Dale’s life used to be a whole lot more dull. That was before an army of demons destroyed his chosen home, his lord died in battle, and they were left out to dry until a new and confusing mayor rolled into town.
Somehow, between the time when he was expected to just put in the minimal amount of work and the present, he found himself with a rare class, an actual army of peers, and his abilities finally appreciated. The consequence? He was getting chased by an oversized chicken from hell.
Frankly, he still wouldn’t trade with his past self even if he could.
An explosion jerked Dale out of his thoughts, sending him shooting forward and safely out of reach of the rapidly approaching jaws of the epic monster.
It wasn’t the right moment to get distracted, but when you were moments away from death and incapable of personally affecting the outcome, Dale found that people got introspective.
“Thanks!” Dale managed to grunt out, his mana refilling just enough for him to get off another use of his movement skill.
His body immediately unraveled.
Every inch of his being turned into plant matter that then sank into the tree he was touching. He was transported into a world both infinitely familiar and utterly alien.
He could feel the sun kissing the top of his leaves. He could feel the corrupted ants eating through the topmost layer of his skin, even as a number of them fought off other intruders who would have caused more grievous harm. Most importantly, he could feel his roots deep within the earth and where they touched upon the roots of a different tree. He slipped his consciousness down, and suddenly, he was a different tree, then another, and another.
Within mere seconds, he teleported hundreds of steps away, melting out of a beautiful corrupted pine tree and gasping for breath that rushed to fill his newly recreated lungs.
A grimace marred his features when Dale’s realized that he’d traversed barely a bit over half the distance he should have managed. This deep within the wastes, every tree was at least partially sentient, and each and every one distrusted his intrusion enough to resist his passage.
“I thought you really were a goner, old man,” a young voice quipped from above him, but Dale didn’t have enough energy or enough time to argue with the newcomer.
A tiny part of him was bitter at the way the boy had progressed from a recruit to one of the most promising scouts in the entire army, force-fed enough experience to reach all the way to rare in a matter of weeks.
For a soldier who had lavished in the frontier army from the tender age of twelve all the way up to forty-two before finally being allowed to advance, it was practically an insult. Though, a bigger part of Dale understood he was blessed to be in that position at all.
The new mayor was a little odd and a bit inexperienced, but many owed him their new stations in life, and Dale would throw away his life if the man demanded it. Not because it was his duty to, but because it was something truly required if the hero went as far as to ask.
Not that he wasn’t doing something very close to that already.
Chucking a potion in the face of an epic tier monster before fleeing was a bit like suicide.
Around him were the other scouts. Young Ilsa would have been out for the count entirely, if it wasn’t for the top quality healing potions they were supplied with. Losing almost the entirety of one’s thigh tended to be rather permanent and traumatic.
As it was, she was just limping along behind them. So long as no monster discovered her, she would be just fine.
Thankfully, they were drawing closer to their destination, all while miraculously managing to steer the epic monster in the right direction.
Lesser monsters had already riled up or scared away in a direction that wasn’t Rest’s Remorse well before the arrival of the epic monster. Any rare tier forest dwellers, meanwhile, were enraged and led straight into its jaws.
This had done the job of both slowing down the terror and preventing a monster tide.
Everyone understood exactly why either one of those could not be allowed to happen, so every scout willingly risked their lives for the cause. This was the sort of thing they signed up for in the first place, even if it came almost three decades later.
“We’re almost there, old timer, don’t give up on me now!” the infuriating youngster shouted, making Dale grit his teeth.
That’s what he got for acting as a mentor and helping the young man unlock a particularly potent class.
Besides, Dale wasn’t flagging. He was just… conserving some strength by moving a tiny bit slower. Leave it to the youth to overlook the importance of such important strategic details.
He could tell it was true, however. Just ahead, when he briefly vaulted over the treetops, he could spot an unusually large break in the jungle’s trees.
When Dale lost to the pull of gravity, caught one of the tree’s branches and swung ahead, he also caught sight of the few monsters they hadn’t managed to deal with.
Well, a few was more like fifty or so possum-like critters that angrily chittered as they fled.
Nonetheless, a smile tugged at the ranger’s face. They’d done an acceptable job, over the course of more than twelve very intense, very painful hours. They had all pushed their bodies as far as they could go, but soon, they’d get to see a brand-new legend in the making.
Or witness their heroic mayor get eaten.
Either way, Dale was ready for a bit of rest. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to die tired.
—
Rowan was glad that he had assembled the army slightly earlier than necessary. The epic monster’s arrival was preceded by a wave of frightened enemies, fewer than Rowan thought but enough to have been a threat if they crashed into an unprepared army.
