Simon squinted his eyes and blinked a few times as he ran. After gaining some distance, he started using the snowboard. Quickly arriving at the corpse wall, spikes attempted to attack him, but all was futile, Simon was too accustomed to the Spike’s anatomy, he just needed to throw the iron pike and the 3 swords and the spikes that tried to attack him instantly died.
The coast was cleared, Simon took some pyre ores from his bag and placed them around but of course it was not easy, he had to jump off his snowboard as he cut his way through the spikes. He had to drop them off away from the board since the concentration of the spikes was worsening.
He tore a white paper as per Gallo’s instructions. He jumped back to his snowboard and pushed through. Then he heard those whistling arrows. It was a warning for him to get away from the pyre ores.
The archers were skilled enough to burn the Pyre Ores with fire arrows; it was one of Gallo’s schemes to blind the attacking spikes, instantly nullifying their range and visibility.
Simon closed his eyes for a while, gaining a new ability. Inducing himself into the trance-like state he had earlier through his will, he started checking out the field. There were plenty of spikes coming from the direction of the valley.
“BOOM!!!!” 3-4x
The exploding Pyre ores created quite a smoke screen for Simon, and the bodies of the unsuspecting Spikes flew around scattered.
“Time to work,” Simon thought, his trace disappearing as soon as he jumped off the snowboard. He planned to use it if he was in the clear; the spike didn’t notice him.
<--->
For the next few days, Gallo would only sleep, check out the battlefield, eat, and have some sweets, especially when his head was low on sugar. The princess would nag him sometimes, but he handled it properly.
The princess and the red-haired boy now shared a wooden table in Gallo's messy room.
“A wave of crushers again? That will be better for us! Somebody, after 4 hours, tell the hero to get ready for battle!”
Gallo read Simon’s messages; he had already been out in the field for two and a half days. It was the second message from Simon; the first one was: “There are thousands of them, and he was trying to find where they came from…”
“I wonder when this ordeal will end…” It was the princess; the few days of not having a bath and eating bad food were taking a toll on her. The female knights who were also together with her were on the same page.
Gallo was quite surprised by the princess’s determination. He had been planning to send her outside together with the hero but was quite reluctant to send her into danger. After all, she was a princess, and he would probably be executed. They were now eating lunch; what was served to them was served to everybody.
“Princess, I would like to request a mission if it's possible,” Gallo spoke. The knights that were with the princess glared at Gallo. Well, it came from the princess's mouth herself that she wanted to fight too.
“You expect me to go out there and fight??!! I’m stinking, and your food sucks!!” She started berating, but Afara, who was serving food, stopped her with a sentence: “You still smell good though.” The forest folk were known to have good noses.
“... Okay, I will fight,” Princess Carla said, confused if she should smile or glare.
<--->
Simon’s side.
It had been three days since he went out... the snow and his cloak blended smoothly... he would move in the morning rather than at night... evading the waves and dodging their sights... he kept on going in the direction from which they came... the smell... he was following it. He tried the stamina potion Black Hood gave him. He didn’t sleep for a day when he had it.
Most of the time he would walk near the hordes of Spikes... he would push too close, testing the limits of his ability to remain undetected; he did this to train. He would sometimes use the snowboard, especially near the borders of the desolated lands, where the ice trees formed like avenues and provided good cover, along with the fact that the spikes were busy moving in one direction.
The scouts had warned him about the ice trees on the borders of the desolated lands. They warned him to keep away from them, but after a closer look, it was not that dangerous.
He finally arrived at the valley. It seemed that the wall crushers had already cleared the snow that was blocking them. The spikes continued marching… he had to go further to find where they were coming from.
“Still far from here,” Simon muttered. He had to cross the valley. He needed to be on high ground. He chose the left side of the valley.
…
The valley provided the high ground; there were some spikes, but Simon, together with his snowboard, silenced them. It was the first time he had seen the other side of the valley.
“It's starting to get colder,” Simon sighed, his breath forming smoke in the air. There were just mountains after the valley, as far as his eyes could see. He started sliding down from the high ground of the valley; unlike the desolate land, there were trees there that were not ice trees.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Ice trees were trees with bluish leaves. They were really hard and were said to drain out the nutrients and magic of the land. Usually, when there are big patches of these ice trees, it would be hard to grow things in the land around them.
Simon started sliding down; he didn’t need magic to slide the snowboard down the slope of the valley. Although the mist from the snow was failing his visibility, from afar he immediately noticed something strange: there was a path going up the mountains.
It was close by; he started moving more stealthily, jumping off his snowboard. Simon felt them; there were 3 walkers. He quickly hid his presence in the trees and observed. The Walkers were not moving; they were just standing still, knee-deep in the snow. They must have been there for a long time already. They might be guarding something. There was an entrance cave behind them.
But the walkers were not coming out of there; they were arriving from a mountain path away from the entrance the walkers were guarding. It was strange, really strange. The fact that Gallo once said that these creatures could learn scared the life out of him.
He drew out his new sword; it was time to try it out. He had to make sure that it would be a surprise, so he held back his magic edge. The walker’s blade had a better feel, that was what he quickly noticed when he was trying it out. Not only that, but the magic edge also activated the 4-slash effect; the sword itself became sharper.
