You know what? I’ll give it to the three of them. At the very least, they’re coordinated. Despite knocking one of them off guard, in order to capitalize on it I’d have to put myself in harm's way within reach of one of the others. And while I could probably get a fatal blow (or at least like, 60, 70 something damage) in for… a solid amount of damage against myself, after basically declaring they wouldn’t even do a point of damage to me? We can’t have that! This has gotta be a soul crushing beating.
Why, you ask?
Oh well it’s because they’re a bunch of little shits that’s why! “Oh blehh, turn your pain settings down and I’ll make it quick-JUMP OFF THE HEIGHTS OF RESIN PEAK! I hope they have their pain settings up HIGH, in fact.
CLANG-I set one of them off course, sending one of my latter two assailants stumbling.
“MmMMMrGhhh…”
“Not yet, not while they’re so closely packed together. So far they don’t know you’re-”
BANG-Deflecting a strike aimed for my torso, I take another step back, another notch on the long list of kiting that this fight has so far been.
“here yet. If you can get a good hit in, you should be able to kill one of them right off the bat, and with one less target, we can end this in a flash.”
FWOOM-A wave of bright red comes flashing forward as the man’s allies duck down beneath the attack, leaving me to deal with the result. Fire sword guy’s done this a few times now, but this one’s a little bit different.The flame is aimed lower, too low to reasonably duck under. But at the same time, any extravagant movement would leave me open to follow up from his currently recovering allies, who look just about ready to dash forward and take a piece out of me…
What to do, what to do… Eh you know what, what’s a fight without some tension?
Instead of leaping back or diving below, I lean forward and build as much momentum as I can in that short moment before the impact, stamping my foot into the ground I launch myself just barely over the blast-
1!
…
I barely G R A Z E the blast as it singes the edge of a finger, rolling through the air as the flames roil past. As my body spins, the caster’s and my eyes making contact, there is both shock, yet also, that same smugness he’d lost nearly a minute ago.
…
I’m killing him. I’m killing him expeditiously. So happy over what? A single goddamn point of damage?
My blade flashed outwards midair, just barely blocked in a last second reaction by that very same blazing blade. Using every advantage granted to me by the laws of physics, I push down, and with that same force, launch myself clear over the entire group, leaving two out of three of them baffled as to where I’d gone, shortly thereafter corrected to zero out of three as the fire guy barked out directions.
I’m calling him the fire guy now, by the way. Cool? Cool.
“Jasper, be ready to act.”
[Recall].
Almost smashing into the floor with the force I’d built up, my legs nearly buckle as I touch down from an almost ten foot fall, but I stand tall. Quickly recovering as the trio turned to face me, I changed my grip and prepared to charge, ready to carve one of them up like a pumpkin! Y’know, rip out the guts and everything, standard Halloween prep.
Just as they all acclimated to the sudden shift in direction, I was already on top of them, my sword flashing forward in a stab as they all tried their best to respond to the sudden assault. After all, I hadn’t been the aggressor thus far, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I took literally one point of damage or anything, nothing at all. I just wanna get this over with and move on, you know, just that.
Uh… maybe I shouldn’t have told them to start praying? Because somehow, their prayers might’ve actually gone through. Because SOMEHOW, despite having less than a tenth of a second to react, this guy who’s obviously worse at the game than I am, managed to just BARELY knock my sword off course, bashing my blade to the side with his own with an amount of grace that would’ve made a slobbering drunkard cringe hard enough to sober up, resulting in a graze with his side-5!-as opposed to a proper blow which would’ve knocked him out of commission, or at the very least, done at least half of his health.
And… it’s left me vulnerable. A stab is inherently more dangerous to have countered, so by my design, my two free opponents immediately attempted to capitalize!
Letting go of my blade, I drop straight to the floor as two simultaneous attacks go flying overhead, both normal attacks. And how shall I counter, here on the floor, prone and vulnerable to all three with my blade knocked to the side?
[Summon]!
Sur~prise!
“Pick a target!”
[Wild Hunt’s Mark]!
141!
“KHAHK!” Fire Guy almost immediately drops his weapon, the flames instantly burning out the moment the attack made contact. And to me… looks like he had his pain up to at least ten percent or so. Good, screw him!
A moment later, he shimmers… and then he vanishes.