At the front, Rowan dealt with most of these monsters. Dealing with uncommon tier enemies had turned into a somewhat boring routine. Rowan would thrust and the monster would die. There was no technique or elegance to the fighting. It was just repeating the same motion over and over again.
It was only when he finally caught the sound of trees crunching in the distance and felt the faint tremor under his feet that he got serious.
“Incoming! Everyone, get ready!” Rowan yelled, and it had an immediate effect.
Soldiers scurried away from him, racing to the other side of the pit where they wouldn’t risk getting between the hero and his quarry.
Rowan just gripped his spear tighter, a smile on his lips and eyes straining to catch any sign of the monster’s approach. His spear lit up too, energy in it already building and straining against his control.
Moments before the encounter, he realized they had miscalculated slightly and hopped on top of the barriers, moving to make himself a bigger target to greet the arrival of his foe.
The confirmation of what was approaching came when a group of nineteen battered scouts shot straight out of the jungle, one of them almost falling into the pit himself and laughing the entire way.
The hero’s stomach squeezed when he realized one of them was missing, but the screech-roar of the epic monster distracted him from worrying further.
“Get to cover! You have health and stamina potions waiting for you! Be ready to run if something goes south!” Rowan commanded.
Rowan couldn’t help but note how his voice sounded, calm and ready. Back at Felton’s Mill, the mere sound of an epic tier demon’s voice had left him frozen and powerless. Now, while the screams of rage did unnerve him, they didn’t affect his ability to function.
It wasn’t just because of Rowan’s higher tier either, since a glance told him the uncommon soldiers behind him were shaken but fine.
Is it because we’re facing a monster and not a demon? Or am I more ready for a battle now? Rowan thought, then shoved the line of thinking down as the battle literally barreled toward him.
The monster burst out of the trees like a wrecking ball. If it weren’t for Marcus’s aura of protection, Rowan would have been forced to evade or be skewered by large wood splinters. Still, in spite of the physical protection, the mental hit Rowan took almost cost him when he stood there blinking instead of attacking.
The monster looked like a dinosaur.
The oversized monster was majestic, without any of the regular signs of demonic corruption, and if it weren’t for trying to bite him in half, Rowan would have gladly just stared.
Rowan launched himself forward, choosing to catch the big thing by surprise and ramming his spear against the inside of its lower jaw. Over the past few minutes, Rowan had slowly but steadily channeled a ridiculous amount of energy and life-force into the weapon, and it weren’t for Lavish Feasting, he would have been reduced to a skeleton twice over.
Thanks to that, the strike was the strongest he had ever done.
The explosion that ensued rocketed him backwards, into and then through the barricades they’d set up. He tumbled end over end, once, twice, thrice, and then he ran out of earth. Rowan’s final impact with the ground all the way down in the pit drove the air out of his lungs and left him blinking stars out of his eyes.
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In spite of that, as he gingerly moved his body, he realized nothing was actually broken. Standing was merely a matter of will. His badly bruised muscles protested, but Rowan managed the feat just in time to see an enraged dinosaur with murder in its eyes diving for him.
He tried to curse, but he didn’t have the breath for that. He jumped aside, only for the creature’s head to shoot forward unnaturally quickly.
Rowan should have died then and there. The monster’s head was big enough that its jaw clamped around Rowan’s lower body. Even though the regeneration combination was powerful, Rowan doubted it could fix an entire lower body missing.
Luckily, he didn’t need to test that. His initial blow had done enough damage that the monster couldn’t fully close its jaws. Its lower jaw dangled, connected to its face by a single, glistening string of something. Blood vessel? Muscle? Skin? Rowan didn’t know and didn’t care.
The monster’s teeth met Rowan’s midsection from the side and he was launched once again, this time straight into the stakes. Luckily, Rowan was small enough that he bounced off the side of a tree instead of getting impaled and staggered to his feet quickly enough to avoid the next attack in favor of the dinosaur ramming into the stakes itself.
Its shrieks of pain and anger tore through the air. The monster staggered a few steps back, revealing a stake fragment partially lodged into the ruin of what was once its lower jaw.
Finally, Rowan had a chance to get a real look at his opponent.
The monster was majestic, yes, but it had also definitely seen better days. There was still blood dripping down from its mangled face. Minor wounds crisscrossed most of its body, with even a couple of chunks missing from its legs and back. Its wings, short feathers jutting from its front legs, looked completely broken and burned.
The most grievous injury the monster had suffered was on its chest.
Two massive cuts met in the shape of a cross, revealing the monster’s cracked ribs and internal organs. The edges looked seared. In places, the intensity of the heat that had accompanied the blows was intense enough that its bones looked warped and cracked.
And yet, the thing still stood, screeching for Rowan’s blood.
