Chapter 22: You Do Have it in You
The two picked through land beyond Sanshi, the city of stone and crystal sparkling in the distance. The weather was clear, but Nara’s heart felt the calm before the storm. The looming pressure, the gaping silence, the heavy anticipation. She wasn’t nervous, no, she was rarely nervous beforehand. It was after the adrenaline settled that she’d slightly shake, twist her cold fingers, and think.
Sanshi’s classic landscape stretched before her—spires of tall stone, like stone toothpicks stabbed into the earth by mountain sized humanoids. Rivers weaved between stone gorges, forests, and open plains of tall grass. At the top of the spires she saw shards of stone, floating in the air in a mockery of physics. Waterfalls misted down from steep peaks, joining small rivers that coalesced into a larger main river. Where the water came from, Nara had no idea.
The cries of an unknown bird and the rustling of wind-blown tall grass tickled her senses.
They started down the hill, Amara easily picking through the grass while Nara waded through it like a duckling following her mother. Nara’s aura senses were still nascent, but she could pick out signs of life different from animals—monsters. A whisper of what was to come, startlingly soon.
A wolf monster of dark blue stood at attention at the forest’s edge, the corners of its mouth lifting into a snarl. It was the same size as a normal wolf, still within the bounds of ‘ordinary’ life that iron rank entailed.
“That is an iron rank monster,” Amara explained, pointing at the wolf, “As I recall, you said your world had no monsters.”
“That’s right,” Nara said. She was attentive yet absent. “The only monsters we have are people.”
She nodded agreeing with the statement, “Monsters are a natural manifestation of magic. Their bodies are created from crude astral magic, like yours, and empowered by a motive spirit. Over time, these motive spirits degrade, driving the monster into a frenzy over its inevitable demise. Normal rank monsters are frenzied on manifestation, whereas iron rank monsters last around a week or two, varying by type and power.”
“If I understand this correctly, these monsters will dematerialize on their own. Why kill them?”
“Those in the far wilds, naturally, are left to dematerialize on their own. Those nearby settlements must be killed. That frenzied state is when they are at their most destructive.”
She gave Nara a hard pat on the back, causing her to stumble forward.
“Go forth and slay the monster, Nara. Put your training so far to the test.”
She glanced down at the monster, and set up the outline of a plan. Nothing detailed. She didn’t have enough experience to formulate any sort of concrete plan. Her knowledge and skills were all skeletons—the skill book, the sparring, the training. She supposed she was finally putting some meat on those bones.
First, Nara set up her Dimension Nodes. She wasn’t fighting—dodging—Amara, so she was free to set them up in advance. She only had six to work with, which wasn’t much in the open field. She saved four nodes for close combat, and two placed further away in retreat. With a thought, Nirvana warped like flowing ink, transforming into a dark sword of crystalized night sky in her hand.
The wolf was already blitzing towards her, eyes bloodshot and foaming mouth agape, as if it was infected with rabies. She didn’t feel fear, not yet. Was a bloodshot growling monster looking it wanted to tear her apart and drape her across the trees in a grotesque display of strung up organs and not enough to trigger her flight or fight response, or was her response to fight?
No, if abilities were chosen by the soul, it was clear she held the option of flight close to her heart. Flight was freedom. Escape was freedom. She learned that the hard way.
She looked back. Amara was gone. Of course she was. How very Amara. Leave it to her to make a first battle more intense than it needed to be. She didn’t want Amara to hold her hand as she chopped up a rabbit or something. Or maybe she did.
She hissed under her breath; The wolf was still fast approaching, beelining towards her from its original position at the forest’s edge.
For a brief moment, she questioned reality. What was she doing? There she was, holding a shapeshifting black sword like some idiot protagonist who pulled a legendary weapon fresh out of the beginner village. She wasn’t a video game character. Fear bubbled up, and uncomfortable nerves set in.
