It would have taken the npc-maker 5 or 7 days of hunting enough biomass to recreate his proper adult body again but with Freya, it only took a short 2 days to accumulate enough biomass. Freya also created a bone dagger since she was no longer afraid of melee combat if the need arises since Stardust can heal her an infinite amount of times. Her dagger skills were crude but she was just as strong as the npc-maker and just as talented at learning new things.
“ Awww I’m going to miss the little widdle Stardust” teared up Freya as she patted him on the head since he was shorter than her.
“ Yeah because your fighting ability was better than mine!” shouted Stardust.
“ Hahahahaha,” smiled Freya. “ I will grow stronger than your adult form and you will be my little widdle stardust once more!”
“ Good luck, I won’t be losing to you any time soon!”
<< Freya may have said that as a joke but the truth is…. She had the potential to grow much stronger than me and possibly learn how to use magic. After all… I gave up my immense magical might in exchange for this npc-creation ability. So I’m actually very weak in this world but at least I’m much stronger than the average person with no special skills or stats. My NPCs will carry me to victory.>> ( npc-maker)
Stardust had regained his former body once more, and his old body was simply discarded away. They attached poisonous needles to Stardust’s bone knife and Freya’s bone dagger to give them extra offensive value. Since the tiger may not die immediately from the poison and would give them trouble at melee range.
“ Maybe shooting these poison arrows into the tiger is smarter than using your bone-shield plan,” suggested Freya.
“ Yeah let’s do that,” agreed Stardust.
They shot more prey animals with their newly made poison arrows to see if the poison still worked, it did. Now that was confirmed it was time to go and hunt down the tigers! They ran towards the same place where they ventured into before, no tigers were around but several foxes were surrounding them at all sides!
“ What the fuck?… These foxes are actually working together instead of solo this time?” said the npc-maker, “ Whatever, they stand no chance against us.”
“ True that,” as Freya ready her bow with her back against Stardust.
They both expertly shot down a few of the foxes before a few of them managed to get into melee range with them. Stardust was doing his best to fend them off with his poisonous knife while Freya was having a better time with her poisonous bone dagger. During the chaotic scuffle, all the foxes were defeated as they fought with everything they had without retreating. The npc-maker suffered many more scratches than Freya did. He used the newly dead foxes to completely heal up Freya. She thanked him once again but… realized he wasn’t healing himself with it.
“ Ehhh shouldn’t you heal yourself?” asked Freya.
“ I can’t….I will have to tough out the injuries. Once my body is in its prime, it cannot consume more biomass to heal or alter itself.”
“ What! Why didn’t you tell me!” shouted Freya. “ If I knew you can’t even heal yourself… then you should have let me take the full brunt of the attacks!”
“ It’s fine, I ain’t a pussy.”
“ STARDUST! I’m serious! Look I know I joke about how you should be the front-liner because you can revive yourself but… if you can’t heal yourself, then that changes everything!”
“ The only way to heal me is to use my ultimate revival technique but it’s quite costly and I don’t want to waste any more time.”
“ FINE! But you aren’t taking the front-line anymore, let me handle things.” Freya helped bandage the bleeding npc-maker with the animal pelts.
“ Didn’t I tell you that NPCs like you can’t be revived?” the npc maker lied. “ It’s better for us to fight together than by ourselves.”
“ FINE AGAIN! JUST MAKE MORE NPCS TO HELP US OUT THEN!” demanded Freya.
<< Hmmm she could be right, we might need more people to help out if things were to get tougher than before. Freya bitched a lot about her living standards but she did grow used to it. Well since Freya no longer needed my guidance and training, I suppose it’s a good time to create another NPC to train. >> ( npc-maker)
“ Yeah I will but I wanna use the tiger biomass this time so we can get an even stronger ally,” said Stardust after thinking about it for a while.
“ OH SHIT THE GIANT CENTIPEDES ARE COMING AGAIN!” shouted Freya.
They quickly left their current location as a stampede of centipedes rushed over to devour the dead foxes. Then the large rats came scurrying over to devour both the giant centipedes and dead foxes. The giant centipedes didn’t go down without a fight though.
“ I fucking hate this place,” whined Freya. “ Too many disgusting insects and animals here.”
Another strange creature was coming at them. It looked like some bi-pedal desert ape. Freya and Stardust looked at each other if the other had a clue what it was and they didn’t. Freya loaded up her poisonous arrows and shot them.
The arrow pierced into his body and the desert ape screamed,“ YYHAAAAAAAAAAAA!”. It charged forward at them despite another arrow being shot from the npc-maker. But this time it dodged the 2nd shot. Then the 3rd shot before it finally reaches a big cactus monster and punches its spiky stem.
“ That fucker!” shouted Stardust as he used his body to protect Freya from the thousands of cactus needles being shot in all directions.