He quickly approached and was finally close enough to confirm the entrance cave to the mountain. The path going up naturally covered him from their sight. He activated the magic blade and dashed upwards.
The 2 walkers didn’t even know what hit them. All they saw was their own feet and knees. The other one reacted to the attack and tried to use its tail, but it was hopeless; its tail was cut, and in a few seconds, its head.
'Success…' Simon thought, and he continued inside. His senses started to sharpen as the light faded; it was a long natural shaft tunnel, and the entrance was really wide. It continued deeper into the mountain, and he immediately felt that his ability to detect things was hindered. Finally, at the end, there was a cliff, and below, it was a ruin, something that could be found around the continent. He and the old man explored one once…
Simon climbed on the edge of the cliff. And there they were, hundreds if not thousands of spikes pouring from the same ruins. Why were they coming out from the ruins? He hid on the cliff by lying flat. The ruins from which the spikes were coming were pitch dark. The spikes that were coming out would just line themselves up like waiting for a command.
Simon knew something was strange, and he had to report it. He began writing on the white message paper. The air inside the large cavern was a bit warmer than outside, but suddenly he felt the temperature of his body drop.
From the ruins, a large walker comes out. All of his senses screamed, and it made him stop writing. He checked with his eyes; it was dark, but its red eyes were gleaming. Simon quickly regained his composure as he tore the white piece of paper.
There was suddenly a low screech; it was coming from the large walker. The Spike glared in a certain direction.
“… Really…” Simon said as their eyes barely met. The shiver on his shoulders made him freeze a little.
He needed to escape; he should have listened to Gallo’s warning about the white paper. He was an idiot, he thought, quickly climbing up, and jumping on the rocks. He heard the 6-legged creatures moving; he reached the tunnel but stopped; it was a bunch or more of them again; walkers, they came from the entrance whence he came from.
“It called for them..?” he thought, but he had no time to think too deeply; the Spikes were already behind him. The sound they made echoed in the tunnel. Two ways to pick… the spike or the walkers.
He picked the walkers, but with just a few swings of his sword, he realized their intentions; they were helping each other to defend from Simon’s attacks. He was being pushed back; the 4 slashes were not enough. It felt different too; it felt like they had learned his sword.
“Spike it is!” he changed his plan. As soon as the Spikes saw his eyes, they were petrified, but it was just a second as they started pouring from the tunnel; they were frenzied. He would be flooded down.
He jumped into the wall, skillfully running over the flooding of the spikes. He was back in the cave; he jumped onto the cliff, swung his sword down, creating a stop against the flow, and then spun, carving a crater into the ground. The spikes ran into the crater and he ran over them again as the spikes fell down into the cave-in.
In no time at all, he was already face to face with the mutated spike. He started the assault like he had the choice, parrying the tails; he instantly limited the range by shifting his posture lower.
He aimed for the neck with a sudden jump.
“CLANG!!!”
But his sword with the magic edge was not enough to put even a small wound. A tail was already behind him; he used his sword, which was placed on the mutated walker’s head like a pivot to change his direction in the air, dodging the blades at the same time.
He dived into the ruins; he quickly tried to write on a white paper, but he changed his mind as his nose detected the thick smell that the Spikes produced in the next part of the ruins he was facing. It was probably where they were coming from. He took a red paper and tore it without looking back. He dashed quickly, taking care of the spikes that were too surprised to see him.
A screeching sound behind him brought shivers to his neck too.
“It must be the mutated walker,” he thought, but what terrified him was that he felt intelligence from the being, though it was a monster.
<--->
Back in the northern wall.
The strategy was simple. The hero would stop the wave of crushers by crushing their feet and knees, and if a walker attacked, the princess would seal it with earth magic. They had already caught 2 walkers. The princess’s earth trap was powerful enough to hold down a walker.
“It should be like that, did you think I was all talk?” the princess said, swaying her hair, impressing the hero’s party.
After the first trip, the hero's party was getting accustomed; even the black hood started using an enhanced sword to cut and bleed the crushers. Although the cut was not as deep as Simon’s, they would bleed out much longer. It was a terrible way to die, but as long as it did the trick, it counted.
“Sir Hero, slow down!!! Something’s coming again, it's the 3rd one!!!” Carla said, her insight using her earth magic proved to be useful too, and she was already the eyes of the field for the party.
“Can you tell its direction??!!” he said as he kept on breaking knees.
“Yes!!!” Unlike before, the hero party would rush and evade, and only kill Spikes which would hinder them, but as the Black Hood had to do something else, they had to wait for the black hood to catch up.
“We have time!!! Raphael, let's create some space!!!”
The hero changed his hammer into a spear, and it was instantly clad with fire. Raphael conjured a wind ball, and then the hero swung on it, creating a flare of waves in the field. It was a beautiful display of magic and might, a different combo from the Spear Flare. The spike was burned, the walker was quickly revealed, and Carla sealed it.
“Let's leave it… we continue!” the hero said, and the party strived to continue.