more blood finds its way up my throat. Norsin rips his dagger out of my back, making me fall onto the ground.
“I don’t really have any reason to tell you, but It makes me feel pretty good seeing you like this.” He says, rolling me over with his foot.
“In all honesty, I quite like you. Unfortunately, and I don’t know how, but you found out about our little take over of the Devorial Kingdom. If you hadn’t noticed that one of the demon king's generals had replaced the Kingdom's ruler, we might have been able to let you live.”
He crouches down, looking right into my eyes. Realising that I can’t move at all, I try and struggle back up to at least punch this little rat in the face a few times.
“Awww… Your struggling is very honourable! But, I need you to drift off to forever sleep for me. Could you do that?” No longer restraining my eyes from see truth to avoid the headaches I found it brought, I see Norsin follow a similar form as the king.
The squirming mass shaped like a human, slowly moving back and forth from being some demonic being to just a lump of flesh smiles at me in a way I could never have imagined.
As I watch him stare at me for a few more moments before losing interest and seemingly just walking away, my vision slowly fades into being completely tinted by a red hue.
‘That rat! I swear to the gods of this realm, if I live again, I will roam all of reality until I find you and rip the heart from your body!’
My last thoughts, a threat and a promise. The heat of my anger starts to drown out my pain, and I force myself to get up.
Pulling my arm forward, I lean all my weight onto it and push myself up. I hear my bones crack under the strain, yet I can’t feel the pain. All I can feel is my eternal promise for revenge.
I get onto one leg, and then the other, dragging myself forward, my arm hanging limply with my axe in hand.
Straining, dragging, clawing my way forward, I lose track of my senses. Moving forward with my only thought being to kill the man who ended my life.
My body, broken and heavy, a burden, I leave it behind. The feeling of weightlessness flows over me. My vision tainted in an eternal red, cracked and splintered, resembling the sight of an insect.
I see the soul of my victim, the source of my current hatred. I rush forward, trees pass as they twist and writhe to show their truth. The ground churning and cracking to make way for me. The grass, growing and swaying in a dance of glee as they watch me pass.
I see him, my killer, masquerading as a human, despicable. Deceitful! How dare he try to hide from me!
I rush forward, my voice screaming a silent wail of death. I reach forward, and within my grasp is the rat.
It turns and struggles, looking at me in a fear only describable by the most twisted of minds. I smile, the same smile he had as he watched me bleed out.
I watch him scream, but I can’t hear him, why would I hear the screams of a mere rat? I reach forward, pinning him to the ground and start to rip away at his chest.
I said I would take his heart, and I will, even as my last movement may cease. I pull and rip at his skin, my claws gliding through his flesh as a well sharpened knife would animal fat.
His bones, exposed to me, caging his blood and heart. I grab his ribs, pulling them out in a slow, beautiful motion, with the sound of cracking bones filling my head. I bend them outwards, to show the world the inside of this horrid being.
The sight of his crushed ribs, skin and flesh peeled back, his blood flowing out in an endless river. I see his heart, his disgusting putrid heart.
It must be destroyed, crushed so as to never beat again. I rip it from his body in a fountain of gore that drenches my flaws. I grin in delight as his blood drips down my arms, I hold his heart in my hands, his life long extinguished.
Yet his heart still beats in defiance, how dare it try to refute my righteous revenge! Lifting it into the sky, I crush it before the heavens so that they may see my glory.
As its blood glides down my face, I feel complete, as if my purpose had been fulfilled. My body relaxes, content with its revenge.
Slowly, I feel myself drift to sleep as I watch my hands crumble away in the wind. I watch my form disappear, and with it, my mind.