<< That piece of shit knew it was going to die from the poison so it did a suicide attack against us!>> ( npc-maker)
Even though Stardust took almost all of the poisonous needles, some stray needles still managed to pierce into Freya. They were both going to die from the poison if nothing was done.
“ IT FUCKING HURTS!.... this is the end for me”, said Freya. “ Revive yourself and take care.” Her body was weakening as her eyes closed.
Stardust used his ultimate technique to create a 12-year-old body of himself and transfer his consciousness to it.
Freya had died, her body disappeared and an npc core was left behind. “ I will revive you Freya, I won’t let you and your dreams of living a clean life end here.”
He pocketed her NPC core, shoes, and clothes into his backpack that was made with animal pelts. The clothes were too big and were a hindrance so he remained naked. Then he looted the shoes on his corpse that were too large for him but it was needed to protect his feet from thousands of poisonous needles laying on the ground. The shoes were made out of a strong bone underlayer and animal pelts for comfort. Most of the needles were lying flat on the ground and were not able to stick out of the ground because it was too sandy to hold it in place. Although there was a tiny 0.01% chance that a needle was sticking upright could puncture through his shoes, past the bone underside, and into his feet, poisoning him and killing him.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
( Author’s Note: Hi everyone, I’m sorry I forgot to mention this last chapter when Freya ran towards the npc-maker when he ‘died’ from the cactus monster. She also had shoes on that were protecting her feet from the thousands of poisonous needles laying flat around the monster cactus. Please forgive me. I am writing about 3k to 5k words every day on this story and publishing it within 2 days. Sorry about my minimal editing.)
Stardust was about to make a run towards the safer area once again. But unfortunately, he was getting very unlucky again, a desert tiger was standing in the way. He was eye-ing the npc-maker. Stardust wasn’t going to win the battle against a huge tiger in his weakened 12-year-old body.
<< FUCKING HELL! WHAT IS THIS DIFFICULTY! Why did I force Freya to come with me to the more dangerous area… why did I..>> tears flowed out of his eyes that his doom would finally come.
“ STUPID TIGER! WHY DON’T YOU GO EAT THE DEAD FOXES OVER THERE THAT THE CENTIPEDES AND MOUSE ARE FIGHTING FOR!” shouted the npc-maker as he loaded up his poisonous arrows. It was his only chance at beating the desert tiger.
He shot the arrow but the tiger skillfully dodges it. It wasn’t until he shot the 4th arrow that he realized that the tiger wasn’t even coming closer to him but remained afar.
<< Of course! The poisonous needles are all over the ground and the tiger is too afraid to step on them!>> ( npc-maker)
The NPC-maker carefully walked on the needle ground towards the place with all the dead foxes, centipedes, and mice, in hopes of turning the battle around by reviving Freya. But the bug biomass was not usable to him. The desert tiger was watching him carefully, waiting for the right chance to pounce at him. The centipedes and rats fighting for the dead foxes also suffered heavy casualties from the needle explosion and they both retreated.
He took 10 minutes of carefully making his way to the dead foxes and making sure that the tiger wouldn’t ambush him despite the needle ground protecting him. The tiger that was watching him was long gone, the npc-maker breathed a sigh of relief. He took out Freya’s NPC core and was able to successfully revive her. The biomass of the foxes and mice was consumed to revive her. Freya stood there as she realized she was revived and she was naked again.
“ YOU PERVERT! You told me I couldn't be revived!” As Freya tried hiding her body from the weakened Stardust. “ Can’t you revive me with my clothes on!?”
“ Oh yeah I could have… anyways your clothes and shoes are right here Freya,” said Stardust as he handed them to her and he made sure no poisonous needles were in it. She snatched it off him and quickly put it on. “ Sorry for lying about it, I just didn’t want you to die carelessly because you lose all your skills and stats if I were to revive you like this. At least you will retain your memories.”
“ You wanted to see me naked again, didn’t you…”
“ ...yes,” confessed the npc-maker Stardust. “ Make sure you don’t accidentally step on the poisonous needle with your bare feet.
“ ...fuck.”
“ NOOO FREYA!”
“ I’m joking,” grinned Freya as she put on her shoes and clothes. “ We should kill that tiger before it kills us. That dirty ape did such a disgusting suicidal move against us…. Hehehehe you’re the little widdle Stardust again!”
They scanned their surroundings and found no enemies around them so they cleared a path out of the needle mess to get back to the safer areas so Stardust could regrind more biomass to create his adult body. Freya was taking the lead as she was in stronger form than the current little npc-maker. Before they got out of the needle mess, the desert tiger was doing its best to hide in the thick brown grass.
Freya equipped her bow and aimed it, shot the poisonous arrow at it but the tiger leaped out of the way. It roared ferociously, “ ROAAAAAAAAAAR!” More arrows were shot at the tiger but because Freya had lost her archery skills, her arrows were going to miss the tiger even if it stood still. The tiger only ran far enough back to stay out of Freya’s shooting range.