She was torn between a sort of logical flight and fight, since neither immediately triggered. Her instinct of normality had already been crushed in the astral, and a new instinct to fight was being slowly instilled within her by her training. But flight was how she survived the being that had tortured her.
Her thoughts dragged on for too long, and the wolf was upon her.
No matter how prepared or trained she was, which wasn’t much, she couldn’t stop herself from flinching when the hot and disgusting breath of a monster wolf snapped at her throat. She reacted, more automatic than with conscious thought; The wolf was another rock, and she needed to avoid it and deflect it. She capitalized on her incredible three dimensional mobility, and she teleported above the wolf and plunged her sword downwards, activating Astral Return to enhance her damage.
She didn’t expect her sword to so easily slide into the monster’s back, past its rough fur and through the flesh of its shoulder blades. She was now in an awkward position, straddling the top of a monster wolf like some bucking wild mustang. Her thighs reflexively clamped down as the wolf snarled and bucked beneath her.
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-You have inflicted an instance of [Dimensional Instability] on [Midnight Wolf].
-You have inflicted [Dimensional Rupture] on [Midnight Wolf].
-[Dimensional Rupture] deals damage equal to instances of [Dimensional Instability]. Instances: 1.
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There wasn’t anything the wolf could do to her on its back. It was already injured, bleeding from its shoulder injury, blood matting its dark blue fur. In a desperate attempt to throw her off, it threw itself to the ground, Nara tumbling down with it, her simple grey garb stained with grass and dirt.
She belatedly realized she had no physical protection beyond her simple clothes.
She had been drilled by Amara and Laius to immediately get to her feet, lest another rock create a fresh new welt. It had been beaten into her to keep moving, and it kept her alive. She sprung to her feet with cat-like dexterity as the wolf simultaneously hauled itself back to its feet. She node jumped forward, her sword mid-swing, catching the wolf at the side of its neck.
“Hey, that’s a pretty good technique,” she muttered to herself. Her mind was beginning to calm and focus, although she still felt the highs of adrenaline induced focus despite her lack of biological adrenal glands. Another mysterious boon of her magic body.
Her teleportation preserved her momentum and movement. She could use it to preemptively swing, in the future, although it’d require significantly more skill than she had now to gauge timings reliably.
The wolf retaliated, its bite snapping into Nara’s shoulder.
For a moment, she felt her blood run cold as terror crept back into her mind, warring with the new calm in a mental state tug-of-war. Searing pain coiled up through her nerves, burning her non-existent brain.
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She never felt so awake as in that moment. She looked back up towards the hill, but Amara wasn’t there. It was an expression of trust and testing, Nara knew, but being alone terrified her. She had been along for so long in the astral. She hated it. At the least, she had the wolf who was trying to kill her with her. That was something.
She must’ve really gone insane at some point if she thought the wolf trying to kill her was better company than being completely alone.
The wolf pushed forward, shoving Nara over and forcing her to the ground, once again, but also refocusing Nara’s mind. This time, it was her matted with blood, as the impressive bite force of the wolf held on strong, cracking her bones.
If she did nothing she would die, she thought. She has to help herself. She must help herself.
That was nothing new. When she had awoken to her imprisonment and torture by the strange entity that plucked her from her ordinary albeit mundane life, it was she who found a way to escape its machinations. Her solution may have fractured her memories and sent her into a wild goose chase across the astral for memory-lint, but it was still her solution. She had a weird pride for it. She may have been trying to destroy herself, but she didn’t want pity—give me liberty or give me death.
Within the strange, ever-shifting, infinite realm of the astral, it was Chrome that first offered her a helping hand, even if it was at the behest of someone else. She didn’t care if aid was government aid, or whatever trans-dimensional bureaucracy the cosmos ran on, she’d take the aid.
Survival instinct kicked in and she forced herself to move. She Phase Shifted to separate the wolf’s maw from her shoulder, then teleported to the side of the wolf, orienting herself so that she was on her feet. She mentally noted her mana, gouged away by a single, brief, Phase Shift.