Oh yeah, he just got one shot. That’s wicked work. Aaaaaaaand… nothing! Literally nothing, wow. There’s nothing that happens when you PK? So why are these goobers even trying it?
“What the hell is that!?” One of the other nearly identical men call out, their only defining trait being an odd lick in their hair. LIke… something something, blotch villain? Some old anime. Hair like that.
In the momentary confusion, I plant a hand into the dirt road, giving myself a point of leverage to exert force from. Force for what exactly? Force to kick both of their legs out that’s what. Reaching for my sword with my free hand in the same movement, I grip the handle as both of them come crashing down.
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“MmmRMmm.”
[Wild Hunt’s Call]
[Phantom Assailant]
Ooo, that’s a little overkill isn’t it?
A purplish-black copy of the Fire Guy shimmered into being along with a copy of Jasper with the same hues, much to the mounting shock of the two dazed dinguses lying on the ground. I half expect them to dig through their proverbial bags and do… something? Use some kind of skill? But there’s no fanfare here, they just… try to get up, and then the guy with the villain hair gets…
[Wild Hunt’s Mark]ed…
146!
And the other just gets, oh jeeze, ouch.
65!
21!
His throat raked by the Jasper clone’s claws, and stabbed in the gut by the phantom Fire Guy’s blade.Though, no more fire. The quintessential “guy” in this situation is still alive, so, doing my due diligence…
39!
I drive my own blade right into his chest as he chokes out, “W-wait…!”
“Nope!”
And twist it right on in.
16!
—
…Man! That was… surprisingly easy, I guess it didn’t really dawn on me just how wack Jasper was until about… ten minutes ago? But hey, what’s done is done. Even if I could’ve eviscerated all of them with Jasper at my side from the get go, unironically wiping their entire team in about five seconds was pretty funny.
Deserved it, too! The smugness that mmmMMMMMMonkey had on his face after dealing literally a single point of damage was about enough to have me waving my fist at the air, so it’s a good thing he died a few seconds after the fact!
Aaaaaaaaaaaanyways… monster appearances have pretty much just completely stopped now. I haven’t had a single encounter ever since I ran into that group of three, which is fine, it’s not like I get much from fights in this forest at my current level, but it is curious.
I don’t really get why this is the way it is? Why would you have more monsters closer by the town instead of further out? That’s kind of… counterintuitive, isn’t it? Unless this is like, some kind of warning for heading this far out? I suppose no monsters would certainly serve as an indicator that you’re leaving the previous area…
Well either way, it doesn’t really matter. I’m heading on out either way! I’ve got a… Karst or whatever the hell that is to reach! Couldn’t tell you how high the average level is for there, but compared to other towns, if there’s a scale from one to ten, ten being a five day trip and one being like a short walk from the forest, then Pierre’s Karst is about a four? So I can’t imagine it’s going to be too difficult to handle.
Probably. It’ll be fine.
Definitely.
Welp, the tree line is starting to thin, so I suppose that’s about it for this place huh? I don’t imagine I’ll be coming back for any reason, so…
Rapping a fist against my chest, I start backpedaling as I reach the edge of the trees, nodding once and turning my focus to Jasper.
“Do you want to say goodbye?”
“...Mmm.”
I nod again, and [Summon] her.
“Take as long as you need.”
I mean, I say that, but if they actually sit here for like, longer than ten minutes I’m going to have to retract that statement-
…Hm.
Jasper closes her eyes and bows her head in the direction of the forest.
I said I had a general idea of what happened with my big cat here… and I still think I do, but… I definitely don’t have any exacts. Something odd is going on here, because surely they don’t have a class rooted in, uh, literal mythology, for no reason at all, like there’s gotta be something deeper… but… at the same time… it’s not really my place to pry right now.
Maybe someday in the future, but for now… I’ll drop it. This has been an interesting experience so far, not anything like what I expected, but… it wasn’t bad either. As for promising different gameplay… yeah, alright, I don’t think I’ve had to go through the five stages of grief with a sentient monster at the very start of the game before in any other game… so uniqueness certainly holds true!
So, Omniscient… I’ll give you a chance, show me a good time.
“Mmm.”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Mhm.”
“Alright, great, then let’s get goi-”
“MmmmM.”
“You want to walk?”
“Mmm.”
“...Nothing’s stopping you.”
“M.”
“Well then, shall we?”