“ That tiger is going to wait patiently for us to get out of this needle mess!” said Freya. “ Arghhh can’t believe my archery skills are shit again.”
“ It’s fine, Freya keep practicing and use all of my arrows. We only need to hit 1 shot into that stupid tiger and he will drop dead from the poison.”
“ Alright since I’m stronger than the little widdle stardust right now.”
The two of them remained in the needle mess while Freya practiced her archery skills. She also practiced her needle shooting skills with the non-poisonous needles. Stardust didn’t want to make a fire to cook the meat in case the scent would bring even more enemies towards them so he ate the fox meat raw. Freya frowned at this barbaric person eating raw meat but refrained from saying anything because it was for survival.
Several hours passed and the tiger remained close by, hiding and camouflaging with the brown grass. The night was coming and soon it will be pitch black without any light source.
“ Stardust. Let me run out there and try to kill it with my arrow. If I miss, then I can use my dagger to poison it at melee range, although the tiger would probably still be alive and kill me before it dies from the poison. You can pick up my core afterward and use the tiger corpse to revive me.”
“ I don’t want to doubt your skills but… what if the tiger dodges all of your attacks and you die for nothing?”
“ Then I will use my last resort with the needle flicking. It won’t miss at close range.”
“ Uhh one sec,” said the npc-maker as he got as far away from her as possible. He was taking a huge nasty shit since he got a stomach ache from the raw meat.
“ EW GROSS! Yeah I’m getting out of here.”
“ No wait, we have to make a better plan!” shouted Stardust.
Freya ignored his pleas and made her way out of the needle mess, not wanting to smell the shitty smell anymore. She ready her bow and arrow to hunt down and kill the Tiger that was waiting for them.
In an open field, the tiger and Freya stared down at each other. Freya was holding her shot as she slowly got as close as possible to the tiger so it couldn’t dodge it.
A deafening roar came from the tiger, “ ROOAAAAAAAAR!” it managed to freeze Freya in place for a second, giving it enough time to pounce to the side before pouncing onto her. Freya held her shot until the very end, waiting to shoot at the tiger at close range since the poison was a 1 hit kill. Then she shot her arrow towards the tiger.
Unfortunately, the tiger did an incredible swift swipe at the arrow knocking it away. His other paw clawed deep into Freya’s throat. She was coughing up blood as she got pushed down to the ground. Freya tried to grab her poisonous bone dagger and knife with both hands to slice the tiger but it was too fast. The tiger had already ripped apart both of her arms with its mighty paws.
“ AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” screamed Freya in immense pain. Blood pooling out fast from both missing arms.
<< FUCK! How could I be so foolish! I’m so sorry Stardust, I had failed you. Please survive without me. You might not be able to revive me if this tiger destroys my core. Ahhh my dreams of living in a clean house with clean clothes and food…>> ( Freya)
While the tiger was busy ripping apart Freya with its mighty paws and jaws. The npc-maker was able to sneak up on the tiger thanks to Freya distracting him with her loud screaming. A poisonous arrow had been shot into the tiger from behind. The tiger growled and looked behind him and saw the frail little boy with tears in its eyes. The tiger was enraged and, “ ROOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”.
Stardust was stunned from his roar for a good few seconds. It gave the tiger a lot of time to close the distance between them before he tried running away. The tiger charged at him blindly, but Stardust shot 2 needle flick at both of its eyes with great accuracy. The tiger was now blind! The npc-maker’s right leg got torn apart as he rolled away to avoid more injuries. The tiger kept on slashing on the ground beneath him in pure rage as it couldn’t see where the npc-maker went.
Stardust was now crawling away from the tiger that was attacking everything around it aimlessly. It was the longest 2-minute crawl of his life to escape the rampaging tiger before it died from the poison. He quickly bandaged the wound on his leg as he stumbled over to the place where Freya’s dead body disappeared. As he tried to pick up her NPC core, it cracked and broke apart, disappearing. It must have been greatly damaged during the tiger’s merciless attacks on her. Freya can no longer be revived and she was dead forever. There are certainly ways to make her NPC core stronger but he doesn’t have the necessary resources to do that yet.
The npc-maker cried to her departure, “... I’m sorry Freya.”
<< Everything was my fault, I was so fucking foolish and got so greedy at wanting to hunt the tigers only for me to lose her. I shouldn’t be this reckless anymore… I will make sure that all my future NPCs will survive no matter what. I don’t care if I can always create more of them. Even if I created over 1 million NPCs to help me out, every single one of them matters to me! >> ( npc-maker)
The npc-maker sat in silence for 5 minutes from losing the first-ever NPC he ever created since coming to this world.