The wolf, blood dripping from long canines, snapped its head towards her.
She swung her sword, pushing through the pain from her shoulder even as her main arm was uninjured, and triggered Astral Return, once again, her sword subtly gleaming with enhanced silver light.
Her sword caught the wolf in the neck once again, but she yanked it further, pushing through muscles and bone. She teleported in place to remove her sword from flesh, then repeated, hammering her sword through its flesh and bone like she was chopping a tree with an axe.
She briefly transformed Nirvana into a staff, smashing it down on the wolf’s head. The wolf yelped, and Nara could imagine cartoon stars revolving above its head. The cartoon stars were a little too real; she was delirious from pain and surging adrenaline, but still focused.
Now exposed, she swung sword form Nirvana at its throat, cutting through the jugular like how the wolf had intended to originally kill her off. Red blood seeped out from the wound, coloring the green grass in a gory perversion of Christmas. She felt hot and cold all over, and the smell of blood thickened in her nose.
Was it bloodlust, fight or flight, adrenaline (magically replicated), or the simple will to live that drove her? She transformed Nirvana back into a staff and hammered at the monster’s head, leaving it no chance to retaliate. It was a disgusting, desperate act that left Nara feeling incredibly brutish and animalistic. She told herself she was just confirming the kill.
Stepping away from the bludgeoned corpse with an exhausted stagger, she activated her looting ability.
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-You have killed [Midnight Wolf].
* 10 iron spirit coins
* 1000 lesser spirit coins
* 1 monster core (iron)
* 20 wolf quintessence (iron)
* Awakening stone of the wolf
-Loot has been added to your [Astral Domain].
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The unpleasant stink of rainbow smoke drifted up from the blood that stained her clothing, a combination of the wolf’s and her own. She was too tired to care, collapsing onto the ground as if she intended to make a snow angel in the grass. If she needed to breathe, she’d be choking out haggard breaths. Thank god…thank the gods she didn’t have to.
A shadow loomed over her, blocking out the still-morning sun.
“Dammit, Amara.”
Amara ginned.
The moment paused, Amara still looming like a solar eclipse.
“Amara, are all monsters this hard to kill? I don’t think I have it in me if they are.”
“No. This was one of the stronger ones for its rank,” she admitted.
“Why?” Her question was simple, but she was too exhausted to elaborate further.
“It was there. Adventurers shouldn’t pick and choose monsters. When you’re defending life, you defeat the enemy in front of you.”
But I could run, Nara wanted to say. If the monster was attacking others, could she have run? She hoped she would not. If she was the one with the magical powers, the soldier to the civilians, then she needed to be the one to stand her ground.
She was too tired to be frustrated with Amara. There were no civilians to defend here. The point was, after all, that she and civilians weren’t put in that position in the first place. She lost her own argument in her head.
“You pulled through. Well done,” Amara praised. She had never been too uptight to praise. Amara may be vastly stronger than her, but she knew what others considered a challenge. “Now use Overture on yourself. That is your first mistake.”
She didn’t have the mental capacity to do anything but obey.
“Song rises from within,” she wearily chanted, which gathered the mana and activated the spell. Her Integrity boon was already stacking, but Overture increased the rate of growth, especially since she wasn’t expending mana and stamina now. Healing of such a large wound wasn’t visibly fast, but she hoped she wouldn’t die of blood loss. Judging from Amara’s unconcerned expression, she probably wouldn’t. Probably. Redell could revive her though, shit.
“The second mistake—” Amara continued, sitting on the ground beside an injured Nara, “—is that you did not cast Entropy.”
“I only hit that wolf like, seven times. It’s not going to tip the scales.”
Each instance of Dimensional Instability and Dimensional Rupture had a minor effect. In a long battle, they were dangerous effects that would make even a scratch from Nara a powerful blow, but in a short battle, hacking at the monster was more effective.