The monster blurred forward, trying to awkwardly sink its claws into something vital. Rowan met the strike with one of his own, but the force of its blow overwhelmed his own and drove the shaft of his spear painfully back into his ribs.
Again, he was sent flying, and this time he could feel the broken ribs poking into his internal organs. Ruptured liver, collapsed lung, and nicked heart.
He desperately heaved for breath while his regeneration inflated his lung again, and only managed to barely catch sight of the charging epic in time to attempt another dodge through blurry eyes.
Much of his shock, he succeeded.
Suddenly, attacks from above spared him the need to immediately scramble again. Arrows, beams of light, Milena’s miasma, and even a couple of potions rained down on the monster.
So, the hero took just a second to think.
The lessening pain and the lesson he’d paid for in blood finally made him realize something crucial. The epic monster was not faster than him.
The thing hit like a truck, and he was willing to bet any number of his renewable limbs that its vitality was utterly insane, but he didn’t think it had more dexterity than him.
Finally, a chance.
As his body finally finished fixing itself, Rowan launched himself into the fray, heedless of the potential to become a victim of his own allies.
The hero focused on his dexterity like he never had before. He weaved between grasping claws, he dodged the kick from the monster’s back leg, he lunged away from its desperate attempt to use its jaws again.
All the while, his spear danced too.
He couldn’t damage its skin or feather much with casual attacks. Even the ranged assault was doing minimal damage against those. He could, however, aim for previous injuries.
The tip of Rowan’s spear found shallow wounds, deepening them. The serrated edges of the spear slid along the rips in flesh, widening them. Each time, a burst of blood responded, prompted by the uncommon Blood Siphon.
As he set about the grisly work, Rowan could feel his weapon vibrating subtly in his hands. Somehow, a part of him knew the weapon was luxuriating in the combat. It relished every drop of epic blood that it came in contact with. And in spite of all the mess and visceral combat, the weapon remained spotless.
Not everything could work out in his favor, of course.
An arrow missed its original mark when Rowan and the monster switched places, sinking into his arm. The explosion of a potion singed his hair and the skin of his face, rendering his right eye blurry for a time. A particularly vicious streak of sword energy even bit into his leg, making him falter and almost literally eat a tail strike from the bird monster.
Finally, the moment Rowan was waiting for happened.
The dinosaur paused, stumbled, and then released an unearthly screech. Its carefully aimed attacks turned into a flurry of blows that were aimed at every direction without pause, and its eyes reddened before suddenly exploding right out of its head.
The blood curse had taken root. Milena had finally tracked down the blood from his initial altercation with the monster and started her ritual.
Empowered as the card was by both the requisite catalyst and a proper method of use, it was wreaking havoc on the monster’s internals. So, Rowan limped his way over to the wall of the pit as far from the monster as he could, then hollered at the top of his lungs.
“Now!”
Up above, a carefully selected pair of soldiers stepped forward. The only feature they shared was the bulk of the bodies, and only in the sense that they were both ridiculously muscled.
The two giants hefted a barrel of distilled potion each, and then, leveraging their prodigiously high strength stats, they threw.
They weren’t the most proficient at aiming, but with the size of their target, they didn’t need to be. One barrel landed right on top of the monster’s back. The other landed at its feet.
Both instantly exploded.
Rowan huddled up right against the wall and covered his head as best as he could. In spite of that, the sheer force and heat of the ensuing explosion left him shaking in pain.
A whole section of his armor was charred and partially sealed with his skin, every hair on his body was probably gone, and he felt more than a few bones snap when he was flattened against the stakes he’d been so proud of just a little while ago.
Unseen to Rowan, Marcus had gasped, doubled over and collapsed onto his knees only to throw up on the spot. No damage was immediately obvious on his person, but he was in just as much pain.
His state only eased when Olivia finally just drenched him in two bottles of healing potion, having given up on trying to pry his clenched jaw open. To her credit, the area she targeted first was his face and the small amount of potion the wolf kin inhaled was probably helpful, too.
After relaxing his muscles, Marcus found a potion bottle getting stuffed into his face. It took another two and a near choking before he became cognizant enough to beg the alchemist to stop.
By contrast, Rowan was very much aware of the damage. His body’s most pressing issues had fixed themselves quickly enough, but his energy reserves were all but fully gone and he came to the unfortunate conclusion that healing his skin would be… difficult.
The heat had fused it with his armor, and while his healing was angrily buzzing at the wound, it wasn’t making the problem go away, either.
Every time he moved, the shifting of his body tugged painfully on the affected area, making him grunt.
He refused to fixate on that.
Rowan straightened, his eyes desperately eying the cloud of dust and smoke for any sign of moment. To his mounting horror, he found it.
The next moment, a mournful keening cut through the air, and the hero let out a shuddering breath as he staggered forward to charge at his fate.
