I didn’t waste any more time and quickly slammed my spear against the ground and a small wave of flames burst in a wide line towards the incoming Hobgoblins.
The flames didn’t kill them instantly and they continued to chase after me while their bodies were being eaten at by the flames. I had no time to pay them attention as I turned around in a flash and dashed towards the Outpost. Richard’s screams sounding out amongst the chaos.
I could hear him trying to fight back, as others screamed around him, Hobgoblins roaring at them, and death likely breathing on their necks.
An anger that I’ve recently tried to somewhat control began to seethe and bubble inside of me like never before.
I let it surge, and my flames roared to life within me and burst forth as I leapt up and over the walls of the Outpost. A few burning Hobgoblins trailing behind me.
Once I made it over the walls, the surging anger within me finally reached levels it had never reached before.
There were bodies on the ground.
POV Nate
In the morning before the attack began…
I had reservations about joining this Outpost. About bringing my brothers and all the folks I’ve somehow found myself in charge of. I didn’t really ask to be a leader or anything like that, it just kind of worked out that way, and as someone who was working as a fitness instructor to a large group of people before all this went down, I was in good shape and had some experience in talking to a large group at once, so it was a bit easier for me to get stronger and learn how to fight back.
Plus, my brothers were with me…If it weren't for them, I likely wouldn’t have made it very far…we try not to think of our parents were up there in age, nor do I think of my daughter that much, or at least I try not to, but she is at the forefront of my mind every day. Where is she in this tutorial? Is she alive?
I usually stop myself from thinking any further than that, as it only leads to dark depressing thoughts, but it’s hard. We are all trying to survive and make it back home to find our families. That is the main reason I took the Risk to come here, despite the wariness I felt when I interacted with Raizen. He truly felt weird to be around, maybe even scary. Even though I’m a little too old to be calling another man scary, that’s the feeling he gave off. And his calm face. No matter what it was that we were talking about he rarely showed any strong reaction to anything.
He was just always calm. Calm to that point it felt eerie.
Thankfully on the journey here we met Richard, who was a lot more sociable and gave me hope for the rest of the Outpost, which wasn’t met with disappointment as everyone else seemed very welcoming to us. The only odd thing was that not a single one of them ever reacted weirdly to the oddness of Raizen. To the eerie calmness he has, or the scary feeling you get from being near him. And when I tried asking about him to one or two people, it was always nothing but the ultimate respect they felt for him.
It was weird.
What was weirder was the news Richard broke to us this morning about a large talking Hobgoblin. I almost didn’t believe what I was hearing, my body tensed up and thought of having to fight a Hobgoblin who could talk. The very few we fought before were already strong, but we’ve already been told that they can get stronger and the attacks they faced last stage contained Hobgoblins that were 3rd Cycle like me, but they didn’t talk.
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Didn’t that mean that this one was at least 4th Cycle?
I would’ve reacted stronger if not for the fact that Richard wasn’t reacting like I expected. He was frightened sure, but not to the extent I figured he would be, and after I followed him to Raizen’s house and then watched go out by himself, I learned why.
He simply trusted Raizen.
I only began to understand a little bit of that trust sometime later…when I began to hear the clashes of the battle outside the Outpost. It sounded like two monsters were fighting. Not one vs a human, but two monsters. Even the swings of their weapons were heard clearly. Sounding like a powerful gust of wind flew by in a flash.
It went on for a few moments, and then came the screams. Part of me wanted to climb the guard towers to see what was going on, but Richard didn’t let anyone do so. So, we only listened as the monster screamed out in pain and then yelled out an order to attack. Shortly after that we heard a bellow from Raizen. One that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.
Richard then began organizing the others, which wasn’t much. As everyone was already armed, armored and ready to fight.
We waited for a bit, and I felt something truly sinister from outside of the Outpost and then flames….black flames…rose up all around me. One of my brothers fell down as his knees buckled, and I wanted to do the same, but Richard’s voice sounded out before anyone else in my group got too scared to fight.
“That’s Raizen! It’s there to protect us! Focus on the walls and be ready to fight!”
I quickly helped my bother up as I continued to stare at the flames around us, is Raizen a monster after all? How is it possible for a human being to do this? It shouldn’t be possible…this isn’t normal.
Though unfortunately, I didn’t get to focus on those thoughts any longer. A loud scream brought me back to focus.
“Ahhhhh!! they’re inside!!!”
I turned around to look at the back wall, only to see a few tens of Hobgoblins jumping through the wall of flames and rushing towards us. The flames clung to their bodies like water in the rain, and I saw as it burned them while they ran, but they still ran.
It looked like over twenty of them made it over the walls, a lot of them seemed to perish during the jump, while others seemed to burn to ash as they ran in our direction but a few of them were still rushing here with haste.
“Archers!!!! Loose!!!!’
Richard screamed out orders as I gripped my sword and stepped out in front of the group. Richard and someone else whose name I don’t remember stepped out along with me. The Hobgoblins eventually reached us, and I slashed at the closest one with everything I had, and it simply dodged and punched me with its remaining arm as one had burned off, in my chest. I went flying backwards, coughing up blood as it felt like someone just hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer.
The last thing I saw before the unconsciousness took hold of me was a large man with a large spear flying over my head.