“You should always fight every enemy as if its stronger than you. To grow, you must use your full potential, even if it is inefficient for now. When monsters are stronger, your ramping damage will shine. Put up with the inefficiency for now.”
“Yes, Master Amara.”
“You have enough energy to talk back?”
“I’m zipping my lips,” Nara said. She attempted to draw her fingers across her lips in a zipping motion, but couldn’t lift her arm without shooting stabs of pain. It was true she had enough energy to talk. Her voice was magically generated, it didn’t hurt her to talk besides moving her mouth to match the words.
“Is that why I’m not using a potion?”
“Relying on the healing effects of your aura and abilities will progress them faster. Once your bleeding has stopped, you’re going to get up and start jogging. I can’t have you leaving Refresh out.”
“Shit,” Nara hissed as she learnt the worst truth of her abilities, “I really do have to run to heal.”
She returned to Amara’s side after jogging in circles around the grassland for over an hour. Another monster had leapt out of the tall grass to assault her, like a wild Pokémon encounter, but she had dispatched it far more easily, her sword piercing the body of a warped, chimpanzee-like creature, then bludgeoning it to death with a staff. It had too many arms and too many tails; it was a monster that was more frightening than it was strong.
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-You have killed [Chimeric Forest Monkey]
* 10 iron spirit coins
* 1000 lesser spirit coins
* 1 monster core (iron)
* 3 chimera quintessence (iron)
-Loot has been added to your [Astral Domain].
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At she finished off the monkey like a caveman with a few smashes to its skull with staff form Nirvana, she thought that Amara was right. Other monsters were weaker than the wolf she had just fought.
“Well? Do you have the will to continue the fight?” Amara asked, her golden eyes peering deep into Nara’s own. They were lighthouse beacons, pulling her thoughts from the depths of her stormy mind, forcing her to deeply question her current trajectory in life.
She paused.
She was unable to immediately respond and mulled over her near-death experience, tossing about the battle in her mind like shoes in a tumble dryer. It felt like the fight had brought out the worst, dirtiest aspects of her. Amara would tell her the desperation to live was not shameful if she had voiced it. She was indecisive, hesitant, messy, and brutal…but she had won. She had killed the monster.
“I think…I’m okay,” she said honestly, “I can do this.”
Her response wasn’t inspirational nor confident. She had felt fearful, in the moment, but her fears had faded like the blood of a looted monster. She was not the type to dwell on unpleasant experiences nor did she feel extreme emotions for long. She just didn’t have the energy to keep those emotions going, and they often faded away along with the memory of the event that caused it. However, she was surprised that it applied to a bloody fight with a wolf monster. That was just her personality, for better or for worse. For today, it was for the better.
There was another sensation, the exhilaration of being alive. The exultation of success. She was a different person than she was three weeks ago. She had rudimentary sword skills and magic powers. Today, she experience that change for herself. She was poetry in motion—a middle schooler’s ill-structured poem that couldn’t quite handle iambic pentameter, but poetry nonetheless.
Amara grinned, “So you do have it in you. And you were so unsure!”
“I’m pretty sure I sounded unsure just then too.”
Amara gestured to the awakening stone Nara held in her hand. She had removed it from her inventory to inspect it.
“Which stone is it?”
“Awakening stone of the wolf.”
“Will you use it?”
“I don’t have to?”
“It has a good chance of producing a familiar,” Amara said, “A familiar will greatly benefit you. Awakening stones of animals have a high chance of producing familiars in general.”
“A wolf familiar.”
“That’s right. Do you prefer a different creature? We have some stuff we can dig out. We can even exchange it, so it’d feel more like something you’ve earned. You have earned it.”
This stone was special to her since it was from her first monster kill. She’d use it, no matter what.
“You know, I had something like a familiar once, but I left him behind back in the astral.”
Chrome would have been very offended if he heard me say that, she thought to herself with a snicker. But she missed him, and wished she could see him. He said they’d meet again, but when?