If he couldn’t somehow finish off the monster, he didn’t want to imagine what would happen when it got out of the pit.
Closer and closer he went, relying on a mere dusty silhouette as his weary feet dragged him on. Each step was an agony, but at least his ability to attack wasn’t all that impaired.
His life force could feed the sacrifice card entire on its own, and he wasn’t dead yet.
A twitch alerted him that he was quite close to his target, and the gradually settling dust let him make out more detail a few moments later.
The monster was alive, but only by the barest of margins. A massive chunk of its body was missing, including both of its front legs, a good potion of its chest, and its left leg. It had been driven against the edge of the pit too, and its defenses were weakened enough for the stakes there to pierce into its flesh.
Blood, still somehow seeping out in spite of how much it had lost already, hissed and bubbled where it fell, Milena’s ritual holding strong.
It was in pure agony, and even then, at the sight of Rowan, it tried to twitch towards him and attack.
He couldn’t even respect its drive and determination. This was a monster with no intelligence, its eyes were dull and full only of unbridled bloodlust. Whatever this creature’s mind was, if it wasn’t entirely demonic to begin with, it had been reduced to a puppet of the demons’ desires.
The Stalwart Hero raised his spear, aimed, and drove it through one of its eyes. He couldn’t even afford to collapse on his back when he got the notification that signaled that the deed was done.
That sort of luxury was reserved for people who weren’t leaders of an entire army.
Rowan opened his mouth to announce their victory, then faltered and broke into a coughing fit. The dust bothered him and his throat felt raw and scratchy after the heat wave he had just endured. He did manage, in the end. “The monster is dead!”
Rowan even managed to keep his voice from faltering or cracking, and when the cheer broke out, he was immensely proud of himself.
Eager, proud eyes soon pierced the settling dust, landing on the hero who was casually leaning on his spear stuck into the carcass of their foe. Rowan looked remarkably untouched by the entire battle, in spite of the way his Lavish Feasting was dull and colorless in his chest.
The card had never been run that low before, and it was crying out in anguish to refill its reserves. He did his best not to think about how appealing the half-cooked flesh of the monster suddenly smelled.
“Drink this, immediately.” Naturally, Olivia was the first to make her way to him. The rest of the army seemed to be too caught up in their celebration to notice, and the twins were busy fussing over each other. She, however, had noticed that his casual demeanor and stylish pose against the spear was actually a desperate attempt to stay upright.
Rowan eyed up the potion, but ended up shrugging in the end. Or at least he tried to do that, before pain shut down the attempt. “I’m afraid I can’t really move my limbs right now, or I’ll just fall.
The alchemist growled, glared, the finally huffed and uncorked the potion. Rowan figured she would just do her best to feed it to him somehow. His eyes shot wide open and then fluttered closed when she downed the potion, dragged him forward, and sealing his lips with hers instead.
He ended up only getting a very small dose of that particular potion, and was blissfully unaware of the renewed cheering and quite a bit of happy laughter. However, when the kiss was over, he did feel more capable of functioning.
“Maybe I should get grievously hurt more often,” Rowan breathed, refusing to wilt when she nailed him with another glare.
“Just drink this, you reckless idiot.” This time, Olivia brought the new potion vial up to his lips. “Why did you stay down there? You could have jumped out. I know you could have jumped out. You had a whole army waiting for to help you.”
“It seemed like the smart thing to do, at the time.”
“You’re not capable of smart ideas in the middle of combat. That’s been proven, time and again. Next time, just stick to the plan that doesn’t require you, a damage dealer, to tank the stupid epic monster and get caught in a death trap”
Olivia was hissing and had some good point, but she was also hugging him. So, who was really winning that argument?
“I really hate to upset you more, but I’m going to have to make a weird request,” Rowan warned her, then when he got a concerned look, resigned himself to clarifying. Not fully, of course, because that would be boring. “I need you to skin me.”
Olivia froze, first, then her eyes fluttered down to his ruined armor in understanding. “You know, I really thought that the first time you asked me to undress you would go very differently.”
The hero just sighed and kissed the alchemist again.
—
Several days journey to the north-east, a different pair of emerald eyes was fixed on a missive. “Make sure everyone on the list gets this, immediately.”
The old man who had spent decades of his life struggling against the various hostile factions trying to steal the authority of the mayor’s office grinned, and happily accepted his task.
The hero had sent word of a wonderful opportunity and his chamberlain was not about to fail him.
Likewise, Camilla Sutton, the baroness of the frontier, was nearly giddy with anticipation. An ill-fated relationship was likely to draw to an end soon, and she would relish every second of the chaos and her former friend’s grisly demise.
It would be grisly. She would make sure of that herself.